A summary of today's developments
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Russia recorded a fourth straight daily record of Covid deaths this morning, with 1,064 more people reported to have died from the virus.
- The UK Health Security Agency today announced the offshoot of Delta, known as AY.4.2 has been designated a variant under investigation due to it becoming increasingly common in the UK.
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Pfizer has said that child-size doses of its Covid vaccine are safe and nearly 91% effective at preventing infections in primary school children.
- Ukraine’s coronavirus infections and deaths reached all-time highs for a second straight day on Friday, Associated Press reports. Health authorities reported 23,785 new confirmed infections and 614 deaths in the past 24 hours.
- Tunisia is imposing Covid-19 vaccine passes on Tunisians and all foreign visitors, a presidential decree showed on Friday.Officials, employees and users are required to show a card proving inoculation against the coronavirus to access public and private administrations, according to the decree.
- Amnesty International has urged the Italian parliament to launch an independent inquiry into coronavirus deaths in care homes and reports of retaliation against nursing staff who criticised unsafe conditions.
- In the US, Biden administration officials have urged eligible Americans to get booster shots and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention head said it may update its definition of what constitutes full vaccination.
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Norway will hold off giving children aged 12-15 a second dose of a vaccine against Covid until it has gathered more research, partly due to a rare side effect involving inflammation of the heart, health authorities said today.
- India seems unlikely to meet its goal of vaccinating 944 million adults by December.
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Canada has scrapped an official advisory urging its citizens to avoid non-essential foreign travel, dropping a warning that was issued in March 2020 when the Covid pandemic erupted.
- The percentage of people testing positive for Covid is estimated to have increased in all regions of England except south-east England and the West Midlands.
- In Belarus, authorities abolished mask mandates, less than two weeks after their introduction for the first time during the pandemic, on Friday.
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England’s Covid weekly reproduction “R” number was estimated to have risen to between 1.0 and 1.2, the UK Health Security Agency said on Friday, and the epidemic is estimated to be growing.
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Italy reported 39 coronavirus-related deaths on Friday compared to 36 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections rose to 3,882 from 3,794.
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Malaysia will reopen to foreign workers and allow fully vaccinated tourists to visit the northern resort island of Langkawi next month without quarantine.
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Belgium’s daily Covid cases have jumped to the highest level in almost a year, prompting health experts to say that a fourth wave of infections has begun.
- In Iran, mass Friday prayers resumed in Tehran after a 20-month hiatus due to the Covid pandemic, state TV reported.
- Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa ordered frontline workers and tourism staff to be given a third booster shot of Covid vaccine by next month.
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Hong Kong authorities prevented a Royal Caribbean cruise ship from departing the city’s terminal late on Thursday as a crew member was suspected to have Covid-19 after routine testing.
Canada has scrapped an official advisory urging its citizens to shun non-essential foreign travel, given its successful campaign to inoculate people against Covid-19, the country’s top medical officer said.
Hours later, Canada’s most populous province, Ontario, issued a timeline to lift all remaining Covid-19 restrictions, with the aim of removing all proof of vaccination and mask requirements by March 2022.
Ottawa removed the advice to avoid unnecessary travel late on Thursday, however it is still telling people to avoid cruise ship travel outside of the country, Reuters reports.
“The beginnings of the transition away from the more blanket approach really recognises vaccines are very effective at preventing severe outcome,” chief medical officer Theresa Tam told a briefing.
Updated
Tunisia is imposing Covid-19 vaccine passes on Tunisians and all foreign visitors, a presidential decree showed on Friday.
Officials, employees and users are required to show a card proving inoculation against the coronavirus to access public and private administrations, according to the decree.
The pass will also be required to enter cafes, restaurants, hotels and tourist establishments, it said.
The decree showed that the jobs of employees who did not receive vaccination in the public and private sectors will be suspended until the vaccine pass is presented.
The vaccine pass will also be a necessary document for travelling abroad, Reuters reports.
You can follow the latest Covid developments in Australia here:
The US administered 411,963,025 doses of Covid-19 vaccines in the country as of Friday morning and distributed 501,613,665 doses, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Those figures are up from the 411,010,650 vaccine doses the CDC said had gone into arms by Thursday out of 498,702,405 doses delivered.
The agency said 219,900,525 people had received at least one dose, while 190,179,553 people are fully vaccinated as of 6:00 a.m. ET on Friday, Reuters reports.
Updated
Brazil has had 14,502 new cases of coronavirus reported in the past 24 hours, and 460 deaths, the country’s health ministry said on Friday.
The South American country has now registered 21,711,843 cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 605,139, according to ministry data.
As vaccination advances, the rolling 14-day average of Covid deaths had fallen to 348 by Thursday, compared to the toll of almost 3,000 a day at the peak of the pandemic in April, Reuters reports.
Updated
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 quitting 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.
Earlier this week Jeremy Hunt, the former health secretary, told Amanda Pritchard, the chief executive of NHS England, that the rollout needed to be “turbocharged” because numbers were too low, especially with Covid infections rising sharply again.
In a statement first reported by the Health Service Journal, Pritchard said: “It is great news that Emily has agreed to return to lead the NHS Covid-19 vaccination programme as our response to the pandemic enters another crucial phase.”
Lawson 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.”
Briefings in newspapers attributed to government sources have criticised the NHS for not getting more jabs delivered fast enough. NHS England said this week that more than 4 million people have had a booster jab in just over a month.
The Australian music industry has had another difficult year, with the Covid-19 Delta variant and multiple lockdowns in Australia’s biggest population centres derailing the recovery that many had hoped for.
Although live performances have continued outside New South Wales and Victoria, the latest industry survey by ILostMyGig estimated a further $94m in lost income between July and August of this year.
UK-based Australian families planning trips home for Christmas will be made to quarantine because of a federal government decision on vaccines for children.
The Australian and UK governments currently have different requirements on the vaccination of children aged 12 to 15. While Australia requires two doses, the UK allows for only one in the vast majority of cases.
That has significant implications for the newly announced vaccine-contingent travel restrictions, which allow returning Australians, including children aged 12 and above, to skip hotel quarantine if they are fully vaccinated.
Qantas has also stated that passengers aged 12 or over “will be required to be fully vaccinated with a TGA-approved or recognised vaccine”. Only limited services are expected to be available for unvaccinated travellers.
The UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) member Professor Jeremy Brown said he would not back the reduction of the time between the second coronavirus jab and the booster being reduced to five months rather than six.
He told Channel 4 News: “The six-month decision was based on the fact that the data shows a bit of waning occurring in the protection against Covid six months after the second jab.”
Brown added: “The prolonged benefits of the vaccination is likely to be better than if you give it shorter than that, a four-month or five-month gap, for example.”
Doctor Petruta Filip is working 100-hour weeks at a Bucharest hospital which, like hospitals throughout Romania, is struggling under an onslaught of Covid-19 patients in a country with worryingly low vaccination rates.
The European Union country of around 19 million has only 35% of its adults fully inoculated against COVID-19 compared to an EU average of 74%, and is the second-least vaccinated nation in the 27-nation bloc in front of Bulgaria.
In an attempt to curb the surge and relieve pressure on hospitals, authorities approved tighter restrictions set to take effect on Monday.
Vaccination certificates will be required for many day-to-day activities, such as going to the gym, the cinema, or a shopping mall.
