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A summary of today's developments
- Boris Johnson has said the UK needs to “go faster” with the vaccination of 16- to 17-year olds, despite a “strong” uptake within the age group.
- The US plans to invest $3bn (£2.2bn) in the vaccine supply chain as it continues to work to position the United States as a leading supplier of vaccines for the world, Reuters reports.
- A decision on extending Covid vaccinations to 12- to 15-year-olds is expected to be announced imminently, the Guardian understands.
- The European Union has agreed to send millions of coronavirus vaccine doses made in South Africa back to the continent, AFP reports.
- Schoolchildren in France returned from their summer holidays to be told to get vaccinated by headteachers and the French president Emmanuel Macron.
Mexico posted 18,138 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 as well as 993 more deaths on Thursday, Reuters reported.
The latest figures brought the total number of infections in the country to 3,387,885 and the death toll to 261,496, according to health ministry data.
The European Union has agreed to send millions of coronavirus vaccine doses made in South Africa back to the continent, AFP reports.
South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare, which produces the Johnson & Johnson vaccine under a contract with the US pharma giant, will also stop sending doses to Europe, Strive Masiyiwa told reporters at an online briefing.
The African Union’s special Covid envoy said that Aspen’s arrangement to export the doses to Europe had been “suspended”.
The envoy added:
All the vaccines produced at Aspen will stay in Africa and be distributed to Africa.
This issue has been corrected and corrected in a very positive way.
The announcement came with Africa struggling to immunise its people against Covid-19, which AFP wrote was partly because of a lack of supply and widespread vaccine hesitancy.
The US plans to invest $3bn (£2.2bn) in the vaccine supply chain as it continues to work to position the United States as a leading supplier of vaccines for the world, Reuters reports.
White House Covid adviser Jeffrey Zients, a top US health official said during a news conference on Thursday that the funding will focus on manufacturers of the inputs used in Covid-19 vaccine production as well as facilities that fill and package vaccine vials, and will begin to be distributed in the coming weeks.
The US has administered 372,116,617 doses of Covid-19 vaccines in the country as of Thursday morning and distributed 445,672,595 doses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.
Those figures are up from the 371,280,129 vaccine doses the CDC said had gone into arms by September 1 out of the 443,741,705 doses delivered, Reuters reported.
Updated
Boris Johnson has said the UK needs to “go faster” with the vaccination of 16- to 17-year olds, despite a “strong” uptake within the age group.
The prime minister told reporters at Merville Barracks in Colchester that the eligible teenagers were “a very important group for potential transmission”, PA Media reports.
Figures show that almost two-thirds of 16 and 17-year-olds in Wales have had a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, and half of this age group in England and Scotland have been jabbed.
The figure is 40% in Northern Ireland.
Boris Johnson said:
I would urge all 16- to 17-year-olds, everybody who knows 16- to 17-year-olds - the numbers are coming up very fast now, it is very encouraging to see more and more 16- to 17-year-olds taking the jab - but we need to go faster with those.
There are still some who need that protection and I would just urge everybody who hasn’t yet had a jab to go and get one.
Updated
A decision on extending Covid vaccinations to 12- to 15-year-olds is expected to be announced imminently, the Guardian understands.
The anticipated announcement will follow days of increasing pressure on the government’s vaccinations watchdog to approve the idea.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) held a long discussion on the issue today, followed by a vote.
While officials and scientists would not comment before a formal announcement, which could come as early as Friday, ministers are known to be hugely keen to press ahead with the programme, with the bulk of English schools returning this week.
Summary
Here is another brief round-up of the main coronavirus talking points from today:
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The UK reported 38,154 new Covid cases on Thursday and 178 more deaths within 28 days of a positive test, according to official data.
- Members of the UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) have been sent suspicious packages and hate mail throughout the pandemic, one of the UK’s leading virologists has revealed.
- In Greece, unvaccinated healthcare workers have been offered a second chance to get jabbed after hundreds protested against the mandatory shot.
- Philippines’ president Rodrigo Duterte has denied allegations that medical supplies such as personal protective equipment and face masks were overpriced.
- The African Union’s Covid envoy has announced that vaccine doses produced by a plant in South Africa will no longer be exported to Europe.
- In Bulgaria, restaurants and bars will have to close at 10pm from 7 September, while indoors sports will have to be held without spectators.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for today. My colleague Charlie Moloney will be taking over the blog to bring you all the latest Covid news for the rest of this evening.
Philippines’ president Rodrigo Duterte has denied allegations that medical supplies such as personal protective equipment and face masks were overpriced, lashing out at lawmakers probing government officials over emergency purchases last year.
The leader’s administration is facing growing criticism over its handling of one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in Asia.
“At the height of the pandemic, when it began, we had nothing,” Duterte said in a weekly late-night national address. “It was costly because of lack of supply.”
Opposition lawmakers questioned the government’s emergency deals to buy medical supplies from a lowly-capitalised company with links to government officials.
In Australia, the Kimberley Aboriginal Medical Services has written to local churches asking them to counter dangerous misinformation promoting vaccine hesitancy among Aboriginal communities.
It comes after the Western Australian senator Pat Dodson condemned the “evil” messages of a small number of rogue Christian groups, which are fuelling anti-vaccination sentiment in the Kimberley.
