Summary
- Workers from 16 key services including health, transport and energy will not have to isolate after being pinged by the NHS Covid app, as it was revealed that more than 600,000 people in England and Wales were sent self-isolation alerts last week. The raft of changes, after days of frantic talks with industry leaders, came amid open Conservative revolt over the so-called “pingdemic” with the former health secretary Jeremy Hunt warning the government that it was facing a crisis of public trust in the system.
- Advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will consider evidence suggesting that a booster dose of Covid vaccines could increase protection among people with compromised immune systems. Last week, Israel began administering third doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to immunocompromised people. Some experts believe the CDC is nearing a similar recommendation in the US.
- Chile announced that its citizens and foreign residents would be allowed to travel outside the country if they were fully inoculated against coronavirus, a fresh perk for Chileans participating in one of the world’s fastest vaccination campaigns.
- The White House said China’s decision to reject a World Health Organization plan for a second phase of an investigation into the origin of the coronavirus which would have a greater focus on a possible lab leak was “irresponsible and dangerous”. Previously considered a crackpot conspiracy theory that was not permitted to be discussed on Facebook, there is growing pressure on China to investigate the part US-funded lab.
- The EU has said that 200 million Europeans had been fully vaccinated, more than half of the adult population but still short of a 70% target set for the summer. It came as an EU document showed member states have so far donated just a tiny portion of excess Covid-19 vaccines to poor nations, mostly out-of-favour AstraZeneca shots, less than 3% of the 160m doses they plan to give away in total to help tame the pandemic.
- Tax raids were carried out on the offices of one of India’s most popular newspapers, after months of critical coverage of the government’s handling of the pandemic. On Thursday morningmore than 100 tax inspectors descended on the headquarters of the Dainik Bhaskar media group, in the state of Madhya Pradesh, and raided 30 regional offices in the states of Delhi, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra.
- Johnson & Johnson’s Covid jab is much less effective in mitigating the symptoms of those with the Delta or Lambda variants than against the original virus strain, a new study suggested. The New York Times reports that the conclusions of the paper appear to contradict smaller studies published by the drugmaker which suggest a single dose of the jab is indeed effective against the Delta variant.
- In a bad day for the J&J jab, Europe’s medicines regulator added a rare nerve-degenerating disorder, Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), as a possible rare side effect from the vaccine after it reviewed 108 cases reported worldwide. It came after the vaccine was reportedly largely sidelined in the US after setbacks culminating in the US Food and Drug Administration also saying it can lead to GBS.
- Peruvian police dismantled an alleged criminal ring that had charged as much $21,000 per bed for seriously ill Covid-19 patients in a state-run hospital. Authorities arrested nine people in an early morning raid on Wednesday, including the administrators of Lima’s Guillermo Almenara Irigoyen public hospital, according to reports.
- German pharmacies stopped issuing digital Covid-19 vaccination certificates after hackers created passes from fake outlets, the industry association said. The German Pharmacists’ Association said hackers had managed to produce two vaccination certificates by accessing the portal and making up pharmacy owner identities.
That’s it from us for today. Thank you for following along. Take care!
Thousands of people poured into the grounds of the Latitude music festival in eastern England on Thursday, one of the biggest gatherings since most coronavirus restrictions were lifted earlier this week, Reuters reports.
The four-day festival, expected to attract around 40,000 people, comes as Covid cases across the country broadly rise. Music lovers arriving on a balmy summer’s day had to show they had been vaccinated twice or tested negative for the disease.
“I guess I’d kind of say, ‘If not now, when are we going to start back up again?’” said Katy McKenna, 21. “A lot of us have had at least our first dose of the vaccine, so we’re ready to get back to life, and all the musical performers have had a year off and they deserve a festival [so] they can get back out there and perform.”
Sheep painted pink grazed on the grass, crowds milled around giant marquees and people erected their tents before heading to the main stages to hear their favourite acts.
The UK government test event will carry on without social distancing measures or the need to wear masks, and organisers have designed marquees without sides and installed air purifiers in some areas to mitigate the risk of the virus spreading.
“All the plans were in place, all the bands were in place, people were just, you know desperate to come, desperate to play, desperate to work, and really be out in a field enjoying themselves again, and that’s what we’re doing,” said festival founder Melvin Benn.
Among the acts headlining the festival are Damon Albarn, Wolf Alice, Rudimental and The Chemical Brothers.
Mexico’s health ministry on Thursday reported 16,244 new confirmed cases of Covid in the country, its highest daily rise since the end of January, and 419 more fatalities.
Those figures swelled the country’s tallies to 2,709,739 infections and 237,626 deaths.
The government has said the real number of cases is likely significantly higher, and separate data published recently suggested the actual death toll is at least 60% above the confirmed figure.
What the US government is calling “the pandemic of the unvaccinated” is playing out in painful ways as some realise too late that they wish they had had the shot, while others hold out even as they suffer in hospital amid a national surge of new Covid-19 infections, primarily caused by the Delta variant.
At least 99% of those in the US who died of coronavirus in the last six months had not been vaccinated, Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has said.
Meanwhile vaccination rates have slowed down nationwide and are especially low in some of the more conservative, southern parts of the country, despite more than 610,000 people in the US dying of the virus since the pandemic hit in early 2020.
In places such as Louisiana, only 36% of eligible people have been vaccinated, while in Alabama, as of 20 July, only 33%. The state’s public health officials recently reported 96% of Alabamians who have died of Covid since April were not fully vaccinated.
On Monday, a doctor in a Birmingham, Alabama, hospital, Brytney Cobia, said that all but one of her Covid patients at Grandview medical center didn’t receive the vaccine, with the one who had expected to make a full recovery after receiving oxygen, she told the Birmingham News. Several others are dying.
“I’m admitting young, healthy people to the hospital with very serious Covid infections,” wrote Cobia in a Facebook post on Sunday.
“One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late,” she added, referring to patients who have to be put on a ventilator.
More on this story here:
Updated
Workers from 16 key services including health, transport and energy will not have to isolate after being pinged by the NHS Covid app, as it was revealed that more than 600,000 people in England and Wales were sent self-isolation alerts last week.
The raft of changes, after days of frantic talks with industry leaders, came amid open Conservative revolt over the so-called “pingdemic” with the former health secretary Jeremy Hunt warning the government that it was facing a crisis of public trust in the system.
Downing Street said that companies who wanted to take advantage of the exemptions for essential workers would have to apply directly to the relevant Whitehall department that covers them for authorisation to bring staff back to work. The policy will only apply to named workers in approved workplaces who are fully vaccinated.
The guidance lists 16 sectors: energy, civil nuclear, digital infrastructure, food production and supply, waste, water, veterinary medicines, essential chemicals, essential transport, medicines, medical devices, clinical consumable supplies, emergency services, border control, essential defence and local government.
But it adds that “in some exceptional cases” there may be critical roles in other sectors which could be agreed on a case-by-case basis. Separate arrangements are in place for frontline health and care staff.
The move came after it was announced that a record 618,903 people in England and Wales were sent self-isolation alerts last week, and as images circulated of empty supermarket shelves caused by staff shortages and delays to deliveries spread across the UK.
Here is our full story:
Updated
Advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday will consider evidence suggesting that a booster dose of Covid vaccines could increase protection among people with compromised immune systems, Reuters reports.
Data presented ahead of the meeting noted that such people have a reduced antibody response following the recommended primary vaccination series compared with healthy individuals.
“Emerging data suggest that an additional Covid-19 vaccine dose in immunocompromised people enhances antibody response and increases the proportion who respond,” slides released ahead of the meeting showed.
The committee is not scheduled to vote on a recommendation for whether to administer additional doses. That could be decided at a later meeting.
In small studies, short-term side effects from a third dose of mRNA vaccines - such as those made by BioNTech/Pfizer Inc or Moderna Inc - were about the same as those experienced with the first two doses, the CDC said in its presentation.
