Regulator expected to authorise Pfizer/BioNTech jab for emergency use within days
Britain is expected to become the first western country to authorise a coronavirus vaccine, raising the prospect of immunisations beginning weeks ahead of the rest of Europe.
The UK medicines regulator is set to license the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for emergency use within days, and possibly as soon as Wednesday. Britain has ordered 40m doses, of which 10m are expected to be available this year.
Continue reading...Those in emergency accommodation struggling to meet basic needs as government fails to pay agreed increase in support
The Home Office is still failing to provide thousands of asylum seekers in emergency hotel accommodation with basic cash support and essentials more than a month after being instructed by the high court to fulfil their legal requirements to do so.
In October, law firm Duncan Lewis challenged the government’s failure to provide adequate asylum support in the high court. The judge, Sir Duncan Ouseley, said asylum seekers in emergency accommodation should have been receiving financial support during the pandemic, and ordered the department to increase weekly cash assistance from £5 to £8 to cover essentials, such as soap, medicine, bus fares and phone credit.
Continue reading...First minister says virus spreading ‘incredibly quickly’ and firebreak gains being eroded
Pubs, bars and restaurants in Wales will be banned from selling alcohol and forced to shut early, as the Welsh first minister said Covid was spreading “incredibly quickly” across the country and that the gains made during its “firebreak” lockdown were being eroded.
Mark Drakeford said that unless strict new rules were brought in now, there could be as many as 1,700 preventable deaths this winter.
Continue reading...Survey suggests almost one in two British people expect life to return to normal in a year
Preventing others from catching coronavirus and immunisation’s proven success against disease are the main reasons people see for taking the new vaccine, research has shown.
In a survey of 1,049 Britons, the top two reasons for having it – each cited by 77% – were to protect others from the virus and because vaccines have a long track record of working.
Continue reading...Sex traffickers can make profits of over £1m a year per brothel – and Covid lockdowns have only made it easier for them to operate
Three weeks ago, police entered a brothel in south-east England after receiving intelligence about criminal activity there. Inside, they found eight Romanian women wearing face shields and masks, and laminated Covid-19 health and safety sheets on the wall. An industrial-size bottle of hand sanitiser stood by the front door.
“On the surface, this did not look like a place where criminality and sexual exploitation was taking place,” says Cristina Huddleston, a trafficking victim support specialist who joined the raid that evening.
Continue reading...Scientists warn that scrapping or relaxing tier system too quickly could imperil NHS
Nearly a third of England’s hospital trusts have exceeded their first wave peak of Covid patients undergoing treatment, as scientists warned that relaxing or scrapping the three-tier system too quickly could further hamper the NHS.
Hospital trusts in south Somerset and Devon last week treated more than twice as many Covid patients as they did at the peak of the first wave in spring, Guardian analysis shows. But, reflecting the fact that tier decisions are based on a range of data, both areas will go into tier 2 from Thursday.
Continue reading...Exclusive: 28 institutions issued fines, with Nottingham University students alone hit for £58,865
Universities fined students more than £170,000 for breaching coronavirus safety rules in the first weeks of the new academic year, a Guardian analysis has found, as students told of struggling to make friends without flouting restrictions.
Twenty-eight institutions fined students for breaking university, local and national Covid rules, including on household mixing, mandatory face coverings and social distancing, according to responses from 105 universities to freedom of information (FoI) requests.
Continue reading...The news about a vaccine doesn’t feel real to stressed and exhausted hospital staff, says a consultant
It turns out that a pandemic really is a marathon, not a sprint to a finish line. I guess that was obvious really.
It’s not all bad. We are no longer dealing with an unknown threat that we are having to discover as we go along. The disease is known, its presentation recognised, its complications understood.
Continue reading...Months after coming down with the virus, Eleanor Morgan is still struggling with ‘long Covid’. What is it and how can the burden be eased?
One night in early March, I had a fever that reminded me of being a child. My pyjama top stuck to me with sweat, my joints ached and, at some point, the walls looked like they were breathing. The next morning I started coughing and didn’t stop. It was pre-lockdown and, taking pity on me (I live alone in London), a friend in the countryside offered to be nurse. En route, in Paddington Station, I longed to curl up like a cat beside the warmth of the Upper Crust stall. One morning, my friend told me she’d poked her head round the door throughout the night to check I hadn’t coughed my aorta up into the bed.
Back in London, as lockdown began, unpredictable spells of fatigue started to hit me. Was it Covid? I had no idea; only NHS staff were being tested then. But it didn’t feel like chest infections I’d known. There was a crushing feeling in my chest for weeks, as if my ribs were a pair of bellows being squeezed. Adding to the fun, I’m asthmatic. On two occasions, things felt hairy and I called 111. Each time I was summoned to A&E and given a nebuliser and steroids, which helped dramatically. But March became April, became May and the fatigue remained. Some days, it felt like a possession. I’d walk the dog in the morning then fall asleep on the sofa until 3pm. Eight months on, I still have mild, irregular breathlessness and chest tightness. I have been upgraded to a steroid inhaler that, generously, keeps giving me oral thrush. My GP thinks I may have long Covid.
Continue reading...From cities, to science, to politics, six Observer writers assess how a post-pandemic world will emerge into a new normal
Here are some things that the pandemic changed. It accustomed some people – those whose jobs allowed it – to remote working. It highlighted the importance of adequate living space and access to the outdoors. It renewed, through their absence, an appreciation of social contact and large gatherings. It showed up mass daily commuting for the dehumanising drain on energy and resources that it is.