For everyone, there will be a 10 p.m. curfew, shops will be shuttered at 9 p.m., bars and clubs will close for 30 days, and schools will close for an additional week over half-term starting Monday. Masks will be mandatory for everyone in public.
“I would bring people (who don’t believe in the virus or vaccines) here for a day, and maybe they’ll change their opinion,” Filip told The Associated Press.
Ukraine’s coronavirus infections and deaths reached all-time highs for a second straight day Friday, Associated Press reports.
Health authorities reported 23,785 new confirmed infections and 614 deaths in the past 24 hours.
Authorities in the capital, Kiev, shut schools for two weeks starting Friday, and similar measures were ordered in other areas with high contagion levels.
The UK government has been accused of promoting companies offering Covid lateral flow tests for holidaymakers at misleading prices.
From Sunday, double-jabbed people arriving in England from countries not on the government’s “red list” can take a lateral flow test instead of the more expensive PCR version.
But concerns were raised when the government published a list of firms providing tests on Friday as companies were accused of advertising “clickbait” prices but then charging more and “gaming” the website to appear first.
Trade union leaders representing 3 million frontline workers in the UK have warned that the government risks “another winter of chaos” if urgent action is not taken to curb the spread of Covid, including mandatory mask-wearing in shops and on public transport.
In a joint statement, unions including Usdaw, Unison, Unite, the GMB and Aslef attacked the government’s “laissez-faire approach to managing the pandemic” after the prime minister insisted it was not yet time to impose fresh restrictions.
“We all want to beat Covid once for all and to avoid further lockdowns. But without decisive action now, we risk sleepwalking into another winter of chaos,” the union leaders said, in a joint statement also signed by the TUC general secretary, Frances O’Grady.
The UK government’s vaccines watchdog is understood to have approved the idea of second Covid vaccinations for teenagers aged 16 and 17, putting in place another element of plans to boost protection from the virus into the winter.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) decided in favour of first jabs for the age group in early August, saying at the time that it was likely that second shots would begin 12 weeks after the first dose.
However, it is now nearly 12 weeks since the initial decision, with some parents reporting that GPs were telling teenagers they would need to wait until they were 18 for their second dose.
While the department of health said it had no information about an imminent announcement on second vaccinations for the age group, it is understood that news could come on it next week.
Fewer than half of eligible residents in older age care homes in England have received a coronavirus booster jab, latest available NHS data suggests.
Out of around 250,000 eligible residents in care homes for adults aged 65 and over, around 112,000 had received a booster as of midnight on Thursday, NHS England said.
This works out at around 45% of eligible residents having been given their booster vaccine since the programme launched roughly a month ago.
Eligible residents are those who had their second Covid-19 vaccine more than six months ago and do not currently have coronavirus or norovirus.
Summary
Here is a round-up of today’s top Covid stories from the UK and around the world:
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Russia recorded a fourth straight daily record of Covid deaths this morning, with 1,064 more people reported to have died from the virus.
- The UK Health Security Agency today announced the offshoot of Delta, known as AY.4.2 has been designated a variant under investigation due to it becoming increasingly common in the UK.
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Pfizer has said that child-size doses of its Covid vaccine are safe and nearly 91% effective at preventing infections in primary school children.
- Amnesty International has urged the Italian parliament to launch an independent inquiry into coronavirus deaths in care homes and reports of retaliation against nursing staff who criticised unsafe conditions.
- In the US, Biden administration officials have urged eligible Americans to get booster shots and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention head said it may update its definition of what constitutes full vaccination.
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Norway will hold off giving children aged 12-15 a second dose of a vaccine against Covid until it has gathered more research, partly due to a rare side effect involving inflammation of the heart, health authorities said today.
- India seems unlikely to meet its goal of vaccinating 944 million adults by December.
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Canada has scrapped an official advisory urging its citizens to avoid non-essential foreign travel, dropping a warning that was issued in March 2020 when the Covid pandemic erupted.
- The percentage of people testing positive for Covid is estimated to have increased in all regions of England except south-east England and the West Midlands.
- In Belarus, authorities abolished mask mandates, less than two weeks after their introduction for the first time during the pandemic, on Friday.
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England’s Covid weekly reproduction “R” number was estimated to have risen to between 1.0 and 1.2, the UK Health Security Agency said on Friday, and the epidemic is estimated to be growing.
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Italy reported 39 coronavirus-related deaths on Friday compared to 36 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections rose to 3,882 from 3,794.
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Malaysia will reopen to foreign workers and allow fully vaccinated tourists to visit the northern resort island of Langkawi next month without quarantine.
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Belgium’s daily Covid cases have jumped to the highest level in almost a year, prompting health experts to say that a fourth wave of infections has begun.
- In Iran, mass Friday prayers resumed in Tehran after a 20-month hiatus due to the Covid pandemic, state TV reported.
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Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa ordered frontline workers and tourism staff to be given a third booster shot of Covid vaccine by next month.
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Ukraine shut schools in coronavirus hotspots and announced a requirement for vaccine certificates or negative tests to use public transport in the capital, after Covid deaths hit a record high.
- Hong Kong authorities prevented a Royal Caribbean cruise ship from departing the city’s terminal late on Thursday as a crew member was suspected to have Covid-19 after routine testing.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for today. I will be back tomorrow morning but my colleague Nadeem Badshah will continue to bring you all the latest coronavirus news throughout the rest of this evening. Goodbye.
UK health agency investigating new strain of Delta variant
The UK Health Security Agency today announced the offshoot of Delta, known as AY.4.2 has been designated a variant under investigation due to it becoming increasingly common in the UK.
“There is some early evidence that it may have an increased growth rate in the UK compared to Delta,” the agency said, although they note the variant does not appear to cause more severe disease, and Covid jabs do not seems to be less effective against it.
The UKHSA added more evidence is now needed to know whether the rise in the variant is due to changes in the virus’ behaviour or to epidemiological conditions.
UKHSA added that in the past week, AY.4.2 accounted for around 6% of all Delta cases in England. However experts have previously said it is unlikely the variant is behind the rising number of Covid cases seen in England.
Dr Jenny Harries, Chief Executive of the UK Health Security Agency, said the emergence of the variant should act as “objective evidence” that the pandemic is not over, adding:
Viruses mutate often and at random, and it is not unexpected that new variants will continue to arise as the pandemic goes on, particularly while the case rate remains high.
It is testament to the diligence and scientific expertise of my colleagues at the UKHSA, and the genomic sequencing capacity developed through the pandemic, that this new variant has been identified and analysed so quickly.
Updated
All Spanish citizens who paid fines during a nearly three-month state of emergency declared last year to slow the spread of the coronavirus will be remunerated, the country’s ministry of territorial affairs said on Friday.
The move follows a ruling by Spain’s top court earlier this year that declared as unconstitutional the country’s first state of emergency, which sent all but essential citizens to their homes and paralysed much of the economy between 14 March and 21 June.
As cases spiked again, central authorities declared another state of emergency from the end of October last year to May this year.
The interior ministry said that police had given out 1.1 million fines to citizens who defied the stay-at-home order and other restrictions, although not all of them had been immediately paid.
In Belarus, authorities abolished mask mandates, less than two weeks after their introduction for the first time during the pandemic, on Friday.