Vicki O’Donnell, the chief executive of Kimberley Aboriginal Medical Services (KAMS), said that while some communities in the area had high rates of vaccinations, there was “resistance in some communities due to religious groups and the misinformation that they’re providing”.
“The messaging is that you don’t need to have the vaccine because God’s going to save you,” she told Guardian Australia, adding:
I’m Catholic, and I have the utmost respect for religious groups, but at the end of the day if you’re not vaccinated God isn’t going to help you because you’re going to end up very sick and you’re going to die. And that’s the reality.
In Greece, unvaccinated healthcare workers have been offered a second chance to get jabbed after hundreds protested against the mandatory shot.
The government also said it would allow those who have been already suspended to return to work amid protests in central Athens on Thursday.
Greece has suspended nearly 6,000 frontline health care workers who missed a September 1 deadline to get at least one vaccine shot from their jobs, a government official told Reuters.
The news agency reported:
Hundreds of those workers staged a five-hour work stoppage on Thursday and took to the streets in Athens and other Greek cities for a second time in less than a month to protest against the new rule.
A labour union official for hospital workers POEDIN said that a total of 10,000 unvaccinated staff could be suspended, disrupting operations at understaffed Greek hospitals at a time when infections remained high and were likely to rise further.
“We have worked so hard during the pandemic and this is what we get,” said protester Anna Haritou, who worked as a midwife at an Athens hospital until she was suspended on Wednesday.
Attempting to ease any fallout, the government said legislation would be amended to allow workers be removed from suspension and get back to their jobs immediately as long as they got the first dose in the coming days.
The main condition is that they complete both of their vaccinations.
There is “almost certainly no urgency” to press ahead with booster shots for healthy adults and it may be better to see how the pandemic pans out before deciding, the scientist leading key research into third shots has said.
Prof Saul Faust, chief investigator of the Cov-Boost study whose data next week is expected to help inform a decision on the rollout of boosters across the UK, told the Guardian that for now it may be preferable to prioritise only the vulnerable, including those with compromised immune systems.
Meanwhile, some scientists said booster shots may be useful for routine use even among highly vaccinated populations to reduce Covid transmission, especially given the prevalence of the Delta variant.
On Thursday, scientists including Prof Neil Ferguson suggested that even if evidence did not yet show waning protection in the double-vaccinated against serious illness and death, booster shots could help reduce the spread of cases.
Members of the UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) have been sent suspicious packages and hate mail throughout the pandemic, one of the UK’s leading virologists has revealed.
Prof Calum Semple, a member of Sage and the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), said the incidents of abuse included one “particularly nasty” experience when he was targeted by anti-vaxxers.
Semple, a professor of child health and outbreak medicine at the University of Liverpool, has regularly appeared on television and radio to be interviewed about Covid since the pandemic began.
He said during this time he and his colleagues on Sage had “attracted adverse attention” from people frustrated by the government’s response to Covid. He added:
I’ve never been at a Sage meeting where we’ve sat around drinking coffee saying ‘wouldn’t it be a jolly good idea if we closed the pubs?’ That conversation has never and will never happen.
It’s about what is the likely contribution of construction versus schools versus large matches, and that’s where you can then present a menu of likely impacts, and then it’s for policymakers to make the decisions, but we’re not a talking shop or we’re not a suggestion box or a brains trust, it’s very much about dealing with inadequate information and giving best opinion.
Updated
Summary
Here is a brief summary of the main Covid headlines from around the world this afternoon:
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The UK reported 38,154 new Covid cases on Thursday and 178 more deaths within 28 days of a positive test, according to official data.
- In Italy, the prime minister, Mario Draghi, has predicted 80% of people aged 12 and above will have been vaccinated by the end of September.
- The African Union’s Covid envoy has announced that vaccine doses produced by a plant in South Africa will no longer be exported to Europe.
- In Bulgaria, restaurants and bars will have to close at 10pm from 7 September, while indoors sports will have to be held without spectators.
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Booster shots may be useful even among highly vaccinated populations to reduce Covid transmission, especially given the prevalence of the Delta variant, scientists have said.
- Hundreds of healthcare workers in Greece marched through Athens this morning to protest against mandatory Covid vaccines for anyone working in their sector.
- Schoolchildren in France returned today from their summer holidays to be told to get vaccinated by headteachers and the French president Emmanuel Macron.
Schoolchildren in France returned today from their summer holidays to be told to get vaccinated by headteachers and the French president Emmanuel Macron.
Some 12 million pupils went back to the classroom on Thursday - but only about 47% of 12-to-17-year-olds are fully vaccinated, a concern for the spread of the coronavirus and for how long classes can remain open.
Macron told French children in a video posted on social media:
You need to keep getting vaccinated, and you need, even if I know it’s a bit unpleasant, to continue wearing a mask in the classroom, wash your hands and keep your distance.
Bonne rentrée ! pic.twitter.com/IwYW5qVZcz
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) September 2, 2021
He also visited a classroom in Marseille, where he chatted with children - with one asking him if nasal swabs for Covid go all the way into the brain, according to a Reuters reporter.
In the Rodin high school in central Paris, there was the same pro-vaccination message.
