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Australia’s lack of clear triage protocols more than a year into the Covid-19 pandemic means clinicians will struggle to decide which patients to save and how to treat them should the virus return, an analysis published in the Medical Journal of Australia has found.
Because Australia has avoided the scale of pandemic that has overwhelmed health systems elsewhere, federal and state governments have been reluctant to develop or make public triage protocols, the analysis, led by Dr Eliana Close from Queensland University of Technology’s Australian centre for health law research, said.
The study authors said waiting until crisis point carried significant risks:
Evening summary
A round-up of the top headlines:
- UK health secretary Matt Hancock celebrates on Twitter after 60m vaccines have been administered across the UK.
- The possibility of all safety restrictions being lifted in the UK next month is said to be “looking good”, the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency has said.
- The number of people treated for Covid-19 in intensive care units (ICUs) in France has fallen by 29 over the past 24 hours to 3,515, nearly half the amount five weeks ago, the health ministry has said.
- Bahrain is to suspend entry for India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal from 24 May.
- France’s daily Covid-19 death toll fell to a more than seven-month low of 70, while the seven-day average for new cases fell below the 13,000 level for the first time since 2020.
- Israel will end local Covid-19 restrictions following its vaccine rollout that has nearly stamped out new infections, the country’s health minister said.
- The US has administered 285,720,586 vaccine doses as of Sunday morning, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.
That’s all from me tonight, my colleague Helen Sullivan will be here shortly to take over. Thank you for following along!
Brazil registered 35,819 new cases of Covid-19, bringing the total in the country to 16,083,259, the health ministry said. The death toll on Sunday rose by 860 and now totalling 449,068.
Australia’s lack of clear triage protocols more than a year into the Covid-19 pandemic means clinicians will struggle to decide which patients to save and how to treat them should the virus return, an analysis published in the Medical Journal of Australia has found.
Because Australia has avoided the scale of pandemic that has overwhelmed health systems elsewhere, federal and state governments have been reluctant to develop or make public triage protocols, the analysis, led by Dr Eliana Close from Queensland University of Technology’s Australian centre for health law research, said.
The study authors said waiting until the crisis point carried significant risks.
“Public confidence is enhanced when governments have the political courage to embark on these difficult public debates in advance of need,” they said.
“Prioritising some individuals over others when the demand for resources exceeds supply is confronting for clinicians and the community alike and challenges us to reflect on our deeply held values as a society.
“When clinicians are allocating scarce resources, they need standards to support their decisions which have been subject to public consultation and rigorous legal review.”
More on the story here:
The US has administered 285,720,586 vaccine doses as of Sunday morning, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.
Sunday’s figure is up from 83,941,223 vaccine doses the CDC said had been administered out of 357,250,375 doses delivered the day before.
The CDC added that 163,309,414 people had received at least one dose while 130,014,175 people are now fully vaccinated. The tally includes two-dose vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, as well as Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot vaccine.
From the Guardian’s Latin America correspondent, Tom Phillips, at the rally in Brazil.
A hero’s welcome for the Bolsonarian army general health minister on whose watch more than 260,000 Brazilians lost their lives pic.twitter.com/9RZwTPzHTI
— Tom Phillips (@tomphillipsin) May 23, 2021
Despite a highly criticised response to his government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, led a rally in the capital, Rio de Janeiro.
The Guardian’s Latin America correspondent, Tom Phillips has the story:
The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has led a raucous column of motorcycle enthusiasts through the streets of Rio in an attempt to re-energise his flagging far-right movement as public anger grows over his handling of the country’s Covid outbreak.
Thousands of flag-waving Bolsonaristas gathered outside the Olympic Park in west Rio on Sunday morning for the two-wheeled show of support before roaring east towards the southern beach districts and city centre, with Bolsonaro near the front.
As defenders of the Brazilian president assembled under a white banner reading “Legend, you are not alone!”, Bolsonaro’s detractors bashed pans and hurled profanities from their balconies in protest. Many dissenters denounced as “genocidal” his handling of a Covid epidemic that has killed almost half a million Brazilians, nearly half of the total lost in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Supporters said they had come from across the country to endorse the 66-year-old leader.
“He represents freedom, order and progress and the end of corruption,” said José Antônio do Nascimento, a 57-year-old who had travelled south from the city of Belo Horizonte and was wearing a white and red T-shirt that read: “We’re down with Bolsonaro”.
Nearby a group of leftwing and LGBT demonstrators had turned out to voice their disgust and show the Bolsonarian bikers their middle fingers.
More here:
Israel will end all local Covid-19 restrictions
Israel will end local Covid-19 restrictions following its vaccine rollout that has nearly stamped out new infections, the country’s health minister said.
Reuters reports:
With the majority of the population having received the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, and about 92% of those 50 and older inoculated or recovered, Israel has been gradually reopening its economy after three lockdowns.
