People most vulnerable to Omicron would reportedly be offered experimental pill within 48 hours of testing positive
The first at-home treatment for Covid-19 could reportedly be offered to UK patients before Christmas as an attempt to protect the most vulnerable from the Omicron variant.
The Sunday Telegraph reported that Sajid Javid is set to launch a national pilot of the Molnupiravir antiviral pill, marketed as Lagevrio.
Continue reading...Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of Wellcome Trust, suggests emergence of Omicron variant means pandemic is far from over
The emergence of the Omicron variant shows that the world is “closer to the start of the pandemic than the end”, one of Britain’s most senior scientific figures has warned, as he lamented a lack of political leadership over Covid.
Sir Jeremy Farrar, the director of the Wellcome Trust who stepped down as a government scientific adviser last month, said the progress in combatting Covid-19 since its emergence was “being squandered”.
Continue reading...Poll reveals huge public cynicism, with just 5% of respondents believing politicians work for public good
Trust in politicians to act in the national interest rather than for themselves has fallen dramatically since Boris Johnson became prime minister, according to figures contained in a disturbing new study into the state of British democracy.
The polling data from YouGov for the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) shows a particularly sharp fall in trust in the few weeks since the Owen Paterson scandal triggered a rash of Tory sleaze scandals.
Continue reading...The Nordic cafe chain is planning ambitious expansion in the UK and perhaps an IPO – if it can find the staff
Founded by a Danish karate champion, the smoothie chain Joe & the Juice has blitzed its way on to British high streets, where its pastel-pink outlets and drinks with names such as Sex Me Up have cut a distinctive dash.
Having grown from one juice bar in Copenhagen in 2002 to 300 outlets around the world, the chain is planning to double in size in the next few years, and is rumoured to be plotting a stock market listing.
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UK government officials and scientific advisers believe that the danger posed by the Omicron variant may not be clear until January, potentially allowing weeks of intense mixing while the variant spreads.
Across Westminster, invitations to Christmas drinks are landing in embossed envelopes or on WhatsApp groups. Departmental staff parties are set to take place, as well as a reception for journalists with Rishi Sunak at No 11. Even Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are hosting a joint bash.
Continue reading...NCA says Osagie Aigbonohan used series of online aliases to form relationships with victims including terminally ill woman
A romance fraudster conned a victim out of thousands of pounds and targeted hundreds of others, including a terminally ill woman, according to the National Crime Agency (NCA).
Osagie Aigbonohan, 40, used a number of aliases to contact women online through dating and social media sites, and in one case cheated a woman out of almost £10,000, the agency said.
Continue reading...The market in no- and low-alcohol drinks is booming in the UK as more people swap the festive hangover for mindful drinking
The concept of a Christmas without champagne, wine or whisky is counterintuitive to many. But this festive season, growing numbers of Britons are eschewing alcohol and gearing up for a teetotal – or at least partially so – celebration, according to retailers.
Sales in the no- and low-alcohol category, also known as “NoLo”, are expected to grow by 17% in the UK this year, reports IWSR Drinks Market Analysis, and will hit almost 19 million cases and a value of $741m (£558m). Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Tesco all report that sales of NoLo drinks have seen huge rises year on year, a trend they expect to continue in the run-up to Christmas, amid a rise in “mindful drinking”.
Continue reading...We talk to three people faced with moral crises over reconciling family festivities with the risks posed by coronavirus
Christmas is meant to be a time filled with joy, but for many families it can underline divisions between parents, children or siblings and bring unresolved tensions to the surface. This year adds a particular issue to that dynamic – whether or not individual family members are vaccinated.
Continue reading...British authorities accused of interrogating parents who came seeking help when their daughters went missing
Details of how police attempted to criminalise British families whose children were trafficked to Islamic State (IS) in Syria are revealed in a series of testimonies that show how grieving parents were initially treated as suspects and then abandoned by the authorities.
One described being “treated like a criminal” and later realising that police were only interested in acquiring intelligence on IS instead of trying to help find their loved one. Another told how their home had been raided after they approached police for help to track down a missing relative.
Continue reading...A roundup of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to Manila
Continue reading...Met asked to investigate reports of alleged breaches of Covid lockdown rules at No 10
The prime minister has been reported to the police by Labour MPs over allegations there were at least two parties in Downing Street during lockdown restrictions last year.
Neil Coyle, Labour MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, wrote to the Met police commissioner, Cressida Dick, asking her to investigate reports that the prime minister spoke at a leaving do in November and also allowed a staff Christmas party to go ahead in December.
Continue reading...Government privately being urged by advisers to tell people to work from home as UK cases of variant hit 134
UK ministers have been warned they cannot wait for new research on the Omicron variant and must act now to prevent a potentially “very significant wave of infections” that risks overwhelming the NHS.
A 75 further cases of the variant have been identified in England, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said on Friday night, bringing the total number of UK confirmed cases to 134. The head of the agency, Dr Jenny Harries, said: “We have started to see cases where there are no links to travel, suggesting that we have a small amount of community transmission.”
Continue reading...Sponsorship deal with Kingspan sparked furious backlash from the Grenfell community
Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes Formula One team is facing growing pressure to scrap a sponsorship deal with a firm that made combustible insulation on Grenfell Tower, after the government threatened to change advertising rules.
The racing team’s deal with Kingspan will mean the logo of the firm that made some of the foam boards used on the tower will be emblazoned on the nose cone of cars driven by Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas starting at this weekend’s Saudi Arabia Grand Prix.
Continue reading...As new strain dampens idea pandemic might be diminishing, what does the future hold for coronavirus?
