That wraps up today’s blog and will be all from me, Samantha Lock, for now.
Don’t miss a thing by following along with all our breaking coronavirus coverage here.
Stay safe and I’ll join you next time!
Summary of today's key developments
- New Zealand prime minister Ardern’s popularity has plummeted in two new polls, as the country struggles to contain a Delta outbreak and transitions to a new era of endemic Covid.
- Ten Republican-led US states sue over vaccine mandate for healthcare workers. The lawsuit contends that the vaccine requirement threatens the jobs of millions of workers and could “exacerbate an alarming shortage” in healthcare fields, particularly in rural areas where some health workers have been hesitant to get the shots.
- The first case in the UK of a pet dog catching coronavirus, apparently from its owners, has reportedly been detected.
- A fifth lion at Singapore Zoo has also tested positive for Covid-19, the Animal and Veterinary Service (AVS) said on Wednesday.
- Israel to hold world’s first drill to test readiness for the possible emergence of a lethal ‘Omega’ variant.
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Brazil has had 12,273 new cases of coronavirus reported in the past 24 hours, and 280 deaths, the health ministry said on Wednesday.
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France is at the beginning of a fifth wave of the coronavirus epidemic, health minister Olivier Veran said on Wednesday.
- Demand for Covid booster jabs jumped in France after Emmanuel Macron said a top-up dose would be necessary for people to retain their vaccine passes.
- The US has brokered a deal between Johnson & Johnson and the Covax vaccine-sharing program for the delivery of the company’s Covid vaccine to people living in conflict zones.
- The UK reported another 39,329 Covid cases and a further 214 deaths within 28 days of a positive test, official data showed.
- Russia’s coronavirus death toll surpassed 250,000. The country reported a record 1,239 Covid-related fatalities in the previous 24 hours, taking the official death toll to 250,454.
- Soaring coronavirus rates in Germany are threatening plans for a rollout of the country’s famous Christmas markets, due to open in about a week’s time.
A story from our New Zealand correspondent Tess McClure just in.
Prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s popularity has plummeted in two new polls, as New Zealand struggles to contain a Delta outbreak and transitions to a new era of endemic Covid.
The Ardern-led Labour party dropped five points to 41% over the past months, according to the Talbot Mills Research poll published by the New Zealand Herald on Thursday. While that result still places it firmly ahead of the opposition National party, it represent’s Labour’s worst polling result in more than a year, and since before Covid-19 reached New Zealand. The result was echoed by Curia polling commissioned by lobby group the Taxpayer’s Union, which showed Labour support had dropped six points to 39%, with National up four points to 26%.
While Ardern was far ahead of any of her opponents in the preferred prime minister stakes, her ranking had dropped to 47% – down from previous highs of up to 65% in the midst of the early pandemic lockdowns. Curia’s polling put Ardern’s personal popularity even lower, at 34% – down 13 percentage points from last month in the preferred prime minister stakes. Opposition leader Judith Collins was wallowing at 6%, and libertarian-right-wing Act party leader David Seymour, who has enjoyed a recent surge in support, was at 10.5%.
Read the full story here.
Ten US states sue over vaccine mandate for healthcare workers
A coalition of 10 states sued the federal government on Wednesday to try to block a Covid-19 vaccine requirement for healthcare workers, marking a new front in the resistance by Republican-led states to the pandemic policies of President Joe Biden’s administration.
The lawsuit filed in a federal court in Missouri contends that the vaccine requirement threatens the jobs of millions of healthcare workers and could “exacerbate an alarming shortage” in healthcare fields, particularly in rural areas where some health workers have been hesitant to get the shots.
The suit follows similar ones by Republican-led states challenging new Biden administration rules that will require federal contractors to ensure their workers are vaccinated and that businesses with more than 100 employees require their workers to get vaccinated or wear masks and get tested weekly for the coronavirus.
All of the mandates are scheduled to take effect on 4 January.
Read the full story here:
Good morning from a very rainy start to the day over here in Sydney.
I’m Samantha Lock and I’ll be taking over from Tom Ambrose for the next short while.
First up, some numbers just released out of Australia for you.
The state of NSW has recorded 261 new Covid-19 cases and 1 death.
The Victorian numbers are in and we are once again seeing a slight bump with 1,313 cases overnight and 4 deaths.
In case you missed it earlier, experts say they have detected the first case in the UK of a pet dog catching coronavirus, apparently from its owners. The canine’s infection was confirmed after testing on 3 November.
It is not the first time that pets have tested positive for the virus; the same laboratory detected coronavirus in a cat last year, while research from the Netherlands has previously suggested that the virus is common in cats and dogs owned by people who have Covid.
Some experts have suggested owners with Covid should avoid their pets to prevent spreading the virus to them, and have raised concerns the animals could act as a reservoir of the virus, potentially passing it back to humans.
Brazil registers 12,273 new Covid cases, 280 more deaths
Brazil has had 12,273 new cases of coronavirus reported in the past 24 hours, and 280 deaths, the health ministry said on Wednesday.
The South American country has now registered 21,909,298 cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 610,036, according to ministry data, in the world’s third worst outbreak outside the United States and India and its second-deadliest.
As vaccination advances, the rolling 14-day average of Covid deaths has fallen to 240 daily, compared to the toll of almost 3,000 a day at the peak of the pandemic in April.
The breakfast show Good Morning Britain has received 1,428 complaints about a broadcast which featured a discussion about the coronavirus yellow card reporting system.
The broadcast on 1 November saw regular contributor Dr Hilary Jones draw attention to letter drops about the risks of vaccination purporting to be from the Government.
He described them as “complete misinformation” and said they could be dangerous.
He told co-hosts Richard Madeley and Susanna Reid: “Beware of bogus letter drops, which are complete nonsense. This is complete misinformation.
“It looks like a Government UK yellow card reporting scheme for adverse reactions to any kind of medicines or vaccines.
“But this purports to talk about all sorts of adverse reactions to vaccines, which are completely bogus and hoax.”
Madeley asked: “So it is anti-vaccine?”
Jones responded: “Oh absolutely - and this would put a lot of people off the vaccine, dangerously, because it is completely misinformation.”
Madeley then ripped one of the leaflets in half.
Broadcasting watchdog Ofcom said the complaints, received between 2 and 8 November, related to a discussion on the ITV show on the coronavirus yellow card reporting system.
It did not say whether an investigation had been launched.
Updated
In the US, about 900,000 children aged 5 to 11 will have received their first dose of the Covid vaccine in their first week of eligibility, the White House said today.
“We’re off to a very strong start,” said White House Covid coordinator Jeff Zients, during a briefing with reporters Wednesday.
Final clearance for the shots was granted by federal regulators on 2 November, with the first doses to children beginning in some locations the following day.
The estimated increase in vaccinations in elementary school age children appears similar to a jump seen in May, when adolescents ages 12 to 15 became eligible for shots, the Associated Press reported.
Now nearly 20,000 pharmacies, clinics and physicians’ offices are administering the doses to younger kids, and the Biden administration estimates that by the end of Wednesday more than 900,000 of the child doses will have been administered.
Additionally about 700,000 first-shot appointments are scheduled for the coming days.
