A summary of today's developments
- The UK has recorded 44,985 new coronavirus cases and a further 135 deaths in the last 24-hour period, government figures show. The total number of cases is now 8,734,934 and the death toll is 139,461.
- A prominent Covid adviser to the UK government has said he is “very fearful” there will be another Christmas lockdown as he urged the public to do everything possible to reduce transmission of the virus.
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In a wide-ranging interview with The Times newspaper, the UK chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has said shops, pubs and restaurants must not shut again as the vaccine rollout meant there could be “no more lockdowns”.
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Russia reported a further 1,075 Covid deaths on Saturday, its fifth straight daily record, as authorities prepare to shut workplaces across the country and lock down Moscow.
- The whole world must be vaccinated to stop new Covid variants from developing, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.
- Local public health chiefs in England have broken from the government’s official guidance to recommend plan B measures to combat a surge in coronavirus cases.
- Unvaccinated people in Austria could face new lockdown restrictions if coronavirus case numbers continue to rise, the country’s chancellor, Alexander Schallenberg, has said.
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Health officials should have known about major failings at a private UK Covid testing lab within days of the problem arising, rather than taking weeks to shut down operations at the site, senior scientists say.
- Six Romanian Covid-19 patients have been transported to the central Polish city of Lodz for treatment, Polish authorities said. Romania has reported record numbers of daily coronavirus deaths and infections this month and the hospital system is stretched to breaking point.
- The Romanian government is to re-introduce a night curfew and make health passes mandatory for entry to most public venues from Monday.
- The senior official credited with the early success of the Covid vaccine rollout in England is returning to the NHS to resume her role overseeing the programme, months after leaving to become the head of Boris Johnson’s Downing Street delivery unit.
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New Zealand reported 104 new coronavirus infections on Saturday, including the first community case of the virus in the country’s South Island in nearly a year, health officials said.
- Namibia will suspend the use of Russia’s Sputnik V Covid vaccine, its health ministry said on Saturday. The decision comes days after the drugs regulator in neighbouring South Africa raised concerns about its safety for people at risk of HIV.
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Sri Lanka has announced plans to offer booster shots to frontline workers followed by the elderly as it prepares to further ease Covid restrictions.
- Melbourne, Australia’s second-biggest city, began its first weekend out of the world’s longest string of Covid lockdowns with spontaneous street parties, live music and packed pubs, bars and restaurants.
- China reported 50 new confirmed coronavirus cases on Saturday compared with 43 on Friday, according to the country’s health authority.
Brazil registered 318 new deaths due to Covid-19 and 11,716 confirmed cases of the virus, according to data released on Saturday by the country’s health ministry.
Brazil has now reported 605,457 Covid-19 deaths, the second highest in the world after the US.
Mexico’s health ministry on Saturday reported 306 more deaths due to Covid-19 in the country, bringing the total since the pandemic began to 286,259.
It has previously said the numbers are likely significantly higher than those reported, Reuters reports.
You can follow the latest Covid developments in Australia here -
New evidence has emerged that the government is paving the way to implement “plan B” measures in England to combat the spread of Covid-19, amid warnings from health chiefs that a “vortex of pressures” is encircling the NHS.
In the clearest sign to date that Whitehall is actively considering additional measures, the Observer has learnt that the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) contacted local authorities on Friday to canvass their level of support for the “immediate rollout of the winter plan – plan B”.
The disclosure comes as senior doctors warn that operations are already being cancelled due to NHS staffing shortages and scientists warn of “a triple whammy” of respiratory illnesses this winter, with Covid, flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which causes cold-like symptoms but can be serious for children and older adults.
People should get booster Covid jabs when they are offered during what will be a “tough winter”, NHS national medical director in England Professor Stephen Powis has warned.
He wrote in the Sunday Telegraph: “To maximise the impact of the vaccination programme we must all continue to act responsibly. The more of us that come forward for our booster jab, and the more we keep our resolve in helping to limit the spread of infection, then the greater chance we all have of staying well.”
Prof Powis said this time last year there were more than 6,800 people in hospital with Covid, and this weekend the figure is 6,405, but in 2020 the nation was still six weeks away from the world’s first vaccination.
“So, when your time comes, take up the offer, book your booster and protect the freedom and Christmas that we have all earned and deserve to enjoy,” he said.
The front page of Saturday’s Observer newspaper:
OBSERVER: Ministers pave way to bring in tough ‘Plan B’ Covid rules #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/6yjnoeBcJi
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) October 23, 2021
After Namibia suspended its rollout of Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine, the Gamaleya Research Institute, which developed Sputnik V, has claimed the decision was not based on any scientific evidence or research.
