Analysis: Drug company and scientific partners at Oxford University have strongly pushed back against German press report
A row has broken out after German newspapers suggested the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine might have a lower efficacy among the over-65s. Below we take a look at the claims, and whether we should be concerned.
Continue reading...International development committee tells government that pandemic and foreign aid cuts fuelling poverty and food insecurity
Billions of dollars of debt owed by poor countries must be permanently cancelled in order to stave off a “looming financial tsunami” caused by Covid-19 and the ensuing global recession, a cross-party committee of MPs has warned.
Debt relief will not be enough to help the world’s most vulnerable economies as they face skyrocketing levels of hunger and unemployment, according to an inquiry into Covid-19’s secondary impacts in developing countries, published on Tuesday by the House of Commons international development committee (IDC).
Continue reading...Sixty million more girls and women using modern contraceptives due to global campaign, but pandemic recession threatens services
Sixty million more women and girls in the world’s poorest countries are now using modern contraceptives, after an eight-year global effort to expand family planning services.
But the FP2020 global partnership, launched in London in 2012, warned that the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting financial crisis imperils further progress.
Continue reading...He partied with high society America but caused outrage when he spilled their secrets. Ebs Burnough talks us through his new film about Answered Prayers – the ‘smart, salacious’ novel Capote never finished
When Truman Capote died in 1984, he left the remains of a novel he had been hatching for nearly two decades, and talking about for almost as long. Answered Prayers, the story of a budding writer screwing his way through polite society, was intended to be Capote’s most explosive achievement. He likened it to a deadly weapon. “There’s the handle, the trigger, the barrel, and, finally, the bullet,” he told People magazine. “And when that bullet is fired from the gun, it’s going to come out with a speed and power like you’ve never seen – wham!” Having bragged about the book for years, all he had to do now was write it.
A contract was signed in 1966, but advance chapters published in Esquire magazine nine years later proved to be far below the standard of his defining successes, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and the “non-fiction novel” In Cold Blood. There was a cost to his social reputation as well as his literary one. As soon as the socialites and wealthy wives with whom he had mingled happily for years – including Slim Keith, Babe Paley and Gloria Vanderbilt, whom he called his “swans” – saw how casually he had spilled their most intimate secrets, those friendships were dead. Capote hadn’t bitten the hand that fed him. He’d gnawed it off at the wrist.
Continue reading...Research from three Cambridge grave sites suggests poor people were at greatest risk of injury
A friar crushed by a cart, another the victim of an attack by bandits: it sounds like the plot of a medieval mystery. But according to new research these are some of the possible misfortunes to have befallen those in centuries gone by.
An analysis of bones from 314 individuals aged 12 or older, dating from around 1100 to the 1530s, and found in three different sites across Cambridge, reveals that bone fractures were common among those buried in a parish cemetery – where many ordinary workers would have been laid to rest. But the team also found evidence of horrific injuries among those buried in an Augustinian friary, suggesting the clergy were not protected against violent events.
Continue reading...Health secretary says it is too early to draw timeline for restrictions, because of pressure on NHS
The health secretary, Matt Hancock, has fired a coded warning at MPs seeking a roadmap out of Covid restrictions, saying the pressure on the NHS is too great, with hospital admissions still almost double the April peak.
The deputy chief medical officer, Jenny Harries, said people “need to keep these figures in proportion”, adding that there was a serious risk to health services, especially in winter. “We are not out of this by a very long way,” she said.
Continue reading...One in eight people who get coronavirus also have first psychiatric or neurological illness within six months, research finds
One in eight people who have had Covid-19 are diagnosed with their first psychiatric or neurological illness within six months of testing positive for the virus, a new analysis suggests, adding heft to an emerging body of evidence that stresses the toll of the virus on mental health and brain disorders cannot be ignored.
The analysis – which is still to be peer-reviewed – also found that those figures rose to one in three when patients with a previous history of psychiatric or neurological illnesses were included.