It comes a day after the country registered a record number of new coronavirus infections.
The decision came after Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko dismissed the measures as unnecessary during a meeting with officials earlier this week, the Associated Press reported.
“It’s just over the top to send police to track down those who aren’t wearing masks,” Lukashenko said. “We aren’t the West.”
The mask mandates were introduced on 9 October amid a new wave of Covid. People had been required to wear medical masks in all indoor public areas, including public transport and stores.
On Thursday, the country reported 2,097 new confirmed infections, the highest number so far.
In the US, Biden administration officials have urged eligible Americans to get booster shots and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention head said it may update its definition of what constitutes full vaccination.
Currently people in the United States are considered fully vaccinated if they have had two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccine, or one dose of the vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson.
“We have not yet changed the definition of ‘fully vaccinated.’ We will continue to look at this. We may need to update our definition of ‘fully vaccinated’ in the future,” CDC director Rochelle Walensky told reporters.
“If you’re eligible for a booster, go ahead and get your booster and we will continue to follow,” she said.
Italy reported 39 coronavirus-related deaths on Friday compared to 36 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections rose to 3,882 from 3,794.
Italy has registered 131,763 deaths linked to Covid since its outbreak emerged in February last year, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the ninth-highest in the world. The country has reported 4.73 million cases to date.
Patients in hospital with Covid - not including those in intensive care - stood at 2,443 on Friday, edging up from 2,439 a day earlier.
There were 22 new admissions to intensive care units, the same number recorded on Thursday. The total number of intensive care patients decreased to 343 from a previous 356, Reuters reported.
Malaysia will reopen to foreign workers and allow fully vaccinated tourists to visit the northern resort island of Langkawi next month without quarantine.
Prime minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said the government will use the reopening of Langkawi on 15 November, the first time foreign tourists will be allowed back since March 2020, as a gauge for three months before opening up the rest of the country.
It comes amid a sharp fall in coronavirus cases, and a beefed-up vaccination campaign with 94% of adults — or 72% of the population — getting their shots.
Daily infections have fallen to below 7,000 from a peak of more than 20,000 in August. Malaysia has recorded a total 2.41 million cases, with more than 28,000 deaths.
Ismail said only holidaymakers from some countries, a list of which will be released soon, will be allowed in initially. They will have to undergo Covid tests three days before departure and during their stay.
Ismail said the government has also agreed to let foreign workers return to the plantation sector on a case-by-case basis. He said the workers must be fully vaccinated, have a negative Covid test three days before arrival and undergo a seven-day quarantine.
Canada has scrapped an official advisory urging its citizens to avoid non-essential foreign travel, dropping a warning that was issued in March 2020 when the Covid pandemic erupted.
The Canadian government, however, is still telling people to avoid cruise ship travel outside of the country, Reuters reported.
In an update to its travel advisory page posted late on Thursday, Ottawa removed the advice to avoid unnecessary travel and reverted to its usual practice of issuing notices for individual countries.
“Community transmission of COVID-19 continues in many countries. You should be fully vaccinated by completing a COVID-19 vaccine series in Canada or abroad at least 14 days before traveling,” it said.
England's R number rises to between 1 and 1.2 - UKHSA
England’s Covid weekly reproduction “R” number was estimated to have risen to between 1.0 and 1.2, the UK Health Security Agency said on Friday, and the epidemic is estimated to be growing.
An R number between 1.0 and 1.2 means that for every 10 people infected, they will on average infect between 10 and 12 other people. Last week R was estimated between 0.9 and 1.1.
The daily growth of infections was estimated between +1% and +3%, up from -1% and +2% the previous week.
UKHSA said regional estimates of R and growth rate had been paused while it investigated the impact of incorrect negative PCR test results on estimates in the South West, South East and London following an issue in a lab, which was suspended last week.
Norway opts not to give 12-15 year-olds second vaccine doses yet
Norway will hold off giving children aged 12-15 a second dose of a vaccine against Covid until it has gathered more research, partly due to a rare side effect involving inflammation of the heart, health authorities said today.
The Nordic country has so far only recommended using the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to minors, Reuters reported.
The health ministry said there was no urgency given that children have a low risk of falling seriously ill from coronavirus and because a single dose of a vaccine offered a protection rate of 85% against the disease for up to 16 weeks.
“A second vaccine dose is also linked with a higher risk of pericarditis and myocarditis, especially among young men and boys,” the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (FHI) said in a statement.
Pericarditis is inflammation of the outer lining of the heart, while myocarditis is inflammation of the heart muscle. The FHI will assess the situation again in early 2022 after it has gathered more information from studies currently being conducted in the Nordics, it said.
Belgium’s daily Covid cases have jumped to the highest level in almost a year, prompting health experts to say that a fourth wave of infections has begun.
Data from the Sciensano health institute showed on Friday that the country registered nearly 6,500 new cases on 18 October. That is as many as on 10 November, 2020, a few days before the government imposed a second lockdown.
The seven-day daily average stood at more than 3,600, a rise of nearly 60% from the previous week, Reuters reported.
Belgium’s coronavirus commissioner Pedro Falcon told a news conference that vaccines were able to prevent 70% of infections and 90% of hospital admissions, and the vast majority of people in hospital were unvaccinated.
The number of patients with Covid in hospitals exceeded 1,000 for the first time since June, and nearly 100 new patients are being admitted a day, Sciensano said, a 53% increase from the previous week.
“The impact on hospital admissions and deaths is much more limited than in the first two waves due to the high vaccination rate,” said virologist and Sciensano spokesman Steven Van Gucht.
In the United States, people are able to choose a Covid booster shot that is different from their original inoculation, Dr Anthony Fauci said today.
However, the recommendation is to stick with the vaccine they got first if it is available,the White House chief medical adviser added. He said in an interview with CNN:
It’s generally recommended that you get the booster that is the original regimen that you got in the first place. But for one reason or other - and there may be different circumstances with people, availability or just different personal choices - you can, as we say, mix and match.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended the Covid vaccine boosters for recipients of the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson jabs yesterday and said Americans can choose a different shot from their original inoculation as a booster.
Dr Fauci’s comments contrasted with the recommendations from the CDC and Food and Drug Administration this week, which said that Americans should get boosters but did not specify which combinations would be best, Reuters reported.
The recommendations also opened the door for recipients of the one-shot J&J vaccine to get a dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines that have been shown to afford greater protection in a variety of studies.
Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa ordered frontline workers and tourism staff to be given a third booster shot of Covid vaccine by next month.
It is part of a bid to reopen the travel industry and revive the economy, the Reuters news agency reported.
More than one million people, including security personnel, health care staff and tourism industry workers, will be given third shots of the Pfizer vaccine beginning 1 November, the president’s office said in a statement. Reuters reported:
Sri Lanka has fully vaccinated a little over 60% of its 22 million people. The country depends on international tourism, and partially rolled back Covid restrictions late last month, allowing fully vaccinated travellers with a negative test to enter without quarantine.
Earnings from tourism plummeted from $4.3 billion in 2018 to just $33 million in the first eight months of this year. Reviving the industry is seen as crucial to restoring reserves which stood at just $2.6 billion at the end of September.
Tourism minister Prasanna Ranatunga said there was strong interest from travellers from countries such as Russia, Britain, France and Germany, and that international flights will be increased from next month.