The country reported just 12 new virus cases on Saturday, down from a daily peak of more than 10,000 in January.
Curbs on higher-risk activities and limits on how many people can gather in a specific area remain, with a government-issued “green pass” that indicates immunity post-vaccination or recovery from Covid-19 allowing greater freedom.
The health minister, Yuli Edelstein, said on Sunday that he would not be extending the arrangement, meaning the restrictions and the green pass system would be revoked from the start of June.
“The economy and the citizens of Israel will get extra room to breathe,” he said, but also warned that they could be reimposed should the situation take a turn.
Israel will still keep its borders closed to most incoming travel, though it has started to let in small groups of vaccinated tourists. The health ministry will also reexamine the requirement to wear face masks in closed spaces.
Updated
France records lowest number of death in 7 months
France’s daily Covid-19 death toll fell to a more than seven-month low of 70, while the seven-day average for new cases fell below the 13,000 level for the first time since 2020.
Since May, the country has been gradually loosening its lockdown, hoping to lift all significant restrictions by the end of June.
The vaccination programme has been steadily gaining momentum, with 34.5% of the total population having received at least one shot, 14.5% have received both doses, as of Sunday.
Updated
Bahrain suspends entry from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal
Bahrain is to suspend entry for travellers from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal from 24 May.
The suspension will not cover residency visa holders but they must provide a PCR test before boarding, Reuters reports.
Bahrain will also apply a precautionary 10-day quarantine to vaccinated and non-vaccinated individuals from all other countries, in their homes or in places licensed for quarantining, the state news agency added.
Updated
The number of people treated for Covid-19 in intensive care units (ICUs) in France has fallen by 29 over the past 24 hours to 3,515, nearly half the amount five weeks ago, the health ministry has said.
There have been an additional 70 deaths in France, taking the country’s total to 108,596, the eighth-highest in the world.
The Singapore Ministry of Health has confirmed 22 new cases of locally transmitted Covid-19 infections and three imported cases.
As of 23 May 2021, 12pm, we have confirmed and verified that there are 22 new cases of locally transmitted COVID-19 infection. There are 3 imported cases. https://t.co/LQT5FzFaZM
— Ministry of Health (@sporeMOH) May 23, 2021
17 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 61,294 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged. https://t.co/LQT5FzFaZM
— Ministry of Health (@sporeMOH) May 23, 2021
There are currently 242 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and 3 are in critical condition in the intensive care unit. https://t.co/LQT5FzFaZM
— Ministry of Health (@sporeMOH) May 23, 2021
On a boiling hot day in Istanbul last July, hundreds of thousands of people gathered outside the Hagia Sophia to celebrate President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s declaration that the historic building the modern state’s secular founders had made a museum would be turned back into a mosque.
The decision was widely perceived outside the country as a turning point in Turkey’s relationship with the west. In retrospect, the crowds in Sultanahmet Square represented another cultural shift – a change in how Turkey’s government dealt with the coronavirus pandemic after months of closed borders, and weekend and evening curfews.
Turks are once again enjoying a taste of normality after the lifting of a three-week “full” lockdown, the country’s first. The Turkish health ministry says the number of coronavirus infections has dropped by 72% after record-breaking highs of more than 60,000 new cases a day in April.
The success rate has been used as an argument that the country is ready for the crucial summer tourism season. Yet Turkey still has the fifth-highest number of Covid-19 cases in the world and doctors said the officially reported drop in new cases is statistically impossible, showing instead a huge reduction in testing.
Turkey’s official death toll from Covid-19 is 46,071. However, analysis of municipality death statistics shared with the Guardian by Güçlü Yaman, a computer scientist affiliated with the Turkish Medical Association’s pandemic working group, shows more than 142,000 excess deaths across the country compared with the average of the previous three years, leaving just under 68% of the total number of excess deaths unaccounted for.
The Turkish health ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
More on Turkey’s response to the pandemic here:
Updated
The possibility of all safety restrictions being lifted in the UK next month is said to be “looking good”, the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency has said.
The final stage of the country’s unlocking is due to take place on 21 June at the earliest, but that date has come under question as the country deals with a surge in Covid-19 variant that was first discovered in India.
PA reports:
Dr Jenny Harries urged the public to be cautious to avoid another lockdown, warning that the new India variant has become the “dominant strain” in some parts of the country.
She told BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show: “It’s looking good if people are continuing to observe all of the safety signals, so we should not stop doing what we’re doing, particularly in areas where we have that variant of concern, the B1617.2, in the north-west and around London.
“It’s really important that people continue to do hands, face, space and work from home, have their jabs and go for tests as well.
“The cases of the B1617.2 variant are rising, they have risen very steeply and much of the media have reported a 160% rise in cases over the week period but they seem to be slightly levelling at the moment. It’s still very early days.”