School principal Julie Bouvry told pupils as they arrived for their first day back:
I encourage you to get vaccinated, with the two doses, so that we can have a good year, all together. That’s the objective.
Pivoting back to that Mario Draghi press conference in Italy, his health minister, Roberto Speranza, has just said that the Italian government is planning to start administering a third Covid vaccine shot later this month.
Speaking alongside his prime minister, Speranza said the third jab would be made available to people with the most fragile immune systems.
Draghi also said Italy might make inoculations obligatory for everyone once the anti-Covid vaccines had been given full approval by EU and Italian regulators.
Italy reported 62 coronavirus-related deaths on Thursday, down from 69 the previous day, while the daily tally of new infections rose to 6,761 from 6,503, the health ministry said.
A total of 129,352 deaths linked to Covid have been registered in Italy since its outbreak emerged in February last year.
That is the second-highest tally in Europe behind Britain and the ninth-highest globally. Italy has reported 4.55 million cases to date.
Updated
Britain confirms 38,154 new Covid cases, 178 more deaths
The UK reported 38,154 new Covid cases on Thursday and 178 more deaths within 28 days of a positive test, according to official data.
The figures compared with 35,693 new cases on Wednesday, when 207 deaths were reported, the highest number recorded since early March.
Updated
In Italy, the prime minister, Mario Draghi, has predicted 80% of people aged 12 and above will have been vaccinated by the end of September.
He added that the government’s main priority was to make sure students were able to return to the classroom for direct lessons, the Reuters news agency reported.
He made the remarks in a press conference on Thursday, where he also pledged to extend the use of the Covid “green pass” in Italy – a move which has prompted protests around the country.
Draghi also claimed the Italian economy is growing much faster than expected, but it needs to be transformed to be able to expand at a consistently faster pace in the coming year.
Speaking at a news conference to mark the end of the summer break, Draghi said the first half of 2022 would be crucial to see if the hoped-for economic transformation was taking shape.
Updated
Booster shots may be useful even among highly vaccinated populations to reduce Covid transmission, especially given the prevalence of the Delta variant, scientists have said.
No decision has yet been made on booster jabs for routine use in the UK amid a debate over the pros and cons of implementing such a strategy.
The Guardian understands it will be announced next week at the earliest, though it could take longer.
On Thursday, scientists including Prof Neil Ferguson suggested that even if evidence did not yet show waning protection in the double-vaccinated against serious illness and death, booster shots could work to reduce the spread of cases.
High numbers of cases increase the risk to unvaccinated or otherwise vulnerable people, and could lead to the emergence of new variants.
Last week, there were an average of more than 33,750 daily cases across the UK compared to fewer than 1,400 at the same time last year – before the rise of the highly infectious Delta variant and before all restrictions had been eased – and 61,000 at the peak in January.
With nearly 80% of UK adults having received two vaccine doses, hospitalisations and deaths are far lower than at their peak.
Updated
Vietnam could be facing a “long battle” against Covid as it faces its deadliest outbreak so far, the country’s prime minister has said.
Pham Minh Chinh added that Vietnam will not be able to rely on lockdown and quarantine methods “indefinitely” because of the damage it will do to “people and the economy”.
It has deployed soldiers in recent weeks, as well as forcing residents of its biggest city to stay in their homes, in its most drastic measures yet to fight the outbreak.
The Reuters news agency said aggressive contact tracing and quarantine procedures in the country of 98 million people had succeeded in keeping the virus under control for over a year, but the highly contagious Delta variant has hit Vietnam hard.
Total cases jumped from just a few thousand in late April to 480,000 at present, with more than 12,000 deaths, with Ho Chi Minh City by far the worst hit. Authorities reported 13,197 infections and 271 fatalities on Thursday.
Meanwhile in Wales, almost two-thirds of 16- and 17-year-olds have received a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine.
This is in contrast to half of this age group in England having been jabbed, while the figure is just 40% in Northern Ireland.
It comes as pupils return to schools and colleges amid uncertainty around how the new term might affect the spread of the virus.
In Scotland, the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has said a recent rise in cases is thought to be “in part” attributable to the reopening of schools for the new academic year last month.
NHS England said more than 620,000 young people aged 16 and 17 had now been jabbed, less than a month after becoming eligible. In Wales, 63% of the age group have had one jab.
Dr Nikki Kanani, GP and deputy lead for NHS England’s vaccination programme, told PA Media:
Uptake among young people continues to be strong and thanks to the non-stop efforts of NHS staff and volunteers, half of all 16 and 17-year-olds have had their vaccine since becoming eligible last month, giving them the best possible protection against coronavirus.
As school and college terms are due to start back shortly, it is really important that young people continue to come forward for their life-saving vaccine and visit the NHS grab-a-jab finder to find a convenient site, with walk-in vaccinations taking place at nightclubs, university campuses and places of worship this weekend.
It has never been easier to drop in and get your vaccine: it is safe, effective and will provide vital protection for you and your family and friends.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) advised on 4 August that all 16 and 17-year-olds should be given a first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
Updated
In Scotland, opposition parties have said the Scottish government’s proposals for vaccine passports are an infringement of civil liberties as sports and industry leaders described them as unworkable and a threat to livelihoods.
