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End of isolation for England's fully-jabbed Covid contacts from Monday
Fully vaccinated people in England will no longer be legally required to self-isolate upon contact with a positive Covid case from Monday, and will instead be advised to take a PCR test – in a marked shift from rules that have led to more than 14m instructions to stay at home.
Ministers have confirmed that the legal requirement to isolate will be replaced with non-binding advice to take a test for the double-jabbed, as well as those 18 and under. And those who do come into contact with the infected will not be told to isolate while waiting for their results. For people who do test positive, isolation will continue.
The health secretary, Sajid Javid, said on Wednesday night that the government was able to go ahead with the decision to exempt the fully vaccinated from isolation rules on Monday 16 August, as planned, because “getting two doses of a vaccine has tipped the odds in our favour and allowed us to safely reclaim our lost freedoms”.
My colleague Andrew Sparrow’s report is here:
Two US companies, Pfizer and Moderna, have raised the prices of their Covid-19 vaccines after data from clinical trials showed their mRNA formula was more effective than cheaper vaccines from Britain’s AstraZeneca and the American drugs maker Johnson & Johnson.
AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson have pledged to provide their doses on a not-for-profit basis until the pandemic ends.
Here is a breakdown from Julia Kollewe of the contracts, prices and profits for the makers of each jab:
Although extremely rare, a blood clot syndrome after the first dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine carries a high risk of death and can occur in otherwise young and healthy people, UK researchers have found.
In those aged under 50, blood clots occur in around one in 50,000 people who have received the vaccine, data suggests.
Researchers examined the symptoms, signs and outcomes in 220 confirmed and probable cases who presented in UK hospitals between 22 March and 6 June.
“It’s important to stress that this kind of reaction to the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is very rare,” said Dr Sue Pavord, consultant haematologist at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and lead author of the analysis published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
But for those who do develop blood clots, the results “can be devastating,” she added. “It often affects young, otherwise healthy vaccine recipients and has high mortality. It is particularly dangerous when the patient has a low platelet count and bleeding in the brain.”
More on this story here:
Canada is working to create a digital vaccine passport that would allow citizens to travel abroad and it should be available in the next few months, government officials said on Wednesday.
Before the passport can be created Ottawa needs to agree on a common approach with the 10 provinces and three northern territories, which are responsible for inoculations against Covid-19.
It “is a key step forward in ensuring Canadians will have the documents they need once it is safe to travel again,” the immigration minister Marco Mendicino told reporters.
The European Union has a vaccine passport system that allows people to travel freely within the region. A number of other countries are working on vaccine passports for both domestic use and international travel.
Canada has one of the best inoculation records in the world. As of 31 July, 81% people aged 12 and over had received one shot and 68% had been given two.
A looming crisis of children suffering abuse, neglect and poverty has been exposed, with growing numbers of young people taken into care in some of England’s most deprived communities during the pandemic.
A Guardian investigation into the state of children’s services in the last 18 months has revealed a sharp rise in social services referrals during lockdown, plus spiralling costs for mental health support and a bulging backlog in the family courts, with some councils buckling under the weight of the extra work brought by Covid.
Some local authorities are expected to overspend by up to £12m on children’s services this year, and leaders say they are “down to brass tacks” as they struggle to deal with the increase in demand.
Self-isolation and home schooling has placed families under increased financial pressure through unemployment or lost wages, as well as inflaming mental health problems and addiction problems. Successive lockdowns have increased domestic violence and allowed safeguarding concerns for children and young people to go undetected, because schools and some childcare settings were forced to close.
Research and interviews with directors of children’s services across England have found:
- In Middlesbrough, the most income-deprived local authority in England, there has been a 40% rise in children referred to social services in the last year.
- Rochdale, in Greater Manchester, ranked 15th on the government’s index of multiple deprivation, received 420 referrals to children’s social care in July this year, 35% more than in July 2019, when there were 310. The town also saw a 35% increase in families at its early help and safeguarding hub, with 1,310 contacts this July.
- In Hull, there has been a 19% increase in “troubled families” needing extra support in the last year while the number of children in care has risen 9%. A shortage of foster carers meant 55 looked-after children in the city moved between seven or more placements between June 2020 and June 2021.
- Knowsley, in Merseyside, the second most income-deprived local authority in England, last year had a 26% increase in the number of domestic abuse notifications and the number of children and young people identified as being criminally exploited.
- In London, there has been a shortage of 500 foster places, forcing councils to compete for placements from private firms, which charge double the local authority rate.
Helen Pidd and Georgina Quach’s full report is here:
McDonald’s Corp will require US-based office workers to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing an internal memo.
The requirement does not apply to employees of McDonald’s restaurants, whether corporate-owned and franchised, the report added.
The company did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Earlier in August, the company had said that all customers and staff will need to start wearing masks again inside its US restaurants in areas with high or substantial transmission, regardless of whether they are vaccinated or not.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has urged all pregnant women to get a Covid vaccine as hospitals in hot spots around the US see disturbing numbers of unvaccinated mothers-to-be seriously ill with the virus.
Expectant women run a higher higher risk of severe illness and pregnancy complications from the coronavirus, including perhaps miscarriages and stillbirths. But their vaccination rates are low, with only about 23% having received at least one dose, according to CDC data.
“The vaccines are safe and effective, and it has never been more urgent to increase vaccinations as we face the highly transmissible delta variant and see severe outcomes from Covid-19 among unvaccinated pregnant people,’’ CDC Director Dr Rochelle Walensky said in a statement.
The updated guidance comes after a CDC analysis of new safety data on 2,500 women showed no increased risks of miscarriage for those who received at least one dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine before 20 weeks of pregnancy. The analysis found a miscarriage rate of around 13%, within the normal range.
The CDC’s advice echoes recent recommendations from top obstetrician groups. The agency had previously encouraged pregnant women to consider vaccination but had stopped short of a full recommendation. The new advice also applies to nursing mothers and women planning to get pregnant.
Although pregnant women were not included in studies that led to authorisation of Covid-19 vaccines, experts say real-world experience in tens of thousands of women shows that the shots are safe for them and that when given during pregnancy may offer some protection to newborns.
The full story is here:
Updated
Turkey will start face-to-face education as scheduled, the health minister Fahrettin Koca said on Wednesday, and unvaccinated adults will have to be tested regularly against Covid.
“It is not possible for us to compromise face-to-face education ... We will take necessary measures to protect students and their families,” Koca said in a speech following the coronavirus science council meeting.
Vaccination is a duty that cannot be left up to choice anymore Koca added. He said the teachers, instructors and families of the students should be vaccinated.
“Vaccine should be a must for business and education to continue, the people who are not vaccinated should present negative PCR test results regularly,” Koca said.
Daily cases have surged from a low of just over 4,000 in early July to over 20,000 for the last two weeks, since authorities relaxed pandemic-related restrictions.
As of Wednesday, half of Turkish adults have received at least two doses of a vaccine, Koca said on Twitter. Turkey has given nearly 6 million third doses to health workers and people over 50 years old.
The country plans to open schools in September.
Good evening from London, I’m Lucy Campbell. I’ll be bringing you all the latest global developments on the coronavirus pandemic for the next few hours. Please feel free to get in touch with me as I work if you have a story or tips to share! Your thoughts are always welcome.