An estimated 2.7% of US adults live with weakened immune systems, according to the CDC presentation, based on data from 2013. The group includes people living with HIV/AIDS, cancer and people with organ transplants or autoimmune diseases who take drugs to dampen their immune response.
Those individuals are at increased risk of severe disease and death from Covid.
Last week, Israel began administering third doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to immunocompromised people, including those who have had heart, lung, kidney or liver transplants and cancer patients receiving chemotherapy.
Some experts believe the CDC is nearing a similar recommendation in the United States.
The CDC has urged people with weakened immune systems to take precautions even if fully vaccinated.
The virus not only poses an extra health risk to these people but because it takes longer for them to clear the virus, scientists believe infections could result in new variants as the pathogen continues to replicate unchecked, which some studies have shown.
Clearer information and messages from role models are needed to boost Covid vaccination uptake among young people, experts have said, as figures showed that fewer than 60% of 18- to 25-year-olds had received their first jab in England.
Adults over the age of 18 have been eligible for vaccination against Covid-19 in England since 18 June. But according to the latest data from Public Health England (PHE), uptake of the vaccine in younger groups already appears to be levelling off.
Case rates are highest in people in their 20s. Data from PHE on Thursday showed the age group had a seven-day infection rate of 1,154.7 per 100,000 people – or 1 in 100.
Vaccination rates are now rising only very slowly in each age group. More than 95% of people in England over the age of 80 have had their first dose, compared with 80.9% of people aged 45 to under 50, 62.8% of those aged 30 to under 35, and 58.4% of those aged 18 to under 25 years old.
Concern over the slowing of vaccine uptake among younger people prompted Boris Johnson to announce on Monday that from September only those who had had two doses of a coronavirus vaccine would be allowed entry to crowded venues such as nightclubs – although some have suggested this could be simply sabre-rattling.
Experts say that such a tactic could hinder rather than help with vaccine uptake.
Full story here:
Chile announced on Thursday that its citizens and foreign residents would be allowed to travel outside the country if they were fully inoculated against coronavirus, a fresh perk for Chileans participating in one of the world’s fastest vaccination campaigns.
In early July, health officials began to relax some restrictions, including those on movement inside the country, as the vaccination programme has begun to pay dividends.
Cases have plummeted in recent weeks, with 62% of the country’s population of 19 million fully vaccinated.
Chileans will be able to travel abroad using a government-issued “mobility pass” beginning 26 July that is issued only to those who are fully vaccinated.
Those who leave the country will be required to undergo a strict 10-day quarantine upon return, and will be tested for the virus before they are freed from confinement.
Non-resident foreigners, however, will still not be allowed entry into the country as Chile seeks to tamp down on the spread of new variants within its borders.
Updated
Thursday’s figure of 39,906 new cases of Covid reported for the UK is lower than Wednesday’s, when 44,104 cases were reported, and is the fifth day in a row that cases have remained below the 54,674 cases reported on 17 July.
Optimists may hope this is an early sign that the tide is beginning to turn, and that cases are peaking. Prof Eric Topol, the director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in California, tweeted along hopeful lines: “This could turn out to be the best Covid news of the day,” he wrote, adding along with the prayer hands emoji that new cases in the UK appear to be starting their descent.
However it could simply be a blip.
Prof Paul Hunter, from the Norwich School of Medicine, University of East Anglia, said despite the slowdown in the rise of cases it is too early for the impact of the relaxation of regulations on Monday to be seen, while the school holidays mean testing in education settings will have fallen.
He said:
I would caution that this may just be a temporary slowing in reports before we start to see a return to exponential growth towards the end of next week as a result of the ending of restrictions last week.
However, Hunter added it was possible that recent football events may also have influenced numbers, noting – among examples – that the rate of increase of cases was slowing by June but then picked up eight to 10 days after the first England game in the Euros.
If such a perturbation as the Euros caused only a temporary acceleration in the increase in case numbers despite games continuing this may bode well for the impact of 19 July. It could suggest we will see only a short-term boost towards the end of next week followed by slowing or even a decline in the days following.
Time will tell.
Azra Ghani, a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at Imperial College London, also cautioned that more time was needed.
She said:
It is positive news that the sustained rise in cases in recent weeks seems to have dropped off. But it is too early to say whether this trend will continue. It will likely taketwo to three weeks before we can fully assess the impact on transmission of step 4 combined with the start of the school holidays.
Updated
Today so far...
- The White House said China’s decision to reject a World Health Organization plan for a second phase of an investigation into the origin of the coronavirus which would have a greater focus on a possible lab leak was “irresponsible and dangerous”. Previously considered a crackpot conspiracy theory that was not permitted to be discussed on Facebook, there is growing pressure on China to investigate the part US-funded lab.
- The EU has said that 200 million Europeans had been fully vaccinated, more than half of the adult population but still short of a 70% target set for the summer. It came as an EU document showed member states have so far donated just a tiny portion of excess Covid-19 vaccines to poor nations, mostly out-of-favour AstraZeneca shots, less than 3% of the 160m doses they plan to give away in total to help tame the pandemic.
- Tax raids were carried out on the offices of one of India’s most popular newspapers, after months of critical coverage of the government’s handling of the pandemic. On Thursday morningmore than 100 tax inspectors descended on the headquarters of the Dainik Bhaskar media group, in the state of Madhya Pradesh, and raided 30 regional offices in the states of Delhi, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra.
- Johnson & Johnson’s Covid jab is much less effective in mitigating the symptoms of those with the Delta or Lambda variants than against the original virus strain, a new study suggested. The New York Times reports that the conclusions of the paper appear to contradict smaller studies published by the drugmaker which suggest a single dose of the jab is indeed effective against the Delta variant.
- In a bad day for the J&J jab, Europe’s medicines regulator added a rare nerve-degenerating disorder, Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), as a possible rare side effect from the vaccine after it reviewed 108 cases reported worldwide. It came after the vaccine was reportedly largely sidelined in the US after setbacks culminating in the US Food and Drug Administration also saying it can lead to GBS.
- Peruvian police dismantled an alleged criminal ring that had charged as much $21,000 per bed for seriously ill Covid-19 patients in a state-run hospital. Authorities arrested nine people in an early morning raid on Wednesday, including the administrators of Lima’s Guillermo Almenara Irigoyen public hospital, according to reports.
-
German pharmacies stopped issuing digital Covid-19 vaccination certificates after hackers created passes from fake outlets, the industry association said. The German Pharmacists’ Association said hackers had managed to produce two vaccination certificates by accessing the portal and making up pharmacy owner identities.
Updated
German pharmacies stop issuing Covid jab certificates after hack
German pharmacies have stopped issuing digital Covid-19 vaccination certificates after hackers created passes from fake outlets, the industry association has said.
Germans who have been fully inoculated are entitled to a certificate issued by pharmacies and vaccination centres, which allows them more freedoms, especially to travel.
The German Pharmacists’ Association (DAV) said hackers had managed to produce two vaccination certificates by accessing the portal and making up pharmacy owner identities. The DAV was alerted to the fact by the Handelsblatt newspaper.
“The DAV, in consultation with the health ministry, stopped issuing certificates on Wednesday to investigate further,” said the association in a statement, adding it had so far found no other indication of unauthorised access to the portal.
“It can therefore be assumed that the more than 25 million vaccination certificates issued so far through pharmacies have all been issued by legally registered pharmacies,” said the DAV.
It is unclear when pharmacies will resume issuing passes and whether additional security measures are needed, said the DAV.
Updated
China rejection of Wuhan lab probe 'irresponsible and dangerous', says White House
The White House has said it is disappointed in China’s decision to reject a World Health Organization (WHO) plan for a second phase of an investigation into the origin of Covid-19 which would have a greater focus on a possible lab leak, Reuters reports.
China is not living up to its obligations by trying to block further investigation, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said, adding “their position is irresponsible and, frankly, dangerous”.