“The target is to have a strong winter season from November to March or April of next year,” he told Reuters.
More than half of US states have introduced new laws to restrict public health actions, including policies requiring quarantine or isolation and mandating vaccines or masks.
Between the new laws and the massive workforce departures during the pandemic, public health in America is now in crisis, experts say.
The new restrictions and shortages not only affect responses to the coronavirus but also make it harder to contain outbreaks of the flu, measles and other health crises, and they put the US in a weaker position to combat future pandemics.
Just as the pandemic has fuelled a burnout crisis among frontline medical staff, it has been calamitous for the mental health of workers in public health. Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, told the Guardian:
We’re very, very concerned about the rolling back of public health powers. We thought there was going to be a renaissance for public health, and we may be at the cusp of a major decline.
Separate investigations by Kaiser Health News and the New York Times found that at least 32 states have introduced about 100 new laws to restrict state and local authorities from addressing health crises.
David Rosner, a public health and social historian at Columbia University, told the Guardian:
It’s a pretty grim future. This is an eye-opening moment in American history, where we see all of these traditions and ideas being mobilised to basically create discord rather than harmony around disease. I’ve just never seen this before.
Legislators in every US state have proposed bills to permanently limit officials’ ability to protect the public’s health. Some did not make it through the legislature or were vetoed by governors, while others are mired in legal battles.
Pfizer says Covid vaccine shows more than 90% efficacy in children
Pfizer has said that child-size doses of its Covid vaccine are safe and nearly 91% effective at preventing infections in primary school children.
Details of the study were posted online today as US regulators considered vaccinations for children aged five to 11, the Associated Press reported.
The jabs could begin as early as next month - with the first children in line to be fully protected by Christmas - if regulators give approval.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to post its initial review of the company’s safety and effectiveness data later on Friday. Next week, advisers to the FDA will publicly debate the evidence.
If the FDA then authorises the low-dose shots, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will make the final recommendations on who should receive them.
Full-strength Pfizer shots already are authorised for anyone 12 or older, but paediatricians and many parents are anxiously awaiting protection for younger children to stem rising infections from the extra-contagious Delta variant and help keep kids in school.
Updated
Percentage of people testing positive for Covid increases in most English regions
The percentage of people testing positive for Covid is estimated to have increased in all regions of England except south-east England and the West Midlands.
It appeared to level off in those areas, while the trend remained uncertain in north-east England and Yorkshire and the Humber.
In north-west England and south-west England, around one in 45 people was likely to test positive in the week to October 16. This was the highest proportion for any region.
London and south-east England had the lowest proportion, at around one in 75.
In Iran, mass Friday prayers resumed in Tehran after a 20-month hiatus due to the Covid pandemic, state TV reported.
The prayers at Tehran University, a gathering of religious and political significance, came as authorities warned of a sixth wave of the coronavirus, which has so far claimed 124,928 lives in Iran and afflicted more than 5.8 million.
On Saturday, schools with less than 300 students are also due to reopen. Also starting on Saturday, government employees, except those in the armed forces, will be barred from work if they are not vaccinated at least with a first dose, according to a government circular released earlier this week.
The Iranian government says more than 28.2 million people have so far received a second dose of the Covid vaccine. Mohammad Javad Haj Ali Akbari, Tehran’s interim Friday prayer imam who led the sermons, said:
Today is a very sweet day for us. We thank the the Almighty for giving us back the Friday prayers after a period of restrictions and deprivation.
Worshippers had to follow social distancing and use face masks during the gathering. Most worshippers brought their own prayer rugs and clay tablets used during prostration, Reuters reported. Friday prayers also were performed in several other Iranian cities.
Russia tops daily Covid deaths for fourth day in a row
Russia recorded a fourth straight daily record of Covid deaths this morning, with 1,064 more people reported to have died from the virus.
It comes with still a week to go before the start of a nationwide workplace shutdown ordered by president Vladimir Putin to try to curb a rise in infections.
Authorities said 1,064 people had died in the previous 24 hours, with new infections hitting a second successive daily record at 37,141, Reuters reported.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin’s decision to declare the period from 30 October to 7 November as “non-working days” would provide an opportunity to break the chain of infections, but described the situation as “extremely difficult”.
Asked if more drastic measures might be considered, he said:
Right now, no... There is not a single person who can predict the trajectory of the pandemic with a high degree of confidence.
He did not rule out the possibility of further measures being takenif necessary, and once again blamed the situation on negative public attitudes towards getting vaccinated, adding:
Our vaccination programme is going worse than a number of European countries. Fewer people are being vaccinated and more people are getting sick as new, more aggressive strains emerge. That is the reality that is taking place.
Putin has told regional authorities they can introduce further restrictions at their discretion.
Moscow has ordered unvaccinated over-60s to stay at home for four months from Monday, and from next Thursday will reimpose the strictest lockdown measures since June last year, with only essential shops like pharmacies and supermarkets allowed to remain open.
Ukraine shut schools in coronavirus hotspots and announced a requirement for vaccine certificates or negative tests to use public transport in the capital, after Covid deaths hit a record high.
Schools in Kyiv were ordered to close for a two-week holiday. In other “red zone” areas of high infection, schools would be permitted to reopen only if all teachers are vaccinated.
Infections have soared after a lull in the summer. Official data showed a record 614 new deaths related to Covid in the past 24 hours, up from 546 on Thursday, Reuters reported.
In a bid to combat vaccine hesitancy, Ukraine has made vaccinations compulsory for some government employees such as teachers. The unvaccinated face restrictions on access to restaurants, sports and other public events.
“I will make unpopular decisions to protect the lives of Ukrainians,” Health Minister Viktor Lyashko told parliament. “We must do what is expected of us today - to convince people to vaccinate.”
Good morning. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest Covid news from around the world through the rest of the day.
We start with the news that a key measure of coronavirus infections in Germany rose sharply over the past week, figures showed this morning.
It could raise the prospect of tougher restrictions as winter approaches, according to the Reuters new agency. The seven-day incidence rate of cases – which has been used to decide Covid restrictions – jumped more than 26 points in a week, the Robert Koch Institute responsible for disease control said.
The rise comes as the leaders of Germany’s 16 states are discussing pandemic plans. A nationwide state of emergency is set to lapse on 25 November, meaning restrictions will automatically expire then unless extended by parliamentary vote.
The number of new infections per 100,000 people over seven days stood at 95.1 compared with 68.7 reported a week ago, the institute said. A total of 19,572 new infections were reported on Friday, 8,054 more than the same time last Friday, it added.
More than 1,500 coronavirus patients are in intensive care, up from about 1,400 a week ago, figures from the DIVI association for intensive and emergency medicine showed on Thursday. “The fourth wave has started now and is still gaining speed,” Christian Karagiannidis, the scientific head of DIVI, said on Twitter on Thursday.
Updated
Today so far
- Amnesty International has urged the Italian parliament to launch an independent inquiry into coronavirus deaths in care homes and reports of retaliation against nursing staff who criticised unsafe conditions. Amnesty interviewed 34 care home workers, as well as labour union leaders and lawyers, and found that a third of workers “raised concerns about a climate of fear and retaliation in their workplace” if they criticised the unsafe conditions.