About 28 million 5 to 11 year-olds are now eligible for the low-dose Pfizer vaccine. Kids who get their first of two shots by the end of next week will be fully vaccinated by Christmas.
Updated
France is at the beginning of a fifth wave of the coronavirus epidemic, health minister Olivier Veran said on Wednesday.
“Several neighbouring countries are already in a fifth wave of the COVID epidemic, what we are experiencing in France clearly looks like the beginning of a fifth wave,” Veran said on TF1 television, adding the circulation of the virus was accelerating.
The health ministry registered 11,883 new cases on Wednesday, the second day in a row with a new case tally over 10,000. New cases have seen double-digit percentage increases week-on-week since around mid-October.
Good evening, I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be seeing you through the rest of the night with all the latest Covid news.
We start with news that Israel is to conduct the world’s first national Covid drill to test the country’s readiness for an outbreak of a new and lethal variant of the virus.
My colleague Harriet Sherwood has the full story but here is an excerpt below:
The drill, scheduled for Thursday, will take the format of a war games exercise and will be led by the prime minister, Naftali Bennett.
It will test the capabilities of government departments and national agencies to respond to the emergence of an “Omega” variant of Covid-19.
A statement from the Israeli government press office said no such variant had yet been discovered in the country.
Israel had beaten a fourth wave of Covid and “we are on our way toward exiting the Delta variant”, Bennett said.
However, he added, the battle against the virus continued. “We are continuing to hold drills and to challenge ourselves … We must continue to closely monitor the situation and prepare for any scenario.”
The exercise will be run by Israel’s civil defence minister at the National Management Centre in Jerusalem, which handles national crises.
Click below to read the full story.
Summary
Here is a recap of some of the main developments from today:
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People testing negative for Covid-19 despite exposure may have ‘immune memory’, a study has found. Scientists found that a proportion of people experience “abortive infection” in which the virus enters the body but is cleared by the immune system’s T-cells at the earliest stage meaning that PCR and antibody tests record a negative result. The discovery could pave the way for a new generation of vaccines targeting the T-cell response, which could produce much longer lasting immunity, they said. Story here.
- The United States has brokered a deal between Johnson & Johnson and the Covax vaccine-sharing program for the delivery of the company’s Covid vaccine to people living in conflict zones. The US secretary of state Antony Blinken announced the agreement at the opening of a meeting of global foreign ministers convened by Washington on the pandemic, but provided no details on how many doses would be delivered, when or to which countries.
- The UK reported another 39,329 Covid cases and a further 214 deaths within 28 days of a positive test, official data showed.
- Tens of thousands of care home residents in England face losing vital support as unvaccinated carers clock off for the last time before double jabs become mandatory. About 50,000 care home staff who have not had two doses will not be allowed to work from Thursday. Analysis by the Guardian suggests that on current staff/resident ratios without other measures to tackle the problem, the care of about 30,000 people could be affected. Story here and the view from one home here.
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The UK recorded its first case of a pet dog catching coronavirus, apparently from its owners. The dog’s infection was confirmed after testing on 3 November. It’s not the first time that pets have tested positive for the virus; the same laboratory detected coronavirus in a cat last year, while research from the Netherlands has previously suggested that the virus is common in cats and dogs owned by people who have Covid. Story here.
- Russia’s coronavirus death toll surpassed 250,000. The country reported a record 1,239 Covid-related fatalities in the previous 24 hours, taking the official death toll to 250,454. It came two days after most of Russia’s regions emerged from a week-long workplace shutdown designed to curb the spread of the virus. Only four other countries have surpassed the grim quarter-million milestone. Officially, the US has reported 757,309 fatalities, Brazil 609,756, India 461,849, and Mexico 290,110, according to data from John Hopkins University.
- Demand for Covid booster jabs jumped in France after Emmanuel Macron said a top-up dose would be necessary for people to retain their vaccine passes, the country’s main appointment booking site said. “The Macron effect” prompted 149,000 requests for shots, most during and immediately after the president’s televised address on Tuesday evening, in which he warned that coronavirus cases were again on the rise.
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The EU signed its eighth Covid vaccine deal, approving French company Valneva’s jab. The European Commission said the contract with Valneva provides the possibility for EU member states to purchase nearly 27m doses in 2022. Valneva is hoping its candidate, which uses more traditional technology than the mRNA vaccines, could be a more reassuring option for Europeans still reluctant to be immunised. It said last month that it demonstrated efficacy “at least as good, if not better” than AstraZeneca’s vaccine in a late-stage trial comparing the two, with significantly fewer adverse side effects.
- Thailand plans to set aside up to 500,000 doses of Covid vaccines for foreign workers as it prepares to welcome them back to the country to help ease a labour shortage. The government plans to allow workers from neighbouring Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos to re-enter the country beginning next month and fill up shortages in big exporting industries such as food and rubber production, the labour minister Suchart Chomklin said.
- Boris Johnson came under fire from the World Health Organization’s special envoy for Covid-19 after being photographed without a face covering during a hospital visit. Asked about pictures of the British prime minister walking through Hexham General without a mask, Dr David Nabarro said: “I’m not sitting on the fence on this one – where you’ve got large amounts of virus being transmitted, everybody should do everything to avoid either getting the virus or inadvertently passing it on.”
Updated
Bedrooms are already standing empty at the Greenways care home outside the Warwickshire village of Long Itchington because there aren’t enough staff.
Claire Callender, 42, the manager, has already closed 12 of her 27 beds because “there aren’t people who want to do the job”. And on Wednesday she said goodbye to another care worker, this time because of the new rule making double Covid jabs a condition of deployment for all care home workers in England as of Thursday.
Katie Madden, who worked night shifts at Greenways for the last 18 months, came close to tears when she told the Guardian about leaving. She worked through a Covid outbreak at the home and was ill herself with the virus for weeks. She had planned to get the vaccine, but was anxious about it making her ill again.
“The decision was taken out of my hands [when the law making it mandatory was introduced] … and I thought, ‘No, I’m not ready,’” she said.
She washes residents, prepares them for bed and checks on them through the night. In the morning she gets them up and arranges breakfast. “This is a job I am going to be really upset about leaving,” she said.
“I built a relationship with them all. We were all there through thick and thin when everyone was poorly … I could have run away when there was coronavirus, but the old people were getting it and it was breaking my heart. But I went there, breaking my back to help, and it turns from that to ‘You can go now’. I feel really let down.”
For care managers, already dealing with staff shortages caused by exhaustion, pay that averages barely £9 an hour and the flow of foreign carers being choked off by Brexit, the rule is only made more difficult by the fact that NHS workers won’t have to get vaccinated until April 2022.
Many care staff reluctant to have the vaccine have as a result already moved to the health service.
“The [situation] is absolutely ridiculous,” said Callender. “I have to turn a healthcare worker away if they are not vaccinated, but not visitors.”
Read the rest of this story here:
People testing negative for Covid despite exposure may have ‘immune memory’ - study
We all know that person who, despite their entire household catching Covid-19, has never tested positive for the disease.
Now scientists have found an explanation, showing that a proportion of people experience “abortive infection” in which the virus enters the body but is cleared by the immune system’s T-cells at the earliest stage meaning that PCR and antibody tests record a negative result.