On Wednesday, Nicola Sturgeon set out plans to require vaccine certificates for entry to nightclubs and large-scale indoor and outdoor events in an attempt to curb rising Covid infections before the autumn.
John Swinney, the deputy first minister, had previously described passports as “the wrong way to go”, while the Scottish Greens – who last week entered a power-sharing agreement with the Scottish government – described them as “discriminatory”.
Douglas Ross, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, told the Holyrood chamber at first minister’s questions on Thursday that the proposal represented “shambolic, last-minute, kneejerk decision-making” and suggested that tensions were already emerging between the SNP and the Scottish Greens.
Sturgeon replied that she believed businesses were showing “understanding and pragmatism … in recognition of the severity of the situation we face”.
Updated
Cyprus has said it will start giving a booster Covid vaccines to vulnerable groups, the country’s health minister Michalis Hadjipantelas said on Thursday.
The booster jab will be available to people in care homes, those aged over-65, people with “compromised immune systems” and healthcare workers where six months have passed since their last shot, Mr Hadjipantelas told journalists after a cabinet meeting.
He is reported by the Reuters news agency to have said:
Its imperative that we complete building a wall of immunity.
Cyprus has registered 507 deaths and 114,131 cases of coronavirus since the first outbreak in March 2020. Some 74% of the population had completed their inoculation by 31 August.
Updated
In case you missed it earlier, here is a video of Prince Harry blaming overwhelming “mass-scale misinformation” for Covid vaccine hesitancy.
He urged governments to address vaccine inequality in poorer countries as he presented an award to the team behind the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab.
Prince Harry warned: “Until every community can access the vaccine and until every community is connected to trustworthy information about the vaccine, then we are all at risk.”
Hundreds of healthcare workers in Greece marched through Athens this morning to protest against mandatory Covid vaccines for anyone working in their sector.
The regulation came into effect yesterday and any healthcare worker who isn’t vaccinated against Covid or recovered from the disease within the past six months will be suspended from work without pay.
About 400 protesters marched outside the health ministry in the centre of the Greek capital, before marching to parliament accompanied by about a dozen ambulances, reports the Associated Press.
They say they are not against vaccinations, but object to making them compulsory, saying the measure will lead to staff shortages.
The Greek government claims is necessary to protect the most vulnerable amid a third surge of Covid infections in the country.
More than 5.7 million people are fully vaccinated in Greece, a country of about 11 million.
Updated
Bulgaria tightens Covid restrictions ahead of predicted rise in cases
In Bulgaria, restaurants and bars will have to close at 10pm from 7 September, while indoors sports will have to be held without spectators.
The new restrictions come as the Balkan country prepares for an expected surge in coronavirus cases.
Bulgaria is the least vaccinated country in the European Union, reports the Reuters news agency, and has seen a significant spike in infections in recent weeks.
Like elsewhere on the continent, it has been caused by the highly transmissible Delta variant.
On Thursday the country registered 1,745 new cases, bringing its tally of active infections to some 32,192.
Some 18,950 people have died since the beginning of the pandemic, with 54 more deaths reported on Thursday in the country with the highest mortality rate in the European Union, figures from Our World in Data showed.
Interim health minister Stoicho Katsarov encouraged Bulgarians to get vaccinated and told reporters:
There is no place for panic. The situation is serious, but not out of control.
The low percentage of vaccinations forces us to impose these measures.
Updated
Vaccines produced at South African plant will not be sent out of Africa
The African Union’s Covid envoy has announced that vaccine doses produced by a plant in South Africa will no longer be exported to Europe.
It comes following an intervention from South Africa’s government to keep and distribute shots in Africa. The Associated Press reports:
Strive Masiyiwa told reporters that South African drug manufacturer Aspen, which has a contract with Johnson & Johnson to manufacture the ingredients of its vaccine, will no longer ship vaccine doses out of the continent and that millions of doses warehoused in Europe will be returned to the continent.
“That arrangement has been suspended,” he said, adding that J&J doses produced in South Africa “will stay in Africa and will be distributed in Africa.”
He said the issue had been “corrected in a positive way,” with Aspen’s arrangement with Johnson & Johnson changing from a contract deal to “a licensed arrangement” similar to the production in India of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Johnson & Johnson was criticised for shipping doses to countries in Europe, which have already immunised large numbers of people and have even donated vaccines to other countries.
Updated
Doctors in Brussels, Belgium, will be able to prescribe museum visits as part a three-month trial designed to rebuild mental health amid the Covid pandemic.
Patients being treated for stress at Brugmann hospital, one of the largest in the Belgian capital, will be offered free visits to five public museums in the city, covering subjects from fashion to sewage.
The results of the pilot will be published next year with the intention that the initiative can be rolled out further if successful in alleviating symptoms of burnout and other forms of psychiatric distress.
Delphine Houba, the alderman responsible for culture in Brussels, said she had been inspired by a scheme in Quebec, Canada, where doctors can prescribe up to 50 museum visits a year to patients.
In the Brussels pilot, accompanied visits will be prescribed to individuals and groups of in-patients at Brugmann hospital. Houba told the Belgian newspaper L’Echo:
The Covid crisis, accentuating stress, burnout and other pathologies, has confirmed the relevance of such a project.