Dr Harries added: “We all need to be very cautious and I think we all don’t want to go back to the sort of lockdowns that we’ve had, it doesn’t matter whether you’re on Sage or out in the public, none of us want to return to that sort of restriction.”
From 21 June at the earliest, nightclubs are due to reopen and restrictions on large events such as festivals are to be lifted, as are restrictions on the number of people at weddings.
Dr Harries warned that caution should be taken as the new India variant is creating a “mixed picture” across the UK.
She added: “If you look at areas such as Bolton and Bedford, for example, in the north-west particularly, it’s starting to become the dominant strain and has taken over from the Kent variant, which has been our predominant one over the winter months.
“But that’s not the case right across the country, actually if you’re in the south-west that’s still not the case.”
However, Prof Adam Finn, a member of the government’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, believed there may be an “adjustment” to the lifting of restrictions on 21 June.
Asked how likely it is that measures will be lifted on that date, he told Times Radio on Sunday: “We’re effectively in a race with the vaccine programme against the virus.
“We know that we’re letting the virus out by spreading it about now, we know that we’re progressing well with the vaccine programme, but I think there’s going to need to be an adjustment of some sort.”
Updated
The UK reports 2,235 positive Covid-19 cases and five further deaths within 28 days, official data showed.
The total number of people to have received a first vaccine dose has now reached 37,943,681.
Italy recorded a further 72 deaths on Sunday, down from yesterday’s figure of 125, while the daily infections tally also fell to 3,995 from 4,717, the health ministry said.
Italy has registered 125,225 deaths linked to Covid-19 since its outbreak began last year, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the seventh highest in the world. The country has reported 4.19 million cases to date.
Updated
UK health secretary Matt Hancock celebrates on Twitter after 60m vaccines have now been administered across the UK.
Government data up until 22 May shows that of the 60,587,098 doses administered in the UK so far, 37,943,681 were first doses, a rise of 205,410 on the previous day, while some 22,643,417 were second doses, an increase of 556,951, PA reports.
HUGE day for vaccinations yesterday - 762,361 given across UK
— Matt Hancock (@MattHancock) May 23, 2021
We’ve now done 60 million vaccines across the UK 🇬🇧
This is a fantastic milestone in our fight against this virus.
Thank you to everyone involved in our national effort.
When you get the call, get the jab. pic.twitter.com/er2XCCtP3n
Hi, I’m Edna Mohamed; I’ll be taking you through the latest Covid-19 developments for the next few hours. If I miss anything you can drop me a message on Twitter or you can email me at edna.mohamed.casual@theguardian.com
Updated
Without warning, earlier this month the UK government updated its guidance to say that, in England, non-professional singing could take place only in groups of up to six people indoors. The new rules – published the day after a significant relaxation of Covid restrictions, and contravening musicians’ expectations – were met with anger and despair by choirs.
Updated
An Indian state looking to procure Covid-19 shots to combat a surge in infections on said that US vaccine maker Moderna had declined to supply its shots and said it can only deal with the federal government.
Reuters reports:
Prime minister Narendra Modi opened vaccinations to all adults from 1 May and allowed states to make their own arrangements to supplement stocks they received from the federal government. But India is facing a shortage of vaccines, with domestic production amounting to about 80 million doses a month.
The northern state of Punjab said that Moderna “refused” to send vaccines to the state government, citing a company policy that allows it to deal only with Modi’s federal administration and not with state authorities or private parties.
Punjab, with a population of more than 27 million, has had to stop vaccination for some categories of eligible people because of non-availability of shots, having received only about 4.4 million doses from the federal government, the statement said.
Gordon Brown has urged Boris Johnson to take the lead in getting the world’s wealthiest countries to pay to ensure the poorest nations have access to the coronavirus vaccine.
PA Media has the story:
The former prime minister said that unless protection against the disease was extended to developing nations the death toll would continue to rise while the cost to the global economy would increase.
He said it would “statesmanship of the highest order” if Johnson were to use the UK’s presidency of next month’s G7 summit to call for a burden-sharing plan to ensure vaccines were distributed fairly around the world.
“If the G7 countries and their attendees at their meeting on June 11 were paying on the basis of capacity and ability to pay, then they would pay two-thirds of the cost,” he told BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend. “Then we would have a means by which we could guarantee to the rest of the world that they would be vaccinated very quickly.
“If we allow this vaccine inequality to continue then we will have half the world vaccinated and protected and the other half unvaccinated and liable to be at the greatest risk of dying,” he said. “The disease will continue to spread and it will mutate and it will come back to haunt even the vaccinated in our own country.”
He said it was in the self-interest of wealthier nations to act as vaccination was the key to restarting the global economy which, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated, stood to lose 9 trillion dollars (6.3 trillion) if world trade did not resume.
“What I am talking about is something a bit more systematic than a bit of charity here and a bit of charity there and going round the table and saying ‘What will you do?”’ he said. “You need a burden-sharing formula that means that, whether it is done in kind or in cash, money is available for vaccines to be provided to the poorest countries in the world.