Sputnik V remains one of the safest and most efficient vaccines against Covid-19 in use globally, the Gamaleya institute told Reuters.
It said more than 250 clinical trials and 75 international publications confirmed the safety of vaccines and medicines based on human adenovirus vectors.
“While adenoviruses, including ad-5, are one of the most frequent causes of light common flu ..., there is no evidence of increased risk of HIV infection among human population after (the) common cold,” the institute added.
“These inaccurate speculations that have since been refuted relate to unsuccessful clinical trials of another HIV vaccine by another manufacturer that simply did not seem effective enough.”
Updated
The US administered 412,856,169 doses of Covid-19 vaccines in the country as of Saturday morning and distributed 503,521,625 doses, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Those figures are up from the 411,963,025 vaccine doses the CDC said had gone into arms by Friday out of 501,613,665 doses delivered.
The agency said 220,145,796 people had received at least one dose, while 190,402,262 people are fully vaccinated as of 6am ET on Saturday, Reuters reports.
Updated
More than 300 schools across New South Wales and Victoria in Australia have closed down in the last three weeks due to Covid outbreaks, with the majority of students still due to return to classrooms.
Between the start of term four on 4 October and 22 October, there were 234 closures at government schools in Victoria, figures from the Department of Education show.
At least 20 private schools in Victoria were forced to shut in the same period, but the exact number is unknown because a list is not kept by either the department or Independent Schools Victoria.
In the same period 67 schools in NSW were forced to shut. Of those, 48 were public schools and 19 were nongovernment schools, the NSW education department said.
It’s no secret that on the work front, the Covid narrative has predominantly been a negative one, with two-thirds of Australian businesses reporting a hit to revenue in 2020 and underemployment hitting a historic high of 13.8%, impacting 1.8 million people.
Despite this, lockdowns have brought growth to certain sectors, with Australians spending big in areas such as beauty, hobbies and home furnishings. This increased desire for little luxuries is sometimes called the lipstick index. So what does it feel like to be an outlier in a downturn? We asked four business owners to share their experiences.
France has reported 6,291 new coronavirus cases, Reuters reports.
The country has had over 7.12m cases overall.
Updated
Britain records highest weekly number of Covid cases since July
Britain recorded the highest number of new cases of Covid-19 since July over the past week, government figures showed on Saturday.
Some 333,465 people tested positive over the past seven days, up 15% on the previous week and the highest total since the seven days to July 21.
Deaths have risen by 12% over the past week, and the total since the start of the pandemic now stands at 139,461, the second highest in Europe after Russia, Reuters reports.
Six Romanian Covid-19 patients have been transported to the central Polish city of Lodz for treatment, Polish authorities said.
“They are all in a serious condition on ventilators,” said Dagmara Zalewska, spokesperson for the Lodzkie region.
Romania has reported record numbers of daily coronavirus deaths and infections this month and the hospital system is stretched to breaking point.
The country has the second-lowest coronavirus vaccination rate in the European Union, Reuters reports.
France has reported that 1,007 people are in intensive care units for Covid-19, down by three, Reuters reports.
Updated
France has reported 90,560 coronavirus deaths in hospital overall, an increase of 23 today.
People are pretending that dogs they acquired during lockdown are strays so that rescue centres take them in, after failing to sell them online, animal rescue charities and shelters have warned.
Figures from March revealed that more than 3.2m pets were bought by UK households during lockdown.
Since Covid restrictions were lifted and people have started to return to the office, charities have reported a growing trend of people abandoning their pandemic pets as they no longer have as much time for them.
More data from Italy. Patients in hospital with Covid-19 - not including those in intensive care – stood at 2,455 on Saturday, from 2,443 a day earlier.
There were 20 new admissions to intensive care units, down from 22 on Friday. The total number of intensive care patients decreased to 338 from a previous 343.
Some 491,574 tests for Covid were carried out in the past day, compared with a previous 487,218, the health ministry said.
Updated
Singapore has reported 3,598 Covid-19 cases, compared with 3,637 the previous day, and a further six deaths, Reuters reports.
Updated
Italy reported 39 coronavirus-related deaths on Saturday, the same number as the day before, the health ministry said.
The daily tally of new infections rose to 3,908 from 3,882, Reuters reports.
Italy has registered 131,802 deaths linked to Covid-19 and has reported 4.74 million cases to date.