About 15% of healthcare workers who were tracked during the first wave of the pandemic in London, England, appeared to fit this scenario.
The discovery could pave the way for a new generation of vaccines targeting the T-cell response, which could produce much longer lasting immunity, scientists said.
Leo Swadling, an immunologist at University College London and lead author of the paper, said:
Everyone has anecdotal evidence of people being exposed but not succumbing to infection. What we didn’t know is whether these individuals really did manage to completely avoid the virus or whether they naturally cleared the virus before it was detectable by routine tests.
The latest study intensively monitored healthcare workers for signs of infection and immune responses during the first wave of the pandemic. Despite a high risk of exposure 58 participants did not test positive for Covid-19 at any point.
However, blood samples taken from these people showed they had an increase in T-cells that reacted against Covid-19, compared with samples taken before the pandemic took hold and compared with people who had not been exposed to the virus at all. They also had increases in another blood marker of viral infection.
The work suggests that a subset of people already had memory T-cells from previous infections from other seasonal coronaviruses causing common colds, which protected them from Covid-19.
These immune cells “sniff out” proteins in the replication machinery – a region of Covid-19 shared with seasonal coronaviruses – and in some people this response was quick and potent enough for the infection to be cleared at the earliest stage. “These pre-existing T-cells are poised ready to recognise SARS-CoV-2,” said Swadling.
The study adds to the known spectrum of possibilities after exposure to Covid-19, ranging from escaping infection entirely to severe disease.
Full story here:
Updated
Secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that the United States has brokered a deal between Johnson & Johnson and the Covax vaccine-sharing program for the delivery of the company’s Covid vaccine to people living in conflict zones.
He announced the agreement at the opening of a meeting of global foreign ministers convened by Washington on the pandemic, but provided no details on how many doses would be delivered, when or to which countries.
We need to ensure that people who cannot be reached by government vaccination campaigns aren’t left out of our efforts. They need to be protected too. We’re eager for people in these difficult circumstances to get protection against Covid-19 as soon as possible.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) welcomed the announcement, calling it a “positive step” to getting more vaccines to conflict zones and other humanitarian settings.
“In countries suffering from years of conflict, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Yemen, less than 2% of the population have been vaccinated against COVID-19,” said Esperanza Martinez, head of the ICRC’s Covid-19 crisis management team. “This shocking inequality must be rectified.”
The meeting follows a virtual summit of world leaders arranged by the US president Joe Biden on 22 September, when he pledged that Washington would buy 500 million more Covid vaccine doses to donate to other countries.
Health experts say rich countries have not done enough in that regard and have criticised the United States in particular for planning booster shots for fully vaccinated Americans while much of the world’s population still has no access to vaccines.
They said planned US dose donations are welcome but insufficient and noted that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is difficult to administer in poorer countries, which lack sophisticated infrastructure for storing and shipping the shots.
Addressing the meeting, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on foreign ministers to fully fund the Access to Covid-19 Tools Accelerator, which funds research and production of new medicines to fight the virus, and the African Union’s vaccine fund.
“We ask those countries that have promised to donate vaccines to make good on those promises, as soon as possible,” Tedros said. “We ask you to support local production of vaccines.”
The US Food and Drug Administration classified the recall of Ellume’s over-the-counter Covid home test as Class 1, the most serious type of recall, after the Australian diagnostic test maker removed some of its tests from the market last month.
Ellume had cited higher-than-acceptable false positive test results for SARS-CoV-2 as the reason for the recall.
A ‘false positive’ indicates that a person has the virus when they actually do not.
The antigen test, which detects proteins from the SARS-CoV-2 virus from a nasal sample, is available without a prescription for use by people above two years of age with or without Covid symptoms.
The agency said on Wednesday there have been 35 complaints of the antigen test giving false positive results, but no death had been reported related to the test.
Ellume has so far recalled 2,212,335 tests in the United States.
Soaring coronavirus rates in Germany are threatening plans for a rollout of the country’s famous Christmas markets, due to open in about a week’s time.
There had been considerable fanfare over municipalities’ plans to stage the markets this year after they were called off a year ago.
Hopes that the vaccine campaign – which started in Germany on 27 December last year – would have enabled markets to go ahead have been thwarted by a low uptake rate – only about 67% of Germans are fully vaccinated – and the spread of the more infectious Delta variant.
Now authorities from Bavaria in the south to Saxony and Thuringia in the east have begun announcing the cancellation of many scheduled markets, saying a rising infection rate means it would be irresponsible for them to go ahead.
Full story here:
Here is my colleague Nicola Davis’s story on the pet dog in the UK who contracted Covid from its owners:
UK records another 214 deaths and 39,329 infections
The UK reported another 39,329 Covid cases on Wednesday and a further 214 deaths within 28 days of a positive test, official data showed. The figures compared to 33,117 cases and 262 deaths reported on Tuesday.
One of the UK’s longest-suffering patients with Covid has revealed he was confronted by a conspiracy theorist during his 10-month stay in hospital and heard claims that the virus was a hoax.
Cancer survivor Andy Watts, 40, said her feared he would die after falling seriously ill with coronavirus in December last year. The father-of-two spent eight months in intensive care, including five weeks in an induced coma, when doctors considered switching off his ventilator after his condition deteriorated.
He was moved out of intensive care in August and spent another two months on a hospital ward as he learnt how to talk, eat and walk again.
Watts made a remarkable recovery, finally leaving to applause from medical staff at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, southeast London, on 21 October - 300 days after being admitted for treatment.
Watts, from Bexley, said some visitors in his hospital ward believed the virus was a hoax despite his ordeal. He said he was confronted by one person visiting a non-Covid patient who told him the virus was “all a conspiracy”. He said:
I just thought: ‘Whatever’, and put my headphones back in. I don’t want to get involved in conversations like that. I didn’t want to get into an argument. It’s up to them what they want to believe. In the end, I just thought: ‘Here’s the proof - if you don’t want to believe it, what can I do?’
Now vaccinated, Watts said he still has oxygen therapy at night and has physiotherapy twice a week, along with daily exercises. He said:
The last two years have made me appreciate life a lot more. You never know what’s round the corner. Don’t take things for granted. Every day is special.
Sky News has the story.
Frontline workers cannot expect to remain unvaccinated in a pandemic and to keep working with vulnerable people, writes Guardian columnist Frances Ryan.
Here are some extracts from her column:
In some ways, it is remarkable that requiring NHS staff who have face-to-face contact with patients to be vaccinated is even controversial. Healthcare workers have a professional duty of care not to harm patients, which is why the majority have already taken the vaccine, and few could expect to remain unvaccinated in a pandemic and to keep working with vulnerable people. However, mandating health measures is not something to be done lightly.
As I’ve written before, workers – especially pregnant women and people from minority ethnic groups – must be given time to overcome fears, as well as paid time off to get the jab and sick leave for any mild side effects. That’s why staff will be offered one-to-one meetings with clinicians if they want to discuss their concerns as they make their choice.
But “persuasion” cannot go on for ever. It has been almost a year since health and care workers were first given priority access to the jab. There surely comes a point when we must acknowledge that some staff will never take the vaccine without it being mandatory, and be honest about what we are asking the public to face in the meantime. Medics are not immune to doubting science or guaranteed to put their patients’ wellbeing first. Every request to give staff more time to feel comfortable with being vaccinated is another day that clinically vulnerable people’s lives are put at risk.