Continue reading...As I move from the country to the city and start my life as a university student, I’m disheartened by the lack of support from Centrelink
Name: Bethany Castle
Age: 17
So much has happened in such a short time. All of a sudden, it feels as if life is progressing too fast, when only a week ago I was impatiently waiting for my new life in the city to begin.
Continue reading...Vice-president joins activists in calling for zero tolerance of ‘machismo’ that has left hundreds of women and girls dead
When authorities pulled the lifeless body of four-year-old María Ángel Molina out of a river in rural Colombia on 13 January, the South American country mourned what was the 14th documented case of femicide this year.
Her murderer, Juan Carlos Galvis, also kidnapped María’s sister, and later admitted to authorities that he committed the brutal crimes in order to punish the girls’ mother for seeing another man.
Continue reading...More vaccination centres open as experts call for monitoring of effect of lengthy gap between jabs
Experts have called for greater clarity about the monitoring in place to assess the 12-week dosing interval for Covid vaccines, as the UK’s vaccination programme ramps up.
According to government data released on Sunday, a total of 6,353,321 people in the UK have received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine. A further slew of vaccination centres are due to open on Monday to speed up delivery of the jabs.
Continue reading...JCVI deputy chair defends extended gap between jabs as Hancock warns end of restrictions ‘long way off’
A representative of the UK’s vaccine advisory committee has defended its decision to delay giving people a second dose, saying it will “save many lives”, as the health secretary, Matt Hancock, warned lifting restrictions was “a long, long way off”.
Prof Anthony Harnden, of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said the evidence was still in favour of delaying the dose, after a small Israeli study on people over the age of 60 suggested a first dose gave just 33% protection from coronavirus.
Continue reading...Human populations are set to decline in countries from Asia to Europe – and an unusual form of rewilding is taking place
For many years it seemed that overpopulation was the looming crisis of our age. Back in 1968, the Stanford biologists Paul and Anne Ehrlich infamously predicted that millions would soon starve to death in their bestselling, doom-saying book The Population Bomb; since then, neo-Malthusian rumblings of imminent disaster have been a continual refrain in certain sections of the environmental movement – fears that were recently given voice on David Attenborough’s documentary Life on our Planet.
At the time the Ehrlichs were publishing their dark prophecies, the world was at its peak of population growth, which at that point was increasing at a rate of 2.1% a year. Since then, the global population has ballooned from 3.5 billion to 7.67 billion.
Continue reading...In this extract from her new book Breathtaking, palliative care doctor Rachel Clarke reveals the pressure and pain of splitting her time between hospice patients and hospital Covid wards
In January 2020, novel coronaviruses are nowhere on my mind. Like everyone working in the NHS, I am steeled for a home-grown catastrophe. For no matter how many patients lie on trolleys in corridors, how many ambulances sit trapped on hospital forecourts, how many photos go viral of toddlers slumped on their parents’ coats, receiving oxygen on the floor of a beleaguered A&E, nothing ever truly changes. These days, the annual NHS “winter crisis” is both dreaded and reliable as clockwork.
The numbers are so large, and repeated so frequently, they have long been leached of their force: 17,000 hospital beds lost since 2010; only 2.5 beds per 1,000 people in the UK, compared with three times that number in Germany; unfilled vacancies for more than 10,000 doctors and 40,000 nurses.
Continue reading...Exactly a year after his first story about coronavirus, our science editor received the Pfizer injection last week. Here he reflects on a remarkable scientific achievement
I marked a grim anniversary in an unexpected manner last week. On 18 January last year, I wrote my first story about a mysterious disease that had struck Wuhan, in China, and which was now spreading around the world. More than two million individuals have since died of Covid-19, almost 100,000 of them in the UK.
Remarkably, 12 months to the day that the Observer published my story, I was given my first dose of Covid-19 vaccine, allowing me to follow nearly six million other newly immunised UK residents who are set to gain protection against a disease that has brought the planet to a standstill. It was a rare, comforting experience after a year of unremitting sadness and gloom.