#COVID19 VACCINE UPDATE: Daily figures on the total number of COVID-19 vaccine doses that have been given in the UK.
— Department of Health and Social Care (@DHSCgovuk) October 23, 2021
As of 23 October, 95,096,399 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been given in the UK.
Visit the @UKHSA dashboard for more info:
▶️ https://t.co/cQkuLQglz1 pic.twitter.com/Wf9hRKXI20
UK death toll increases by 135
The UK has recorded 44,985 new coronavirus cases and a further 135 deaths in the last 24-hour period, government figures show.
The total number of cases is now 8,734,934 and the death toll is 139,461.
Updated
Updated
Summary
Here is a round-up of the day’s top Covid stories so far:
- A prominent Covid adviser to the UK government has said he is “very fearful” there will be another Christmas lockdown as he urged the public to do everything possible to reduce transmission of the virus.
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In a wide-ranging interview with The Times newspaper, the UK chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has said shops, pubs and restaurants must not shut again as the vaccine rollout meant there could be “no more lockdowns”.
-
Russia reported a further 1,075 Covid deaths on Saturday, its fifth straight daily record, as authorities prepare to shut workplaces across the country and lock down Moscow.
- The whole world must be vaccinated to stop new Covid variants from developing, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.
- Local public health chiefs in England have broken from the government’s official guidance to recommend plan B measures to combat a surge in coronavirus cases.
- Unvaccinated people in Austria could face new lockdown restrictions if coronavirus case numbers continue to rise, the country’s chancellor, Alexander Schallenberg, has said.
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Health officials should have known about major failings at a private UK Covid testing lab within days of the problem arising, rather than taking weeks to shut down operations at the site, senior scientists say.
- The Romanian government is to re-introduce a night curfew and make health passes mandatory for entry to most public venues from Monday.
- The senior official credited with the early success of the Covid vaccine rollout in England is returning to the NHS to resume her role overseeing the programme, months after leaving to become the head of Boris Johnson’s Downing Street delivery unit.
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New Zealand reported 104 new coronavirus infections on Saturday, including the first community case of the virus in the country’s South Island in nearly a year, health officials said.
- Namibia will suspend the use of Russia’s Sputnik V Covid vaccine, its health ministry said on Saturday. The decision comes days after the drugs regulator in neighbouring South Africa raised concerns about its safety for people at risk of HIV.
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Sri Lanka has announced plans to offer booster shots to frontline workers followed by the elderly as it prepares to further ease Covid restrictions.
- Melbourne, Australia’s second-biggest city, began its first weekend out of the world’s longest string of Covid lockdowns with spontaneous street parties, live music and packed pubs, bars and restaurants.
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China reported 50 new confirmed coronavirus cases on Saturday compared with 43 on Friday, according to the country’s health authority.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose. I’ll be back next week. but for now my colleague Nadeem Badshah will continue to bring you all the latest Covid news from the UK and around the world as it happens. Goodbye.
Updated
People in public-facing jobs have experienced rising hostility and verbal abuse since the end of the Covid lockdowns, according to organisations that represent them.
Half of all shop, transport, restaurant and hotel workers and others dealing regularly with the public have experienced abuse in the past six months, figures from the Institute for Customer Service (ICS) show. This is a 6% rise over May’s 44%. Of those who had been abused, 27% had been physically attacked, it found.
The research comes as trade unions and industry bodies warned of growing public hostility towards workers since the second Covid wave.
Usdaw, the shopworkers’ union, said 88% of its members had been verbally abused in the past year, up from 68% in 2019, and that 9% had been physically assaulted. RMT said 58% of workers on trains, buses and ferries had been threatened, assaulted or spat at since the pandemic began, and 88% had been verbally abused.
The British Retail Consortium said incidents of violence and abuse had risen to 455 a day in 2020-21 compared with 350 a day in 2017-18.
“Hostility towards customer-facing staff has continued even though we’re out of lockdown,” said ICS’s chief executive Jo Causon. “Around half of employees don’t report hostility because they don’t think it will make any difference. They don’t think the police will act, and they feel it is part of their job to receive abuse.”
The impact on their mental health and wellbeing was severe and many had left their jobs as a result, Causon said, with many leaving their jobs as a result. With 61% of the workforce in public-facing roles, there is also an economic cost in staff turnover and sick days, which the ICS puts at £33bn a year.
Updated
Namibia will suspend the use of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, its health ministry said on Saturday.
It comes days after the drugs regulator in neighbouring South Africa raised concerns about its safety for people at risk of HIV.