Good morning. Tom Ambrose here, taking over the blog for the next eight hours.
We start with some breaking news that Norway will begin to offer Covid vaccines to children aged 12 to 15, its prime minister, Erna Solberg, said on Thursday.
The country is currently experiencing a sharp increase in infections, particularly among young people.
Some 72% of all Norwegians have now received a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine and 57% of the population is fully vaccinated, according to the Institute of Public Health.
Updated
Summary
That’s it from me, Robyn Vinter. Here’s a quick summary of the day’s events, as I hand over to my colleague Tom Ambrose.
- The World Health Organization has added another version of coronavirus, the Mu variant, to its list of “variants of interest” amid concerns that it may partially evade the immunity people have developed from past infection or vaccination.
- India reported the biggest single-day rise in Covid-19 cases in two months today, as the government worries about the virus spreading from the most-affected Kerala state, schools reopening, and the start of the festival season.
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Being double-jabbed almost halves the likelihood of long Covid in adults who get coronavirus, a new study from King’s College London has suggested.
- Taiwan received its first batch of Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccines on Thursday, a delivery organised by two tech giants and a charity because of diplomatic pressure from China.
- The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said there was no urgent need for the administration of booster doses of Covid-19 vaccines to fully vaccinated individuals based on available data on vaccine effectiveness, Reuters reports.
- Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, said people will have to show digital proof of vaccination to enter a wide range of establishments, dropping earlier opposition to the idea. From 22 September people will need proof of full vaccination to visit bars, restaurants, nightclubs and indoor sporting facilities.
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Egypt has set out its ambitions to manufacture 1bn doses of China’s Sinovac vaccine annually, claiming it will become the “biggest vaccine producer” in the Middle East and Africa. Two factories will produce doses to cover domestic demand as well as for export across the region.
- About 10,000 unvaccinated health workers in Greece – 10% of the sector’s workforce – are facing suspension, a union has said. The Greek parliament in July passed legislation to make vaccinations mandatory for health staff from 1 September, leading to protests outside hospitals across the country.
- Contaminants found last week in suspended Moderna vaccines in Japan were particles of stainless steel, the health ministry has said, adding that it did not expect they would pose health risks.
- Cuba plans to vaccinate children aged two to 18 with its domestically developed Soberana-2 vaccine as the country tries to reach inoculation levels of 90% by December.
The suicide rate in England and Wales fell during the first national coronavirus lockdown, analysis of death registrations suggests.
Some 1,603 suicides occurred between April and July 2020, around three-quarters of which were of males, according to analysis of provisional data by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
This is down 18% from the same period in 2019 and 12.7% below the average for the previous five years, PA reports.
It equates to a mortality rate of 9.2 deaths per 100,000 people - significantly lower than rates for the same period in the previous three years, but similar to the 2016 rate. The fall was primarily fuelled by a drop in the male suicide rate (to 13.9 deaths per 100,000 males), while the female rate remained at a similar level (4.7 deaths per 100,000 females).
The ONS said the findings are consistent with more contemporaneous surveillance, and research on other countries such as the US, Germany, Japan and Australia.
Updated
Four out of five (83%) adults arriving in England between 12 and 17 July from an amber list location fully adhered to coronavirus quarantine requirements, according to a survey by the Office for National Statistics.
During this period, people arrivals from an amber tier location were required to quarantine for 10 days unless they were exempt due to their job, or they took part in the test-to-release scheme.
Some 91% of respondents said they took both of the required day-two and day-eight coronavirus tests.
Updated
Restaurants and bars in Bulgaria will have to close at 10pm from 7 September, while indoor sports competitions will be held without spectators, the health minister said on Thursday, as the Balkan country braces for a surge of new coronavirus infections.
Bulgaria, the least vaccinated country against coronavirus in the European Union, has recorded a rise in infections in recent weeks, mostly of the highly infectious Delta variant.
On Thursday alone the country of 7 million people registered some 1,745 new cases, bringing its tally of active infections to 32,192.
Some 18,950 people have died since the beginning of the pandemic, with 54 more deaths reported on Thursday in the country with the highest mortality rate in the European Union, figures from Our World in Data showed.
Interim health minister Stoicho Katsarov told reporters:
There is no place for panic. The situation is serious, but not out of control. The low percentage of vaccinations forces us to impose these measures.
He appealed again for Bulgarians to get vaccinated.
Under the new restrictions, which will be in force until the end of October, music festivals will be banned, while cinemas and theatres will have to operate at 50% capacity.
Students will be allowed to attend classes when the school year begins on 15 September, Katsarov said, but he warned that if the infections continue to rise, they may have to switch to online studies.
Updated
The Duke of Sussex has blamed “mass-scale misinformation” for Covid vaccine hesitancy.
Prince Harry made a surprise virtual appearance at the GQ Men of the Year awards, where he presented a prize to Prof Dame Sarah Gilbert, Prof Catherine Green and the team behind the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.
Vaccinated travellers from all international destinations now no longer need to quarantine at Abu Dhabi, a spokesman for the United Arab Emirates capital has said.