It’s important to be clear about what [Sajid] Javid has mandated. No one will be forced to have the vaccine. It is simply that those staff who choose to remain unvaccinated will not have the right to a job on the frontline of the NHS.
This is not unprecedented. Staff in some areas of the NHS, such as surgery, are already obliged to get vaccinated against hepatitis B. That’s because it’s widely understood that not taking sensible precautions to prevent passing on a disease to patients would be a form of neglect.
The myth that “patients are jabbed so no one else needs to be” is another straw man. Some clinically vulnerable people can’t have the vaccine because of their illness, while others will receive insufficient protection from the jab because they’re taking certain medications or because they have weak immune systems.
That’s why it’s so important for frontline health workers to be vaccinated; multiple studies show it significantly reduces the risk of transmission. We don’t stop making seatbelts compulsory in cars because some people still die in accidents. Many lives are saved by them, and that’s enough reason for us all to wear them.
The full column is here:
Far from being irresponsible Covid spreaders, the vast majority of students at English universities have been vaccinated at least once and would request a test if they had symptoms, according to a survey.
Students’ wellbeing has suffered this autumn, however, with a third of those surveyed reporting that their mental health had deteriorated since the start of term, the report by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) says.
The survey found the average life satisfaction score among students was 6.6 out of 10, significantly lower than among 16- to 29-year-olds in general, who scored 7.0, and the overall adult population in Great Britain, at 7.1.
The ONS report says mental health has worsened as the term has progressed, with 32% of students reporting that their wellbeing has deteriorated, compared with 26% in late September.
It is better than it was last May, when half of students who took part in the survey said their mental health had deteriorated. Most students at that time were studying online owing to lockdown restrictions, while this term students have returned to campuses for more face-to-face teaching.
On vaccination, the survey – which is based on experimental data drawn from responses from almost 1,000 students in England during October and November – found that 91% of respondents had been vaccinated against Covid at least once.
The proportion of students who have been double-vaccinated was 85%, up from 78% in late September. Of the 8% who said they had not been vaccinated, almost a third (32%) said they were fairly or very likely to take a vaccine if offered.
Students also showed they were willing to test for Covid: 92% said they would request a test if they developed symptoms, and 49% said they had taken a test in the previous seven days. Meanwhile, 57% said they would stay at home for 10 days if they developed symptoms.
Last year students were often accused of spreading the virus by holding parties in breach of restrictions, and some were fined and threatened with exclusion from their university studies.
The full story is here:
A care home manager in England who has lost a sixth of her staff because of the UK government’s mandatory vaccination policy has told of the anguish of reading their “heartbreaking” resignation letters.
Niccii Gillett, manager of Elmfield House Residential Home in Woking, Surrey, said six of her 36 staff have already resigned due to the requirement rather than face dismissal.
Thursday is the deadline for care home staff in England to have been doubled jabbed, except for those who are medically exempt.
The latest figures from the NHS show more than 60,000 staff had not been recorded as fully vaccinated as of 31 October, meaning tens of thousands face losing their jobs.
Gillett said her staff “firmly stated” in every resignation letter that they did not want to stop working. Two had been at the 18-bed family-run home for seven years.
The 37-year-old told the PA news agency:
The sad thing is none of them wanted to leave. And reading their resignation letters was heartbreaking.
They’re so grateful for the opportunities and the first one that left, we gave gifts.
It was such an emotional afternoon and for days afterwards my residents were heartbroken because they saw this person as one of them, and even a resident, they have said ‘I wish she could come back, I don’t care that she’s not vaccinated’.
Tens of thousands of care home residents in England face losing vital support as unvaccinated carers clock off for the last time before double jabs become mandatory.
About 50,000 care home staff who have not had two doses will not be allowed to work from Thursday. Analysis by the Guardian suggests that on current staff/resident ratios without other measures to tackle the problem, the care of about 30,000 people could be affected.
Care operators and health chiefs have warned staff shortfalls could prevent thousands of people from being discharged from hospitals this winter, limiting admissions and clogging up wards. They say it will increase pressure on remaining care staff to work longer hours, despite many being already exhausted.
Full story here:
A pet dog has fallen ill with Covid in the UK after reportedly contracting the virus from its owners.
The dog tested positive for the virus following tests at the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) laboratory in Weybridge, Surrey, on 3 November.
It is understood that the dog, who is recovering at home, contracted the virus from its owners, who had previously tested positive for coronavirus.
Experts claim there is no evidence the animal was involved in the transmission of the disease to its owners, or that pets or other domestic animals are able to transmit the virus to humans.
It is the first confirmed case of a dog becoming infected with Covid in the UK, after the virus was detected in a cat in the same laboratory last year.
Cat or dog owners who have Covid-19 should avoid their pets while infected, experts warned a few months ago.
Scientists in the Netherlands found that coronavirus is common in pet cats and dogs where their owners have the disease.
While cases of owners passing on Covid to their pets bring negligible risk to public health, the scientists said there is a “potential risk” that domestic animals could act as a “reservoir” for coronavirus and reintroduce it to humans.
The latest UK government guidance for animal owners on how to care for their animals during the pandemic can be found here.
Updated
A fifth lion at Singapore Zoo has tested positive for Covid-19, the Animal and Veterinary Service (AVS) said on Wednesday.
The African lion, which showed signs of illness on Monday, tested positive along with four Asiatic lions from the Night Safari, who tested positive on Tuesday after displaying signs of sickness over the weekend. The lions, whose symptoms included coughing and sneezing, are isolated within their respective dens.
A Mandai Wildlife Group spokesman said in a statement on Wednesday that all its lions that have been unwell are “bright, alert and active for now”, adding:
While we expect them to fully recover soon, we are monitoring them very closely. We have added vitamin C to their diet but have not needed to administer other medications.
The World Health Organisation for Animal Health has advised that the risk of transmission from infected animals to humans is very low. Nevertheless, we have closed the exhibits while our lions rest.
It is believed the lions contracted the virus from three infected zookeepers.
It is one of the most recent cases of animal infection with the virus. There have been a small number of confirmed cases in pets, including cats and dogs, in countries in Europe, North America and Asia.
In June, 15 lions became infected at a zoo in Chennai, India. Two of the lions died, while the other 13 recovered. And last week, two spotted hyenas at Denver Zoo in the US became the first in the world to test positive for the virus and showed mild symptoms including “a little bit of coughing and sneezing”, nasal discharge and lethargy.
Other reported incidents from around the world include a wild white-tailed deer cluster in Iowa in the US, and infections on mink farms in Denmark, which led to mass nationwide culling and incineration of millions of minks.
After a troop of western lowland gorillas fell ill with Covid in San Diego Zoo in the US in January, four orangutans and five bonobos became the first non-human primates to be vaccinated against the disease in March. Several other zoos around the world have begun giving animals the vaccine to protect them from Covid.
Updated
Russia death toll passes 250,000
Russia on Wednesday reported a record 1,239 deaths from Covid in the previous 24 hours, two days after most of its regions emerged from a week-long workplace shutdown designed to curb the spread of the virus.