The Biden administration has repeatedly said that the WHO should explore theories including the hypothesis it could have escaped from a part US-funded Chinese laboratory, previously considered a crackpot conspiracy theory that was not permitted to be discussed on Facebook. The White House is also pursuing its own probe.
Meanwhile, Zeng Yixin, the vice-minister of China’s National Health Commission, told reporters that the WHO plan “disregards common sense and defies science”. Zeng reiterated China’s position that some data could not be completely shared due to privacy concerns.
In their long-delayed report published in late March, the international team and their Chinese counterparts drew no firm conclusions, instead ranking a number of hypotheses according to how likely they believed they were, after four weeks in and around the central city of Wuhan, AFP reports.
The report said the virus jumping from bats to humans via an intermediate animal was the most probable scenario, while a theory involving the virus leaking from a laboratory was “extremely unlikely”, but the WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, undermined the conclusion just days later, saying that all hypotheses remained under consideration.
The investigation and report have faced criticism for lacking transparency and access, and for not evaluating the lab-leak theory more deeply – a mere 440 words of the report were dedicated to discussing and dismissing it.
Updated
The next wave of Covid will be different. When cases soared in spring and winter last year lockdowns rapidly brought them back under control. This time it will be vaccines that do the hard work.
But Covid jabs are not a perfect shield. They slow the spread of the virus, help prevent disease and reduce the risk of dying. They do not bring all this to an end.
In the months ahead many thousands of people will be in hospital with Covid. What may seem more troubling is that ever more will have received two vaccination doses.
Updated
Elected officials in a Michigan county gave themselves $65,000 (£47,000) in bonuses with federal relief money related to the coronavirus pandemic.
The money, described as “hazard pay,” included $25,000 for Jeremy Root, the chairman of the Shiawassee county board of commissioners. The mostly rural county, between Lansing and Flint, has a population of 68,000.
Commissioners – all Republicans – last week voted to award money to county employees. It ranged from $25,000 for administrators to $2,000 for cleaning staff. All workers got at least $1,000, AP reports. Commissioners are paid $10,000 a year for their part-time job, plus a stipend for meetings.
Besides Root, the commissioners John Plowman and Brandon Marks each received $10,000 in extra cash, and the other four commissioners got $5,000 each, MLive.com said.
“I think that I earned it,” one commissioner, Cindy Garber, said. “I work really hard at this job. I was here in-person all through this crazy year.”
The commissioner Marlene Webster said she was “mortified” when money appeared in her bank account. She said she did not know she had voted to reward herself. “I’m giving the money back,” Webster told WILX-TV. “I think one commissioner is giving it to a nonprofit so those actions indicate that we truly did not know this money was coming to us.”
Garber said the large payment for Root was justified because he “bears the burden of all emergency orders”.
Stephan Currie, the executive director of the Michigan Association of Counties (MAC), said the group worked closely with counties about how to spend federal virus-related cash.
“We are not aware of any other counties considering payments to elected officials, and MAC has not provided any guidance or advice to do so ... Decisions, however, ultimately rest with the county’s board of commissioners in each county,” Currie told MLive.com.
Updated
Israel’s coronavirus task force has recommended partially reinstating the green pass programme and restricting access to certain events to vaccinated people despite serious Covid cases being extremely rare.
The plan backed by the task force is likely to be approved by Naftali Bennett’s government this weekend, AFP reports.
Israel, where more than 80% of the adult population is fully vaccinated, has not seen a dramatic surge in serious Covid-19 cases even as transmission has accelerated. According to the health ministry, Israel is dealing with 72 serious virus cases out of a population of more than 9 million.
Yet the body recommended that for all events with more than 100 participants entry will be restricted to people who have been vaccinated, recovered from the virus or have had a recent negative test.
According to AFP, green passes will be required to enter “culture and sports events, gyms, restaurants and dining rooms, conferences, tourist attractions and houses of worship”, a statement said.
The task force also recommended expanding the list of so-called “red countries” to where travel will be restricted without special authorisation. That list now includes Britain, Georgia, Cyprus and Turkey, joining a group that already included South Africa, India and Mexico.
Updated
J&J jab may cause rare nerve-degenerating disorder, says EU drug regulator
Europe’s medicines regulator has added a rare nerve-degenerating disorder, Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), as a possible rare side effect from Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine after it reviewed 108 cases reported worldwide.
“After assessing the available data, Prac considered that a causal relationship between Covid-19 vaccine [Johnson & Johnson] and GBS is possible,” the European Medicines Agency said, referring to its safety committee.
It comes as the US Centers for Disease Control said that the benefits of vaccination with the J&J jab still outweigh any neurological risk. But last month the New York Times said the vaccine had been largely sidelined after setbacks culminating in the US Food and Drug Administration also saying it can lead to GBS.
The paper said that while the chances of developing the condition remained low, they appeared to be up to five times higher among recipients of the J&J vaccine than among the general population in the US.
Updated
A growing number of UK Conservative MPs have revealed they plan to boycott the party’s annual autumn conference over fears they will need a vaccine passport to gain entry.
The outcry from Boris Johnson’s backbenchers is growing after his surprise announcement on Monday that the documents would be required in some venues, including nightclubs, from the end of September.
MPs declaring they would not be attending include Steve Baker and Mark Jenkinson, who said on Thursday that he was double-jabbed and had booked a conference ticket but would refuse to go “if we’re excluding people on the basis of their vaccination status”. Lady Helena Morrissey also ruled herself out on the same grounds.
Plans for domestic certification had been shelved just a few weeks ago, though the government had admitted they could be brought back if the country faced a fresh surge of Covid and flu cases after the summer.
Updated
The Italian government is poised to introduce restrictions on unvaccinated people as it pushes for more citizens to take a vaccine against Covid-19 amid a resurgence in infections.
Ministers are meeting on Thursday evening to approve a decree that could result in the adoption of restrictions similar to those seen in France.
Entry to stadiums, museums, theatres, cinemas, swimming pools, gyms and nightclubs – for which a reopening date is expected to be announced – would only be allowed upon presentation of a “green pass”.
The pass, which is an extension of the EU’s digital Covid certificate, may also be required for travelling within the country by train, plane or long-distance bus.
Updated
Argentina has complained to Russia about delays in delivering second doses of its Sputnik V vaccine in a letter warning of breach of contract repercussions, the government in Buenos Aires said on Thursday.
The letter, dated 7 July, was sent to Russia’s direct investment fund, which financially backed Sputnik V, the presidential adviser Cecilia Nicolini told reporters, confirming a report by La Nación newspaper.
AFP reports that the letter said Argentina “urgently” needed delivery of second doses and warned that “the entire contract is at risk of being publicly cancelled”.
Inoculation with Sputnik V, produced by the Russian research institute Gamaleya, requires two doses that differ from one another and cannot be swapped or mixed with other vaccines.
The government has in recent weeks sought to accelerate its vaccination driven in a bid to preempt a rise in infections driven by the highly contagious Delta variant, not yet circulating in Argentina.
Argentina is also using the AstraZeneca and Sinopharm vaccines, and recently received a donation of Moderna shots from the US.
Just over 17 million Argentines have received a first shot of one of the vaccines, and fewer than 6 million have received two jabs.
Updated
Israel’s coronavirus taskforce on Thursday recommended partially reinstating the green pass programme, restricting access to certain events to vaccinated people, as concern mounts over the fast-spreading Delta variant, AFP reports.
The plan, backed by Israel’s so-called “corona cabinet”, is likely to be approved by Naftali Bennett’s government on Sunday.
Israel, where more than 80% of the adult population is fully inoculated, has not seen a dramatic surge in serious Covid-19 cases even as transmission has accelerated. According to the health ministry, Israel is only dealing with 72 serious virus cases out of a population of more than 9 million.
The corona cabinet recommended that for all events with more than 100 participants entry will be restricted to people who have been vaccinated, recovered from the virus or have had a recent negative test.
Green passes will be required to enter “culture and sports events, gyms, restaurants and dining rooms, conferences, tourist attractions and houses of worship”, a statement said.