Continue reading...In spite of all the challenges of the world they will inherit, young people are embracing activism to make change
When Alice Rummery sees a problem, she has one overriding thought: “What are we going to do about it?”
That’s been the driving force of an activism that was first ignited as a university student in 2018 when she was a critical part of a campaign for women’s safety in cities. Trained and supported by Plan International’s Activist Series, she worked to enable women in five cities in the world to map precisely where in that city they felt safe or endangered. Now, she is working in the public service, tasked with implementing the Women’s Safety Charter for the city of Sydney and taking the momentum of her campaigning work into practical application.
Continue reading...Schools have embraced apps and remote classes in the past year. Some see benefits in virtual learning but others fear the impact on disadvantaged children and privatisation by stealth
History is likely to record that Britain’s teachers were better prepared for Covid-19 than government ministers. With cases rising in Europe, 14 schools in England had already closed their gates by the end of February 2020. When senior staff at Barham primary school began drawing up contingency plans on 26 February, they realised they needed to up their use of digital technology.
They decided to upload work daily to ClassDojo, a popular app they were already using to communicate with parents. The problem was some parents, many of whom do not speak English as a first language, didn’t have the app. When, three weeks later, it was announced that UK schools would close to most pupils with just two days’ notice, Barham’s staff, especially the Gujarati, Tamil and Hindi speakers, took to the playground, digital devices in hand, to help parents get connected.
Continue reading...From streamed baptisms to the impossibility of hajj, it’s been a tricky time for religious people to stay observant. But many have some holy hacks
Well before places of worship were closed during the first lockdown, we hectored my father to remain indoors and stay safe. He rebelled. One frigid Sunday last March, through the silence of a sleeping household, he slunk down the hall and to the kitchen, careful not to rouse his house guests.
We don’t know if his plan was dependent on my siblings being hungover but, since this was the case, it worked a charm. A little after 9am, they were stirred from sleep by the tell-tale crunch of gravel as he spun slowly away to his local church. His intention: to defy the orders of his slovenly children and go to mass amid the coughs and handshakes of his fellow parishioners. We had witnessed one of the more unexpected struggles of lockdown life – the strange, rebellious instincts of God-fearing society, and the paradox of coming together in His name at a time when you must remain apart.
Continue reading...British Medical Association warns current 12-week wait could reduce effectiveness of the jab
The gap between the first and second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine must be reduced to ensure the vaccine is effective, senior doctors have warned.
Currently patients wait about three months to get their second dose. Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, said this was a “public health decision” to get the first jab to more people across the country.
Continue reading...Stricter controls appear likely, with government’s approach in stark contrast to that during first Covid wave
Slumped on the sofa after another day of home schooling, many families will have longingly eyed adverts for getaways: sun, sandy beaches and glittering pools, a much-needed reward after a year in the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic.
But ministers are becoming increasingly concerned they may have to ask the British public to sacrifice their hopes of a break abroad this summer. On Thursday, Priti Patel became the latest cabinet minister to say it was too soon to book an overseas break; Matt Hancock has already announced he is going to Cornwall.
Continue reading...UK, South Africa and Brazil variants indicate changes may be needed
In common with others, the virus that causes Covid-19 mutates as it spreads. Most mutations have little or no effect, but some can change the behaviour of the virus. Mutations in a variant found in the UK in September has helped the virus spread more easily and potentially more dangerously. Further changes in variants that emerged in South Africa and Brazil may help the virus resist antibodies induced by vaccines and Covid infections from the first wave.
Why would the vaccines be updated?
If scientists spot new variants of coronavirus that are resistant to current vaccines then the vaccines will need to be redesigned to make them effective again. The more people who have immunity, either through vaccination or past infection, the more evolutionary pressure there is on the virus to evolve around that immunity. And when there’s lot of virus around, as there is now, there are more opportunities for resistant variants to emerge.