“What I think Boris Johnson should do - and this would be statesmanship of the highest order - is to say ‘Look, we have a formula, we have got a global plan, we now need you to pay to make sure that everybody is vaccinated so that indeed everybody is safe.”’
Updated
Dominic Cummings, the UK prime minister’s former chief adviser, has been adding to his mammoth Twitter thread – posting one document that he claims illustrates that herd immunity was indeed government policy in early March. There’s a number of other broadsides if you check out the other tweets, too.
46/ A COBR doc from week of 9/3/20 explains official thinking behind Plan A: ie. suppression either won't work or wd lead to 2nd peak during NHS winter crisis, so the advised herd immunity approach was what DHSC/Cabinet Office described as 'single peak optimal strategy' pic.twitter.com/s58DdtFs27
— Dominic Cummings (@Dominic2306) May 23, 2021
Updated
Summary
- A recent analysis shows the Pfizer vaccine was 88% effective against symptomatic disease from the India variant two weeks after a second dose, compared with 93% effectiveness against the Kent strain. Less convincingly, the AstraZeneca jab was 60% effective, compared with 66% against the Kent variant over the same period.
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India is trying to save scarce Covid vaccines by delaying shots for those who have recovered from the disease, the head of a government panel said. Without issuing a full mea culpa on anybody’s behalf, he added that the campaign should not have been opened to all adults before covering the most vulnerable.
- Some teenagers and young adults who received Covid-19 vaccines have experienced heart inflammation, a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory group said, recommending further study of the rare condition.
- Boris Johnson’s former chief of staff Dominic Cummings has claimed that ministers backed a policy of “herd immunity” then lied about having done so, but home secretary Priti Patel denied the claims despite a number of reports suggesting it was at least under consideration.
- A coronavirus outbreak on Mount Everest has infected at least 100 climbers and support staff, a mountaineering guide said, giving the first comprehensive estimate amid official Nepalese denials that the disease has spread to the world’s highest peak.
- A leading Bangladesh journalist critical of the government’s pandemic response has been granted bail, after her detention sparked nationwide protests.
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Israel reopened its borders to foreign tourists after a fall in Covid infections but cautioned it would take time for visitors to start arriving and revive the tourism industry.
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Moving vaccines from the UK to parts of the world that are still in crisis may be a useful way to protect children in the country, Prof Adam Finn, of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, suggested
My colleagues Helen Pidd, Nicola Davis and Alex Mistlin report on how class divides in the north-west could be behind stark differences in Covid case rates.
Lynn Donkin, the assistant director of public health for Bolton, said:
Where you have areas of your communities with a large proportion of people that are unable to work from home, with jobs that take them out of the house and into contact with other people, coupled with densely populated, terraced housing with multi-generational households it is really difficult. It’s difficult for people to isolate living like that, compared to being in a big detached house with two bathrooms.
People who have received both doses of the Covid-19 vaccine should not face restrictions when travelling to countries on the government’s amber list, an airline industry chief has said.
PA has the story:
Willie Walsh, director-general of airline body Iata, said people should be allowed to make up their own minds about the risks of travelling to amber list destinations if they have received their jabs.
Those returning from countries on the government’s amber list must quarantine at home for 10 days and take a pre-departure and two post-arrival tests.
But Walsh, who is the former chief executive of IAG - the parent company of British Airways - said amber restrictions should be the same as those for green list countries for fully vaccinated passengers.
He told the Mail on Sunday: “People were promised the benefit of being vaccinated - a vaccine dividend - and they should be given it. I think if you’ve had both shots then there’s no argument you can make to say those restrictions can remain in place, and people should be free to decide for themselves if they see any risk in travelling to a green or amber country.”
Asked why holidays were still being sold to countries on the amber list, transport secretary Grant Shapps told Sky News on Thursday the Government had moved away from a system where things were “banned and illegal” to a situation where people were expected to “apply a bit of common sense”.
India is trying to save scarce Covid vaccines by delaying shots for those who have recovered from the disease, the head of a government panel said. Without issuing a full mea culpa on anybody’s behalf, he added that the campaign should not have been opened to all adults before covering the most vulnerable.
Reuters has the story:
Under fire for his handling of the world’s worst rise in coronavirus infections, prime minister Narendra Modi made all adults eligible for vaccination from 1 May. But vaccine shortages have now forced many regions, including the capital New Delhi, to again prioritise those aged above 45.
The federal government on Wednesday said patients should go for their vaccination three months after recovery, compared with the earlier recommendation of about one month. It did not give a reason.
“It’s been done to save vaccine doses,” Narendra Kumar Arora, head of the government’s National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, told Reuters on Friday. “We discussed delaying it by three months, six months or nine months, but finally we said ‘we can manage it with three months, let’s do three months for now’”.