The taskforce also recommended expanding the list of so-called “red countries” to where travel will be restricted without special authorisation. That list now includes Britain, Georgia, Cyprus and Turkey, joining a group that already included South Africa, India and Mexico.
Updated
Malta has begun flying home students who tested positive for Covid-19 while studying English at schools in the small Mediterranean island nation.
AP reports that Malta’s health ministry closed language schools on 14 July amid a spike in new cases, which included several hundred foreign students. Many of them were minors. The first medical charter flight carried 100 students bound for Paris. More flights were planned in coming days.
Earlier this week, nearly 200 students who tested negative flew home via Rome, Frankfurt, Paris and Madrid.
The Malta tourism authority said it was covering the cost of the repatriation flights, which were being organised with the help of health authorities.
The number of active Covid cases in Malta has risen from 43 on 1 July to 2,487 on Thursday.
Updated
In the UK there had been a further 39,906 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases as of 9am on Thursday, the government said.
A further 84 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Thursday. It brings the UK total to 128,980.
Separate figures published by the Office for National Statistics show there have been 154,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.
Updated
Hi. Caroline Davies here, just taking over the blog for a short while. You can get in touch on caroline.davies@theguardian.com
More than half of European adults, some 200m people, fully vaccinated, says EU
The EU has said that 200 million Europeans had been fully vaccinated, more than half of the adult population but still short of a 70% target set for the summer.
It comes as the bloc said it would donate more than 200m doses of Covid-19 vaccines to middle- and low-income countries before the end of the year, though member states have been heavily criticised for the pace of delivering pledges.
The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said the EU “takes its responsibility in helping the world fight the virus, everywhere. Vaccination is key. That’s why it is essential to ensure access to Covid-19 vaccines to countries worldwide.”
EU countries have so far donated just a tiny portion of excess Covid-19 vaccines to poor nations, mostly out-of-favour AstraZeneca shots, less than 3% of the 160m doses they plan to give away in total to help tame the global pandemic, an EU document which we reported earlier showed today.
Updated
Hospitals in Lebanon have warned of a looming “catastrophe” as some were only hours away from running out of fuel to keep life-saving equipment on during endless state power cuts.
AFP reports that amid economic crisis the state electricity supplier has all but stopped providing power in recent weeks, forcing homes, businesses and hospitals to rely on backup generators almost around the clock.
But a syndicate of private hospitals said they were struggling to procure enough fuel to keep theirs running. “Hospitals are unable to find fuel oil to power generators during power outages of at least 20 hours a day,” it said in a statement.
“A number of hospitals risk running out in coming hours, which will put the lives of patients in danger,” it warned, without specifying how many facilities were at immediate risk.
The syndicate called on officials to “immediately work to solve the issue to avoid a health catastrophe”.
As foreign reserves plummet, the Lebanese state is struggling to buy fuel for its power plants, increasing electricity cuts to up to 23 hours a day in some parts of the country.
Earlier this month, medicine importers said they had run out of hundreds of essential drugs because the central bank had not released the promised dollars to pay suppliers abroad, according to AFP.
Updated
Public anger at French government measures to curb the spread of Covid, which some people say are an attack on their liberty, has given the yellow vest protest movement fresh momentum, Reuters reports.
Last weekend, police estimated that 100,000 people joined protests against the measures - some of them under the banner of the gilets jaunes (yellow vests). Another round of protests is planned for this weekend.
An internal interior ministry report, seen by Reuters, described last week’s protests as “exceptional in their scale” and warned further large protests were likely.
Jerome Rodrigues, one of the movement’s best-known figures, who lost an eye when he was hit with a projectile at a protest two years ago, said the latest protests had attracted people beyond the usual yellow vest faithful.
“I’ve seen a lot of first-time protesters,” Rodrigues, who wears a prosthetic eye, said. “Healthcare workers, restaurant owners too, all kinds of people, children. If there’s one thing that can unite people today, it’s anger.”
Emmanuel Macron’s administration has submitted controversial proposed legislation to parliament which will stop people entering restaurants and bars without a “health pass” showing they had been vaccinated, have had a recent negative test or have immunity from Covid-19. Opponents say the state is, de facto, forcing people to get jabbed.
Mohamed Boukifa, a 40-year-old baker, joined Rodrigues at a yellow vest demonstration against the health pass in Paris on Wednesday. He said he had followed the yellow vests over social media but until now had never joined a demonstration.
“I’m not here because I’m against the vaccine” he said. “I’m here to defend our freedoms. We cannot be forced to get vaccinated.” He said he had not had the jab because he was worried about possible side effects.
Updated
Peruvian police have dismantled an alleged criminal ring that had charged as much $21,000 per bed for seriously ill Covid-19 patients in a state-run hospital, aggravating care in a country hit by one of the world’s deadliest outbreaks of the virus.
Authorities arrested nine people in an early morning raid on Wednesday, including the administrators of Lima’s Guillermo Almenara Irigoyen public hospital, according to the prosecutor Reynaldo Abia, Reuters reports.
The scam was uncovered after police received a complaint from the brother of a man suffering from Covid-19 who had been asked for 82,000 soles ($20,783) to obtain an intensive care bed and treatment at the hospital, said Abia.
Updated
National Geographic reports that scientists are investigating whether novel ways of injecting vaccine shots could bring more robust immunity – including delivering it up the nose.
Several promising studies have suggested intranasal vaccines are effective in mice, ferrets, hamsters and non-human primates, while six candidate Covid jabs administered as nasal sprays are undergoing phase 1 clinical trials.
Immunologists have said they might offer more secure protection since they more resemble how the virus naturally infects people.
“If you want to generate a sustainable, long-lasting immune response, you want to vaccinate locally,” José Ordovas-Montañes, a Harvard University immunologist who studies immunity in the gut and nasal mucosal tissues, told Nat Geo.
Ordovas-Montañes says that when we get a jab in the arm, we are inducing immunity on a systemic, body-wide scale where our antibodies and T cells will distribute themselves around the blood vessels. While that might sound good, this approach is “sub-optimal” because the immune cells are “distracted” and not focused on the location where the virus enters the body.
A shot up the nose, on the other hand, provides a big boost of immunity in the upper respiratory tract and potentially the lungs, eliciting a local antibody response and T cell response. This enables immune cells to apprehend and destroy the pathogen on arrival.
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Azerbaijan has extended its quarantine restrictions until 1 September, the government has said.
The restrictions mean the borders of the South Caucasus country of about 10 million people will remain closed. Only vaccinated people will be able to attend weddings and visit sports venues, Reuters reports. People are required to wear face masks indoors.
Azerbaijan’s coronavirus task force also said that public transport would not operate in the capital, Baku, on weekends and public holidays. The country of 10 million people has confirmed 339,062 cases of coronavirus and 4,998 deaths since the pandemic began.
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At the White House, officials are debating whether to urge Americans to wear masks more often to curb the spread of coronavirus. That is according to a new report in the Washington Post detailing the still-preliminary deliberations:
The talks are in a preliminary phase and their result could be as simple as new messaging from top White House officials. But some of the talks include officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who are separately examining whether to update their masking guidance, according to a Biden administration aide and a federal health official.
Officials cautioned that any new formal guidance would have to come from the CDC, and they maintained that the White House has taken a hands-off approach with the agency to ensure they are not interfering with the work of scientists. But the high-level discussions reflect rising concerns across the administration about the threat of the Delta variant and a renewed focus on what measures may need to be reintroduced to slow its spread.
My colleague Daniel Strauss has more, as well as all the latest US developments, on our US live blog.
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Johnson & Johnson studies on jab effectiveness against Delta undermined
Johnson & Johnson’s Covid jab is much less effective in mitigating the symptoms of those with the Delta or Lambda variants than against the original virus strain, a new study suggests.
The New York Times reports that the conclusions of the paper appear to contradict smaller studies published by the drugmaker which suggest a single dose of the jab is indeed effective against the Delta variant.