Email: lucy.campbell@theguardian.com
Twitter: @lucy_campbell_
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Today so far...
- The UK is sending low- and middle-income countries who are struggling to access vaccines “to the back of the queue” by ordering millions of “overpriced” booster jabs from Pfizer, according to vaccine equity campaigners from Global Justice Now. They criticised the pharmaceutical giant for “profiteering” during the pandemic as the company reportedly increased Covid-19 vaccine prices for the NHS by a fifth.
- A UK government scientific adviser has said Covid is unlikely to be eradicated entirely because there is no vaccine that is 95% protective against infection. Prof Andrew Hayward also said that Covid would likely continue to mutate, meaning true herd immunity was even further unlikely. “We need to get used to the concept that this will become what we call an endemic disease,” he said.
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Iran’s supreme leader has said the pandemic is the country’s “No 1 problem” and must urgently be curbed, calling for greater efforts to import and produce vaccines. “The pandemic is Iran’s number-one problem today ... The number of infected people and the fatalities are truly tragic. ... It is an urgent matter that must be curbed,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said.
- Europe’s drugs regulator said it is looking into three new conditions to assess whether they may be possible side-effects related to Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna following a small number of cases. Erythema multiforme, a form of allergic skin reaction, and glomerulonephritis and nephrotic syndrome, disorders related to kidneys, are being studied.
- A new US practice of transferring asylum-seekers and migrants expelled under public health orders by plane to southern Mexico contravenes international law, the UN refugee agency said. Those expelled may have urgent protection needs and risk being sent back to the dangers they have fled without any opportunity to have their needs assessed and addressed, it said.
- Thai police fired water cannon, rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters in Bangkok for a second consecutive day as demonstrators rallied against the government and its handling of the coronavirus crisis. Hundreds sought to rally near the residence of the prime minister to demand his resignation for government corruption and mismanagement of the pandemic, but they were violently dispersed after throwing paint.
- China’s drug regulator approved the country’s first mixed-vaccine trial, a company involved in the study has said, amid concern about the efficacy of domestically produced jabs. The trial will test the efficacy of combining an “inactivated” vaccine made by China’s Sinovac with a DNA-based one developed by US pharmaceutical company Inovio.
- Chinese state media articles quoted a Swiss biologist accusing the US of politicising Covid origin investigations were quietly deleted, after the Swiss government said no such person exists. On 24 July, a Facebook post by an account named Wilson Edwards claimed to have witnessed or learned of US efforts to politicise the World Health Organization’s Covid-19 investigations from within.
- A video of the Republican senator Rand Paul disputing the effectiveness of wearing masks was removed from YouTube. Its policy is to ban videos that claim masks do not play a role in preventing the contraction or transmission of Covid is based on the guidance of the World Health Organization – which u-turned last year after initially refraining from recommending people wear face masks in public.
- Authorities in northern Germany have appealed to thousands of people to get another shot of Covid vaccine after a police investigation found a Red Cross nurse may have injected them with a saline solution. The vaccine-sceptic nurse is suspected of injecting salt solution into people’s arms instead of genuine doses.
- The Australian Olympic Committee condemned the South Australian government over its “cruel and uncaring” decision to force athletes who have already quarantined in Sydney to complete an additional 14-day home quarantine on return to the state.
- Stevie Nicks cancelled her solo concerts for 2021, citing her fear of catching Covid-19. The Fleetwood Mac star said: “While I’m vaccinated, at my age I am still being extremely cautious and for that reason have decided to skip the five performances I had planned for 2021 … These are challenging times with challenging decisions that have to be made.”
Updated
A fake check-in app is being used by Covid-19 conspiracy theorists and anti-lockdown groups to dupe business owners and keep location data out of the hands of contact tracers in at least three states, my colleagues Christopher Knaus and Nick Evershed report.
Guardian Australia can reveal that conspiratorial websites and Telegram groups with at least 15,000 followers are sharing links that allow users to generate fake check-in confirmations on their phones.
The user simply enters their name and a check-in location, and the app instantly generates a check-in confirmation screen that is near-identical to those displayed on government-run apps in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland.
The app passes no information to government, making it difficult for contact tracers to find people in the event of an outbreak.
Two US companies, Pfizer and Moderna, have raised the prices of their Covid-19 vaccines after data from clinical trials showed their mRNA formula was more effective than cheaper vaccines from Britain’s AstraZeneca and the American firm Johnson & Johnson.
AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson have pledged to provide their doses on a not-for-profit basis until the pandemic ends.
Updated
US deportation flights under Covid-related public health orders 'illegal', says UN
A new US practice of transferring asylum-seekers and migrants expelled under public health orders by plane to southern Mexico contravenes international law, the UN refugee agency has said.
Those being expelled may have urgent protection needs and risk being sent back to the very dangers they have fled in their countries of origin in central America without any opportunity to have those needs assessed and addressed, UNHCR said.
“These expulsion flights of non-Mexicans to the deep interior of Mexico constitute a troubling new dimension in enforcement of the Covid-related public health order known as Title 42,” Matthew Reynolds, the UNHCR representative to the US and the Caribbean, said.
“Removal from the US to southern Mexico, outside any official transfer agreement with appropriate legal safeguards, increases the risk of chain refoulement – pushbacks by successive countries – of vulnerable people in danger, in contravention of international law and the humanitarian principles of the 1951 Refugee Convention.”
He said the expulsion flights would also further strain the humanitarian response capacity in southern Mexico and heighten the risk of Covid-19 transmission across national borders.
Title 42 is a coronavirus policy dating from the presidency of Donald Trump, allowing the immediate deportation of undocumented migrants, including those who arrive seeking asylum, AFP reports.
At the end of July, US authorities began deporting some migrant families on flights to central America as part of an expedited system to remove people who arrived without authorisation via Mexico.
The Department of Homeland Security said the families were sent back to their home countries, including Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, but did not provide a number of people.
Updated
Cuba is bringing back hundreds of doctors working abroad and converting hotels into isolation centres and hospitals in order to battle a spike in cases that is overwhelming healthcare services in parts of the Caribbean island.
Reuters reports that Cuba’s rolling seven-day average of confirmed Covid-19 cases has surged eightfold within two months to 5,639 per million inhabitants, ten times the world average.
The case fatality rate was 0.93% in the first week of August, according to reports, with the 3,608 Covid deaths in Cuba since the start of the pandemic still well below the global average per capita, according to official data.
The Covid-19 surge has come amid Cuba’s worst economic crisis in decades that had already resulted in medicine shortages – amid tightening US sanctions largely premised on ideology – and long queues for scarce goods that made implementing lockdowns problematic, Reuters reports.
“I witnessed queues of more than 20 hours, people dying in the corridors (of the polyclinic),” wrote Ana Iris Diaz, a professor at the university of the central Cuban city of Santa Clara in a Facebook post that went viral this week.
“I saw an elderly woman die after several hours of waiting and four days without an antigen test or PCR. Simply put, I saw what I would have hoped to never see: the collapse of our health system.”
The president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, told a government meeting on Monday: “We are at the limit of our capacity for infrastructure, resources, medicine and oxygen.”
A quarter of Cuba’s 11.2 million inhabitants have been inoculated with its two most advanced domestically-made vaccines that officials say have proven more than 90 % effective.