More on the UK government’s plans for Covid booster jabs here from Damien Gayle:
Long Covid was estimated to be adversely affecting the day-to-day activities of 643,000 people in the UK - around two-thirds of those with self-reported long Covid - with 188,000 reporting that their ability to undertake day-to-day activities had been “limited a lot”, the ONS said.
Fatigue was the most common symptom (experienced by 58% of those with self-reported long Covid), followed by shortness of breath (42%), muscle ache (32%) and difficulty concentrating (31%).
Joe Rogan, the host of Spotify’s most popular podcast, has contracted Covid, he announced on Wednesday. He says he is feeling better – but his health update undoubtedly made health experts instantly sick.
On Instagram, the podcaster, who professes not to be “an authority on health” but has discouraged young people from getting the coronavirus vaccine, said that he had “immediately thrown the kitchen sink” at his infection. Among the many medications he used, he said, was ivermectin, a drug used to deworm horses.
A really fascinating inside look here at how the UK’s National Health Service is coping with the backlog of appointments, from the Guardian’s health policy editor, Denis Campbell:
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Twelve million French children headed back to school today, wearing facemasks, using sanitiser at the entrance and standing distanced from each other in the yard under strict government rules aimed at curbing the spread of Covid-19, Reuters reports.
“This is very different from usual ‘back-to-school’ days,” said Matthieu Seguin, deputy director of the Rodin high school in central Paris, also pointing out air purifiers in classrooms and spare masks for any pupils that had forgotten theirs.
With inoculations now also available for children from age 12, and pupils encouraged to get their shots, Seguin said his school might become a vaccination centre.
Eleven-year-old Louise admitted being a bit nervous for her first day at a big school but said she couldn’t wait to get her shot. “I really want to get vaccinated,” she said.
For others, the focus was different: “I’m really happy because I will discover high school and be back with my buddies,” 11-year-old Eli said.
The daily average Covid-19 contagion rate has slowed in France, and the government aims to administer a third vaccine shot to some 18 million people by early 2022, a health ministry official said on Tuesday.
WHO monitoring new coronavirus variant named Mu
The World Health Organization has added another version of coronavirus to its list of “variants of interest” amid concerns that it may partially evade the immunity people have developed from past infection or vaccination.
The Mu variant, also known as B.1.621, was added to the WHO’s watchlist on 30 August after it was detected in 39 countries and found to possess a cluster of mutations that may make it less susceptible to the immune protection many have acquired.
New South Wales premier says ‘people will die’ when Australian state reopens as 1,288 new cases reported
The New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, says older Australians should already be fully vaccinated against Covid due to the “ample” supply of AstraZeneca and the community needs to accept that when the state reopens “unfortunately people will die”.
The percentage of the adult population in NSW to have received their first dose has now reached 70%, with authorities pushing to double vaccinate that proportion and introduce some freedoms.
A really interesting feature here from Phillip Inman. The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, wants to spread “common prosperity” but Covid and material shortages could spell trouble.
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Canada is donating more than 40 million vaccine doses to Covax, the international vaccination programme, Reuters reports. Nigeria, Kenya and Niger will be the first to receive doses.
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Footfall in UK high streets and retail parks last month hit its highest level since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic as increased domestic tourism boosted consumer activity.
Data from the retail tracker Springboard found the number of consumers visiting bricks-and-mortar shopping outlets rose by a quarter in August, helped by people choosing to take holidays at home this summer.
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Tasmania’s flagship gallery, the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona), has become the first cultural institution in Australia to compel employees to get vaccinated against Covid-19.
In a memo issued to staff on Thursday, Mona’s idiosyncratic owner David Walsh utilised a dissident Soviet writer (“A society with unlimited rights is incapable of standing to adversity” – Alexander Solzhenitsyn) and a circular discourse on the importance of obeying traffic lights to explain why he was compelling his employees to get the jab if they wanted to keep their jobs.
The UK education secretary, Gavin Williamson, heaped pressure on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) to make a decision on vaccinating 12 to 15-year-olds “very, very soon”.
He told BBC Breakfast:
I think parents would find it deeply reassuring to have a choice of whether their children should have a vaccine or not.
We obviously wait for the decision of JCVI. Probably a lot of us are very keen to hear that and very much hope that we’re in a position of being able to roll out vaccinations for those who are under the age of 16.
I would certainly be hoping that it is a decision that will be made very, very soon.
He said he could not give a timeline for when the decision is expected because the JCVI is a “completely independent committee”, adding:
They’re not there to take instructions from the government.
They will reach a decision, I’m told and I understand, very, very soon.
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Bamboo poles, beer crates, ladders and broken chairs: everyday objects form makeshift barricades on Hanoi’s streets as authorities try to slow the spread of coronavirus.
Vietnam’s capital has been in lockdown for more than a month but with daily case numbers refusing to budge, restrictions on movement have become even tighter.
The city is now divided into tiny segments, with movement between each extremely difficult, AFP reports.
“It is like living in a jail,” 72-year-old Hanoi resident Ho Thi Anh said.
All alleys leading to Anh’s home have been blocked, with no one allowed in or out after virus cases were discovered in the area.
Once every three days, her family brings her food - dropping it at the foot of the steel barriers that encircle her neighbourhood.