While the new study has not been peer-reviewed and has been published as a pre-print, it chimes with observations that the comparable AstraZeneca jab has only about a 33% effectiveness against symptomatic Covid from the Delta variant, the paper said.
“The message that we wanted to give was not that people shouldn’t get the J&J vaccine, but we hope that in the future it will be boosted with either another dose of J&J or a boost with Pfizer or Moderna,” the study leader, Nathaniel Landau, a virologist at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, was quoted as saying.
John Moore, a virologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, pointed to several studies that have suggested the J&J jab was more effective after two doses, adding that the new study had greater credibility than research with ties to the company.
But a spokeswoman for J&J told the paper that the data from the new study “do not speak to the full nature of immune protection”. Studies sponsored by the company suggest that the vaccine “generated strong, persistent activity against the rapidly spreading Delta variant”, she told the NYT.
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England public healthcare staff lost thousands in real pay over last decade
NHS staff in England have suffered real-term falls in their pay of up to £2,949 over the last decade, research by a leading health thinktank shows.
After adjusting for inflation, nurses’ and health visitors’ pay has dropped by £1,583, doctors’ by £779 and midwives’ by £1,813. However, scientific, therapeutic and technical staff have suffered the biggest cut of £2,949.
The findings are contained in a Health Foundation analysis of official NHS staff earnings data covering the 10 years from March 2011 to March this year. They come amid a growing row over the government’s decision to award most NHS staff in England a 3% pay rise for this year and the possibility that health unions may take industrial action after assessing their members’ views.
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Hundreds of voters face being in effect excluded from the twice-postponed elections in the Isle of Man on Thursday because of a lack of contingency plans for those self-isolating, after delays to the vote due to Covid restrictions.
With case numbers rising, many people who need to isolate are said to have been unable to access alternative voting arrangements as a deadline for absentee ballots was seven days before polling day.
A reader tells us:
I am one of an unknown number of registered voters currently in legal isolation – we estimate that it’s affecting around 1,000 potential voters in the wards with candidates running, which for a total [adult] population of 82,000 people is not insignificant – after our Covid-19 case numbers have exploded in recent days.
The deadline for postal votes has long passed, and the government has had well over a year to prepare for the eventuality of Covid-19 cases returning to the island, which they have done following the relaxation of borders earlier this month. As the margins between councillors winning seats are often in the single figures, this renders the election illegitimate.
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Japan’s emperor has acknowledged the difficulty of preventing the spread of coronavirus during the Olympics at a meeting with International Olympic Committee officials.
“Managing the Games while at the same time taking all possible measures against Covid-19 is far from an easy task,” Naruhito told the International Olympic Committee (IOC) president, Thomas Bach, and other IOC members ahead of declaring the official opening of the Games on Friday.
Bach assured him that organisers were doing their utmost not to bring infections into the host nation, according to Reuters, after a number of Olympians tested positive for the virus.
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The mental health impact of the pandemic will be “long term and far reaching”, the World Health Organization has said.
“Everyone is affected in one way or another,” the WHO said in a statement at the start of a two-day meeting in Athens. It said “anxieties around virus transmission, the psychological impact of lockdowns and self-isolation” had contributed to a mental health crisis, along with stresses linked to unemployment, financial worries and social alienation, AFP reports.
“The mental health impacts of the pandemic will be long term and far reaching,” the statement added. The WHO’s regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, said mental health should be considered a “fundamental human right”, stressing how the virus had torn lives apart.
“The pandemic has shaken the world,” he told the conference. “More than four million lives lost globally, livelihoods ruined, families and communities forced apart, businesses bankrupted, and people deprived of opportunities.”
The WHO called for the strengthening of mental health services in general and the improvement of access to care via technology. It also urged better psychological support services in schools, universities, workplaces and for people on the frontline of the fight against Covid-19, AFP reports.
The ministers heard from a 38-year-old Greek woman called Katerina who told them how she had been receiving treatment for a psychiatric disorder since 2002 and had been coping well until the pandemic hit.
She was no longer able to attend in-person support groups and could not see her father, forcing her to boost her treatment. “The pressure of social isolation led to increased anxiety,” she said.
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Johnson & Johnson, which has produced a widely used Covid vaccine, has just resolved thousands of opioid lawsuits along with other drug companies – but campaigners say the affair has raised serious questions over its trustworthiness.
The world’s largest healthcare company helped “cause an epidemic” in the pursuit of “bottom lines over the health and safety and wellbeing of people”, according to the Pennsylvania attorney-general, Josh Shapiro.
The Financial Times reports that US states on Wednesday unveiled a landmark $26bn settlement in which J&J will pay $5bn (£3.6bn), after an opioid epidemic that claimed more than half a million lives over two decades.
In a 2019 ruling, one US judge said that the company had promoted “false, misleading, and dangerous marketing campaigns” that had “caused exponentially increasing rates of addiction, overdose deaths” and babies born exposed to opioids.
As news of the settlement emerged, the charity Global Justice Now’s director, Nick Dearden, tweeted: “This includes Covid-19 vaccine producer J&J. Yet we’re supposed to trust these same corporations to deal with the equitable rollout of vaccines worldwide?”
The J&J general counsel, Michael Ullmann, said: “We recognise the opioid crisis is a tremendously complex public health issue, and we have deep sympathy for everyone affected. This settlement will directly support state and local efforts to make meaningful progress in addressing the opioid crisis in the United States.”
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EU under pressure over paltry vaccine donations despite pledges
EU countries have so far donated just a tiny portion of excess Covid-19 vaccines to poor nations, mostly out-of-favour AstraZeneca shots, less than 3% of the 160m doses they plan to give away in total to help tame the global pandemic, an EU document shows.
The EU has committed to helping inoculate the most vulnerable across the world but, like other wealthy countries, EU states have so far focused on buying shots to inoculate their own citizens, contributing to a shortage of vaccines elsewhere, Reuters reports.
EU states, with a combined adult population of 365 million, have so far received about 500m doses from drugmakers and expect nearly a billion by the end of September.
But as of 13 July they had donated less than 4m shots, the internal document, compiled by the European Commission and reviewed by Reuters, shows.
In total, it says EU countries have committed to sharing about 160m doses, mostly without preference about their destination. The tally of shipments and pledged total have not been reported before.
Brussels had previously said EU nations planned to donate at least 100m doses by the end of the year. There is no timeline for the target listed in the document.
Those jabs distributed so far went mostly to countries and territories with a link to the donor as member states seek to boost relations with nearby countries and deepen diplomatic ties. The small shipments are likely to stir the debate about how wealthy countries are sharing their surplus shots while poor countries still struggle to get supplies.
The EU document shows that most doses will be shared through the Covax programme. Many poor countries rely on Covax for their vaccines, but it has so far delivered only 135m shots globally and is highly dependent on donated doses, according to Reuters. Plans to buy shots on its own were temporarily derailed by vaccine makers’ production problems and export restrictions in a number of countries.
The EU has received enough vaccine to fully inoculate 70% of adults, while South Africa has given only 7% of its adult population one dose and Nigeria only 1%.
Many EU countries have set limits on the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine as well as Johnson & Johnson due to concerns about extremely rare blood clotting, reducing the capacity to use them.
France is by far the EU’s main donor in terms of pledges. It has promised 60m doses, mostly to Covax and largely without any preference on their final destination. However, it has so far delivered only about 800,000 doses, half of which went to its former colonies Senegal, Mauritania and Burkina Faso, the document shows.
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Unemployed workers are pushing for reforms and changes to the US unemployment insurance system after millions of workers experienced severe problems in receiving benefits throughout the pandemic.
Workers across the US faced long delays in receiving unemployment benefits as state systems were quickly overwhelmed with the mass influx of applications that caused months-long backlogs. Meanwhile, workers who made errors on their applications, had missing records or had their claims flagged had their benefits stopped – and often had difficulty restarting them once problems were resolved.