Updated
When it comes to the pandemic, plenty of films have had their turn in the spotlight. Contagion was one of them, for contextualising the scale of the virus and teaching everybody what an R number was. So was Jaws, with Amity Island’s safety-denying mayor, Larry Vaughn, serving as an analogue for any authority figure who was sceptical about the concept of lockdown.
To some extent, those films make sense. In times of great uncertainty, we reach for the familiar to guide us. But sometimes that’s a bad idea. Because sometimes what they reach for is the Will Smith movie I Am Legend.
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Thai police crack down on protest which sought to demonstrate outside PM's home
Thai police have fired water cannon, rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters in Bangkok for a second consecutive day as demonstrators rallied against the government and its handling of the coronavirus crisis.
Hundreds sought to rally near the residence of prime minister Prayuth Chan-ocha to demand his resignation for government corruption and mismanagement of the pandemic.
Reuters reports protesters threw paint at a line of riot police who confronted them as they tried to march on the PM’s home and police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and charging to disperse them.
Barbed wire fences and shipping containers were used to block the road. The Associated Press reports that a group also gathered in the nearby Din Daeng area, firing slingshots and hurling firecrackers and small explosive devices called ping-pong bombs. They also set fire to a vehicle that burned fiercely beneath a nearby elevated roadway.
Earlier protesters burnt an effigy of a Thai judge who had denied bail to leaders of past protests. “Police are not our enemies. Our true enemy is the government,” one protester told the rally.
Police also used tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets to violently break up a similar protest yesterday, when thousands of demonstrators drove in a convoy of cars and motorcycles through Bangkok. Some core leaders of the movement controversially remain in detention, but the movement has resurged.
“The protesters repeatedly attacked police by throwing firecrackers, ping pong bombs, and (using) slingshots,” royal Thai police deputy spokesman Kissana Phathanacharoen said.
The PM, Prayuth, has been criticised for a slow vaccination campaign – using jabs produced by a company owned by the king that has no prior experience of making vaccines – and a failure to quell Thailand’s worst Covid-19 wave yet, which has accounted for the bulk of the country of 70m’s more than 788,000 cases and 6,700 deaths.
Though the demonstrations have focused on Covid, they are part of a wider push for sweeping political change that includes Prayuth’s resignation, a new constitution and – most contentious of all – fundamental reform of the powerful but opaque monarchy, AP reports. Financial hardship from restrictions have fuelled public anger over these grievances.
Updated
The Swiss government plans to halt most free Covid-19 testing for people who are not vaccinated now that nearly half the population has received their jabs.
Reuters reports:
For the government, protecting hospital structures now has priority, no longer protecting the non-vaccinated population,” the Swiss government said while keeping in place scaled-back curbs on public life it adopted in June as new cases were on the decline.
New cases have since rebounded to more than 2,000 a day. More than 730,000 people in Switzerland and tiny neighbour Liechtenstein have had confirmed infections and around 10,400 have died of the disease since the pandemic broke out last year.
The Swiss strategy has focused on repetitive testing in schools and companies as well as preventive testing free of charge. The federal government will continue to finance tests in schools, companies and healthcare facilities.
Should cantons agree, however, non-vaccinated adults without symptoms will from 1 October have to pay for their own voluntary Covid-19 tests and no longer qualify for five free home tests a month. They will also have to pay for tests required to enter some events.
Updated
Updated
France will strengthen lockdown rules in the overseas territory of Guadeloupe to rein in the spread of Covid-19 as rising infections in its Caribbean islands overwhelm hospitals. Restrictions have also been tightened in Martinique, as Reuters reports:
The French overseas territory of Martinique on Tuesday entered a tougher lockdown for three weeks to tackle the pandemic with the closure of beaches and shops selling non-essential items and restrictions on people’s movements.
Authorities in Martinique have also advised tourists to leave the island.
Updated
The UK recorded 29,612 new cases of Covid-19 on Wednesday and 104 deaths within 28 days of a positive test for the virus, Reuters reports.
That compares with 23,510 new cases and 146 deaths on Tuesday.
In Scotland, rail operator ScotRail has confirmed staff are not expected to enforce rules on wearing face coverings on trains.
The BBC reports the operations director, David Simpson, saying the firm did not want to put staff in “difficult positions”, particularly after customers have been drinking alcohol.
He said wearing face masks on trains was a legal requirement but it was up to passengers to take “personal responsibility”.
We’re not expecting our staff to enforce it. Our staff can often be in very difficult position in that respect, particularly on evening services where customers are perhaps more refreshed than usual. What we don’t want to do is put staff into difficult, challenging, potentially upsetting environments.
Passengers concerned if others are not wearing masks could contact the Transport Police or move to a different part of the train, he added.
Updated
Europe’s drugs regulator has said it is looking into three new conditions to assess whether they may be possible side-effects related to Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna following a small number of cases.
Erythema multiforme, a form of allergic skin reaction, and glomerulonephritis and nephrotic syndrome, disorders related to kidneys, are being studied by the safety committee of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), according to the regulator.
The mRNA technology used by the two vaccines has been a turning point in the pandemic and for the scientific community, but some rare side-effects of the shots are being studied as more people are inoculated globally, Reuters reports.
Last month, the EMA found a possible link between very rare heart inflammation and the mRNA vaccines. However, the European regulator and the World Health Organization have stressed that benefits from these vaccines outweighed any risks posed by them.
The EMA did not give details on how many cases of the new conditions were recorded following vaccination with the Pfizer and Moderna shots, but said it has requested more data from the companies to study any potential relation between them.
French Covid-19 vaccination centres have been hit by vandalism and daubed with Nazi-themed tags as the government controversially steps up its vaccination drive.
Reuters reports that vaccination centres and outdoor testing facilities at pharmacies across the country have been tagged with swastikas and graffiti such as “collaborator”, “Nazi” and “genocide” in recent weeks.
In Neuillé-Pont-Pierre, in the Loire valley, late last month Stars of David – similar to those Jews were forced to wear by the Nazis – were painted on a vaccination centre.
“We are cleaning off these horrors, this is odious. Other centres have also been hit by these racist and cowardly attacks. On the vaccination centre poster, a target was painted, as if for a weapon,” the Neuillé-Pont-Pierre mayor, Michel Jollivet, said on BFM television.
BFM reported about one attack per day on average has taken place in recent weeks, often in small towns with little police presence or security cameras. The attacks have increased ahead of the introduction this week of a mandatory health pass to enter a wide variety of buildings.
In Lans-en-Vercors, south-east France, anti-vaccine graffiti were painted on a community hall that housed a vaccine centre and fire hoses were opened intentionally, flooding the facility, local newspaper Le Dauphine reported.
In Urrugne, in the Pyrenees, the tent of a temporary vaccination centre was set on fire, while in Audincourt, eastern France, the power supply to a vaccination centre was cut off, endangering vaccine doses in fridges.
Updated
Survey data from a pool of schools in England suggests that despite the emergence of the highly infectious Delta variant, infection rates during the summer term of 2021 were lower versus the autumn term of 2020.
Researchers used data from staff and pupils who tested positive for the virus that causes Covid-19 in school on the day of testing. Analysed by the Office for National Statistics, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and Public Health England, the results encompassed the period from 14 June to 6 July 2021.