- India seems unlikely to meet its goal of vaccinating 944 million adults by December. 230 million of them have yet to get even a single dose, and with India using a 12- to 16-week gap between AstraZeneca doses in contrast to the 8- to 12-week gap recommended by the World Health Organization, the programme looks unable to be completed.
- The Covid surge in Ukraine continues as the country again set records for the daily number of deaths and cases: 23,785 cases and 614 deaths.
- Poland has reported 5,706 new coronavirus infections and 59 more deaths related to Covid. The case numbers are slightly down on figures from earlier in the week.
- France’s annual flu vaccination campaign kicked off today, four days earlier than initially planned, dovetailing with the country’s Covid-19 vaccination programme that, as well as trying to reach those who remain unvaccinated, is also providing booster shots to those in need. French health authorities issued instructions this week that the jabs can be given the same day, one in each arm.
- Hong Kong authorities prevented a Royal Caribbean cruise ship from departing the city’s terminal late on Thursday as a crew member was suspected to have Covid-19 after routine testing. About 1,000 passengers out of a total of 1,200 had already boarded the ship, which was due to take a “cruise to nowhere” before the four-night trip was cancelled.
- Fully vaccinated travellers arriving in Wales from a non-red list country will be able to take a lateral flow test instead of the more expensive PCR test from Sunday 31 October, the Welsh government has announced.
- In the latest development in the row over Conservative MPs not wearing face masks in the enclosed space of the House of Commons, Gillian Keegan, the minister of state for care, told Sky News masks were “less relevant” than vaccines and boosters in the race to curb surging cases of coronavirus, which on Thursday surpassed 50,000 in a single day for the first time in three months. “We shouldn’t make it a sign of virtue or not,” she said.
- Jonathan Reynolds, the shadow secretary for work and pensions in the UK, has been highly critical of the government’s rollout of the booster jab programme, saying “You can’t get past the fact that the government are not where they should be – and promised us – in terms of the overall picture.”
- Progress in clearing the NHS cancer treatment backlog in England has gone into reverse amid high Covid cases and staff shortages, analysis suggests.
- The UK’s neighbours have criticised British Covid policies as cases begin to surge across EU.
- China has continued to take action to close some tourist attractions, flights and train routes after a small outbreak of Covid. Six local cases, some of the highly transmissible Delta variant, were detected this week in Beijing city, which has vowed high vigilance ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in February.
- A poll suggests voters in Switzerland will again back the country’s anti-Covid measures in a November referendum.
- More than half of US states have introduced new laws to restrict public health actions, including policies requiring quarantine or isolation and mandating vaccines or masks. Between the new laws and the massive workforce departures during the pandemic, public health in America is in crisis, experts say.
- New Zealand set a new 90% vaccination target as prime minister Jacinda Ardern vowed to only lift most restrictions when country reaches the milestone.
- Nearly one-third of refugees and asylum seekers detained by the government at Melbourne’s Park hotel have tested positive for Covid-19, amid claims in court an ambulance was turned away from the hotel without being allowed to see a patient.
Clea Skopeliti has our politics live blog if you are looking for further updates on Covid developments in the UK. Tom Ambrose will be here shortly to continue bringing you Covid news from around the world. That’s it from me, Martin Belam, for this week. I will see you on Monday. Take care, stay safe, and have a great weekend.
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Summary
Worried that the flu and Covid-19 could trigger a winter-time crisis of new infections and deaths, John Leicester reports for Associated Press that France is forging ahead with a nationwide vaccination and booster-shot programme against both diseases, offering simultaneous jabs to millions of at-risk people.
The annual flu vaccination campaign kicked off Friday, four days earlier than initially planned, dovetailing with France’s Covid-19 vaccination programme that as well as trying to reach those who remain unvaccinated is also providing booster shots to those in need.
French health authorities, in instructions issued this week, urged doctors, nurses, pharmacists and midwives to “systematically promote both vaccinations” to at-risk people eligible for Covid-19 booster and flu shots. The note said the jabs can be given the same day, one in each arm.
It added that the onset of the winter flu season with the pandemic ongoing “increases the risk of co-infection and the development of serious cases and deaths.”
French health authorities also fear that because there were fewer flu infections in 2020, because of social distancing and coronavirus lockdowns, people could be more vulnerable this winter.
“The flu could be strong this year – I stress could – because we had no flu last year and so the population’s immunity is lower,” health minister Olivier Véran said on BFM-TV.
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Italy’s green pass rule triggers rise in Covid jab uptake
At the vaccination hub outside Termini train station in Rome, a steady flow of people have been turning up for their first Covid vaccine dose in recent days. The mood is begrudging. “If I didn’t have to do it, I wouldn’t,” said Rosanna Barbuto, a supermarket worker. Catalin, 41, who works in a factory, said: “I’m taking it because I need to work.”
They are among the vaccine hesitant who caved in after Italy made it mandatory for all workers to present a so-called green pass to access their workplaces. The rules are the strictest in Europe and require workers to present proof of vaccination, immunity or of a negative test taken within the previous 48 hours. Some see Italy’s cautious approach as the key to its current low infection rate.
Barbuto, 59, said she was not against vaccinations, and took the flu jab every year. “I didn’t want to take the one for coronavirus as I wasn’t sure how safe it is. I was afraid. People were talking about the side-effects and then there were all these protests. But I need to work and so need the green pass, and I don’t want to keep spending money on tests.”
Read more of Angela Giuffrida’s report from Rome here: ‘I need to work’: Italy’s green pass rule triggers rise in Covid jab uptake
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Poland has reported 5,706 new coronavirus infections and 59 more deaths related to Covid. The case numbers are a little bit down on figures from earlier in the week.
PolskieRadio report that the Polish health ministry announced on Friday morning that 4,264 Covid-19 patients were in hospitals nationwide, 353 of them on ventilators, with a further 181,800 people quarantined for possible coronavirus exposure.
More than half of US states have introduced new laws to restrict public health actions, including policies requiring quarantine or isolation and mandating vaccines or masks. Between the new laws and the massive workforce departures during the pandemic, public health in America is now in crisis, experts say.
The new restrictions and shortages not only affect responses to the coronavirus but also make it harder to contain outbreaks of the flu, measles and other health crises, and they put the US in a weaker position to combat future pandemics.
“We’re very, very concerned about the rolling back of public health powers,” Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, told the Guardian. “We thought there was going to be a renaissance for public health, and we may be at the cusp of a major decline.”
Separate investigations by Kaiser Health News and the New York Times found that at least 32 states have introduced about 100 new laws to restrict state and local authorities from addressing health crises.
“It’s a pretty grim future,” David Rosner, a public health and social historian at Columbia University, told the Guardian. “This is an eye-opening moment in American history, where we see all of these traditions and ideas being mobilized to basically create discord rather than harmony around disease. I’ve just never seen this before.”
Legislators in every US state have proposed bills to permanently limit officials’ ability to protect the public’s health. Some did not make it through the legislature or were vetoed by governors, while others are mired in legal battles.
Read more of Melody Schreiber’s report here: US public health in crisis as Covid prompts curbs on officials’ powers
Reuters has a round-up here of some of the measures taken in China in the last couple of days as they try to quash a small Covid outbreak. The numbers are tiny compared to elsewhere in the world, but Chinese cities are quick to contain outbreaks under tough national guidelines of zero tolerance.