Arora said that given the vaccine shortage in India, the focus should have been on immunising the most at risk. “Our group prioritised those aged 45 or more,” he said. “Because 75% of the mortality and morbidity is in that age group.”
The ministry of health and family welfare said on 19 April that the decision to include all adults in the immunisation campaign was taken in a meeting chaired by Modi.
Updated
Of any city in the US, perhaps none has been so marked by the pandemic as New York.
Early last year, the city became the Covid capital of the world, seeing 18,679 deaths in three months. Many from the city’s wealthiest zip codes moved to more spacious places, while those in low-income zip codes bore the brunt of the virus’s health and economic impacts.
Now, despite the alarm raised by anecdotes that the city was dead forever, the numbers show New York appears to be on its way back.
Covid cases, along with hospitalisations and death, have plummeted in the city as nearly half of the population has received at least one dose of the vaccine. Home sales have increased while the number of available apartments has decreased. Tourists are slowly coming back for selfies on the Brooklyn Bridge, and beloved restaurants and bars are reopening after months of closure. Though Broadway shows will not be coming back until the fall, tickets for Hamilton’s shows in September are already sold out.
Some New Yorkers see the city’s reopening not only as a breath of relief, but also as the perfect time to kick off progressive changes. The Guardian spoke to advocates from four policy areas – housing, education, transportation and criminal justice – who believe the city can utilise changes brought on the pandemic to make the it more equitable, and fairer.
More than 1.3 million people have registered with the UK’s NHS app since it was announced users will be able to show if they have received the Covid-19 vaccine.
PA reports:
Health secretary Matt Hancock praised the “unparalleled pace” in which the vaccine status function was added to the app, since its announcement on May 7.
The app enables users to show proof they have received the vaccine, should it be required for international travel.
It has more than 4.8 million registered users and also enables people to book GP appointments, order repeat prescriptions and view GP and hospital records, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said.
Since May 17 - when the vaccine status function was added - people have logged into the app more than four million times.
A further 11,483 people registered their preference for organ donation via the NHS App in just four days - 10 times more than average for that time, DHSC said.
Hello, I’m Aamna Mohdin, the Guardian’s community affairs correspondent. I’ll be taking over the blog while Mattha goes on his lunch break.
France does not rule out “slightly tougher” health measures for travellers from Britain, the French foreign affairs minister has said, citing the spread in the UK of the coronavirus variant first found in India.
“We worry about the Indian variant and we remain on high alert regarding that matter, in cooperation with British authorities”, Jean-Yves Le Drian told RTL radio.
Germany’s public health institute on Friday declared Britain and Northern Ireland a virus variant region, requiring visitors from the UK to quarantine for two weeks on arrival.
Malaysia has reported a record 6,976 new coronavirus cases today amid a recent surge in infections, raising the total count in the country since the pandemic began to 512,091.
Health authorities also reported 49 deaths, taking the total death toll to 2,248, in the country of 32 million. Reuters reports that the southeast Asian’s previous record of 6,806 new cases in one day was set on 20 May, when it also registered its highest daily death toll of 59.
Israel has today reopened its borders to foreign tourists after a fall in Covid infections but cautioned it would take time for visitors to start arriving and revive the tourism industry.
Reuters has the story:
Under an easing of coronavirus restrictions, the government went ahead with a plan to start letting in small groups of tourists from countries using vaccines it has approved.
Foreign airlines are also resuming flights they suspended when Palestinian militants began rocket attacks on Israel this month. A ceasefire has now halted the fighting, helping the government meet Sunday’s target date for starting the plan.
But registration for the tourism ministry’s plan opened only last week, so the number of visitors will initially be limited. “It is unlikely that the first groups will arrive before the beginning of June,” a spokeswoman said.
Under a pilot programme due to continue until 15 June, Israel gave the green light to visits by 20 groups of between 5 and 30 tourists from countries including the US, Britain and Germany. Another 20 groups were chosen to be on standby if any of the first 20 tour operators did not meet Israel’s conditions.
Visitors will need to show negative PCR tests before flying and to undergo further tests on arrival.
The Sunday Times has more on Dominic Cummings’ highly-anticipated expected appearance in front of a UK parliamentary hearing on Wednesday.
Officials in the Cabinet Office are also concerned that Cummings will accuse Johnson of missing key meetings on the crisis because he was working on a biography of Shakespeare, the money from which he needed to fund his divorce from Marina Wheeler, his second wife. Johnson missed five Cobra emergency meetings at the start of the crisis.
There is also concern that he will reveal damaging details of the decision to decant patients from hospitals into care homes, where the virus ran rampant at a cost of thousands of lives.
Big story which Sunday Times doesn’t make enough of. They say officials fear Cummings will say Johnson missed 5 key Covid meetings at start of crisis as was writing his Shakespeare biography to fund his divorce settlement. I’d heard same from non- Govt source but couldn’t prove. pic.twitter.com/i7BChF5Z4M
— Michael Crick (@MichaelLCrick) May 23, 2021
Millennials are turning up to vaccine hubs to get the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine not being taken up by those over 50, as demand at Australia’s mass vaccination centres has not been as high as expected.