Namibia’s regulator, SAHPRA, decided not to approve an emergency use application for Sputnik V because some studies suggested vaccines using the Adenovirus Type 5 vector, as Sputnik V does, can lead to higher likelihood to HIV in men.
South Africa and Namibia have high HIV prevalence rates, Reuters reported.
Namibia’s health ministry said in a statement that the decision to discontinue use of the Russian vaccine was out of an “abundance of caution that men who received Sputnik V may be at higher risk of contracting HIV,” adding that it had taken SAHPRA’s decision into account.
The Gamaleya Research Institute, which developed Sputnik V, said Namibia’s decision was not based on scientific evidence or research.
“Sputnik V remains one of the safest and most efficient vaccines against Covid-19 in use globally,” the institute told Reuters. More than 250 clinical trials and 75 international publications confirmed the safety of vaccines and medicines based on human adenovirus vectors, it said.
Namibia said the suspension would take effect immediately and last until Sputnik V receives a World Health Organization emergency use listing. It received 30,000 doses of Sputnik V as a donation from the Serbian government, but only 115 had been administered as of 20 October.
Updated
Hello, Tom Ambrose back here to bring you the latest Covid news from the UK and abroad for the next couple of hours.
A bit of breaking news for you from the past couple of minutes. Scotland has recorded 2,403 cases in the past 24 hours, latest Scottish government figures show.
A “data issue” means the it is unable to report the number of deaths on Friday. The daily test positivity rate was 8.7%, down from 8.8% on Thursday, according to PA Media.
There were 896 people in hospital with recently confirmed Covid, up two on the previous day, and 61 in intensive care, up one.
So far, 4,302,382 people have received their first dose of a Covid vaccination and 3,890,477 have received a second dose.
Updated
As Covid cases in Russia continue to soar, today hitting a fifth consecutive daily record (see also 09:45), a hospital in Siberia is seeing an unprecedented surge in patients – many of whom are unvaccinated.
Doctors at Hospital No 2, in Biysk, work up to three 24-hour shifts in a row, reports Reuters.
“Last year we kept the numbers at 23-24 people. Today we have 65 people in intensive care,” deputy chief doctor Olga Kaurova told Tolk Channel. “Most of our patients in the ICU are not vaccinated.”
She said they are also seeing more younger patients.
Biysk, which has a population of around 200,000, has become a coronavirus hotspot in the Altai Krai region.
Updated
The impact of the pandemic on schoolchildren in the US is falling hardest on the poorest and those least equipped to handle it.
When Covid breaks out in schools, for many families it is “gamble” as to whether they will be able to attend and many families do not know where to go for information, reports the Associated Press.
Driver shortages have also led to school buses not turning up when they’re supposed to.
AP reports:
Keiona Morris, who lives without a car in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, outside Pittsburgh, has had no choice but to keep her boys at home on days when the bus didn’t arrive. Her two sons have missed about two weeks’ worth of classes because of such disruptions, she said.
Taking her older son to school on the civic bus system those days would mean not making it home in time to get her youngest to elementary school, she said.
“I feel like they’re leaving my kid behind,” Morris said. “Sometimes, he feels like he’s not important enough to get picked up.”
WHO leader urges G20 countries to follow America's example by sharing more Covid vaccines
The leader of the World Health Organization has urged G20 countries to follow the lead of the US by sharing vaccine doses.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he had met with ambassador Erica Barks-Ruggles, a US department of state official, and thanked America for its “leadership in sharing vaccine doses”.
He tweeted: “We hope other G20 leaders will build on this and ensure all countries have enough supply to reach 40% coverage by the end of 2021.”
I had a very constructive meeting with @State_IO Erica Barks Ruggles about #COVID19. I thanked her for 🇺🇸's leadership in sharing vaccine doses. We hope other @g20org leaders will build on this & ensure all countries have enough supply to reach 40% coverage by the end of 2021. https://t.co/AUMwnN5XRS pic.twitter.com/sSN9BKxtn4
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) October 23, 2021
Hi, I’m covering for Tom on the global Covid blog for a while. Please get in touch with any tips or suggestions: miranda.bryant@guardian.co.uk
Updated
In case you missed it earlier on, a prominent adviser to the UK government on Covid-19 has said he is very fearful of another “Christmas lockdown”, as he urged the public to do everything possible to reduce the spread of the virus.
Prof Peter Openshaw, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), said current case numbers and death rates were unacceptable, and re-emphasised the importance of measures such as working from home and mask wearing as part of efforts to control the spread of Covid.