The Changping district of Beijing banned people in certain higher-risk areas from leaving their residential compounds, suspended face-to-face classes at schools close to those areas and ordered nearby businesses to halt operations, an official told a news briefing.
Six local cases, some of the highly transmissible Delta variant, were detected this week in Beijing city, which has vowed high vigilance ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in February. Beijing city has started injecting booster vaccine doses, with groups including people taking part in the Games given priority.
In Hebei province next to Beijing, the cities of Xingtai and Baoding, a few hours’ drive from Zhangjiakou that is co-hosting the Games with Beijing, this week found a total of four local asymptomatic infections, which China counts separately as confirmed cases.
Around a dozen cities in Gansu province, many of which have yet to report any local infections, halted some long-distance bus services as of Friday morning, state television said. A few trains linking Gansu’s capital, Lanzhou, and the outside had been halted, while only one flight from Lanzhou to Beijing was allowed, an official said.
All tourist attractions in Ningxia, and some in Gansu and Qinghai, have been suspended.
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Clea Skopeliti is at the helm of our UK politics live blog today, and it is leading with Covid and the pressure on the JCVI over the gap between second vaccine doses and booster jabs. You can join her here.
I’ll be continuing with the latest international coronavirus developments.
Wales to downgrade international travel tests from PCR to lateral flow on 31 October
Fully vaccinated travellers arriving in Wales from a non-red list country will be able to take a lateral flow test instead of the more expensive PCR test from Sunday 31 October, the Welsh government has announced.
PA note this is a week later than the introduction of the policy in England by the UK government.
The Welsh government said in a statement: “We remain concerned about the UK government’s approach – and the speed at which it is opening up international travel and its decisions to change the border health measures, which are important protections to prevent the risk of new cases – and new variants of coronavirus – from entering the UK.
“We have consistently urged the UK government to take a precautionary approach towards reopening international travel.
“However, it is difficult for us to adopt a different testing regime to that required by the UK government, as the majority of Welsh travellers enter the UK through ports and airports in England.
“Having different testing requirements would cause significant practical problems, confusion among the travelling public, logistical issues, enforcement at our borders and disadvantages for Welsh businesses.”
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Amnesty International calls for inquiry into coronavirus deaths in Italy's care homes
Amnesty International has urged the Italian parliament to launch an independent inquiry into coronavirus deaths in care homes and reports of retaliation against nursing staff who criticised unsafe conditions.
Italy was the first western country to report a Covid-19 outbreak and a significant share of the deaths during the first wave of the pandemic were in care homes, especially in the hard-hit Lombardy region.
Care homes found themselves unprepared in the early period in terms of protective equipment, while patients in hospitals being treated for non-Covid illnesses were transferred to some care homes in order to free-up packed wards.
Amnesty interviewed 34 care home workers, as well as labour union leaders and lawyers, and found that a third of workers “raised concerns about a climate of fear and retaliation in their workplace” if they criticised the unsafe conditions.
At one care home in Milan, staff were allegedly not allowed to wear face masks, at least in the early stage of the pandemic, in case they frightened the residents.
“It is essential that the Italian parliament establish an independent inquiry in order to learn from the lessons of the past, prevent mistakes like those made earlier and ensure justice for all the deaths that could have been avoided and for those who have been unjustly subjected to retaliation,” said Debora Del Pistoia, a researcher for at Amnesty International Italia.
JCVI expert: 'six months is a sort of sweet spot' for booster jabs
Prof Anthony Harnden, deputy chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said the vaccine programme had been “hugely successful”, though people were perhaps not coming forward for boosters at the same rate they did for the other jabs.
Asked if people did know how to book boosters, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Well there has been a little bit of confusion. So there are a whole portfolio of different places – pharmacies, mass vaccination centres and others that are delivering the vaccines at the moment – and there may be a little bit of confusion about where people can get that vaccine, but people can ring up 119 number, they can go on to the NHS website, and with either of those options they can book a vaccine.”
PA Media reports that asked whether the wait between the second dose and the booster could be cut to five months from six, he said: “Well, I think it’s something that could be considered, but I think the data is showing that six months is a sort of sweet spot, whether it’s five months or whether it’s seven months isn’t so important, but I think what is important is that people get that booster dose. On JCVI, we’ve advised six months because that’s what the data shows is the sweet spot.”
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Poll: Swiss voters look set to back Covid measures in November referendum
A quick one from Reuters in Zurich here, that Swiss voters look set to again support the government’s pandemic response plan in a binding referendum next month, a poll for broadcaster SRG has shown.
The gfs.bern survey found 61% backed supporting a law first passed in March that expanded financial aid to people hit by the Covid-19 crisis and laid the foundation for certificates the government requires to facilitate travel abroad and allow certain events to be held.
The survey found 36% opposed and 3% were undecided before the 28 November referendum under the Swiss system of direct democracy.
It is unusual for a law that has been passed to have to face a second referendum, but as Samuel Jaberg notes for swissinfo.ch, there has been a growing movement in Switzerland with a focus on the civil liberties and personal freedom aspects of the law. He wrote earlier in the week:
On 13 June, after a first referendum, the Covid-19 law was accepted by 60.2% of voters and only rejected by some cantons in central and eastern Switzerland, where resistance to the government’s measures to combat coronavirus is concentrated.
On 8 July, three referendum committees submitted a total of 74,469 signatures judged valid by the Federal Chancellery opposing the March amendments to the Covid-19 law. These citizens’ movements, which arose during the pandemic and have no clear partisan affiliation, criticise the extension of the government’s power and in particular, the Covid-19 certificate, compulsory since 13 September to access indoor spaces.
However, this time around, the campaign for those in favour of the law will be more difficult. The question of financial aid granted to businesses and people affected by lockdowns during the crisis, which was at the centre of discussions before the first vote, has since been eclipsed by the debate about individual freedom.
The political climate has also become much harsher in recent months. Politicians, including Interior Minister Alain Berset, have had to be given police protection, and some demonstrations by opponents of health measures have required robust intervention by law enforcement.
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India likely to miss target to vaccinate all 944 million adults by end of year
The latest Reuters despatch from Krishna N Das in New Delhi is in, and he writes that many Indians are unlikely to be fully vaccinated by year-end despite ample Covid shots being available.
The locally produced AstraZeneca vaccine – which is known as Covishield – has a 12 to 16-week gap between doses, in contrast to the 8- to 12-week gap recommended by the World Health Organization. Indian authorities took that decision to extend the gap earlier in the pandemic, when supplies of the vaccine were more sluggish, but have yet to make any move to reduce it.
Based on current trends, the Covishield dosage gap means more than 200 million people will only be eligible for their second dose in late January even if all of them were to get their first shot today.
The government wants to vaccinate all of the country’s 944 million adults by December but some 230 million of them have yet to get even a single dose.
“It is likely that the milestone may be missed by several weeks,” said Rajib Dasgupta, head of the Centre of Social Medicine & Community Health at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University. “Reducing Covishield dosage interval is certainly a possibility to consider.”
Earlier in the week, the health ministry informed Reuters that its immunisation experts were “actively considering the matter of dose interval between Covishield doses”.
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Stephen Reicher, a member of the Sage subcommittee advising on behavioural science and professor of psychology at the University of St Andrews, has been on the BBC this morning, talking about measures that England and the rest of the UK could be taking to try and bring the rocketing case numbers down.