A nurse at a Victorian vaccination hub said she had delivered just one shot in an eight-hour shift. It was so slow staff had begun accepting walk-ins, even from those not yet eligible to receive the vaccine.
Turks are once again enjoying a taste of normality after the lifting of a three-week “full” lockdown, the country’s first. The Turkish health ministry says the number of coronavirus infections has dropped by 72% after record-breaking highs of more than 60,000 new cases a day in April.
The success rate has been used as an argument that the country is ready for the crucial summer tourism season. Yet Turkey still has the fifth highest number of Covid-19 cases in the world and doctors said the officially reported drop in new cases is statistically impossible, showing instead a huge reduction in testing.
France’s Covid-19 contact-tracing app has been downloaded by 16.5 million people, almost 25% of the country’s population, surpassing the minimum level it needed to function properly, a year after it initially launched, the minister for digital affairs has said.
Reuters reports:
The “Tous Anti-Covid” (all against Covid) app, initially launched last June under the name “StopCovid”, will grant access to a “health pass” that people can use to attend sports events, festivals and theme parks with large crowds.
This pass, which was approved by French lawmakers earlier this month, will come into effect from 9 June.
It will provide proof that a person has either been vaccinated against the coronavirus, holds a recent negative PCR test, or is recovering from Covid-19 and therefore has natural antibodies.
“When people will check this health pass, they won’t see any of these details, they’ll just see green or red, which means health data are protected,” Cedric O told Franceinfo radio.
The minister previously said 20% of the population needed to download the app for contact tracing to work efficiently.
Updated
Germany must be vigilant and further bring down the number of coronavirus infections if the country is to enjoy a “carefree summer” and large-scale reopenings, health minister Jens Spahn has said.
AFP has the story:
“The weather is improving, the number of vaccinations is rising, infection rates are falling. The restrictions will fall one by one,” Spahn told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper. “And that’s incredibly important after the long, dark winter months. But for a carefree summer, we need to lower the incidence rate even further.”
Germany has in recent weeks appeared managed to break a third wave of the pandemic after imposing strict nationwide curbs and picking up the pace of vaccinations. The closely watched seven-day incidence rate in the European Union’s most populous country has fallen from 169 new infections per 100,000 people in late April to 64.5 on Sunday.
Germany’s 16 regional states have started relaxing restrictions, with some reopening beer gardens, hotels and swimming pools while others are bringing pupils back to school full-time.
But Spahn warned against opening up too soon. “Caution and vigilance remain the order of the day,” he told Bild. “Last summer the incidence rate was below 20. We should aim for that again.”
Updated
The backlash against former chief advisor to the UK prime minister Dominic Cummings’ comments has begun!
The chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, Dr Jenny Harries, has told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show that, at that point of the pandemic to which Cummings refers, she was never in a government meeting where herd immunity was posited “as a mechanism of control”.
But she admitted she wouldn’t even have been in most of the high-level meetings as she was merely deputy chief medical officer. So we’re not really any the wiser, particularly since she has attempted to play with semantics to suggest any references to herd immunity may have been regarding a vaccination campaign.
I can categorically say I have never been in any government meeting where herd immunity was put forward at that point of the pandemic as a mechanism of control … I haven’t been in any of those meetings, but bear in mind I would not have been in most of the high-level ones as the deputy CMO.
I think being really clear what we mean by herd immunity, what you’re looking at in a population is to try and see at which point your population would be safe, and this is what we do with this very successful vaccination programme that we have.
That’s not the same as saying, which I think has been misinterpreted in many places, that the aim would be to allow people to become infected and develop herd immunity. That has never been on the agenda but you would always look to see how safe you can get your population through a vaccination programme.
The home secretary, Priti Patel, has also denied that herd immunity was the policy de jour, replying “absolutely not” to rebuke the claim.
Our strategy was always about protecting public health, saving lives and protecting the NHS. Absolutely all colleagues involved in those meetings and discussions, working with the chief scientist and the chief medical officers, absolutely recognised that from the very difficult discussions that we had.
At the time of a crisis when government is making very, very tough decisions, difficult decisions, we put public life and protecting the public at the forefront of all those decisions.
Quite the conundrum, who to believe: Cummings or Patel. Or Robert Peston, the high-profile journalist who said last March it was indeed the plan!
The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg has also reported:
“There was a genuine argument in government, which everyone has subsequently denied,” one senior figure tells me, about whether there should be a hard lockdown or a plan to protect only the most vulnerable, and even encourage what was described to me at that time as “some degree of herd immunity”.