It takes the official death toll to 250,454 deaths. Only four other countries have surpassed the grim quarter-million milestone. Officially, the US has reported 757,309 fatalities, Brazil 609,756, India 461,849, and Mexico 290,110, according to data from John Hopkins University.
A further 38,058 coronavirus cases were also recorded across Russia, including 3,927 in Moscow, in the past 24 hours, according to the government’s Covid task force.
New daily cases have retreated slightly in the past four days after hitting a peak of 41,335 on Saturday.
“For now we cannot say with confidence that the situation has stabilised and the infection rate is declining,” the deputy prime minister Tatyana Golikova told a government meeting.
Her assessment was markedly more downbeat than that of the health minister Mikhail Murashko, who had said on Tuesday that the nationwide “non-working days” from 30 October to 7 November had turned the tide in Russia’s fight against the pandemic.
Murashko told parliament on Wednesday that oxygen reserves at hospitals in 12 of Russia’s regions would last for two days or less, unless they were replenished.
At the same time, he said, some regions were already reporting a decline in infections and the vaccination campaign was bearing fruit as only 3-4% of inoculated Russians have been infected.
More than 62 million Russians have received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine, Murashko said.
Golikova told a government meeting that 22 million more people needed to get inoculated and about 9 million needed to get a booster in order to have 80% of the adult population vaccinated and thus achieve a minimum level of collective immunity.
*I’m grateful to reader Francisco for flagging this to me.
Updated
Demand for Covid booster jabs jumped in France after Emmanuel Macron said a top-up dose would be necessary for people to retain their vaccine passes, the country’s main appointment booking site said on Wednesday.
“The Macron effect” prompted 149,000 requests for shots, most during and immediately after the president’s televised address on Tuesday evening, in which he warned that coronavirus cases were again on the rise, Doctolib told AFP.
Anticipation of tougher rules had already sparked 96,000 bookings on Monday, compared with an average of 50,000 a day in recent weeks.
Macron announced that from 15 December people over 65 would require a booster shot if they want to continue using their vaccine passes to gain entry to bars, restaurants, cinemas and other public venues.
He added that from the age 50, people would be allowed to request an additional vaccine dose, without it being mandatory for the Covid passes of 50- to 64-year-olds.
France has one of the strictest vaccination regimes in Europe, with the passes required to take intercity trains, visit museums and go to gyms, among other amenities.
That has pushed France’s overall vaccination rate to 75%, a level relatively unchanged in recent weeks. Doctolib said only 20,000 of the Tuesday bookings were for first-time vaccinations.
In his speech, Macron urged the roughly 6 million people in France yet to get even a first jab to do so:
This is an appeal for responsibility – get vaccinated.
He also said face masks will again be mandatory for all schoolchildren in a bid to avoid a new wave of cases.
The government is also considering making vaccines available to children under 12.
As of Tuesday, there have been an average of 36 daily Covid deaths in hospital over the past week, a 21% rise from the previous week, according to health ministry figures. France’s total death toll since the start of the pandemic stands at 118,023.
Updated
EU signs eighth Covid vaccine deal with France's Valneva
French vaccines company Valneva saw it shares jump more than 20% after it won approval from the European Commission for a deal under which it would supply up to 60m doses of VLA2001, its inactivated Covid vaccine candidate, over two years.
It is the eighth such deal by the executive body as it speeds up its fight against rising infections on the continent.
“The Valneva vaccine adds another option to our broad portfolio, once it is proven to be safe and effective by the European Medicines Agency,” the EU health commissioner Stella Kyriakides said. “The message remains the same: trust the science, and vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate.”
Valneva is hoping its candidate, which uses more traditional technology than the mRNA vaccines, could be a more reassuring option for Europeans still reluctant to be immunised.
It said last month that it demonstrated efficacy “at least as good, if not better” than AstraZeneca’s shot in a late-stage trial comparing the two, with significantly fewer adverse side effects.
The European Commission said the contract with Valneva provides the possibility for EU member states to purchase nearly 27m doses in 2022. Member states can then make a further order of up to 33m additional vaccines in 2023.
The deal includes the possibility to adapt the vaccine to new coronavirus variants.
“We are grateful to the European Commission for its support and are eager to help address the ongoing pandemic,” Valneva chief executive Thomas Lingelbach said in a statement.
In September, the UK scrapped a contract for about 100m doses of Valneva’s Covid vaccine over concerns the vaccine might not receive approval.
Updated
Thailand offers Covid vaccines to migrant workers to ease labour shortage
Thailand will set aside up to 500,000 doses of Covid vaccines for foreign workers as it prepares to welcome them back to the country to help ease a labour shortage, a government minister said on Wednesday.
The government plans to allow workers from neighbouring Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos to re-enter the country beginning next month and fill up shortages in big exporting industries such as food and rubber production.
Workers will be placed in a two-week quarantine and during that time the vaccines will be administered, labor minister Suchart Chomklin said. They will also be tested for Covid.
“We have prepared 400,000 to 500,000 doses to inoculate migrant workers,” he said. the Labor Ministry estimates there is an immediate demand for 420,000 migrant workers.
Easing the controls will also help stop smuggling of workers, the government said.
Nearly 11,000 people were arrested in cases linked to smuggling last month, compared to 1,456 arrests over the same period last year.
Updated
Italy has clamped down on protests against the country’s Covid-19 health pass.
The protests, at times violent, have become more prolific since Italy made the pass mandatory for all workers in October.
Demonstrations will no longer be able to take place in city or town centres.
“For weeks the so-called ‘no pass’ protests have been paralysing the centres of many cities every Saturday, creating inconvenience for citizens and shop-keepers, as well as creating crowds of unvaccinated people,” said Carlo Sibilia, undersecretary at the interior minister.
Protests in the northern city of Trieste are believed to have triggered a surge in coronavirus infections.
There was also controversy earlier this month after protesters marched through the streets of the city of Novara wearing striped bibs while comparing themselves to prisoners of Nazi concentration camps.
In October, a demonstration in Rome turned violent after neo-fascist militants ransacked the headquarters of a trade union.
The so-called ‘green pass’, which shows evidence of vaccination, immunisation or a negative test, is required by Italians when entering their workplaces and for dining inside at bars or restaurants, travelling by plane or long-distance train as well as entering museums, theatres, cinemas, nightclubs and stadiums.
Updated
Boris Johnson has come under fire from the World Health Organization’s special envoy for Covid-19 after being photographed without a face covering during a hospital visit.
Asked about pictures of the British prime minister walking through Hexham General without a mask, Dr David Nabarro said:
We all need to be able to do what we’ve got to do, regardless of what politics we adopt.
He told Sky News:
I’m not sitting on the fence on this one – where you’ve got large amounts of virus being transmitted, everybody should do everything to avoid either getting the virus or inadvertently passing it on.
We know that wearing a face mask reduces the risk, we know that maintaining physical distance reduces the risk, we know that hygiene by regular hand-washing and coughing into your elbow reduces the risk.
We should do it all and we should not rely on any one intervention like vaccination on its own.
So, please, would every leader be wearing face masks, particularly when in indoor settings.
This virus is unforgiving and we need to do everything possible to prevent it getting in between us and infecting us.