Gleaned from data collected from 141 schools, the analysis showed 108 schools returned no positive cases among participants tested. But 23% of primary schools and 24% of secondary schools returned at least one positive case. These numbers were higher than the previous round (encompassing 5 May to 21 May 2021), but much lower than the autumn 2020 period when 54% of primary schools and 62% of secondary schools returned at least one positive case.
Last autumn, the Alpha variant was dominant, but in recent months the Delta variant has monopolised cases in England and across the UK. The great majority of adults have now been vaccinated, so the relative contribution of school-aged children to transmission will have therefore increased.
The Delta variant is also significantly more transmissible than its predecessors in all age groups, meaning the absolute contribution of school-aged children to transmission will have increased, explained Mark Woolhouse, a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at University of Edinburgh.
“One reassuring result from the survey is that – despite the advent of the Delta variant – infection rates during the summer term of 2021 were actually lower than during the autumn term of 2020.”
Infection rates in pupils in this latest round of testing was also lower than prevalence of infection among children in the wider community, and has been across all previous time periods.
The findings suggest measures including the bubble system, asymptomatic testing that led to a higher proportion of infected pupils kept out of school in the summer term, alongside enhanced cleaning and social distancing, may have reduced the risk of infection within schools, the researchers suggested.
But Kevin McConway, am emeritus professor of applied statistics at the Open University, said the results should be interpreted with caution, highlighting that the survey runs in a limited set of local authorities in England and that only pupils and staff who were present in the school building on the day when testing took place have contributed data.
“People absent for any reason, including absences because they were ill with Covid-19 or self-isolating, aren’t taken into account,” he noted. “These results … could be very easy to overinterpret.”
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A UK government scientific adviser has said Covid is unlikely to be eradicated entirely because there is no vaccine that is 95% protective against infection.
Prof Andrew Hayward, of University College London’s institute of epidemiology and health care, and the new and emerging respiratory virus threats advisory group (Nervtag), also told BBC Radio 4’s Today that Covid would likely continue to mutate, meaning true herd immunity was unlikely.
I think the nature of this infection and the nature of the vaccines is such that the level of immunity that is achieved is not enough to consider that. If someone could come up with a vaccine that was not only 95% protective against severe disease but 95% protective against infection then, yes, we would stand a chance of eradicating it.
I think it is a pretty distant prospect and we need to get used to the concept that this will become what we call an endemic disease rather than a pandemic disease. A disease that is with us all the time – probably transmits seasonally a bit like influenza where we see winter outbreaks.
It comes after Prof Andrew Pollard told MPs yesterday that the fact vaccines did not stop the spread of Covid meant reaching the threshold for overall immunity in the population was “mythical”.
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In the UK, a member of the committee advising on vaccines has said the rollout was extended to 16- and 17-year-olds after a small number became “seriously ill” with Covid.
Prof Adam Finn, who sits on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) and is a professor of paediatrics at the University of Bristol, said there had been “a couple” of 17-year-olds in that area who needed intensive care in hospital in recent weeks.
He said while most young people will only have the virus in a mild form, the vaccines will be effective at preventing serious cases.
He told BBC Breakfast:
We’re going cautiously down through the ages now into childhood and it was clear that the number of cases and the number of young people in the age group – 16, 17 – that were getting seriously ill merited going forward with giving them just a first dose.
Most young people who get this virus get it mildly or even without any symptoms at all. But we are seeing cases in hospital even into this age group – we’ve had a couple of 17-year-olds here in Bristol admitted and needing intensive care over the course of the last four to six weeks – and so we are beginning to see a small number of serious cases.
What we know for sure is that these vaccines are very effective at preventing those kind of serious cases from occurring.
Yesterday, a paediatric critical care consultant, Dr Ruchi Sinha, said children’s intensive care doctors had seen “a lot” of children with obesity with Covid-19. But, curiously, there has been no government action to improve children’s metabolic health.
UK government plans to restrict junk food advertising on television and online at the end of next year have been criticised by campaigners who say they contain too many exemptions to affect rising levels of obesity in the UK.
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Pandemic 'number-one' problem in Iran, says supreme leader
Iran’s supreme leader has said the pandemic is the country’s “number-one problem” and must urgently be curbed, calling for greater efforts to import and produce vaccines.
“The pandemic is Iran’s number-one problem today ... The number of infected people and the fatalities are truly tragic. ... It is an urgent matter that must be curbed,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said.
“Part of the problem is lack of observance of health protocols by the people,” Khamenei said, describing overburdened health centres as of “truly great concern”.
Iran’s health ministry today reported 42,541 new cases in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 4,281,217. Deaths rose by 536 to 95,647, which the ministry blamed on the more infectious Delta variant, Reuters reports.
Khamenei, who in January banned imports of “untrustworthy” French, US and British made vaccines, said the government should “increase efforts to both import and to produce homegrown vaccines”. Iran has blamed US sanctions for hampering purchases and deliveries of vaccines from other nations.
The authorities have approved the emergency use of two locally produced vaccines, with the only mass-produced one, COVIran Barekat, still in short supply. The other vaccines used in Iran include Russia’s Sputnik V, China’s Sinopharm, India’s Bharat and AstraZeneca/Oxford, according to the health ministry.
More than 13.8 million people in the country of 83 million have been given a first vaccine dose, but only 3.7 million have received the necessary two jabs, the ministry said.
Iranian state media carried pictures of hospitals in several cities that have run out of beds for new patients.
Iran has avoided imposing a full lockdown on the population, and instead resorted to piecemeal measures such as temporary travel bans and business closures, AFP reports.
Updated
The Australian Olympic Committee has condemned the South Australian government over its “cruel and uncaring” decision to force athletes who have already quarantined in Sydney to complete an additional 14-day home quarantine on return to the state.
Sixteen athletes are due to return home to SA after returning from the Tokyo Olympics and finishing their hotel quarantine in Sydney. The SA government has rejected AOC appeals to grant exemptions for the returning Olympians, who will isolate at their homes rather than at quarantine hotels.
In a strongly worded statement, the AOC chief executive, Matt Carroll, said the move was contrary to expert medical advice and posed a significant mental health risk.
Authorities in northern Germany have appealed to thousands of people to get another shot of Covid vaccine after a police investigation found a Red Cross nurse may have injected them with a saline solution.
The nurse is suspected of injecting salt solution into people’s arms instead of genuine doses at a vaccination centre in Friesland – a rural district near the North Sea coast – in the early spring, Reuters reports. Local authorities have issued a call to about 8,600 residents who may have been affected.
While saline solution is harmless, most people who got vaccinated in Germany in March and April when the suspected switch took place are elderly and at high risk of catching Covid.
The motive of the nurse, who was not named, was not clear but she had aired sceptical views about vaccines in social media posts, police investigators said.
Updated
Spain’s medicines agency has authorised the first round of clinical trials for the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Spanish company Hipra, the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has said.
The early stage clinical trial will recruit dozens of participants from Spanish hospitals to test the drug’s safety and tolerability, as well as its immunogenicity and efficacy, the medicines agency said.
Hipra, which has manufacturing bases in Spain and Brazil, said it could produce up to 400m doses in 2022 and 1.2bn in 2023, Reuters reports.