When scientists predicted, months ago, that Covid-19 could be entering an endemic phase, many felt ready for the crisis period of the pandemic to be over. The tantalising suggestion that coronavirus might, at some foreseeable point, be just another seasonal cold felt welcome. But the emergence of the Omicron variant, just weeks before Christmas, shows this is not guaranteed to be a smooth or quick transition.
Continue reading...As tensions with Russia and China increase, the prime minister meddles in foreign policy to distract from domestic woes
Relations between the world’s great powers are tenser than ever since the cold war. Troops are massing along Russia’s border with Ukraine. Chinese ships and planes are openly threatening Taiwan. Japan is rearming in response. Turkey is renewing its belligerence towards its neighbours. Russia is backing east-west fragmentation in Bosnia.
Where Britain stands in all this is dangerously unclear, drifting on a sea of Boris Johnson’s gestures and platitudes. The Royal Navy currently has a £3.2bn aircraft carrier waving the union flag in the South China Sea, completely unprotected. China could sink it in an hour. In the Black Sea, a British destroyer provocatively invades Russian waters off Crimea, showing off to the world’s media. Last week, the British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, advanced her bid for her party’s leadership by sitting astride a tank in Estonia and warning Russia that Britain “stood firm” against its “malign activity” in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Britain’s outgoing defence chief, Sir Nick Carter, estimates that the risk of accidental war with Russia is now “the highest in decades”.
Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
Local metal detectorist on Western Isles ‘flabbergasted’ to find missing ring on former potato patch
A single-minded metal detectorist has reunited a woman with the wedding ring she lost in a potato patch in the Western Isles 50 years ago.
Peggy MacSween believed she had lost the golden band forever after it slipped off her finger while she gathered potatoes at her home on Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides.
But after recently learning of her lost ring, fellow islander and detection enthusiast Donald MacPhee made it his mission to unearth the treasure.
MacPhee spent three days searching Liniclate Machair, the sandy coastal meadow where the potato patch once was with a metal detector. The area had become a popular drinking spot over the years, resulting in a significant number of buried can ring pulls that confused the sonic search for the ring.
MacPhee, who runs Benbecula’s Nunton House hostel, explained: “For three days I searched and dug 90 holes. The trouble is gold rings make the same sound [on the detector] as ring pulls and I got a lot of those – as well as many other things such as horseshoes and cans.
“But on the third day I found the ring. I was absolutely flabbergasted. I had searched an area of 5,000 sq metres. It was a one in a 100,000 chance and certainly my best find. It was a fluke. There was technique involved, but I just got lucky.”
Taking up the story, 86-year-old MacSween added: “He just came to the door and said: ‘I have something to show you.’ It was the ring. I couldn’t believe it, but there it was. I thought I would never see it again.”
She said: “I was shaking the sand out of my gloves and the ring disappeared. I didn’t know until I got home. I went out once or twice to look for it, but there was no way of finding it.”
Her husband, John, whom she married in July 1958 and died a few years ago, bought her a replacement while they were on holiday.
MacPhee said he had started metal detecting seven years ago after watching YouTube videos. “That got me interested and this is for many reasons my best find. It was very, very emotional,” he said.
Judgment rules company can blast sound waves in search for oil along South Africa’s eastern coastline
Royal Dutch Shell will move ahead with seismic tests to explore for oil in vital whale breeding grounds along South Africa’s eastern coastline after a court dismissed an 11th-hour legal challenge by environmental groups.
The judgment, by a South African high court, allows Shell to begin firing within days extremely loud sound waves through the relatively untouched marine environment of the Wild Coast, which is home to whales, dolphins and seals.
Continue reading...Louie French becomes MP for suburban London seat, but Tories’ majority of nearly 19,000 cut to 4,478
The Conservatives have held the safe seat of Old Bexley and Sidcup in the first in a series of closely watched parliamentary byelections.
Louie French was elected as the new MP, replacing the well-liked former cabinet minister James Brokenshire, who died in October from lung cancer.
Continue reading...Jabs offer far higher protection than that needed to prevent hospitalisation and death, Cov-Boost trial lead says
Covid booster shots can dramatically strengthen the body’s immune defences, according to a study that raises hopes of preventing another wave of severe disease driven by the Omicron variant.
In a study published in the Lancet, researchers on the UK-based Cov-Boost trial measured immune responses in nearly 3,000 people who received one of seven Covid-19 boosters or a control jab two to three months after their second dose of either AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccine.
Continue reading...Latest updates: Boris Johnson says ‘no need’ to cancel Christmas events as UK reports 53,945 daily coronavirus cases
Jeremy Corbyn posted a tweet this morning promoting a virtual Stop the War fundraiser this Christmas, not an in-person one. So my earlier post (now removed) about this being an example of a party going ahead that might not meet with George Freeman’s approval was completely wrong. I apologise for the mistake.
The Cabinet Office has been fined £500,000 for accidentally disclosing the postal addresses of the 2020 new year honours list recipients online, in breach of data protection laws.
On 27 December 2019 the Cabinet Office published a file on GOV.UK containing the names and unredacted addresses of more than 1,000 people announced in the new year honours list. People from a wide range of professions across the UK were affected, including individuals with a high public profile.
After becoming aware of the data breach, the Cabinet Office removed the weblink to the file. However, the file was still cached and accessible online to people who had the exact webpage address.
When data breaches happen, they have real-life consequences. In this case, more than 1,000 people were affected. At a time when they should have been celebrating and enjoying the announcement of their honour, they were faced with the distress of their personal details being exposed.
The Cabinet Office’s complacency and failure to mitigate the risk of a data breach meant that hundreds of people were potentially exposed to the risk of identity fraud and threats to their personal safety.
Continue reading...