About 9 million Americans are estimated to have lost work due to the pandemic but received no unemployment benefits.
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Ireland will wait a few weeks before considering easing Covid-19 restrictions beyond Monday’s planned resumption of indoor dining and drinking in restaurants and bars, the deputy prime minister, Leo Varadkar, has said.
Ireland has been gradually unwinding its third and longest lockdown and earlier this month delayed plans to allow indoor service in pubs and restaurants for the first time this year due to concerns about the Delta variant, Reuters reports.
Fully vaccinated customers will now be allowed to eat and drink inside from next week after the Dáil passed controversial legislation that can be applied to other indoor settings such as nightclubs and concert venues if the government decides to open up further.
“The advice from [the National Public Health Emergency Team], the feeling in government, is let’s hold on to what we’ve gained and let’s take a pause for a few weeks before we ease any further restrictions,” Varadkar told the Newstalk radio station.
Ireland’s tough restrictions have left 18.3% of the workforce either permanently or temporarily out of work. More than half of those are in receipt of temporary Covid-19 jobless benefits, which should fall further with the reopening of indoor dining.
Ireland has reported 287,951 Covid-19 cases among its 4.9 million population, with 5,026 related deaths.
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China refuses WHO request for second Covid origins audit with closer inspection of lab
China’s government has refused to cooperate with the second stage of an international investigation into the origins of Covid-19, labelling a proposal to audit Chinese labs as “arrogance towards science”.
The lab theory – which posited the virus leaked from, or was manufactured in, a Wuhan lab – was amplified by the former US president Donald Trump and his allies, and largely dismissed as a rightwing conspiracy theory. However, calls for closer investigation of the possibility have recently gained ground, and last week the World Health Organization director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the push to discount the theory had been “premature”.
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The New York Times reports that a telephone survey of 1,719 people suggests trust in US federal health agencies leading the pandemic response remains strong.
The paper said the University of Pennsylvania poll found that 76% of respondents were somewhat or very confident in the trustworthiness of information about Covid-19 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A slightly higher proportion, 77%, were also confident about the Food and Drug Administration, according to the survey, which was conducted between 2 June and 22 June.
Of the participants in the survey, 68% said they believed that the US public health chief, Dr Anthony Fauci, provided trustworthy advice on the pandemic, though he has faced growing criticism since the poll was carried out.
It comes after a fiery senate hearing this week in which senator Rand Paul accused Fauci of lying about the role played by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in funding controversial research in Wuhan, China.
Paul said the NIH effectively funded gain of function research that had been banned under the Obama administration in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, before the pause was lifted in 2017, but Fauci denied that any of it could have led to Sars-CoV-2.
The Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin tweeted: “The NIH was funding gain of function research in Wuhan but NIH pretended it didn’t meet their ‘gain of function’ definition to avoid their own oversight mechanism.”
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Indian authorities raid prominent newspaper after critical Covid coverage
Indian tax authorities have raided a prominent newspaper and a TV channel which have been critical of the government’s handling of the pandemic, triggering accusations of intimidation.
AFP reports that Bhaskar, which has a readership of millions, had carried a series of reports on the devastation caused by the pandemic in April and May and criticised the government’s management of the crisis.
The daily said on its website in response to the raids that in the last six months it had sought to “put the real situation in front of the country”. It said: “Be it the matter of dead bodies in the Ganges or ... hiding deaths due to corona, Bhaskar showed fearless journalism.”
Bhaskar’s editor, Om Gaur, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times last month saying the bodies in the Ganges were symbolic of the “failures and deceptions” of Narendra Modi’s administration. He also wrote:
Uttar Pradesh has been governed by the Bharatiya Janata party of prime minister Narendra Modi since March 2017, under chief minister Yogi Adityanath, a Hindu monk turned politician. Mr Adityanath’s response in April to grave shortages of oxygen, ventilators and beds in intensive care units throughout the state and to the images of overcrowded cemeteries and crematories was to issue denials and threats. He directed state officials to invoke antiterrorism laws against and seize property from people he accused of spreading rumours.
Brijesh Mishra, the editor-in-chief of Bharat Samachar, said the raids were harassment. “We are not afraid of these raids ... we stand by the truth and the 240 million people of Uttar Pradesh,” he was quoted as saying in Hindi on their website.
India ranks 142nd out of 180 countries on Reporters Without Borders’ 2021 press freedom index.
Ashok Gehlot, the chief minister of the northern state of Rajasthan, said the raids were a brazen attempt to suppress the media. “Modi government cannot tolerate even an iota of its criticism,” Gehlot, who is from the opposition Congress party, wrote on Twitter.
Delhi’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, tweeted that the raids were “an attempt to scare the media”.
There was no official comment from authorities on the raids, but local media quoted unnamed tax officials as saying they had “conclusive evidence of fraud”.
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Some light relief on a sanitised Olympics.
Surely, Tokyo 2020 organisers must have thought they were doing Mother Earth a solid by commissioning 18,000 beds made of cardboard and polyethylene and other sustainable materials. But you know what would really be doing the world a favour? Not having the Olympics in the middle of a global pandemic.
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Here’s a dispatch from Brazil by my colleague Tom Phillips on how the pandemic has piled further misery on what was already one of Brazil’s most depressed and vulnerable neighbourhoods, leaving its residents, like millions of fellow citizens, hungry and afraid.
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.
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Eric Clapton has said he will not perform at any venues that require attendees to show proof of vaccination.
In response to the UK government’s announcement that vaccination passports will be required to access nightclubs and venues by the end of September, the musician has issued a statement saying he would not play “any stage where there is a discriminated audience present. Unless there is provision made for all people to attend, I reserve the right to cancel the show.”
Clapton shared the statement via the Telegram account of the Italian architect and Covid sceptic Robin Monotti. It was accompanied by a link to Clapton’s anti-lockdown collaboration with Van Morrison, Stand and Deliver, in which they sing: “Do you wanna be a free man, or do you wanna be a slave?”
Clapton also shared his negative experiences of receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine through Monotti’s Telegram account in May, claiming to have experienced severe reactions that left him questioning whether he would be able to play the guitar again.
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Summary of today's developments
- Angela Merkel has urged Germans to get vaccinated as cases in the country rise, telling the nation: “The more we are vaccinated, the freer we will be.”
- Olympic Czech beach volleyball player Marketa Nausch-Slukova and Netherlands taekwondo competitor Reshmie Oogink have reportedly tested positive for Covid-19.
- Tokyo has reported coronavirus cases at a six-month high on the eve of the opening of the Olympic Games.
- The UK business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, has said a “very narrow” list of sectors whose workers will be exempt from self-isolation rules will be published on Thursday as “pingdemic” shortages grow across the country.
- Kwarteng also said this morning that he was “very concerned” about the shortages on supermarket shelves and that a list of critical workers eligible for less strict isolation rules would be created very soon.
- Australia’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, has apologised for the country’s slow vaccine rollout, during which half the population plunged into lockdown after an outbreak of the Delta variant.
- China has rejected a World Health Organization plan for a second phase of an investigation into the origin of the coronavirus, which includes the hypothesis it could have escaped from a Chinese laboratory.
That’s it from me for today. Handing over to my colleague Mattha Busby now. Thanks for reading!
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In the UK, a record 618,903 alerts were sent to users of the NHS Covid-19 app in England and Wales in the week to 14 July, telling then they had been in close contact with a person who had tested positive for coronavirus, according to NHS figures.
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Merkel urges Germans to get Covid vaccine as cases rise
Angela Merkel has urged Germans to get vaccinated as cases in the country rise.
“We all want our normality back,” the chancellor, who is preparing to step down later this year, said. “The more we are vaccinated, the freer we will be.”
She said the rise in Covid cases in Germany was worrying. The number rose by 1,890 to 3,750,503 on Thursday, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases, and the death toll rose by 42 to 91,458.