Dr Nabarro also expressed regret that means of mitigating the spread of Covid, such as use of face masks, have been politicised. He told the broadcaster:
Perhaps that’s the toughest thing about Covid, is that the responses get politicised – in some places if you wear a mask, you’re taught to belong to a particular political party.
That’s the most regretful thing about the present situation; we all need to be able to do what we’ve got to do, regardless of what politics we adopt.
The latest row came after Johnson was pictured last week at the Cop26 climate change summit sitting maskless alongside the 95-year-old environmentalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough.
A No 10 spokesman earlier said of his visit to Hexham General hospital:
The prime minister followed the Covid measures that were in place throughout his visit, including wearing a mask in all clinical areas. He also took a PCR test before the visit. The hospital trust has issued a statement making clear the PM followed its guidelines.
Updated
Good morning from London. I’m Lucy Campbell, I’ll be bringing you all the latest global developments on the coronavirus pandemic for the next eight hours. Please feel free to get in touch with me as I work if you have a story or tips to share! Your thoughts are always welcome.
Email: lucy.campbell@theguardian.com
Twitter: @lucy_campbell_
Today so far
- Germany’s national disease control centre reported a record-high number of new coronavirus cases today, as one of the country’s top virologists warned that another lockdown would be needed if vaccinations do not quickly accelerate.
- “We have a real emergency situation right now,” Christian Drosten, the head of virology at Berlin’s Charite hospital, said regarding the situation at many hospital intensive care units across the country. “We have to do something right now.”
- Hungary recorded 8,434 new Covid-19 infections today, the highest daily tally since early April, with new cases again doubling from last week.
- Slovakia reported 7,055 new cases – the highest level the country has seen since the pandemic began.
- The Czech Republic has recorded its highest number of Covid cases since March 2021, with 14,539 new positive tests. Ladislav Dušek, director of the country’s health information and statistics organisation, warned that “high numbers of infections in the most vulnerable part of the population increases the probability of an additional burden on hospitals, in numbers which can potentially double up very quickly.”
- The World Health Organization’s Covid envoy Dr David Nabarro has warned to minimise international travel even as borders open up, saying: “I’m trying to say to everybody travel if you must – and there are often essential emotional reasons as well as essential economic and another reasons – but try not to travel if you don’t have to. Because travelling does increase your risk, we know that the more contacts you have with other people, the more likely you are to both get the virus and to spread it, so minimise travel please.”
- Nabarro has also criticised UK prime minister Boris Johnson for appearing in a hospital without wearing a face mask this week, urging all world leaders to wear masks when in indoor settings.
- The UK’s health secretary Sajid Javid said this morning he does “not want to see anyone have to walk away from their job” as he urged health and social care staff to get a Covid-19 vaccine ahead of making it compulsory for NHS England staff from 1 April.
- Dr Maggie Wearmouth, who sits on the Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) in the UK, said that legislating mandatory vaccines for frontline health and care workers in England was a “blunt instrument” but she was “supportive” of the move.
- Indonesia and Malaysia have agreed to introduce a travel corridor between them on a gradual basis, starting with key areas like capital cities and the holiday island of Bali.
- Vietnam has said it will by the end of this month have sufficient vaccines to cover its population against Covid-19.
- Four lions at a Singapore wildlife park have tested positive for coronavirus after coming into contact with infected zookeepers, and have symptoms including coughing and sneezing, officials have said.
- The European Union’s drug regulator expects to decide in about two months on whether to allow the use of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine in children aged six to 11 after the US pharmaceutical company sought approval. However, several European countries including Sweden, Germany and France have paused or recommended pausing its use for people 30 or younger due to rare heart-related side-effects.
- People who trust Fox News Channel and other media outlets that appeal to Republicans and conservatives are more likely to believe falsehoods about Covid-19 and vaccines than those who primarily go elsewhere for news, a study in the US has found. The most widely believed falsehood is about the government exaggerating Covid deaths. 60% of Americans either believe that or said they didn’t know whether or not it was true.
Lucy Campbell will be here shortly to take you through the rest of the days Covid news from the UK and around the world. Andrew Sparrow has our live UK politics coverage, and Alan Evans is live at Cop26. I will see you here again tomorrow, take care and stay safe.
The UK’s health secretary Sajid Javid said this morning he does “not want to see anyone have to walk away from their job” as he urged health and social care staff to get a Covid-19 vaccine.
Javid told media outlets this morning the decision to make vaccines compulsory for staff in England from next April was “about patient safety”, adding that it was the government’s and NHS’s duty to protect the vulnerable, who are at increased risk of death from coronavirus.
During his appearances, PA Media quotes him telling LBC Radio:
The vast majority of NHS workers are already vaccinated and I want to, of course, thank them for that. They’ve done that not only to protect themselves or their colleagues, most of all I think they’ve done it to protect their patients.
We know that people in hospital, they’re already very vulnerable, and the last thing they want is to be exposed to Covid-19 when it could have been prevented, and that can be fatal for them in that condition.
I think, ultimately, this is the right call – it is the duty of the NHS and the government to do everything that we can to protect vulnerable people.
Javid said staff who refuse a jab could be moved to non-patient facing roles, but that figures in the government’s impact assessment regarding how many could leave were a “cautious estimate”. There are between 80,000 and 100,000 unvaccinated NHS staff in England
Updated
The European Union’s drug regulator expects to decide in about two months on whether to allow the use of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine in children aged six to 11 after the US pharmaceutical company sought approval.
“The current timeline for evaluation foresees an opinion in approximately two months, unless supplementary information or analysis is needed,” the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said in a statement.
Reuters notes that the European Union had in July authorised the vaccine for use in teens aged 12 to 17 years, but several countries including Sweden, Germany and France have paused or recommended pausing its use for people 30 or younger due to rare heart-related side-effects.
Updated
I’ll be continuing to bring you the latest Covid news from the UK and around the world, but we’ve also got another couple of live blogs up and running now that might catch your eye.
Andrew Sparrow has launched the UK politics live blog. He is leading with the swirl of sleaze around Boris Johnson’s government.
We’ve also got live coverage by Alan Evans from Cop26, on an important day for the conference, as a draft agreement has emerged.
Updated
Hungary recorded 8,434 new Covid-19 infections today, the highest daily tally since early April, with new cases again doubling from last week. Slovakia reported 7,055 new cases – the highest level the country has seen since the pandemic began. This map shows the worsening situation across Europe right now.
Germany's Robert Koch Institute records highest daily caseload since pandemic began
Germany’s national disease control centre reported a record-high number of new coronavirus cases today, as one of the country’s top virologists warned that another lockdown would be needed if vaccinations do not quickly accelerate.
The 39,676 cases registered by the Robert Koch Institute surpassed the previous daily record of 37,120 new cases it reported on Friday. The institute said Germany’s infection rate rose to 232.1 new cases per 100,000 residents over the past seven days.
Berlin’s Charite hospital said Tuesday it had to cancel planned surgeries due to the number of staff members caring for people with Covid-19. Authorities have said most of latest patients are unvaccinated.
“We have a real emergency situation right now,” Christian Drosten, the head of virology at Charite, said regarding the situation at many hospital intensive care units across the country. “We have to do something right now.”