“Spain’s medicines and health products agency has just authorised clinical tests of the Spanish Covid vaccine on humans,” Sánchez said in Lanzarote in the Canary Islands.
Hipra, a pharmaceutical lab that mainly researches and manufactures veterinary vaccines, has been working on two Covid shots. One is based on the same RNA messenger technology used in Pfizer and Moderna’s shots, while the second, which has just received approval for trial, uses a recombinant protein like US-based drugmaker Novavax.
Updated
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that a clinical trial in 52 countries would study three anti-inflammatory drugs as potential treatments for Covid-19 patients.
“These therapies – artesunate, imatinib and infliximab – were selected by an independent expert panel for their potential in reducing the risk of death in hospitalised Covid-19 patients,” it said in a statement on the Solidarity Plus trial.
Artesunate is already used for severe malaria, imatinib for certain cancers, and infliximab for diseases of the immune system such as Crohn’s Disease and rheumatoid arthritis, Reuters reports.
The original Solidarity trial last year found that all four treatments evaluated – remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, lopinavir/ritonavir and interferon – had little or no effect in helping Covid patients. So far, the WHO has only deemed corticosteroids to be effective against severe and critical Covid-19.
In the trial, artesunate will be administered intravenously for seven days, using the standard dose recommended for the treatment of severe malaria.
Imatinib, produced by Novartis, is used to treat certain cancers. In the trial, it will be administered orally, once daily, for 14 days. Infliximab, produced by Johnson and Johnson, is used to treat diseases of the immune system. In the trial, it will be administered intravenously as a single dose, Reuters said.
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A video of Republican senator Rand Paul disputing the effectiveness of wearing masks has been removed from YouTube, which suspended him for a week for violating its policy of Covid misinformation.
Its policy is to ban videos that “claim that masks do not play a role in preventing the contraction or transmission of Covid-19.” It is based on the guidance of the World Health Organization – which u-turned last year after initially refraining from recommending people wear face masks in public.
The New York Times reports that Paul said in the video: “Most of the masks you get over the counter don’t work. They don’t prevent infection ... Trying to shape human behaviour isn’t the same as following the actual science, which tells us that cloth masks don’t work.”
But public health experts are now almost unanimous in the recommendation of masks, the NYT reports.
Paul said of his suspension: “I think this kind of censorship is very dangerous, incredibly anti-free speech and truly anti-progress of science, which involves skepticism and argumentation to arrive at the truth.”
It comes after Twitter suspended Republican congresswoman Marjorie Green after she tweeted US authorities should not give the coronavirus vaccines full approval and that the vaccines were “failing.” She tweeted: “There are too many reports of infection and spread of Covid-19 among vaccinated people.”
The controversial Congresswoman has previously criticised the “borderline monopolistic stranglehold” of a few big tech companies over American political discourse, the NYT reports.
Chinese state media articles quoting a Swiss biologist accusing the US of politicising Covid origin investigations have been quietly deleted, after the Swiss government said no such person exists.
On 24 July, a Facebook post by an account named Wilson Edwards claimed to have witnessed or learned of US efforts to politicise the World Health Organization’s Covid-19 investigations from within.
Edwards cited unnamed WHO sources and “fellow researchers” complaining of having endured “enormous pressure and even intimidation from the US side as well as certain media outlets … The WHO sources told me the US is so obsessed with attacking China on the origin-tracing issue that it is reluctant to open its eyes to the data and findings.”
The Facebook post was picked up widely by Chinese state media. China has consistently rejected theories and accusations that the virus may have come from a lab leak in Wuhan. An investigation in January by a joint China-WHO team – which was criticised for lacking transparency and access amid claims the investigators were not given the data they requested – determined that the lab leak theory was less likely than other scenarios but did not rule it out.
The WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, later said the push to discount the theory had been “premature” but China seized on the finding. It has since refused to cooperate with a WHO proposal to further explore the possibility and to audit Chinese labs as part of the investigation’s next phase. Instead, foreign ministry officials and state media have heavily pushed unevidenced theories that the virus leaked from a US facility.
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In related news, the New York Times reports on a survey that suggests parents of American school-aged children are more supportive of school mask requirements than mandatory vaccines
The ongoing Kaiser Family Foundation, based on a representative sample of 1,259 parents, found that nearly two-thirds would like schools to insist on masks for students, teachers and staff members for the unvaccinated.
It also found that one in five parents of children ages 12 to 17 said their child would “definitely not” get vaccinated, with 88% of parents whose children were not vaccinated saying they were “very” or “somewhat” concerned that not enough is known about the long-term effects of Covid-19 vaccines in children.
“Despite controversy around the country about masks in schools, most parents want their school to require masks of unvaccinated students and staff,” Drew Altman, the foundation’s chief executive, said, as quoted by the NYT. “At the same time, most parents don’t want their schools to require their kids get a Covid-19 vaccine despite their effectiveness in combating Covid-19.”
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School districts in Florida and Texas are bucking their Republican governors’ bans on requiring masks for children and teachers.
The Broward county school board in Florida has become the latest major district to flout an order by Republican governor Ron DeSantis outlawing mask requirements in that state, Reuters reports.
It prompted the administration of Democratic US president Joe Biden to say it was considering supporting the school districts financially if DeSantis retaliates against them by withholding funds from officials’ salaries.
The Dallas Independent School District has also said that it would require masks, despite an order banning such mandates from Republican governor Greg Abbott. Some staff had threatened to quit if masks were not mandated to protect children, teachers and others, and school district officials said they did not believe the governor’s order should be applied to them. Schools in Austin also plan to require masks.
In San Antonio, officials also ordered masks to be worn in public schools, after a judge granted a temporary injunction to allow the mandate in a blow to Abbott.
In Florida, where lawsuits have also been filed challenging the anti-mask order, DeSantis has threatened to withhold salaries from school district officials who flout his ban. “It’s about parental choice, not government mandate, and I think ultimately, parents will be able to exercise the choices that they deem appropriate for their kids,” he said.
In Arkansas, Republican governor Asa Hutchison said he regrets supporting a ban on mask mandates in his state.
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Stevie Nicks has cancelled her solo concerts for 2021, citing her fear of catching Covid-19. The Fleetwood Mac star said:
While I’m vaccinated, at my age I am still being extremely cautious and for that reason have decided to skip the five performances I had planned for 2021 … These are challenging times with challenging decisions that have to be made. I want everyone to be safe and healthy and the rising Covid cases should be of concern to all of us.”
Nicks had been due to perform at festivals in California, Colorado, Texas and Louisiana. The last of those events, New Orleans jazz and heritage festival, has been cancelled outright, with organisers citing the “current exponential growth of new Covid cases in New Orleans and the region and the ongoing public health emergency”.
Updated
Meanwhile, weekly Covid deaths have increased by five in Scotland over the past week to 51, according to the latest date from the National Records of Scotland, with five more in the under 44 age group than the week before.
In the week 2-8 August, 51 deaths were registered that mentioned Covid-19 on the death certificate: 15 deaths were of people aged under 65, 13 were people aged 65-74 and there were 23 deaths of people aged 75 or over.
The majority of deaths took place in Glasgow City, North Lanarkshire and Dundee City council areas. The data is released after Scotland moved “beyond level zero” on Monday, with the majority of pandemic restrictions being lifted.