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Czech Olympic athlete tests positive for Covid-19
A Czech beach volleyball player has reportedly tested positive for Covid-19 (see 10:11 and 05:45).
Retuers cited Czech Television as reporting that Marketa Nausch-Slukova has tested positive, bringing the number of infected Czech athletes at the Tokyo Olympics to three.
The news comes after the Netherlands team said an athlete and a member of staff had been infected. The taekwondo competitor Reshmie Oogink said in a statement after testing positive:
I have done everything I could and have worked so hard to get so close to the Games. This is the end of my career.
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Netherlands Olympic team reports two new Covid cases
The Netherlands Olympic team has reported two new Covid-19 cases, one athlete and one staff member, according to Reuters.
It follows reports earlier today that two athletes had tested positive (see 05:45).
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Back to Tokyo, where Emperor Naruhito has said Covid-19 prevention at the Olympics is a “far from an easy task”.
He said, however, that he hoped closely coordinated measures would allow athletes to compete in good health, according to Reuters.
Naruhito, who has previously voiced concern about the possible spread of coronavirus during the Games, said it was inspiring to see athletes take up challenges and that he believed support for the event comes from the Olympic spirit of peace and harmony.
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Russia has reported 24,471 new Covid cases and 796 deaths in the last 24 hours, up from 23,704 and 783 on Wednesday.
The UK Covid and politics blog is now up and running, with Andrew Sparrow reporting. This blog will now concentrate on global coronavirus news.
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Tokyo Covid cases at six-month high on eve of Olympics
Tokyo has reported coronavirus cases at a six-month high on the eve of the opening of the Olympic Games.
The city reported 1,979 new cases on Thursday - the highest figure since January and a rise of more than 600 compared with a week ago.
So far, 87 Olympics personnel - including athletes - have tested positive and the US gymnastics team has relocated to a hotel.
The figures come amid numerous controversies, including the firing of the opening ceremony director after reports emerged of him making a joke about the Holocaust and anti-Olympics protests by residents.
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'Very narrow' list of UK sectors to be exempt from self-isolation rules
The UK business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, has said a “very narrow” list of sectors whose workers will be exempt from self-isolation rules will be published on Thursday as “pingdemic” shortages grow across the country.
“We’re looking at different sectors and we will be publishing today the sectors that will be affected,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
The list would be “very narrow, simply because we don’t want to get into a huge debate about who is exempt”, he said.
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Brexit and 'pingdemic' have created 'recipe for chaos' for hauliers
In the UK, the Road Haulage Association has said the combination of Brexit and the “pingdemic” has created a “recipe for chaos” for lorry driver numbers.
Rod McKenzie, the association’s managing director of policy, said there was already a shortage of 100,000 drivers and with so many being required to self-isolate, it would get even worse.
He told PA Media:
We don’t know how many drivers are affected in terms of the pingdemic on a daily basis, but the effects are clear.
We started off with a shortage of 100,000 drivers, UK lorry drivers, and that’s because we’ve always had a shortage of 60,000 and we’ve lost an additional 20,000 European drivers, add to that 30,000 cancelled lorry driving tests in the past year which haven’t been made up.
That’s a shortage of 100,000, and when you’re that short on staff to begin with, and you have the pingdemic on top of that, you’ve got a recipe for chaos, and chaos is what we’re now seeing unfolding in front of our eyes.
What we’re able to see is the effect in terms of our shops, our supermarkets and everything else. There are fewer drivers than there were last week - and there were shortages last week.
Since the pingdemic has peaked we’re seeing this critical shortage get even worse.
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In the latest developments from the UK, the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, has said he is “very confident” that the government would win a vote on vaccine passports legislation.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
You can never predict parliamentary votes but we’ve got a majority of 80 and I’m very confident we can pass the legislation we require.
I don’t know what the proposed vote will be, you can never tell what the actual vote in the House of Commons in terms of the wording and what the position is.
It might just be a general vote on the concept, even, of vaccine passports, these votes can take any form that you can imagine.
If the vote does occur, I’m confident the Government will preserve a majority.
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Also in Indonesia, a man with coronavirus was removed from a plane after boarding a domestic flight disguised as his wife.
The man, who the Associated Press reports was wearing a niqab and carrying fake ID and a negative PCR test, was spotted after an attendant on the flight from Jakarta to Ternate noticed him changing clothes in the toilet. He was subsequently arrested when the plane landed.
“He bought the plane ticket with his wife’s name and brought the identity card, the PCR test result and the vaccination card with his wife’s name. All documents are under his wife’s name,” Ternate police chief, Aditya Laksimada, said.
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South Korea reports another day of record cases
South Korea today reported another day of record cases amid one of its worst coronavirus outbreaks to date.
There were 1,842 new cases - including at least 270 sailors who were on an anti-piracy navy destroyer - breaking the previous record set on Wednesday.
Authorities are considering expanding restrictions that were implemented in Seoul and neighbouring areas last week, reports Reuters, as clusters develop across the country.
Overall, total infections in South Korea now stand at 184,103 cases and 2,063 deaths. Only around 13% of the population has been fully vaccinated.
WHO urges Indonesia to introduce stricter lockdown amid surging Covid cases
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has urged Indonesia to bring in stricter and wider lockdown measures in a bid to tackle surging Covid infections and deaths in the country.
It comes days after the country’s president said the government will start lifting restrictions on July 26 if cases continue to decline.
But this week daily deaths hit record highs of more than 1,300 and positive cases have risen fivefold in the past five weeks.
The WHO has warned in its latest situation report that restrictions are crucial and called for additional “urgent action” to fight rising cases in 13 provinces:
Indonesia is currently facing a very high transmission level, and it is indicative of the utmost importance of implementing stringent public health and social measures, especially movement restrictions, throughout the country.
UK shadow home secretary warns: "We can't afford to have a summer of chaos"
The UK shadow home secretary has warned “we can’t afford to have a summer of chaos” as he urged the government to “take responsibility” for rising infections and ensuring that essential supplies and services can continue.
Speaking to Sky News, Nick Thomas-Symonds, shadow Home Secretary and Welsh Labour MP for Torfaen, refused to be drawn on exactly who should be on a self-isolation exemption list for those “pinged” by the NHS app, but that food workers and lorry drivers could be considered.
He said he is concerned about the growing infections because of the way the government has “recklessly” removed Covid restrictions, but added: “Of course we cant have a country where essential supplies have actually been cut off”.
UK food stores could be forced to close due to Covid self-isolation rules, the British Retail Consortium warns
The chief executive of the British Retail Consortium has warned that some food retailers will be forced to close shops due to the numbers of staff having to self-isolate after being “pinged” by the NHS app.
But Helen Dickinson urged people not to panic, adding: “There’s plenty of food in the country.”
She said some parts of the country are worse hit than others but that fear is growing among business owners. Self-isolation rules are currently not planned to change until August 16.
“Right now that feels a long time away given the rises that we’re seeing in case numbers,” Dickinson told BBC breakfast.
“There will be many smaller businesses where if they only have one or two staff and they need to self-isolate, then that’s them needing to close their doors completely.
“What is the most important thing is that people don’t panic because there’s no need to panic, because there’s plenty of food in the country.”
More from the UK, business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has elaborated slightly on the plans for a fully-vaccinated critical workers exemption list, saying it will be “very narrow”.
He told BBC Breakfast: “The list, I think, will be quite narrow, it will be very narrow, simply because we don’t want to get into a huge debate about who is exempt.”
But, he added: “The rule is very clear, we should self-isolate. It’s as simple as that. If you are pinged, you should self-isolate.
“I’m not going to countenance people breaking the rules or anything like that. I think they should just follow them.”
In the UK, a doctor and member of the British Medical Association has said that people deleting the NHS app is “very unfortunate” and compares blaming the app for “pings” to blaming a fire alarm for a fire.
Dr Tom Dolphin, an anaesthetist, told Sky that hospitals don’t have very much spare capacity at the moment and that the number of people being pinged reflects the numbers being infected.