Drosten said he expects “a very strenuous winter” if vaccinations don’t pick up quickly. “We probably need to control infection activity again through contact measures – not probably, but certainly,” he said. “We’re in a bad situation: we have 15 million people who could have been vaccinated and should have been vaccinated,” Drosten said.
Several hospitals have said in recent days that they are again working at their limits and have ICUs so full of coronavirus patients that they cannot admit new patients at the moment.
Kirsten Grieshaber notes for Associated Press that Germany has a caretaker national government following a September federal election. The parties that are expected to form the next government plan to introduce legislation this week that would allow a declaration since March 2020 of an “epidemic situation of national scope” to expire at the end of the month and provide a new legal framework for instituting coronavirus measures.
As during other periods of the pandemic, the country has a patchwork of regional rules. Most places restrict access to many indoor facilities and events to people who have been vaccinated against the virus, have recovered from Covid or recently received negative test results – with the latter category now excluded in some areas. However, there are complaints that the rules are often laxly enforced.
Updated
UK television network ITV is on track to enjoy the best year for advertising revenues in its 66-year history as businesses pour money into marketing to drive a post-pandemic recovery, while content such as the Euro 2020 tournament proved a hit with viewers.
The UK’s biggest free-to-air commercial broadcaster said it was performing more strongly than in 2019 before Covid-19 hit, with total advertising revenue for the first nine months rising 30% year on year to £1.3bn.
The company expects total ad revenues for the year, including the growing income from ads on its streaming service, ITV Hub, to be up by 24% compared with 2020 to hit an all-time high.
Read more of Mark Sweney’s report here: Pandemic bounceback puts ITV on course for record year of ad revenues
An odd one here from Agence France-Presse: Four lions at a Singapore wildlife park have tested positive for coronavirus after coming into contact with infected zookeepers, and have symptoms including coughing and sneezing, officials have said.
The endangered Asiatic lions started displaying signs of illness at the weekend, prompting officials to order coronavirus tests. The infected big cats along with five others at the Night Safari park have been placed in isolation in their den, the government’s animal and veterinary service said.
“All the lions remain bright, alert and active,” said Sonja Luz, from Mandai Wildlife Group, which operates the park. “We expect that the lions will make a full recovery with minor supportive treatment.”
Three zookeepers from the Night Safari are confirmed to have been infected. The park is an open-air zoo home to hundreds of animals, which welcomes visitors at night.
An African lion at Singapore Zoo – which is adjacent to the Night Safari – has also fallen sick, and officials have ordered virus tests. Both Singapore Zoo and the Night Safari remain open, although the lion exhibits have been temporarily closed.
Animals have become infected with the virus on previous occasions. Lions, tigers and gorillas have tested positive at US zoos, while domestic cats and dogs have also been hit.
Updated
Germany: only Biontech/Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine to be recommended for people under 30
Germany’s vaccine advisory committee recommends people under 30 be vaccinated only with the Biontech/Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine, as it showed a lower number of heart inflammations in younger people than the Moderna vaccination, it said this morning.
The committee, known as STIKO, said it also recommends pregnant women, independent of their age, be inoculated only with the Biontech/Pfizer vaccine as well.
France’s vaccine advisory board made a similar recommendation earlier this week.
People who trust Fox News Channel and other media outlets that appeal to Republicans and conservatives are more likely to believe falsehoods about Covid-19 and vaccines than those who primarily go elsewhere for news, a study in the US has found.
While the Kaiser Family Foundation study released this week found the clear ties between news outlets that people trusted and the amount of misinformation they believe, it took no stand on whether those attitudes specifically came from what they saw there.
“It may be because the people who are self-selecting these organisations believe (the misinformation) going in,” said Liz Hamel, vice president and director of public opinion and survey research at Kaiser.
Associated Press reports that Kaiser polled people on whether or not they believed seven widely circulated untruths about the virus, among them that the government is exaggerating the number of deaths attributable to the coronavirus, hiding reports of deaths caused by vaccines or that the vaccines can cause infertility, contain a microchip or can change DNA.
For people who most trusted network or local television news, NPR, CNN or MSNBC, between 11% and 16% said they believed four or more of those untrue statements, or weren’t sure about what was true.
For Fox News viewers, 36% either believed in or were unsure about four or more false statements, Kaiser said. It was 46% for Newsmax viewers and 37% for those who said they trusted One America Network News.
The most widely believed falsehood is about the government exaggerating Covid deaths. Kaiser said 60% of Americans either believe that or said they didn’t know whether or not it was true.
Updated
There’s been a lot of news recently about reopened travel routes, including the opening of the US-Mexico border and the resumption of transatlantic flights. One person not looking to take advantage of that is the World Health Organization’s Dr David Nabarro. As part of his Sky News interview in the UK this morning he had this to say about travel:
Why am I not travelling very much? Because I don’t want to get Covid – I’m in the wrong age group and I’ve got other adverse factors as well.
So, I’m trying to say to everybody travel if you must – and there are often essential emotional reasons as well as essential economic and another reasons – but try not to travel if you don’t have to.
Because travelling does increase your risk, we know that the more contacts you have with other people, the more likely you are to both get the virus and to spread it, so minimise travel please.
I’m asking everybody if they’re organising meetings, make sure they’re either virtual or hybrid, so that if people are unable to travel, they can still participate fully from a distance.
Updated
Another quick Reuters snap here – Indonesia and Malaysia have agreed to introduce a travel corridor between them on a gradual basis, starting with key areas like capital cities and the holiday island of Bali, the two countries’ leaders have said.
Speaking in Indonesia on his first official visit overseas, Malaysian prime minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob also said Malaysia would grant an amnesty to Indonesian migrants working in the country on expired permits.
It is part of a gradual loosening of travel restrictions in the region. Yesterday Thailand said it plans to reopen its borders to workers from neighbouring Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos.
Singapore and Malaysia have previously announced they will allow quarantine-free travel between both countries for individuals vaccinated against Covid-19 from 29 November.
Updated
WHO's Covid envoy Nabarro criticises Boris Johnson for maskless hospital appearance
Dr David Nabarro, special envoy on Covid-19 for the World Health Organization, has criticised UK prime minister Boris Johnson for appearing in a hospital without wearing a face mask on Sky News. He said:
I’m not sitting on the fence on this one. Where you’ve got large amounts of virus being transmitted, everybody should do everything to avoid either getting the virus or inadvertently passing it on. And we know that wearing a face mask reduces the risk. We know that maintaining physical distance reduces the risk. We know that hygiene by regular handwashing and sneezing and coughing into your elbow reduces the risk.
We should do it all. And we should not rely on any one intervention like vaccination on its own. So yes, yes, yes, please – would every leader be wearing face masks, particularly when in indoor settings, and could everybody please be face-masked if they possibly can when they’re up close and personal with other people, especially in non-ventilated environments. This virus is unforgiving and we need to do everything possible to prevent it getting in between us and affecting us.
No 10 has insisted that Boris Johnson followed the rules – despite the website of the Hexham General hospital he visited saying masks should be worn at all times. Johnson did wear a mask at some points during the visit. A source told the Guardian’s political correspondent Aubrey Allegretti that the maskless pictures were taken when he had just left a meeting where he was speaking, was not in a clinical area, and put a mask on shortly afterwards.