Last week, both first minister Nicola Sturgeon and the health secretary, Humza Yousaf, emphasised that talk of “freedom day” was premature and “it is important to be clear that it does not signal the end of the pandemic or a return to life exactly as we knew it before Covid struck”.
Sturgeon said the harm the virus could do, in particular through the impact of long Covid, should not be underestimated, while Covid’s ability to mutate “may yet pose us real challenges”.
Scottish pupils are returning to school from today, with the majority going back next week, and starting the new academic year with a number of Covid restrictions still in place.
Whilst the majority of restrictions were lifted across Scotland on Monday, as the country moved beyond level zero, safety protocols in schools will remain in place for at least another six weeks. This includes all teachers and senior pupils wearing face coverings indoors, and one metre physical distancing between all staff, as well as staff and pupils.
But blanket self-isolation for school pupils has been scrapped in an attempt to avoid continued educational disruption: pupils will no longer be required to isolate for 10 days when someone in their bubble tests positive for Covid, as long as they test negative themselves.
Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme this morning, education secretary Shirley Anne Somerville said she could “appreciate why people will be comparing different parts of education to wider society”.
She said the Scottish government had been “keen to look at what could be done to ensure young people don’t have as much disruption to their schools” and that the focus of that had been on changes to self isolation policy.
What we’ve done is say that for the start of the new academic term we’ll be keeping other mitigation measures in place, for example face masks and social distancing, to give that balance of support,. That also gives us a little more time to ensure all teachers and support staff have got their double vaccinations ... Of course we’ll end those as soon as we possibly can.”
UK sending poorer countries 'to back of queue' by ordering 'overpriced' Pfizer boosters
The UK is sending low and middle-income countries who are struggling to access vaccines “to the back of the queue” by ordering millions of “overpriced” booster jabs from Pfizer.
Vaccine equity campaigners from Global Justice Now have criticised the pharmaceutical giant for “profiteering” during the pandemic as the company reportedly increases Covid-19 vaccine prices for the NHS by a fifth from £18 to £22 a dose.
The UK will pay £1bn for 35m doses of Pfizer’s vaccine for booster jabs next year following the “jacking up” of the prices which the group criticised as “shamefully unsurprising” – with the price of Covid jabs already comparatively high with other vaccines.
Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, said:
Not content with profiting £10bn from their vaccine this year, it’s shamefully unsurprising that Pfizer is jacking up its prices for the NHS in the middle of a pandemic. But billions of people remain unvaccinated in countries with health systems that can ill-afford this kind of profiteering. Once again, low and middle-income countries will be sent to the back of the queue while the UK splashes out on overpriced booster jabs.
Yesterday, Prof Sir Andrew Pollard, the head of the Oxford Vaccine Group that developed the AstraZeneca jab, told MPs that for people in Britain to be getting three doses, while people in many parts of the world had not had one, would highlight “a moral failure”.
This morning, Prof Adam Finn, who sits on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said it was still unclear whether all over-50s should be given a third shot. He said a Covid booster jab would probably be required to protect a small number of the most vulnerable people, but a mass rollout may not be needed.
Meanwhile, Danny Altmann, a professor of immunology at Imperial College London, said future variants could mean vaccine immunity may never overcome Covid completely.
Updated
Here’s the full story on the Thai government being forced by a court injunction to rescind an order banning news that “causes public fear”, as it faces growing protests over its handling of the Covid pandemic, from my colleagues Rebecca Ratcliffe and Navaon Siradapuvadol.
China to test mixing inactivated vaccine with DNA-based jab
China’s drug regulator has approved the country’s first mixed-vaccine trial, a company involved in the study has said, amid concern about the efficacy of domestically produced jabs.
AFP reports that the trial will test the efficacy of combining an “inactivated” vaccine made by China’s Sinovac with a DNA-based one developed by US pharmaceutical company Inovio, Advaccine Biopharmaceuticals Suzhou, Inovio’s trial partner in China said.
Preclinical work has found that “two different vaccine applications … produce an even stronger and more balanced immune response”, Advaccine chairman Wang Bin said in the statement.
There are several types of Covid vaccines, including those using an inactivated or weakened virus to generate an immune response, and RNA- or DNA-based jabs that use engineered versions of the coronavirus’ genetic code to create a protein that safely prompts an immune response. Five out of the seven vaccines approved in China are two-shot inactivated vaccines.
The World Health Organization has said there is still not enough data to say whether using two different vaccines together is safe or can boost immunity.
Inovio has not published any efficacy data from its global clinical trials. It is the first DNA-based vaccine to be trialled in China, and it comes as the country battles its worst coronavirus outbreak in months, with officials saying many of those infected had already been vaccinated.
This has added to calls for China’s two biggest vaccine producers – state-run Sinopharm and privately owned Sinovac – to provide data proving their jabs work against the Delta variant, AFP reports. Beijing is yet to approve any foreign vaccines for domestic use.
Hello and greetings to everyone reading, wherever you are in the world. Mattha Busby here to take you through the next few hours of global Covid developments. Thanks to my colleague Miranda Bryant for covering the blog up until now. Please feel free to drop me a line on Twitter or message me via email (mattha.busby.freelance@guardian.co.uk) with any tips or thoughts on our coverage.
Updated
Summary of the latest developments
- French president Emmanuel Macron said that France’s overseas territories, especially the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, are being badly hit by the pandemic. “The situation is dramatic,” he said in opening comments at a virtual meeting with senior cabinet ministers.
- Russia reported 799 Covid deaths on Wednesday – hitting an all-time high for the fourth time in the last month. Meanwhile, there were 21,571 new coronavirus cases, which are gradually declining after peaking last month.
- The Philippines health ministry has reported 12,021 coronavirus cases on Wednesday – the largest single-day increase in four months – and 154 new deaths. Total confirmed cases have grown to more than 1.68 million and the death toll is 29,374.
- Two coronavirus vaccines being developed in Thailand that are administered by nasal spray are to begin human trials by the end of the year. The government said the decision follows promising results from trials with mice.
- From today, Australian citizens and permanent residents who live outside of the country will no longer be automatically exempt from outward travel restrictions and must apply for an exemption. They will have to apply and provide supporting evidence such as a foreign driver’s licence, foreign residency card or utility bills.
- Facebook has said that it has removed hundreds of accounts from Russia that were linked to a marketing firm that tried to recruit social media influencers to push anti-vaccine disinformation about coronavirus. The social media company said on Tuesday that it had banned accounts connected to Fazze, a subsidiary of UK-registered company AdNow, for violating its policy against foreign interference.
- A UK government scientific adviser has said it is unlikely coronavirus will be eradicated entirely and that it is likely to become a seasonal infection. Prof Andrew Hayward, of University College London’s Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care, and the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group, also said the virus would probably continue to mutate which would make herd immunity unlikely.
That’s it from me for now. Handing over to my colleague Mattha Busby. Thanks for reading!
Updated
Ambulance teams in Senegal are struggling with a wave of Covid cases, reports the Associated Press:
The paramedics get the urgent call at 10.30pm: A 25-year-old woman, eight months pregnant and likely suffering from Covid-19, is now having serious trouble breathing.