His intervention comes after the prime minister resisted calls from health leaders, including the head of the NHS Confederation and the council chair of the British Medical Association, who urged “categorically” that the “time is now” for tighter restrictions.
Asked on Friday about the possibility of a winter lockdown, Boris Johnson claimed there was “absolutely nothing to indicate that that is on the cards at all”. The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, also said the vaccine rollout and booster jabs made a lockdown or “very significant economic restrictions” unlikely.
My colleague Lucy Campbell has rounded up all the main points from this morning, so please click the full article below.
Updated
People in Beijing queued to get Covid vaccine booster shots on Saturday.
Some local governments have begun offering the jabs to people aged 18 and over who have already been vaccinated.
It comes as more than 2.2bn doses of Covid vaccine had reportedly been administered on the Chinese mainland as of 17 October.
Updated
South Korea has announced that it has achieved its goal of vaccinating 70% of its population of 52 million.
The country set the target when it began its inoculation campaign in late February, and the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said it was reached by 2pm (5am GMT) on Saturday. The health minister, Kwon Deok-cheol, said last week that the government would begin a phased return to “normal activities” from 1 November. The KDCA said in a statement:
It’s impossible to put an end to the pandemic by reaching herd immunity due to the spread of highly transmissible Delta variant.
But meeting the vaccination goal has significant meaning in reducing severe cases and fatality, and as an important precondition for a transition to phased recovery of our daily lives.
South Korea has been largely successful in coping with the pandemic without imposing lockdowns thanks to intensive testing and tracing.
Updated
Unvaccinated people in Austria could face new lockdown restrictions if coronavirus case numbers continue to rise, the country’s chancellor, Alexander Schallenberg, said on Friday night.
The news came after a meeting between Schallenberg and state leaders to discuss their response to rapidly increasing case numbers, according to the Associated Press.
“The pandemic is not yet in the rearview mirror,” Schallenberg said. “We are about to stumble into a pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
He said that if the number of Covid patients in intensive-care units were to reach 500, or 25% of the country’s capacity, entrance into businesses such as restaurants and hotels would be limited to those who were vaccinated or had recovered from the virus.
If the number were to reach 600, the government would impose restrictions on unvaccinated people, only allowing them to leave home for specific reasons.
The number of Covid patients in ICUs currently stands at 220.
Updated
Get UK Covid measures in place now or face another Christmas lockdown - expert
A prominent Covid adviser to the UK government has said he is “very fearful” there will be another Christmas lockdown as he urged the public to do everything possible to reduce transmission of the virus.
Prof Peter Openshaw, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), said the current number of cases and deathwas unacceptable.
He said measures such as working from home and mask wearing were “so important” as part of efforts to control the spread of Covid, PA Media reports.
His warning comes after Boris Johnson resisted health leaders’ calls for tighter restrictions.
Speaking in a personal capacity, Openshaw, of Imperial College London, told BBC Breakfast:
I’m very fearful that we’re going to have another lockdown Christmas if we don’t act soon. We know that with public health measures the time to act is immediately. There’s no point in delaying.
If you do delay then you need to take even more stringent actions later. The immediacy of response is absolutely vital if you’re going to get things under control. We all really, really want a wonderful family Christmas where we can all get back together.
If that’s what we want, we need to get these measures in place now in order to get transmission rates right down so that we can actually get together and see one another over Christmas.
He said it is “unacceptable to be letting this run at the moment”:
I think the hospitals in many parts of the country are barely coping actually. Talking to people on the front line, I think it’s just not sustainable to keep going at this rate. I think it’s just unacceptable to see the number of deaths that we’ve got at the moment.
At one stage last week there were 180 deaths in a single day. That is just too many deaths. We seem to have got used to the idea that we’re going to have many, many people dying of Covid and that I think is just not the case. We need to slow down transmission and really redouble efforts to get everyone vaccinated and all the boosters out, and then we can open up again.
Updated
Here is an image of a major Covid vaccination drive underway in Chennai, India.
Updated
China reported 50 new confirmed coronavirus cases on Saturday compared with 43 on Friday, according to the country’s health authority.
Thirty-eight were locally transmitted cases, compared with 28 on Friday, the National Health Commission said in a statement.
The new local cases were reported in Beijing, the provinces of Gansu and Yunnan and the autonomous regions of Inner Mongolia and Ningxia.
China also reported 17 new asymptomatic patients, which it classifies separately from confirmed cases, compared with 26 on Friday.