In some parts of the city the barricades are cobbled together by volunteers.
Although Hanoi’s case numbers remain relatively steady - with the city recording between 50 and 100 cases each day - there is huge anxiety over the escalating crisis down south in Ho Chi Minh City.
The commercial hub is reporting thousands of new infections and hundreds of deaths a day, and Hanoi residents fear the same fate for their city.
Across the country more than 11,000 people have died.
“No strangers can access our community,” said Nguyen Ha Van, a 45-year-old volunteer guarding a barricade consisting of one steel barrier, a wooden table and a long wooden stick.
“It’s good we set up barriers like this... it means our area is free of the virus,” Ha told AFP.
Vu Manh Dung, a delivery driver, admitted everyone knew ways around the barricades but said he “strongly supports” the system.
“Of course there are ways in... but we have to abide by the regulations.”
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A Covid-positive person in Sydney was admitted to Westmead hospital suffering from vomiting and diarrhoea after overdosing on ivermectin and other drugs ordered online, as Australia’s chief medical officer pleads with the public not to take unproven medicine.
Westmead hospital’s toxicologist, Naren Gunja, said the case was part of a growing trend the hospital was seeing of people taking unproven online cures for Covid. The patient didn’t get severe toxicity from taking the ivermectin cocktail, “but it didn’t help their Covid either”, he said.
Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt has called on the UK to follow the example of Israel and widen the group of those being offered a third coronavirus vaccine jab beyond the clinically vulnerable.
More than half a million people with severely weakened immune systems and who are most at risk from Covid-19 will be offered another vaccine dose beginning this month, following a recommendation from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), PA reports.
The announcement is separate to any decision on a booster programme, but it is understood news on that is expected soon.
Hunt said the situation in Israel, where the booster campaign that began in July with those aged over 60 has now been expanded to include anyone aged over 12, should guide the UK’s next steps.
The chairman of the Commons health and social care committee told The Times:
I understand why there is an ethical debate about giving jabs to teenagers but surely Israel shows we should not be hanging around in getting booster jabs out to adults.
It echoed his earlier post on Twitter where he wrote that the “clear lesson for the UK seems to be get on with booster jabs, not just for the clinically vulnerable but for everyone”.
Current Health Secretary Sajid Javid, however, said in comments carried by the Daily Mail the announcement of third doses for the immuno-compromised “is not the start of the booster programme - we are continuing to plan for this to begin in September to ensure the protection people have built from vaccines is maintained over time and ahead of the winter”.
It comes after Professor Andrew Hayward, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group, said there must be careful thought given to the use of any booster doses when many people in the UK have been double-jabbed already.
Last month, the World Health Organization likened booster jabs in wealthy countries to giving “extra life jackets to people who already have life jackets, while we’re leaving other people to drown without a single life jacket”.
In the UK, Dr Claire Steves, from King’s College London, the lead researcher on a study that found being double-jabbed almost halves the likelihood of long Covid in adults who get coronavirus, said when it comes to who should be getting booster jabs the focus should be on identifying the “really-at-risk” groups.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
What we showed in the studies that actually being older, per se, is not necessarily the key thing that gives you a risk for breakthrough infection.
And so the previous strategy that we had with the rollout of the first set of vaccines, which was based really on age and healthcare workers, may not be the best strategy going forward.
The Government yesterday announced that individuals who are immunocompromised are going to be given a sort of third primary injection.
And I think that’s the kind of thing that we need to be thinking about, is identifying really-at-risk groups to make sure that they go in first.
And our study would say that it’s people that are frail, so they’re dependent on others for activities of daily living, and probably have an impaired immune system, those people are going to be key, and people who are older with other comorbidities that affect the ability of their immune system to respond to the vaccine.
New Zealand has reported 49 new cases of Covid-19 in the community – continuing an overall downward trend in cases.
That downward slope is an early but promising indication that the country’s strict lockdown measures are working – not only arresting an exponential growth in cases, but also gradually pushing case numbers down and toward elimination.
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India reports biggest Covid rise in two months
Hello, it’s Robyn Vinter here on the blog for the next few hours.
India reported the biggest single-day rise in Covid-19 cases in two months today, as the government worries about the virus spreading from the most-affected Kerala state, schools reopening, and the start of the festival season.
Densely populated Kerala, on India’s southern tip, accounted for nearly 70% of the 47,092 new infections and a third of deaths, a week after it celebrated its biggest festival during which family and social gatherings were common.
Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said in a statement after speaking with his state counterparts in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, which border Kerala:
With cases rising in Kerala, adequate steps should be taken to contain the inter-state spread of COVID-19.
He asked them to increase vaccination in the districts close to Kerala. India has so far administered 662 million doses, with at least one dose in 54% of its 944 million adults and the required two doses in 16%.
Vaccinations have soared in recent days as supplies have improved. And as more than two-thirds of Indians already have COVID-fighting antibodies, mainly through natural infection, experts think another national surge in cases will be less deadly than the last one in April and May when tens of thousands of people died and hospitals ran out of beds and oxygen.
Also offering hope is a recent non-peer-reviewed study done in Kerala that showed that one dose of the AstraZeneca shot, the mainstay of India’s immunisation drive, generates 30 times more antibodies in previously infected people than fully inoculated ones who never contracted the virus.