He said the proposed NHS pay rise is probably going to turn out to be a “below inflation pay rise” at a time when exhausted doctors are leaving the NHS.
More from UK business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng who has said that the government’s offer of a 3% pay rise for NHS staff in England and Wales as they are faced with the huge repercussions of the pandemic is “fair”.
He told Sky News: “The independent review has recommended a 3% increase and the Government has decided that we’ll go with the independent review.
“I think that’s entirely fair. Obviously we’d like it to be more but you’ve got to remember we spent 350 billion to deal with the pandemic.
“I think 3%, which, after all, was what the independent review came up with, is a fair number.”
The Royal College of Nursing, meanwhile, has told the BBC that staff are “angry” about the planned increase and may consider industrial action.
UK business secretary 'very concerned' about food shortages
UK business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng this morning said he was “very concerned” about the shortages on supermarket shelves and that a list of critical workers eligible for less strict isolation rules would be created “very soon”.
It comes after Number 10 previously said that there would not be a list for individual sectors.
Kwarteng told Sky News: “We’re going to announce a list of exempt workers. The list of exemptions will be quite narrow because, obviously, you have to draw the line somewhere.”
But he would not reveal any details of which workers might feature on the list or when it would come, insisting only that it would be “very soon”.
Updated
In the UK, where food supply chains are facing staff shortages due to Covid exposure, a food distribution company has told staff to go against government advice.
Bidfood is instructing workers who are “pinged” by the NHS app to follow a testing regime and keep working.
The company’s chief executive, Andrew Selley, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
We know that they’re critical workers as part of the food supply chain, so if people are obviously positive or contacted by Test and Trace then they will have to isolate.
If they are pinged we ask them to take a PCR test, if that’s positive then clearly they’ll isolate, but if it’s negative we ask them to come back to work and we have a process of doing lateral flow tests daily away from their workplace, and if that’s negative they can proceed with their work.
Hi, I’m on the liveblog for the next few hours. Please get in touch with any tips or suggestions: miranda.bryant@guardian.co.uk
Fiji has recorded its highest number of weekly deaths from Covid, including two pregnant women.
A total of 21 people died between 14 and 20 July, the country’s health minister, James Fong, said on Thursday. Another 1,091 new Covid cases were also confirmed in the 24 hours to 8am on Wednesday.
Australian PM apologises for slow vaccine rollout
Australia’s prime minister Scott Morrison has apologised for the country’s slow vaccine rollout, which has seen half the population plunged into lockdown after an outbreak of the Delta variant.
Morrison, whose federal government has been blamed for failing to order enough vaccines, had previously refused to apologise despite mounting fury at Australia being ranked bottom of OECD countries for vaccinations.
But on Thursday he said:
I’m certainly sorry we haven’t been able to achieve the marks we had hoped for at the beginning of the year. Of course I am.
Here’s the full story:
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England is entering its fourth day without any restrictions on everyday life. But cases are climbing back to heights last seen in January, and 96 people died of the disease in the UK on Wednesday.
Our reporter Sarah Marsh talks to the families of some of the 1,000 people who have died from the virus since the beginning of June.
Carla Hodges, 35, said the death of her stepfather Leslie Lawrenson, 58, had “ripped the family apart”.
Here is the full story:
Thailand has recorded another record number of new daily cases on Thursday. There 13,655 new infections and 87 deaths. More public spaces will be closed in Bangkok and other high risk areas, including parks, writes our south-east Asia correspondent, Rebecca Ratcliffe.
The head of Thailand’s national vaccine institute apologised on Thursday for the slow vaccine rollout, saying that the country was facing unforeseen challenges, given the new variants that have emerged.
Ministers also warned people who damage the government’s reputation online will face prosecution under the computer crimes act. The rapper Milli is among a number of celebrities apparently being charged for criticising the government’s covid response.
In Myanmar, the Irrawaddy is reporting that 2,000 people have died in just three weeks as a result of the Covid outbreak. This is 40% of the country’s overall death toll. There is reportedly going to be another prisoner release, to ease the overcrowding and spread of covid in prisons.
China rejects WHO plan for second phase of Covid origins inquiry
China has rejected a World Health Organization plan for a second phase of an investigation into the origin of the coronavirus, which includes the hypothesis it could have escaped from a Chinese laboratory, Reuters reports.
The WHO this month proposed a second phase of studies into the causes of the pandemic, including audits of laboratories and markets in the city of Wuhan, calling for transparency from authorities.
But Zeng Yixin, the vice minister of China’s national health commission, said Beijing could not accept a plan which “disregards common sense and defies science”.
Zeng said he was taken aback when he first read the WHO plan because it lists the hypothesis that a Chinese violation of laboratory protocols had caused the virus to leak during research.
“We hope the WHO would seriously review the considerations and suggestions made by Chinese experts and truly treat the origin tracing of the COVID-19 virus as a scientific matter, and get rid of political interference,” Zeng said.
Vaccines soon for under-12s, says Biden
Joe Biden has suggested that his administrsation could soon give approval for vaccinations for children under-12.
Speaking on a national tour to encourage more people to get the vaccine, the US president told a televised town hall in Cincinnati in Ohio that children under 12, who are currently ineligible for the three coronavirus vaccines available in the US, could get shots by August or later in the fall.
Biden said it was “gigantically important” for Americans to get vaccinated and noted that virtually all of the people being hospitalised with Covid had not been vaccinated. It comes as new daily cases have trip[led in the past two weeks to more than 37,000.
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The coronavirus pandemic continues to dog the Tokyo Olympics with only a day to go before the opening ceremony.
Two more athletes have tested positive for the virus in the Olympic village, according to Reuters citing the Games organisers. There are now 12 new positive cases overall, including the two athletes, bringing the total to 87.
The ceremony on Friday night is set to be a subdued affair and was dealt another blow by reports that Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister who did so much to attract the Games to Japan, will not attend. The broadcaster NHK said Abe decided against attending the ceremony after the Japanese government declared a state of emergency and virus restrictions over Tokyo. Abe’s office could not immediately be reached on Thursday, a public holiday in Japan, Reuters said.
Updated
Welcome
Good morning/afternoon/evening wherever you are in the world, and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the coronaviris pandemic.
The main developments in the past few hours are:
- US cases have tripled in the past two weeks as the Delta variant takes hold and vaccinations slow. There were more than 37,000 cases on Tuesday, up from less than 13,700 on 6 July.
- Joe Biden has told Americans it is “gigantically important” that they get vaccinated as he stepped efforts to encourage greater take up of the jab. The president said that children under 12 could soon be approved for vaccination.
- Two more athletes have tested positive for coronavirus in Tokyo’s Olympic village on the eve of the Games’ opening ceremony, according to reports.
- Former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe will not attend Friday’s opening ceremony, media reports said on Thursday.
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Australia’s Olympic chief appeared to tell the Queensland premier that she had to go to the ceremony in Tokyo. Queensland’s capital, Brisbane, has been awarded the 2032 Games but Annastacia Palaszczuk had said she would not attend the ceremony.
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YouTube has removed videos by Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro for spreading misinformation about the pandemic. He has regularly played down the severity of the virus and touted unproven cures.
- China has rejected the WHO’s plan for the second phase of Covid-19 origins study because it contains “language that does not respect science”, the vice head of the health commission, Zeng Yixin, said on Thursday.
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Covid-19 admissions to hospital in England has reached its highest level for nearly five months, with 752 admissions were reported on 19 July. This is a rise of 21% on the previous week, and the highest daily number since 25 February.
- The outbreak in Australia’s most populous state of NSW has worsened with 124 new daily cases, 70 of which were infectious in the community. The state is locked down along with Victoria and South Australia.
- Thailand recorded another record number of new daily cases on Thursday. There 13,655 new infections and 87 deaths. More public spaces will be closed in Bangkok and other high risk areas, including parks.
- Fiji has recorded its highest number of weekly deaths from Covid, including two pregnant women.
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