There were no new deaths, leaving the death toll unchanged at 4,636.
Updated
Sri Lanka has announced plans to offer booster shots to frontline workers followed by the elderly as it prepares to further ease Covid restrictions.
Workers in the health, security, airport and tourism sectors will start receiving a third dose of vaccine from 1 November, said Channa Jayasumana, the state minister of pharmaceutical production, supply and regulation.
The Pfizer booster shots will then be rolled out to the over-60s, he said.
So far, 59% of the population of 22 million have been vaccinated, and the health ministry expects the rate to rise to 70% within three weeks, Reuters reported.
The booster rollout comes before government’s plans to lift travel restrictions between provinces in November. The government has also announced that train services, which have been suspended for nearly two months, would restart next week.
Sri Lanka lifted a six-week lockdown on 1 October. Life has since begun returning to normal with the reopening of cinemas, restaurants and wedding parties as Covid daily cases fell to below 1,000 with less than 50 deaths.
A ban on public gatherings continues, however, along with some restrictions on public transport.
Updated
The Romanian government is to re-introduce a night curfew and make health passes mandatory for entry to most public venues from Monday.
Other measures include sending schoolchildren on holiday for two weeks, as the country seeks to stem a surge in Covid cases and deaths.
The country’s interim government approved the measures late on Friday.
Romania has reported record numbers of daily coronavirus infections and deaths this month and the hospital system is stretched to breaking point.
The country has the second-lowest coronavirus vaccination rate in the EU.
Updated
Record Covid deaths in Russia for fifth straight day as lockdown looms
Russia reported a further 1,075 Covid deaths on Saturday, its fifth straight daily record, as authorities prepare to shut workplaces across the country and lock down Moscow.
A record 37,678 new cases were also reported, according to Reuters.
Despite developing one of the world’s first vaccines against Covid, Russia has immunised only about a third of its population, one of the lowest rates in Europe.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, this week approved a nationwide workplace shutdown in the first week of November, and Moscow will reimpose a partial lockdown from 28 October under which only essential shops such as pharmacies and supermarkets will be allowed to open.
Updated
Here is a good picture to start your weekend with as a zoo in Jakarta, Indonesia, reopens following a dramatic fall in Covid cases in the country.
Updated
In case you missed it last night, the senior official credited with the early success of the Covid vaccine rollout in England is returning to the NHS to resume her role overseeing the programme, months after leaving to become the head of Boris Johnson’s Downing Street delivery unit.
Emily Lawson is ending her secondment at No 10 to return to NHS England amid concern that the rollout of booster jabs in England is flagging.
Lawson had joined No 10 to head up the delivery unit the prime minister set up to try to ensure that government policy commitments in key areas were being turned into action. She said:
The next phase of the vaccination programme is extremely important. We know that the vaccine is helping us to save lives and so we must focus all of our efforts on rolling out the booster campaign to everyone eligible, as well as ensuring that everyone who has not yet had their first jab, including young people, gets the chance to come forward.
Updated
Whole world must be vaccinated to stop Covid variants - WHO
The whole world must be vaccinated to stop new Covid variants from developing, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday.
In an interview with Times Radio, the WHO’s spokesperson Margaret Harris said:
What’s really going to have an effect on transmission for all of us is making sure there is as little virus as possible circulating around the world. The most high priority groups are those that are exposed to the virus all the time, healthcare workers, yet only one in 10 are vaccinated in Africa currently.
We’re in such a bad place in much of the world, we’re going to see more variants develop, we’re going to see more transmission, and even if magically the vaccine protected one population as effectively as we hoped a variant then could develop and undo all of that work.
She also said, however, that vaccines alone would not be able to lift the world out of the pandemic:
The problem is focusing on one thing, the vaccine isn’t going to get us out of this. We really have to do other measures.
We have got to be serious about not crowding. We have still got to be looking at wearing the masks, when you’re indoors particularly.
Updated
Melbourne celebrates end of lockdown despite concerns about rising Covid cases
As Melbourne continues to celebrate opening up, health officials in Australia have expressed concern about a growing proportion of Covid cases in young people, particularly in regional Victoria.
Victoria recorded 1,750 new Covid cases and nine deaths in the 24 hours since Melbourne emerged from its sixth lockdown. The new infections were found from 72,858 test results processed on Friday.
But as the state entered its second day of newly relaxed freedoms, the Covid commander, Jeroen Weimar, said Victoria was “not out of the woods yet”.