India has so far reported about 32.9 million infections, the most in the world after the United States. Deaths went up by 509 on Thursday to a total of 439,529, which experts say is a massive undercount.
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Vaccination nearly halves chance of long Covid – study
Being double-jabbed almost halves the likelihood of long Covid in adults who get coronavirus, a new study has suggested, PA reports.
Researchers at King’s College London also said that being admitted to hospital with the virus was 73% less likely, and the chances of severe symptoms were reduced by almost a third (31%) in the fully vaccinated.
The team analysed data from more than two million people logging their symptoms, tests and vaccine status on the UK Zoe Covid Symptom Study app between December 8 2020 and July 4 this year.
Some 6,030 app users reported testing positive for Covid-19 at least 14 days after their first vaccination but before their second, while 2,370 reported testing positive at least seven days after their second dose.
The most common symptoms, such as loss of smell, a cough, fever, headaches and fatigue, were milder and less frequently reported by people who were jabbed, the study suggested.
They also said people were half as likely to get multiple symptoms in the first week of illness.
Sneezing was the only symptom more common in those who had a first dose compared with those who had none.
People aged 60 or older who had both doses of a vaccine were more likely to have no symptoms at all than those who had not been jabbed, the study suggested.
The research, published in the Lancet, said: “We found that the odds of having symptoms for 28 days or more after post-vaccination infection were approximately halved by having two vaccine doses.
“This result suggests that the risk of long Covid is reduced in individuals who have received double vaccination, when additionally considering the already documented reduced risk of infection overall.”
Taiwan receives first Pfizer doses
Taiwan received its first batch of Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccines on Thursday, a delivery organised by two tech giants and a charity because of diplomatic pressure from China, AFP reports.
The 930,000 doses are the first of 15 million jabs acquired by Foxconn and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), as well as Buddhist charity Tzu Chi foundation, in deals with a China-based distributor after months of wrangling.
Despite donations of several million doses from the United States and Japan in June, Taiwan has been struggling to secure enough vaccines for its 23.5 million population and its precarious political status has been a major stumbling block.
As Taipei and Beijing accused each other of hampering vaccine deals, the companies stepped in with a face-saving solution: buying the Pfizer-BioNTech doses from Chinese distributor Fosun Pharma and donating them to Taiwan.
Health Minister Chen Shih-chung, who was at the airport to receive the shipment, thanked the donors for “working very hard to overcome all difficulties” to help acquire the vaccines.
TSMC charity foundation chairwoman Sophie Chang also noted there were “many difficulties” in the process.
Taipei had tried to secure Pfizer-BioNTech jabs from Germany but hit a roadblock: Shanghai-based Fosun has the distribution rights for China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
Attempts to sign a direct deal made little headway, with Taiwan blaming Beijing.
In return, Beijing accused Taiwan of refusing to deal with Fosun Pharma and politicising its vaccine search.
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
Taiwan has received its first batch of Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccines, a delivery organised by two tech giants and a charity because of diplomatic pressure from China.
Meanwhile being double-jabbed almost halves the likelihood of long Covid in adults who get coronavirus, a new study has suggested. Researchers at King’s College London also said that being admitted to hospital with the virus was 73% less likely, and the chances of severe symptoms were reduced by almost a third (31%) in the fully vaccinated.
More on these stories shortly. In the meantime, here are the other key developments from the last while:
- Half a million severely immunosuppressed people in the UK will be offered a third vaccine dose. The offer, which follows a recommendation from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, is separate from any broader booster vaccine programme.
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The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said there was no urgent need for the administration of booster doses of Covid-19 vaccines to fully vaccinated individuals based on available data on vaccine effectiveness, Reuters reports.
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Spain said on Wednesday 70% of its population had been fully vaccinated, fulfilling a goal set by the government for August.
- Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, said people will have to show digital proof of vaccination to enter a wide range of establishments, dropping earlier opposition to the idea. From 22 September people will need proof of full vaccination to visit bars, restaurants, nightclubs and indoor sporting facilities.
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France began administering vaccine booster shots to over-65s and people with underlying health conditions on Wednesday as the country tries to increase protection levels to fight the effects of the Delta variant.
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Egypt has set out its ambitions to manufacture 1bn doses of China’s Sinovac vaccine annually, claiming it will become the “biggest vaccine producer” in the Middle East and Africa. Two factories will produce doses to cover domestic demand as well as for export across the region.
- About 10,000 unvaccinated health workers in Greece – 10% of the sector’s workforce – are facing suspension, a union has said. The Greek parliament in July passed legislation to make vaccinations mandatory for health staff from 1 September, leading to protests outside hospitals across the country.
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Contaminants found last week in suspended Moderna vaccines in Japan were particles of stainless steel, the health ministry has said, adding that it did not expect they would pose health risks.
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The Scottish government is proposing vaccine certificates for entry to nightclubs and large-scale indoor and outdoor events in an attempt to curb escalating Covid infections before the autumn.
- Cuba plans to vaccinate children aged two to 18 with its domestically developed Soberana-2 vaccine as the country tries to reach inoculation levels of 90% by December.