Yahya Niane grabs two small oxygen cylinders and heads to the ambulance with his team. Upon arrival, they find the young woman’s worried father waving an envelope in front of her mouth, a desperate effort to send more air her way.
Her situation is dire: Niane says Binta Ba needs to undergo a cesarean section right away if they are to save her and the baby. But first they must find a hospital that can take her.
“All the hospitals in Dakar are full so to find a place for someone who is having trouble breathing is very difficult,” he says.
It’s a scenario that has become all too common as Senegal confronts a rapid increase in confirmed coronavirus cases. Instead of motorcycle accidents and heart attacks, the vast majority of ambulance calls in the country’s capital are now Covid-19 cases.
“We have had an influx of calls for respiratory distress,” said Dr Abdallah Wade, head of the regulation department at SAMU, Senegal’s emergency medical service. “We had a few in the first wave, a few in the second wave, but since the beginning of the third wave, 90% of the calls are for respiratory distress.”
During the first year of the pandemic, Senegal was frequently cited as a success story in Africa: After quickly closing the country’s airport and land borders, president Macky Sall mandated mask-wearing and temporarily halted interregional travel.
The delta variant, though, has changed all that. While the country of 16 million people received more 500,000 AstraZeneca vaccines through the UN-backed Covax initiative, the demand has now outstripped the supply leaving many still waiting for their second doses.
Hospital beds, too, are in short supply, leaving Covid-19 patients to languish at home while they wait for a spot or until their condition further deteriorates.
Updated
Macron says France's overseas territories are being badly hit by the pandemic
French president Emmanuel Macron has said that France’s overseas territories, especially the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, are being badly hit by the pandemic.
“The situation is dramatic,” he said in opening comments at a virtual meeting with senior cabinet ministers.
Authorities in Myanmar do not plan to include minority Rohingya Muslims living in closely packed camps in Rakhine State in their vaccination plan, reports Reuters.
The Junta-appointed local administrator Kyaw Lwin told the news agency that the rollout of 10,000 vaccinations for priority groups including elderly and healthcare workers had started in Sittwe township but that there were no plans to vaccinate Muslims living in camps in the state.
“We are only following orders,” he said. “It all depends on how many vaccines we receive and the instructions we get. So far we haven’t received any instructions regarding that.
Updated
Workers returning to offices in the UK are struggling to cope with noise, according to a study.
Research by the Institute of Institute of Workplace and Facilities Management, which spoke to 2,000 adults, were frustrated by the return to office life – including by background noise and inadequate video conferencing facilities.
It found that half believed they were more productive working from home, especially younger workers.
Nearly one in three said they no longer felt comfortable sharing a desk with another person.
Linda Hausmanis, the organisation’s chief executive, said:
We are now at a tipping point, where the majority of us have had the chance to sample working from the office once again.
For far too many this has been a disappointing and frustrating experience. Employers must invest to allow workplaces to reflect new working realities, or risk a calamitous decline in productivity.
As we move into new modes of working, businesses must adapt physical spaces, working culture and supporting technologies.
Updated
Russia reports 799 Covid deaths - hitting all-time high for fourth time in a month
Russia reported 799 Covid deaths on Wednesday – hitting an all-time high for the fourth time in the last month.
Meanwhile, there were 21,571 new coronavirus cases, which are gradually declining after peaking last month, reports Reuters.
Authorities have blamed the surge in infections on the Delta variant.
Updated
Largest single-day increase in Covid cases in Philippines in four months
The Philippines health ministry has reported 12,021 coronavirus cases on Wednesday – the largest single-day increase in four months – and 154 new deaths.
Total confirmed cases have grown to more than 1.68 million and the death toll is 29,374.
Here’s a report from Rebecca Ratcliffe, the Guardian’s south-east Asia correspondent, from Monday on Manila’s lockdown:
Updated
Nasal spray Covid vaccines to start human trials in Thailand by end of year
Two coronavirus vaccines being developed in Thailand that are administered by nasal spray are to begin human trials by the end of the year.
The government said the decision follows promising results from trials with mice.
Developed by the National Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, the vaccines are based on the adenovirus and influenza, reports Reuters.
If human trials, which will also test protection against Delta, are successful, production for wider use could could begin in mid-2022.
Australians living abroad no longer automatically exempt from outward travel restrictions
From today, Australian citizens and permanent residents who live outside of the country will no longer be automatically exempt from outward travel restrictions and must apply for an exemption.
They will have to apply and provide supporting evidence such as a foreign driver’s licence, foreign residency card or utility bills.
There will be a transitional period until 7 September when travellers who arrive without an exemption will be allowed to travel “if their status as ordinarily resident overseas can be confirmed by an ABF officer at departure”.
Updated
A British GP, Dr David Lloyd, has advised people with serious non-Covid health issues to seek medical help now, saying there is a “brief window of opportunity” before a “very difficult winter”.
The doctor, from Harrow in London, told Sky News that rates of infection there are “pretty high”, at 550 per 100,000, with unvaccinated patients ending up in hospital with serious complications.
He said: “Things are pretty all right at the moment, but come the winter I don’t know what’s going to happen, it’s going to be quite interesting.”
"Most health professionals are getting quite concerned."
— Sky News (@SkyNews) August 11, 2021
Dr David Lloyd tells #KayBurley healthcare workers are worried for the winter ahead as #COVID cases and pressure on the NHS remains high.https://t.co/juvFx3QnXv pic.twitter.com/XGq1OJiGRE
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Facebook removes hundreds of accounts from Russia linked to 'disinformation laundromat' spreading anti-vax disinformation
Facebook has said that it has removed hundreds of accounts from Russia that were linked to a marketing firm that tried to recruit social media influencers to push anti-vaccine disinformation about coronavirus.
The social media company said on Tuesday that it had banned accounts connected to Fazze, a subsidiary of UK-registered company AdNow, for violating its policy against foreign interference.
Facebook said the campaign, which investigators called a “disinformation laundromat”, targeted audiences largely in India, Latin America and the US.
It said it created misleading articles and petitions on forums like Reddit, Medium and Change.org and used fake accounts on Facebook and Instagram to promote them.
Updated
UK government adviser says coronavirus unlikely to be eradicated and will become a seasonal infection
A UK government scientific adviser has said it is unlikely that coronavirus will be eradicated entirely and that it is likely to become a seasonal infection.
Prof Andrew Hayward, of University College London’s Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care, and the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group, also said that the virus would probably continue to mutate which would make herd immunity unlikely.
He BBC Radio 4’s Today:
I think the nature of this infection and the nature of the vaccines is such that the level of immunity that is achieved is not enough to consider that.
If someone could come up with a vaccine that was not only 95% protective against severe disease but 95% protective against infection then, yes, we would stand a chance of eradicating it.
He added:
It is a pretty distant prospect and we need to get used to the concept that this will become what we call an endemic disease rather than a pandemic disease.
A disease that is with us all the time - probably transmits seasonally a bit like influenza where we see winter outbreaks.
Sri Lanka reported 2,904 new coronavirus cases and 118 deaths on Tuesday, reports the Colombo Page.
Citing Epidemiology Unit figures, it said that so far 11,260,795 people have had a first dose of the vaccine and 2,249,678 have had a second.
It came as Sri Lanka’s government on Tuesday rejected calls for a lockdown to tackle a Covid “bomb”.