PA Media quotes him saying: “Actually, most of the measures we need to put in place aren’t restrictions at all, they don’t limit our choice, they’re protections which increase our choice.
“So, if for instance, more was put into ensuring that all public safe places were properly ventilated, were inspected to make sure that they met Covid standards before they opened, then it would give people choice because they wouldn’t know the spaces were safe.
“If, for instance, we allow people to work from home, that would have a big impact in lessening the spread of the virus, and again that’s about giving people the choice, not forcing them to do anything, and indeed one of the really important issues … is that if people are infected, they need to stay at home, we need to give people the support to give them the choice to stay at home to allow them to do the things we want them to do.”
He argued that is was “simply wrong” for members of the government and backbench Conservative MPs like Iain Duncan-Smith tell people they must go into work because “one of the key factors which determines the spread of the virus is how many contacts we have – if we have more contacts, we’re going to infect more people”.
On mask-wearing, he said it was only when it became mandatory that wear-rates went up from 20% to 80%.
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Labour: booster jab timings debate 'pure deflection' from failure of government on roll-out
Jonathan Reynolds, the shadow secretary for work and pensions in the UK, has been highly critical of the government’s rollout of the booster jab programme on Sky News this morning.
Asked about stories in the media that the government have been pushing medical experts to try to get the gap between a second Covid vaccine shot and the booster shot dropped from six months to five months to speed up the booster jab programme, he said:
I’ve no objection to that. I think it’s a sensible thing. But for me that story this morning is pure deflection from the government who haven’t delivered on what they promised in terms of the booster shots, in terms of that plan A. So yes, it’s an interesting thing to consider, but ultimately we’re so far behind on where we should be on those booster shots, that’s the biggest problem. I think that could be something worth considering, but you can’t get past the fact that the government are not where they should be – and promised us – in terms of the overall picture.
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Andy Beckett has written his latest column for us, saying that with Covid infections rising in the UK, the Tories are conducting a deadly social experiment:
Since Boris Johnson declared “freedom day” on 19 July, almost all the previous restrictions on everyday life in England under Covid have been removed. “Personal responsibility”, as Johnson and his ministers like to put it with a libertarian relish, has replaced emergency legislation as one of the main weapons against the virus. In effect, a giant experiment in individual ethics has been under way.
The results look increasingly alarming. In pubs, in shops, on public transport and in other enclosed spaces where the virus easily spreads, many people are acting as if the pandemic is over – or at least, over for them. Mask-wearing and social distancing have sometimes become so rare that to practise them feels embarrassing.
Meanwhile, England has become one of the worst places for infections in the world, despite a high degree of vaccination by global standards. Case numbers, hospitalisations and deaths are all rising, and are already much higher than in other western European countries that have kept measures such as indoor mask-wearing compulsory, and where compliance with such rules has remained strong. What does England’s failure to control the virus through “personal responsibility” say about our society?
Read more here: Andy Beckett – With Covid infections rising, the Tories are conducting a deadly social experiment
One thing regular readers will have noted is that I occasionally pop in this map that seems to indicate the extent to which the UK’s caseload is an outlier in the western end of Europe, while also showing the surge that is building up towards the east of the continent.
It can sometimes be quite the cognitive dissonance for a journalist to be reporting that Russia – with a much larger population and a much lower caseload than the UK – is going into a week of work-free lockdown to try and break transmission, while members of the UK government are failing to follow their own public health advice over face mask wearing, even as daily Covid cases top 50,000.
I noted this piece from Politico by Ashleigh Furlong late yesterday afternoon, which neatly summed up one view of what the UK is doing wrong from abroad:
“The UK is an outlier, because it does have quite high coverage of vaccination — and is still having 45,000 cases per day,” said Quique Bassat, a pediatrician at the Barcelona Institute for Global health.
Yet after Britain marked “freedom day” in July, it was to be expected that there would be a “persistence of transmission as opposed to other countries which have maintained much more stringent preventive measures,” said Bassat.
“In two or three weeks, [Spain] got about 70 percent of the teenagers vaccinated and that dramatically decreased transmission of the fifth wave precisely because it was affecting mostly the younger people,” said the Barcelona Institute for Global Health’s Bassat. The UK has been much slower, with the jab only being widely offered to teens from mid-September.
Read more here: Politico – Britain’s skyrocketing coronavirus cases make it an outlier in Western Europe
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On a policy front, one things that did emerge in the UK from government care minister Gillian Keegan’s Sky News interview is that she confirmed that any decision to cut the period of time people have to wait to be eligible for a booster jab – that is currently six months – would depend on medical advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). She said:
They’ve advised us six months. Of course they continually look at the data but they are the only people who can really answer this question. If they advise us, our job then would be to get ready to do whatever they say. But at the moment it is six months. It is not unknown, the JCVI have changed over periods of time and we have reacted.
Hong Kong authorities prevented a Royal Caribbean cruise ship from departing the city’s terminal late on Thursday as a crew member was suspected to have Covid-19 after routine testing, the government and the cruise operator said.
Reuters report that the Spectrum of the Seas ship was scheduled to begin a “cruise to nowhere” journey in nearby waters, restricted to half capacity and only for fully vaccinated residents who tested negative for the virus 48 hours prior to the trip.
Reuters report that about 1,000 passengers out of a total of 1,200 had already boarded the ship before the four-night trip was cancelled. All have to undergo compulsory testing but were allowed to leave the ship as they did not have direct contact with the crew member.
“In a routine Covid-19 test on crew members today, we identified one crew member who tested indeterminate. Following secondary sample testing, the test resulted preliminary positive for Covid-19,” Royal Caribbean said in a statement on Facebook.
UK minister: we should not make wearing face masks 'this sign of virtue'
In the UK, government care minister Gillian Keegan has been on Sky News. She was given an absolutely torrid time by Kay Burley over the situation where health secretary Sajid Javid had given a press conference this week saying MPs had a role to play in setting an example over the use of face masks, and then has been roundly ignored by his fellow Conservative MPs who continue to attend parliament maskless, even though it is an enclosed indoor space filled with a lot of people.
She said of mask wearing:
It’s a personal choice, but most of us are wearing masks. I mean, on the tube, most of us are wearing masks. I don’t know if you’ve seen that. And I think as more and more it gets into winter, I’ve had a cough, so I’ve been wearing a mask, and having a cough is socially unacceptable now, you know you feel terrible. So I think it is a personal choice.
Many, many people do wear masks, and many people, when you go out into meetings – I was in care homes yesterday – everybody was wearing masks. But it’s about personal choice, you know, we’re not the sort of country that tells you what you need to wear, you know, it is about personal choice. We all know the pros and cons of this. We’ve spent 18-19 months educating ourselves. So we all know what to do, and you know it’s not for the government really to mandate it.
There may be a few Londoners, like myself, having a little puzzled look to themselves at the idea that most people on the tube continue to wear masks – certainly if you have to travel later in the evening that is anecdotally very much not the case.
In the interview, Burley then reminded Keegan that in fact in Scotland and Wales it is mandatory to wear masks on public transport and in certain indoor settings, asking the minister: “In Scotland, it’s mandatory to wear a mask on public transport and also within shops. It is also the case in Wales. So they’re wrong to do that?”