He pointed to an increase in young people catching the virus in recent days, while about 14% of the cases recorded on Saturday were from regional Victoria. In metropolitan Melbourne 29% of all cases recorded were under the age of 19 and in regional Victoria the figure was 38%.
“To all the young Victorians amongst us, you are particularly vulnerable at this time to running into friends and associates who are Covid-positive,” Weimar said. “These are our children and students who are clearly very active in the community.”
It came as the city began its first weekend out of the world’s longest string of Covid lockdowns with spontaneous street parties, live music and packed pubs, bars and restaurants.
Despite rain on Saturday morning, people queued for barbers and breakfast restaurants, all of which are open only to the fully vaccinated.
Late on Friday, people broke into a spontaneous street party in Melbourne’s south-east and many rejoiced with their first drink in months in a pub with friends, social media footage showed.
Updated
New Zealand has reported 104 new coronavirus infections, including the first community case in the country’s South Island in nearly a year, health officials said.
Most of the new infections reported on Saturday were in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, which has been under a strict lockdown for more than two months. Looser restrictions are in place in most of the rest of the country of 5 million.
The risks of a further spread from the case reported in Blenheim, in the north-east of South Island, was low, health officials said, because the person was likely to have been in the late stage of infection.
“So far, initial case interviews have identified a small number of close contacts, who have been contacted and are currently isolating with tests arranged,” the health ministry said in a statement.
The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, said on Friday that the country would end its strict lockdown measures and restore more freedoms only when 90% of its eligible population was fully vaccinated. As of Saturday, the figure stood at 70%.
Updated
Covid testing failures at UK lab ‘should have been flagged within days’
Health officials should have known about major failings at a private Covid testing lab within days of the problem arising, rather than taking weeks to shut down operations at the site, senior scientists say.
Immensa Health Clinic’s laboratory in Wolverhampton is believed to have wrongly told about 43,000 people, most of them in south-west England, that they did not have the virus in a debacle described as one of the worst scandals in the UK’s Covid crisis.
The affected swabs were processed from 2 September, but neither Immensa’s own quality control processes nor oversight from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) raised the alarm before concerned members of the public complained, triggering a formal investigation.
“In the long list of Covid disasters and scandals, this is pretty near the top,” said Alan McNally, a professor in microbial evolutionary genomics at the University of Birmingham, who helped set up the Lighthouse Covid testing lab at Milton Keynes. He said:
You shouldn’t be relying on anecdotal reports to spot a problem of this size. That’s the unforgivable thing about this.
I don’t think it’s going too far to say that an absolute failure of quality in that lab is going to lead to very serious illnesses, maybe hospitalisations, and maybe worse.
The UKHSA suspended work at the Immensa lab on 12 October, at least three weeks after academics and others raised concerns about discrepancies in regional Covid test data.
The failure has prompted calls for the government to publish its contract with Immensa, transfer as much testing as possible to NHS and university labs, and establish more stringent oversight of the hundreds of private companies that have rushed into the Covid testing business, often without any track record of delivering critical clinical tests.
Updated
Local public health chiefs in England are breaking from the government’s official guidance and recommending so-called plan B protective measures to combat a surge in coronavirus cases.
At least a dozen directors of public health (DPHs) have called on residents in their areas to readopt protective measures such as mask-wearing and working from home.
The government is likely to face questions over why local authority public health experts feel it necessary to break from the official national guidance.
Alice Wiseman, the DPH for Gateshead who is among the health leaders to call for changes, said:
Given the concerning rise in case numbers and the considerable pressures that we’re already seeing on NHS services, now is the time for us all to do whatever we can to avoid reaching crisis point. Taking basic precautions now like wearing face masks, working from home where possible and keeping indoor spaces well ventilated could help us to avoid returning to more disruptive restrictions.
So although mandatory measures are not yet being introduced, I’d urge all of our communities to pull together and take these simple but effective steps now. They’re actions which cause minimal inconvenience for individuals but collectively will make a big difference in reducing the spread of Covid, flu and other seasonal illnesses – which, together, could stretch our NHS beyond its limit.
Wiseman has written to headteachers in the local authority area recommending they take additional measures at their schools when pupils return from the half-term break, including all adults and pupils wearing face coverings in secondary schools.
She also recommends reintroducing class bubbles in primary schools and year group bubbles in secondary schools.
Vaccines mean no more lockdowns for England - Rishi Sunak
The success of the vaccine rollout means shops, pubs and nightclubs should remain open and there will be no more lockdowns in England, according to the country’s Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Rishi Sunak gave a wide-ranging interview with The Times this morning and although it leads on his ambitions to be the next Prime Minister, there are some interesting lines regarding his view on any potential further lockdown.