There was even talk of “chicken pox parties”, where healthy people might be encouraged to gather to spread the disease. And while that was not considered a policy proposal, real consideration was given to whether suppressing Covid entirely could be counter productive.
Updated
More news from the UK, with documents suggesting the prime minister’s office was directly involved in allegedly dissuading public health officials from publishing data on the spread of the new Covid variant in schools – seemingly to ease fears over in-person teaching.
The focus of their anger concerns the pre-print of a PHE report that included a page of data on the spread of the India Covid-19 variant in schools. But when the report was published on Thursday 13 May, the page had been removed. It was the only one that had been removed from the pre-print. Days later, the government went ahead with its decision to remove the mandate on face coverings in English schools.
Detained Bangladeshi journalist critical of Covid response granted bail
A leading Bangladesh journalist critical of the government’s pandemic response has been granted bail, after her detention sparked nationwide protests.
AFP has the story:
Rozina Islam, 42, an investigative reporter for the country’s largest Bengali daily Prothom Alo, was arrested by police on Monday under the Official Secrets Act. She was later charged with stealing health ministry documents.
Islam was granted bail after being ordered to surrender her passport and pay a bail bond of 5,000 taka ($60) by the chief metropolitan magistrate of the capital Dhaka, her lawyer said.
“We did not oppose her ad interim bail provided she submits her passport,” Dhaka’s chief prosecutor Abdullah Abu said.
The passport submission was to prevent her from leaving the country, he said, adding that Islam was expected to be released from detention later today.
Journalist unions and advocacy groups said Islam was detained for her stories, which included allegations that urgently needed medical equipment was left at Dhaka airport for months, and that bribes had been offered to recruit doctors.
The general secretary of Bangladesh’s National Press Club welcomed the court’s bail decision but called for the case against her to be dropped. “She has been asked to submit her passport, which is a curb on her freedom of movement,” Elias Khan said. “We have demanded that all the cases against her are withdrawn immediately … Bangladesh journalists still operate in a climate of fear.”
Updated
Use of UK jabs in India could benefit British children, suggests vaccine advisor
Moving vaccines from the UK to parts of the world that are still in crisis may even be a useful way to protect children in this country, Prof Adam Finn, of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, suggested
He told BBC Breakfast:
This is a global crisis and we do need to think globally and not just domestically. It may well be better for children in this country if vaccines are used to stop outbreaks like the massive outbreak in India which then get imported into this country and provide a threat to them and their schooling.
Meanwhile, he said it remains unclear whether children will need to be vaccinated.
I think we need to wait and see on that. It is not clear at this point whether we will actually need to vaccinate children in order to get that population immunity that we have to get.
In October, vaccine task force chief Kate Bingham said that vaccinating everyone in the country was “not going to happen” and that “we just need to vaccinate everyone at risk.”
She told the Financial Times:
People keep talking about ‘time to vaccinate the whole population’, but that is misguided. There’s going to be no vaccination of people under 18. It’s an adult-only vaccine, for people over 50, focusing on health workers and care home workers and the vulnerable.
David Nabarro, special envoy to the World Health Organization on Covid-19, echoed this sentiment, telling the paper:
We’re not fundamentally using the vaccine to create population immunity, we’re just changing the likelihood people will get harmed or hurt. It will be strategic.
Updated
China reported 19 new Covid cases yesterday, up from 10 cases a day earlier, the country’s national health authority said.
Reuters reports:
The National Health Commission said that 18 of the new cases were imported infections. The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, was 25, including one local case.
One new local infection was reported in Luan city in the eastern province of Anhui, local health authorities said. The patient was a close contact of a previous case and was under centralised quarantine since 13 May.
The one local asymptomatic case was reported in Shenzhen in the southern province of Guangdong, who was found to be linked to imported cases based on preliminary study, Shenzhen health authorities said on Sunday.
Total confirmed Covid-19 cases in mainland China stand at 90,973, while the death toll remains unchanged at 4,636.
Confusion is reigning after airlines swiftly increased the number of planes travelling to “amber list” holiday destinations from the UK, before the prime minister contradicted ministers over whether trips to such places were permitted. They are not, in fact, allowed, Boris Johnson said.
But if we always believed what the PM said, well, we would be rather foolish. The ins and outs of the guidance are quite nuanced.
So what is the state of play? Here, my colleagues James Tapper, Shane Hickey and Isabel Choat break it down.
A coronavirus outbreak on Mount Everest has infected at least 100 climbers and support staff, a mountaineering guide said, giving the first comprehensive estimate amid official Nepalese denials that the disease has spread to the world’s highest peak.
Lukas Furtenbach of Austria, who last week halted his Everest expedition due to virus fears, said one of his foreign guides and six Nepali Sherpa guides had tested positive.
I think with all the confirmed cases we know now confirmed from (rescue) pilots, from insurance, from doctors, from expedition leaders, I have the positive tests so we can prove this … We have at least 100 people minimum positive for Covid in base camp, and then the numbers might be something like 150 or 200.”