Keegan then tried to change the subject back to the booster jab programme. She was then asked about the comments of leader of the house Jacob Rees-Mogg that Conservative MPs don’t need masks because of the convivial and fraternal atmosphere. She was asked: “Does that mean if you are convivial and fraternal you don’t get Covid?”
Her reply: “No, you know, everybody knows that you can get Covid from anybody.”
Asked “So you are not setting an example?” she said
No, and to be honest, we didn’t throughout much of the summer. Not many of us have had masks on. I mean, I had a mask on yesterday just because again I was coughing and Theresa May has had one all along because she’s diabetic. There’s actually a number of people who have health concerns. If I sit next to anybody who has a mask on, I always put a mask on, because obviously they’re concerned about themselves, but you’ll find more and more as we go into winter, people will be wearing masks, but we shouldn’t make it this sign of virtue.
The minister also complained that “it’s not very comfortable sitting there for hours either in a mask” which will not come as news to any of the many people in the UK who have been wearing face masks to help protect their colleagues from exposure to Covid for many, many months now.
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We reported yesterday that China had taken action yesterday suspending flights and imposing other restrictions after an outbreak of Covid which authorities said had been caused by an elderly couple of tourists travelling through the country.
Today, Reuters report that China’s authorities have confirmed 43 new Covid cases, up slightly from 41 the day before.
The National Health Commission said 28 were locally transmitted cases compared with 13 a day earlier, and the new local cases were reported in the provinces of Gansu, Shaanxi, Guizhou and Qinghai, the autonomous regions of Inner Mongolia and Ningxia and the city of Beijing.
Officially the country recorded no new Covid deaths in the last 24 hours, leaving China, with a total population of 1.4 billion, and the first place that Covid-19 was detected, with an official death toll of 4.636.
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Nearly one-third of refugees at Melbourne detention hotel test positive for Covid
Nearly one-third of refugees and asylum seekers detained by the government at Melbourne’s Park hotel have tested positive for Covid-19, amid claims in court an ambulance was turned away from the hotel without being allowed to see a patient.
With the outbreak affecting 15 of 46 men, and expected to grow further still, at least one refugee has been taken to hospital by ambulance.
An urgent hearing in the federal circuit court was convened on Thursday after a Covid-positive refugee – known in court documents as FGS20 – sought orders allowing him to be assessed by ambulance paramedics. The court heard a dispute over whether an ambulance was turned away from the hotel without being granted access, and FGS20 told “never to call an ambulance again”.
Evidence put to the court stated that FGS20 had an ambulance called for him by a friend after concerns about his deteriorating condition, including falling blood-oxygen levels, and difficulty breathing and speaking.
“He was very distressed, very unwell,” the friend’s statement to the court said. “I called the ambulance. They attended the hotel but were not permitted to enter. He was told by the nurse never to call the ambulance again.”
This was contested by the government, which told the court, while several ambulances had been called for those detained, and had examined them, the ambulance for FGS20 had not yet arrived and he had not yet been assessed.
Read more of Ben Doherty’s report here: Nearly one-third of refugees at Melbourne detention hotel test positive for Covid and one hospitalised
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Cancer patients in UK face ‘perfect storm’ as Covid piles pressure on NHS
Progress in clearing the NHS cancer treatment backlog in England has gone into reverse amid high Covid cases and staff shortages, analysis suggests.
With rising coronavirus hospitalisations also now piling pressure on the health service, experts have warned patients should brace themselves for worse to come as a “perfect storm” looms in cancer care.
The NHS has been striving to catch up with the pandemic backlog of cancer care but the analysis by Macmillan Cancer Support of official data suggests the drive has recently suffered a setback, with growing numbers of potential cancer diagnoses missed.
Four key cancer measures have fallen back, with two dropping to their worst ever recorded level.
Figures published by NHS England, and analysed by Macmillan for the Guardian, show the number of patients starting treatment in August following a decision to treat fell to 25,800. The figure was above 27,000 in June and July. The proportion of patients who began treatment within one month of the decision to treat fell to 93.7% – the lowest percentage ever recorded.
Data published last week also shows that in August there was a record-high number of patients forced to wait for more than two months after an urgent referral from their GP before they started cancer treatment. According to Macmillan, 4,075 patients only began treatment two months after being referred, the highest figure recorded.
Read more of our health editor Andrew Gregory’s report here: Cancer patients face ‘perfect storm’ as Covid piles pressure on NHS
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Hi, it is Martin Belam here in London. The government’s care minister Gillian Keegan is getting lambasted on Sky News about Conservative MPs failing to wear masks in parliament. I’ll have some choice quotes from that in a moment.
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Ukraine sets new daily records for deaths and cases
The Covid surge in Ukraine continues as the country again set records for the daily number of deaths and cases: 23,785 cases and 614 deaths.
It was the second successive day the country had set records. The country has moved to make Covid testing and vaccinations available at major train stations around Ukraine including Kyiv, Lviv, Kjarkiv, Odesa and Dnipro. They have also opened similar facilities in shopping malls.
A Ukrainian health ministry on Facebook yesterday stated that 95% of those hospitalized with Covid-19 last week were not vaccinated. Ukraine has a population of 44 million, of which 6.7 million are fully vaccinated and 8.3 million have received at least one dose.
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Hi and welcome back to today’s Covid blog where we will bring you all the significant new developments as they happen.
I’m Samantha Lock reporting from Sydney, Australia, and I’ll be with you for the next hour or so.
Once deemed the world’s most liveable city seven times in a row, Melbourne, Australia, found itself in what many believe to be the world’s longest lockdown.
After six seperate stretches totalling 262 days of stay-at-home orders, the city has finally surged back to life after restrictions were lifted today and bars, pubs, cafes and restaurants opened their doors once again.
- New Zealand sets new 90% vaccination target as prime minister Jacinda Ardern vows to only life most restrictions when country reaches the milestone.
- UK prime minister Boris Johnson resists calls to activate ‘plan B’ as daily Covid cases top 50,000. “The numbers of infections are high but we are within the parameters of what the predictions were, what Spi-M [modelling group] and the others said we would be at this stage given the steps we are taking. We are sticking with our plan,” Johnson told reporters.
- Infections in UK at highest level since July with 52,009 new coronavirus cases. That is the highest daily total on this measure, and the first time the daily tally has topped 50,000, for more than three months.
- Jeremy Hunt has called for the government to cut the time required between Covid vaccine doses to allow more booster jabs to be given. Relaxing six-month gap between second and third doses would speed up rollout, the former health secretary said.
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Melbourne, Australia, ends its sixth lockdown today after spending 267 days following stay-at-home orders, thought to be the longest lockdown in the world.
- Moscow announces a one-week nationwide lockdown as Russia Covid deaths rise. The country registered its highest daily number of coronavirus deaths and infections since the start of the pandemic.
- UK’s neighbours criticise British Covid policies as cases begin to surge across EU.
- Only 14% of promised Covid vaccine doses reach poorest nations, a report has revealed. Of 1.8bn doses pledged by wealthy nations, just 261m (14%) have arrived in low-income countries, according to the analysis by the People’s Vaccine alliance, a coalition of groups that includes Oxfam, ActionAid and Amnesty International.
- WHO estimates up to 180,000 health workers may have died from Covid in the period between January 2020 to May 2021, while calling for more health workers to be fully vaccinated.
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