He said that there must not be a return to “significant economic restrictions” despite warnings from some health experts that the virus could overwhelm the NHS this winter.
The chancellor added:
I think we’re just in a very different place to where we were a year a go because of the vaccine. There’s this enormous wave of protection and that changes things. That’s our first line of defence.
There’s a range of options that are available and those are not options that involve lockdowns or very significant economic restrictions.
However, it came as polling for the same newspaper showed that 69 per cent of the British public would support a return to the work-from-home edict, while a further 76 per cent back compulsory masks.
Another 22 per cent said they support closing pubs and restaurants to help fight another wave of Covid.
FDA says Pfizer Covid vaccine is effective in young children
Federal health regulators in the United States have announced child-sized doses of Pfizer’s Covid vaccine appear highly effective at preventing symptomatic infections in primary school age children.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said late on Friday that the vaccine caused no unexpected safety issues, as the US considers beginning vaccinations in young people.
It posted its analysis of Pfizer’s data ahead of a public meeting next week to debate whether the jabs are ready for the nation’s roughly 28 million children aged between five and 11. The agency will ask a panel of outside vaccine experts to vote on the question.
The Associated Press reported:
In their analysis, FDA scientists concluded that in almost every scenario the vaccine’s benefit for preventing hospitalisations and death from Covid-19 would outweigh any serious potential side effects in children. But agency reviewers stopped short of calling for Pfizer’s shot to be authorised.
The agency will put that question to its panel of independent advisers next Tuesday and weigh their advice before making its own decision.
If the FDA authorises the shots, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will make additional recommendations on who should receive them the first week of November. Children could begin vaccinations early next month - with the first youngsters in line fully protected by Christmas.
Full-strength Pfizer shots already are recommended for anyone 12 or older, but paediatricians and many parents are anxiously awaiting protection for younger children to stem infections from the extra-contagious delta variant and help keep kids in school.
The FDA review backed up results from Pfizer posted earlier in the day showing the two-dose shot was nearly 91% effective at preventing symptomatic infection in young children.
Most of the study data was collected in the US during August and September, when the Delta variant had become the dominant Covid strain.
The FDA review found no new or unexpected side effects. Those that did occur mostly consisted of sore arms, fever or achiness.
However, FDA scientists noted that the study wasn’t large enough to detect extremely rare side effects, including myocarditis, a type of heart inflammation that occasionally occurs after the second dose.
Morning summary
Good morning and welcome to today’s Covid blog, where we will be bringing you all the latest coronavirus news from the UK and around the world.
I’m Tom Ambrose, reporting live from London, and I will be with you from now until 4pm local time.
We start with the news that scientists at the United States’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have said that the likely benefits of giving the Pfizer vaccine to five- to 11-year-olds “clearly outweigh the risks of rare cases of heart inflammation”.
It comes as Pfizer said their Covid jab showed 90.7% efficacy against the virus in a clinical trial of primary school age children yesterday.
Other top stories from around the world this morning include:
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In a wide-ranging interview with The Times newspaper today, the UK’s chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has said shops, pubs and restaurants must not shut again as the vaccine rollout meant there could be “no more lockdowns”.
- Local public health chiefs in England are breaking from the government’s official guidance and recommending so-called plan B protective measures to combat a surge in coronavirus cases. At least a dozen directors of public health have called on residents in their areas to readopt protective measures such as mask-wearing and working from home.
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Health officials should have known about major failings at a private Covid testing lab within days of the problem arising, rather than taking weeks to shut down operations at the site, senior scientists say.
- The senior official credited with the early success of the Covid vaccine rollout in England is returning to the NHS to resume her role overseeing the programme, months after leaving to become the head of Boris Johnson’s Downing Street delivery unit. Emily Lawson is ending her secondment at No 10 to return to NHS England amid concern that the rollout of booster jabs in England is flagging.
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New Zealand reported 104 new coronavirus infections on Saturday, including the first community case of the virus in the country’s South Island in nearly a year, health officials said. Most of the new infections were reported in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city that has been under a strict lockdown for more than two months.
- Melbourne, Australia’s second-biggest city, began its first weekend out of the world’s longest string of Covid lockdowns with spontaneous street parties, live music and packed pubs, bars and restaurants.
As I say, I will bring you all the top headlines from at home and abroad as and when they happen. Tweet me @tomambrose89, or via direct messages if you want to keep things private, with any tips or stories throughout the day.