Updated
A big story overnight in the UK, prime minister Boris Johnson’s former chief of staff Dominic Cummings has claimed that ministers backed a policy of “herd immunity” then lied about having done so.
In an extraordinary salvo of tweets last night, just days before he is due to appear before a Commons inquiry, Cummings effectively accused health secretary, Matt Hancock, of lying about the “herd immunity” plan and talking “bullshit” when he denied it to the media.
One piece of evidence that could be considered regarding all of this is an article by ITV political editor Robert Peston last March, which said:
The strategy of the British government in minimising the impact of Covid-19 is to allow the virus to pass through the entire population so that we acquire herd immunity, but at a much delayed speed so that those who suffer the most acute symptoms are able to receive the medical support they need, and such that the health service is not overwhelmed and crushed by the sheer number of cases it has to treat at any one time.
However, on the Andrew Marr show this morning, BBC News political correspondent Chris Mason appeared keen to present both sides of the story – the other one, of course, being an outright denial.
Updated
Family doctors in the UK are being forced out of their jobs after developing long Covid, prompting demands for the government to compensate NHS staff with the debilitating condition who cannot work.
GPs struggling with the condition have said they felt “shocked and betrayed” when their colleagues removed them from their posts because of prolonged sick leave.
In Taiwan, the country’s health minister has promised to resolve a logjam with reporting positive Covid tests after abruptly raising case numbers, a move that prompted criticism from opposition politicians.
Reuters has the story:
Taiwan is dealing with a spike in cases after months of keeping the pandemic well under control, with restrictions in place across the island to limit gatherings.
Over the weekend, Health Minister Chen Shih-chung announced a total of 570 new cases whose positive tests had not been included in previous reports due to reporting delays following the surge in cases.
Chen said they were working to resolve the “traffic jam” problem by simplifying the reporting system and adding more machines that can perform quicker and more accurate tests.
He has said the “regression calibration” of case numbers was needed to more accurately reflect the state of infections.
The move has gone down poorly with Taiwan’s opposition parties. “Today the command centre created a new expression, ‘regression calibration’, adding 400 new infections,” Johnny Chiang, chairman of the main opposition party the Kuomintang, wrote on his Facebook page. “This information has terrified everyone, as the daily numbers being received were inaccurate.”
Taiwan has now reported 4,322 cases including 23 deaths since the pandemic began.
Updated
The UK home secretary Priti Patel would not be drawn on whether news of the effectiveness of the vaccines used across Britain against the India variant meant that ending restrictions on 21 June was a certainty. But she dropped quite a hint.
She told Sky News:
The prime minister himself has been clear that there are key tests and key stages in the run up to 21 June. We will always continue to look at the data when it comes to the next stage of the roadmap. That is sensible, that is responsible. We should absolutely reflect on the success of the vaccine, and how that is giving people, individuals, society [and] businesses the confidence to be back out there again.
US investigates heart inflammation reports among young Covid jab recipients
Some teenagers and young adults who received Covid-19 vaccines have experienced heart inflammation, a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory group has said, recommending further study of the rare condition.
Reuters reports:
In a statement dated 17 May, the CDC’s advisory committee on immunisation practices said it had looked into reports that a few young vaccine recipients, predominantly male adolescents and young adults, developed myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle.
The condition often goes away without complications and can be caused by a variety of viruses, the CDC group said.
CDC monitoring systems had not found more cases than would be expected in the population, but members of the committee on vaccinations felt that healthcare providers should be made aware of the reports of the “potential adverse event”, the committee said in the statement.
It did not say how many people had been affected and recommended further investigation.
Dr Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said vaccines are known to cause myocarditis and would be important to monitor to see if it was causally related to the vaccine.
Updated
Pfizer jab 88% effective against symptomatic Covid from India variant - PHE study
Good morning, good afternoon and good evening to everyone joining our live coverage today of coronavirus and political news from around the world, centred on events in the UK.
One of the top stories this morning is news of a Public Health England student that has found both the Pfizer and AstraZeneca jabs are highly effective at protecting people from the strain of the Covid-19 virus first found in India.
The Observer’s science editor Robin McKie reports that a recent analysis shows the Pfizer vaccine was 88% effective against symptomatic disease from the India variant two weeks after a second dose, compared with 93% effectiveness against the Kent strain.
Less convincingly, the AstraZeneca jab was 60% effective, compared with 66% against the Kent variant over the same period. But PHE said the difference in effectiveness between the two jabs could be down to the AstraZeneca vaccine taking longer to reach maximum effectiveness.
It was also found that both vaccines were 33% effective against symptomatic disease caused by the India variant, three weeks after the first dose. This compared with about 50% effectiveness against the Kent variant.
Its Mattha Busby here and I’ll be seeing us through for the next couple of hours. Do drop me a line on Twitter with any tips or thoughts.