Government spokesman and media minister, Keheliya Rambukwella, said the country had not reached a critical stage, reported AFP.
“Curfews or a lockdown is the last resort, but we are not there yet,” he said. “Our target is to get everyone over the age of 18 vaccinated by September and thereafter it is in the hands of the gods.”
But the Sri Lanka Medical Association issued a “final warning” to the government to implement a lockdown for at least two weeks or face a bigger crisis.
Russia’s health minister, Mikhail Murashko, has said the Sputnik V vaccine is “around 83%” effective against the Delta variant – less than was previously thought.
In June, vaccine developers said it was about 90% effective against Delta.
Russia has recorded nearly 6.5 million infections since the beginning of the pandemic, reports Reuters.
Updated
Third coronavirus jab 'quite likely' for immunosuppressed in UK but uncertain for over-50s, says expert
A UK government scientific adviser has said a third jab will be “quite likely” for people with a weak immune system, but it’s still uncertain that over-50s will be offered one.
Prof Adam Finn, who is on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) advising the government on vaccination, said he expects people who are immunosuppressed to be offered a third dose. But, he said, plans for a “broader booster programme is still uncertain”.
He said the JCVI has been asked to advise the government on who might be given a booster “if it proves necessary”.
He told BBC Breakfast:
I think it’s becoming quite clear that there are a small group of people whose immune responses to the first two doses are likely to be inadequate – people who’ve got immunosuppression of one kind or another, perhaps because they’ve got immunodeficiency or they’ve been receiving treatment for cancer or bone marrow transplants or organ transplants, that kind of thing.
I think it’s quite likely we’ll be advising on a third dose for some of those groups.
A broader booster programme is still uncertain. We’ve laid out potential plans so that the logistics of that can be put together, alongside the flu vaccine programme.
We need to review evidence as to whether people who receive vaccines early on in the programme are in any serious risk of getting serious disease and whether the protection they’ve got from those first two doses is still strong – we clearly don’t want to be giving vaccines to people that don’t need them.
Updated
Iran is experiencing its worst coronavirus surge yet, with anger growing as other countries get vaccinated and no longer have to wear face masks.
Here’s the latest from Jon Gambrell at the Associated Press:
Iranians are suffering through yet another surge in the coronavirus pandemic – their country’s worst yet – and anger is growing at images of vaccinated westerners without face masks on the internet or on TV while they remain unable to get the shots.
Iran, like much of the world, remains far behind countries like the US in vaccinating its public, with only 3 million of its more than 80 million people having received both vaccine doses. But while some countries face poverty or other challenges in obtaining vaccines, Iran has brought some of the problems on itself.
After Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, refused to accept vaccine donations from western countries, the Islamic Republic has sought to make the shots domestically, though that process lags far behind other nations.
The supply of non-western shots remains low, creating a black market offering Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech shots for as much as $1,350 in a country where the currency, the Iranian rial, is on the verge of collapse. Meanwhile, US sanctions imposed on Iran mean the cash-strapped government has limited funds to purchase vaccines abroad.
And even as the delta variant wreaks havoc, filling the country’s already overwhelmed hospitals, many Iranians have given up on wearing masks and staying at home.
The need to earn a living trumps the luxury of social distancing.
“What is next? A sixth wave? A seventh wave? When is it going to end?” asked Reza Ghasemi, a 27-year-old delivery man without a face mask, smoking a cigarette next to his motorbike on a recent day in Tehran. “It is not clear when this situation will change to a better one.”
Since the start of the pandemic, Iran has recorded nearly 4 million Covid-19 cases and more than 91,000 deaths – the highest numbers across the Middle East.
The true count is believed to be much higher.
Hi, I’m looking after the blog for the next few hours. Please get in touch with any questions or tips: miranda.bryant@guardian.co.uk
Updated
WHO calls for end to ‘disgraceful’ vaccine inequity
The World Health Organization has urged the 20 most powerful world leaders to overturn the “disgraceful” global imbalance in access to Covid-19 vaccines to reverse the tide before October, AFP reports.
The WHO’s Bruce Aylward said the world should be “disgusted” - and asked whether the situation could have been any worse had there been an active effort to block the planet’s poor from getting vaccinated.
The UN health agency has been increasingly infuriated by what it sees as the moral outrage of rich countries hogging vaccine supply while developing nations struggle to immunise their most vulnerable populations.
Aylward, the WHO’s frontman on accessing the tools to fight the coronavirus pandemic, urged people to tell politicians and business tycoons that it was electorally and financially safe to increase vaccine coverage in poorer nations.
Updated
South Korea reports record new cases
South Korea reported more than 2,200 new daily Covid cases, a record since the pandemic began last January, health minister Kwon Deok-cheol said on Wednesday, as the country grapples with its most severe coronavirus outbreak.
Despite having distancing measures in place for over a month, infections have spiked due to the spread of the more transmissible Delta variant and a rise in domestic travel over summer, Kwon told a Covid response meeting.
He also noted a rise in so-called “silent spreaders” within communities such as workplaces, indoor gyms, churches and nursing homes, leading to an increase in infections of unknown origin.
South Korea has been struggling since July to tame sporadic outbreaks of Covid that were at first centred largely on metropolitan Seoul but have since spread nationwide.
Updated
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
South Korea reported more than 2,200 new daily cases, a record since the pandemic began last January, health minister Kwon Deok-cheol said on Wednesday, as the country grapples with its most severe coronavirus outbreak.
The World Health Organization has urged the 20 most powerful world leaders to overturn the “disgraceful” global imbalance in access to Covid-19 vaccines to reverse the tide before October.
-
The World Health Organization has urged the 20 most powerful world leaders to overturn the “disgraceful” global imbalance in access to Covid-19 vaccines in order to reverse the tide before October.
- The UK health secretary, Sajid Javid, said preparations are being made to offer Covid booster jabs in the UK from next month, but a leading expert suggested that such a move would not be supported by the science and that it was likely to be unnecessary.
- Reaching herd immunity is “not a possibility” with the current Delta variant, Pollard told MPs, since the vaccines do not stop the spread of Covid. Therefore reaching the threshold for overall immunity in the population is “mythical”, although the existing vaccines are very effective at preventing serious Covid illness and death, he said.
- Germany’s leaders are expected to set out new coronavirus regulations for the coming months, including abolishing free testing to incentivise people to get vaccinated. The unvaccinated will be expected to undergo tests which they must pay for themselves as a condition for attending all manner of events, from indoor gatherings to restaurant visits to church services.
- Thailand’s government backed down from widely criticised regulations that would enable it to prosecute people for distributing “news that may cause public fear”.
- Also in the south-east Asian country today, police fired teargas and rubber bullets at protesters calling for the government to resign over its handing of the pandemic. Lines of police, backed by trucks spraying jets from water cannons, fired teargas and rubber bullets at scores of demonstrators in Bangkok, as they threw rocks and fireworks and set fire to a traffic police booth.
- Myanmar’s army has carried out at least 252 attacks and threats against health workers since the February coup, killing at least 25 medics and hampering the response to a resurgent outbreak of Covid-19, rights groups have said.
- Donald Trump was “afraid” when he put on a display of bravado at the White House after being treated for a severe coronavirus infection, his estranged niece Mary Trump has claimed.
Updated