Continue reading...Prize-winning author Camilla Pang talks about her autism and ADHD diagnoses and her desire to challenge myths about neurodiversity
This month Camilla Pang won the Royal Society book prize for her debut, Explaining Humans: What Science Can Teach Us about Life, Love and Relationships. She has a PhD in bioinformatics from UCL and works as a postdoctoral researcher. Dr Pang was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at the age of eight and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder at 26.
Why did you decide to write this book?
I inadvertently wrote the book in my PhD thesis on bioinformatics, and my supervisor, bless her, said this is great, but it doesn’t belong here. One of the things people on the autistic spectrum do is organise our world in a way that makes sense to us using objects and sequences. For me, those sequences involved looking at the fundamentals of matter, and what that meant in terms of science. Even if I was just kicking a pile of leaves, I would do it repetitively in order to find the laws about how things react, and how they can be predicted. So from kicking leaves to Post-it notes to eventually reading about science, I constructed a map to navigate the world. Over time, it became bigger and notebooks piled up, so I ended up with a piece of work that I thought might be useful to someone else. And that’s the ultimate goal, isn’t it? You want to connect with people.
UK business minister to take on additional role as NHS prepares for mass deployment
Nadhim Zahawi, a minister for business and industry, has been placed in charge of overseeing the deployment of the Covid-19 vaccine, Downing Street has announced.
No 10 said the Stratford-on-Avon MP would take on the role until at least next summer.
Continue reading...Exclusive: NHS could receive first deliveries of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine as soon as 7 December
Hospitals have been told to prepare for the rollout of a coronavirus vaccine in as little as 10 days’ time, with NHS workers expected to be at the front of the queue, the Guardian has learned.
NHS bosses said hospitals in England could expect to receive their first deliveries of a vaccine produced by Pfizer/BioNTech as soon as Monday 7 December, with regulatory approval anticipated within days.
Continue reading...Oxford/AstraZeneca planning new trial of lower-dose jab to see how well it works in older people
Concerns around the efficacy of the Oxford University/AstraZeneca coronavirus jab in older people could lead to different age groups being given different vaccines, experts have said.
The partners announced last week that the vaccine had a 70% efficacy overall. For most trial participants – given two full doses, spaced a month apart – the efficacy was 62%, but for 3,000 participants mistakenly given half a dose for their first jab, the efficacy was 90%. No participants, regardless of dosing, developed severe Covid or were hospitalised with the disease.
Continue reading...Survey of 600 people finds some parents regret having offspring for same reason
People worried about the climate crisis are deciding not to have children because of fears that their offspring would have to struggle through a climate apocalypse, according to the first academic study of the issue.
The researchers surveyed 600 people aged 27 to 45 who were already factoring climate concerns into their reproductive choices and found 96% were very or extremely concerned about the wellbeing of their potential future children in a climate-changed world. One 27-year-old woman said: “I feel like I can’t in good conscience bring a child into this world and force them to try and survive what may be apocalyptic conditions.”
Continue reading...Police told to enforce law against cutting girls passed in July as country says it will adhere to African charter on child rights
Sudanese authorities have announced they will end child marriage and enforce the country’s ban on female genital mutilation (FGM), in a major step forward for the rights of women and girls.
Police officers were told on Wednesday they must inform local communities that FGM is illegal following new laws passed in July that make it punishable by up to three years in jail.
Continue reading...Foreign secretary says it is not known when 0.7% target, set in law, will be restored
The foreign secretary has decided legislation is required to cut the aid budget since the current fiscal uncertainty means the government may feel obliged to miss the commitment to spend 0.7% on gross national income on overseas aid for longer than a year.
Legislation would be laid, Dominic Raab told MPs in an oral statement, but he did not give a date for doing so. The Foreign Office has indicated it is unlikely to be introduced until the second half of next year.
Continue reading...Signs of growing parliamentary rebellion amid fears measures could stay in place until spring
The majority of England will enter the two toughest tiers of Covid restrictions from next week, ministers are set to announce, amid signs of a growing parliamentary rebellion and fears that the measures could remain unchanged until spring.
On Thursday Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is expected to say that most of the country will be placed into tiers 2 or 3, which imply significant restrictions on hospitality, after the national lockdown ends on 2 December.
Continue reading...Chancellor announces £4bn cut in spending, breaking Tory pledge to keep to 0.7% target
Britain’s overseas aid budget is to be cut from 0.7% of gross national income to 0.5%, slicing more than £4bn from the annual package and breaking a Tory manifesto commitment made only a year ago.
The cut was announced in the spending review by Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, which also saw a large three-year increase for the defence budget. Sunak clearly decided to brush aside warnings from across the political spectrum that Britain’s commitment to foreign aid symbolised an outward looking and generous UK.
Continue reading...Fears easing restrictions over festive period will lead to rise in cases and overwhelm NHS
Government scientists have warned the relaxation of coronavirus restrictions over Christmas could lead to a third wave of the pandemic, with increased transmission and unnecessary deaths.
Families across the UK will be able to gather in three-household groups of any size over Christmas, the government has announced, prompting warnings from scientists that the plan will almost inevitably result in a rise in the number of coronavirus cases.
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