The hospital incident follows Johnson being seen unmasked at Cop26 while those around him – including veteran TV presenter David Attenborough – were wearing theirs.
Updated
A quick snap from Reuters that Vietnam will by the end of this month have sufficient vaccines to cover its population against Covid-19, a deputy prime minister has said.
“The fight against the pandemic, however, will continue,” Vu Duc Dam told the national assembly, adding people must maintain health protocols.
Dr Maggie Wearmouth, who sits on the Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) in the UK, said that legislating mandatory vaccines for frontline health and care workers in England was a “blunt instrument” but she was “supportive” of the move. PA Media quote him telling LBC Radio:
I’m broadly in favour of this move. I think legislation is a blunt instrument, but as frontline health and social care workers our goal and our main responsibility should be the health and protection of the very vulnerable, frail and elderly patients in our care.
As a frontline health worker myself, I find it incomprehensible that someone would want to work in a job like mine and wish not to be vaccinated, so I broadly support it.
Daily testing is really quite cumbersome. I test twice a week and that’s bad enough. I do think that you make a choice if you’re a frontline worker, and the choice should be to protect your patients.
'No scapegoating, no singling out, no shaming' of NHS staff who won't take vaccine – Javid
UK health secretary Sajid Javid has made a slightly belated appearance on Sky News – he got lost in the Cop26 corridors on the way to the studio – and the first topic has been the newly announced vaccine mandate for NHS staff. He said:
This is about patient safety. We know that the vaccines work. We also know that patients in hospital care, these are some of the most vulnerable people in our society. And if they are exposed to Covid it could be fatal, and I think it’s our duty to make sure that they are as safe as they can be.
There will be absolutely no scapegoating, no singling out, no shaming, but working with colleagues to support them in every way that we can to help them make this positive decision. So they can protect themselves, their colleagues, and most of all their patients.
I don’t want to see anyone lose their job. I don’t want to see anyone have to walk away from their job. Most of all, what I don’t want to see is someone being exposed to Covid when it could have been prevented. And perhaps they might even die from that, and I think that would be totally unacceptable.
Czech Republic records highest number of new Covid cases since March
The Czech Republic has recorded its highest number of Covid cases since March 2021, with 14,539 new positive tests. While we tend to look at longer trends than day-by-day, this is significantly higher caseload than yesterday’s total of 9,253, which will be a concern to authorities.
The Denik N news site reported that there was a total of 336 new hospitalisations. That makes 3,295 Covid patients in Czech hospitals, of which 462 were in the ICU.
Ladislav Dušek, director of the country’s health information and statistics organisation, warned that “high numbers of infections in the most vulnerable part of the population increases the probability of an additional burden on hospitals, in numbers which can potentially double up very quickly.”
Yesterday Radio Prague International reported that the Czech government would meet today in order to discuss potentially tightening Covid restrictions across the country.
Updated
South Korea encouraged its citizens to take Covid-19 booster shots on Wednesday, as more elderly people fell ill and reported vaccine breakthrough infections, driving serious and critical cases to a record.
Severe coronavirus cases jumped from the mid-300s in October to 460 on Wednesday, official data showed. Of the severely ill patients, more than 82% were aged 60 and older.
Son Young-rae, a senior health ministry official, told a news conference that the increase is not posing a threat to the country’s healthcare system yet, as there are nearly 500 ICU beds available.
He said the speed of the rise in severe cases and the size of total infections, especially among the unvaccinated, are the major points to consider in deciding its future response to the healthcare system.
Sangmi Cha reports from Seoul for Reuters, and says that South Korea’s overall rate of vaccine breakthrough infections remains low at 85.5 people per every 100,000 inoculated.
But it has steadily risen in recent weeks, led by the elderly, as vaccine protection wanes over time and the group’s weaker immune system makes them more vulnerable to infections.
Of the total serious and critical patients with vaccine breakthrough infections in the past eight weeks, 93% were from those aged 60 and above, according to the government data.
Updated
Hello, Martin Belam here in London. Health secretary Sajid Javid is doing the morning media round in the UK – I’ll have the key quotes in due course, which will no doubt focus on the vaccine mandate for NHS staff. Here’s the latest UK figures on Covid.
Updated
Welcome back to our Covid blog this Wednesday.
I’m Samantha Lock and I’ll be reporting from Sydney, Australia, to bring you all the latest headlines.
China has reported a drop in daily Covid cases for the first time since a new outbreak saw the nation implement a strict zero-Covid policy.
A total of 54 new coronavirus cases were recorded for 9 November compared with 62 a day earlier, its health authority said today.
French president Emmanuel Macron has urged for an acceleration of the nation’s Covid booster rollout while also announcing that many citizens will need a third vaccination in order to maintain a valid health pass from next month.
Here’s everything else you might have missed.
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China reports a drop in Covid cases with 54 new confirmed cases for 9 November compared with 62 a day earlier, its health authority said today.
- The Chinese city of Chengdu said it had tested 30,000 Covid-19 tests on visitors at a big entertainment centre, and rounded up those who tried to flee the site, in the second mass screening in days.
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France pushes to accelerate update of Covid-19 booster shots for elderly and vulnerable citizens. President Macron said a third injection would be made available to those aged 50-64 from early December. Anyone over 65 who was vaccinated more than six months ago will need to get a booster shot by mid-December for their “health pass” to remain valid, Macron said.
- Covid cases surge in Greece with a record of 8,613 new cases in the last 24 hours – the highest since the pandemic began. Cases have more than doubled in less than a fortnight.
- Virus deaths in Russia hit daily record of 1,211 Covid-19 deaths, the highest daily death toll in the pandemic, and 39,160 new cases. Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered many Russians last month to stay off work between 30 October and 7 November.
- Latvia, one of the least vaccinated countries in the European Union, is facing its most severe outbreak of Covid-19 yet.
- The World Health Organization has warned there could be shortfall of up to 2bn syringes in 2022, which threatens to hamper vaccine efforts globally is production does not improve, AFP reports.
- Loved ones reunite at US-Mexico border as Covid travel restrictions lifted.
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UK health secretary Sajid Javid says staff must be fully jabbed by April 2022 or risk dismissal raising concerns 32,000 care home staff and tens of thousands of NHS workers could quit.
- Daily Covid-related deaths in the UK rose above 250 again, with 262 reported on Tuesday.
- Covid-19 patients in Singapore who remain unvaccinated by choice will have to pay for their hospitalisation bills from 8 December, the government has ruled.
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Pfizer asks FDA to approve Covid booster shots for all US adults. Older Americans and other vulnerable groups have had access to a third dose of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine since September but the Food and Drug Administration has said it would move quickly to expand boosters to younger ages if warranted.
- Moderna also applied for European authorisation of its Covid-19 vaccine in children aged six to 11, weeks after it delayed a similar filing with US regulators.
- The European Union drugs regulator is set to authorise the use of two monoclonal antibodies to treat Covid-19 patients in coming days, two EU sources told Reuters, in its first approvals of such therapies.
- The US will buy another $1bn-worth of the Covid-19 pill made by Merck & Co Inc and partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, the companies said on Tuesday.
- Canada authorised the use of Pfizer/BioNTech’s vaccine as a booster shot for people 18 and older.
Updated
