Category Archives: Society

Welsh secondaries and colleges to shut on Monday to stem Covid spread

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Learning will move online, in contrast to England’s plans for mass testing of students

Secondary schools and colleges in Wales will close to almost all students next week and lessons will move online in an effort to stem the growing spread of coronavirus, the Welsh government has announced.

The Welsh education minister, Kirsty Williams, said the public health situation in Wales was deteriorating and she had been advised by the chief medical officer that learning should be moved online for secondary school pupils as soon as possible.

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Pornhub to ban unverified uploads after child abuse content claims

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Site – visited 100m times a day – to make changes following allegations it was hosting abusive and non-consensual material

Pornhub, one of the largest adult content sites in the world, has announced it will be banning unverified video uploads after allegations that it has been hosting child abuse videos.

An investigation by the New York Times last week claimed Pornhub was hosting non-consensual and child abuse content on its website. Activists have long called for changes to Pornhub’s business model, claiming it was not carrying out sufficient checks to ensure videos were consensual.

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Rich countries leaving rest of the world behind on Covid vaccines, warns Gates Foundation

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Deals struck by wealthy nations to secure treatments could leave the world’s poorest people unvaccinated without urgent action

It could be too late for any kind of fair distribution of coronavirus vaccines because of the deals already made by rich countries, according to Mark Suzman, chief executive of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Despite the unprecedented pace of scientific progress on the development of vaccines, he said it remains “really, really complicated” to ensure they are produced and distributed fairly.

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Covid has ‘cut life expectancy in England and Wales by a year’

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Exclusive: Life expectancy has regressed to 2010 levels, say scientists, with poor hardest hit

The Covid-19 pandemic has cut life expectancy in England and Wales by roughly a year, scientists have estimated, reversing gains made since 2010.

A study, conducted by Oxford researchers, found that life expectancy at birth (LEB) had fallen by 0.9 and 1.2 years for females and males relative to 2019 levels respectively.

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A Nobel prize for feeding the world can’t erase the shame of Yemen’s starving children | David Beasley

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I feel pride, but can’t shake my sense of failure that the World Food Programme’s media moment comes as hunger rages

I have done the usual things you do before an awards ceremony. After extensive high-level consultation, I think I now have the right suit and tie. Carefully folded in my pocket is a long list of people to praise, many far more deserving of praise than I. I am ready.

Growing up in a small South Carolina town, I never imagined life would bring me to this moment and allow me to be part of the wonderful, blessed enterprise I have found in WFP, the World Food Programme.

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‘Deeply boring’: Martin Kenyon puzzled by vaccine video fame

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TV interview outside hospital after getting jab makes 91-year-old an internet hit

A 91-year-old man whose interview with CNN after he was vaccinated for coronavirus became an internet hit said he was bemused by the commotion he caused by talking about the jab, and described anti-vaxxers as “very silly”.

Martin Kenyon, 91, was outside Guy’s hospital in London after receiving the Pfizer Covid vaccine when he encountered the CNN correspondent Cyril Vanier. Asked how it felt to be one of the first people in the world to receive the jab, he said: “I don’t think I feel much at all, except that I hope that I’m not going to have the bloody bug now.”

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NHS told not to give Covid vaccine to those with history of allergic reactions

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Two health service workers experienced symptoms after receiving Pfizer vaccine

People with a history of significant allergic reactions should not receive the Covid vaccine, the medicines regulator has said, after two NHS workers experienced symptoms on Wednesday.

Both of the NHS staff carry adrenaline autoinjectors, suggesting they have suffered reactions in the past. These kind of devices, of which the best-known brand is the EpiPen, administer a swift adrenaline boost to counter allergic reactions that occur when some people, for instance, eat nuts.

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Economic cost of Covid crisis prompts call for one-off UK wealth tax

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Tax experts and economists outline ‘fairest, most efficient’ way to repair public finances and quickly raise £260bn

The government has been urged to launch a one-off wealth tax on millionaire households to raise up to £260bn in response to the coronavirus pandemic, as the crisis damages Britain’s public finances and exacerbates inequality.

The Wealth Tax Commission – a group of leading tax experts and economists brought together by the London School of Economics and Warwick University to examine the case for a levy on assets – said targeting the richest in society would be the fairest and most efficient way to raise taxes in response to the pandemic.

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WHO looks at giving Covid-19 to healthy people to speed up vaccine trials

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Advisory meeting will discuss feasibility of human challenge trials despite first jabs becoming available

The World Health Organization is holding discussions on Monday about the feasibility of trials in which healthy young volunteers are deliberately infected with coronavirus to hasten vaccine development – amid questions over whether they should go ahead given the promising data from the frontrunner vaccine candidates.

Some scientists have reservations about exposing volunteers to a virus for which there is no cure, although there are treatments that can help patients. However, proponents argue that the risks of Covid-19 to the young and healthy are minimal, and the benefits to society are high.

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Covid deepens south and north of England inequalities, study finds

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IPPR North report reveals few signs of government’s levelling up agenda becoming reality

Covid-19 has deepened inequalities between the north and south of England, with little sign of the government’s “levelling up” agenda becoming a reality, a thinktank has warned, in an urgent “wake-up call” to Boris Johnson.

The north is experiencing levels of unemployment not seen since 1994, with areas put under the strictest tier 3 restrictions among the worst affected, IPPR North said in its annual health-check of the economy of the north of England.

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WW1 trench fever identified in former homeless man in Canada

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Discovery of wartime disease transmitted by lice prompts calls for more to be done for vulnerable

A disease transmitted by body lice that plagued soldiers during the first world war has been identified in a former homeless man in Canada, prompting calls for more to be done to improve conditions for vulnerable people.

Trench fever is caused by the bacterium Bartonella quintana and is spread by the faeces of body lice. The condition became rife among armies and is thought to have affected more than a million troops during the 1914-18 conflict.

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Jerrold Post, CIA psychiatrist who profiled Trump, dies of Covid aged 86

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  • Family salutes ‘insatiable, roving curiosity, probing empathy’
  • Pioneer in field predicted Trump would not concede defeat

Jerrold M Post, a psychiatrist who profiled dictators for the CIA and who declared Donald Trump a “dangerous, destructive charismatic leader”, has died of Covid-19. He was 86.

Related: 'Saddam, tell me about your mum'

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Murder in Mexico: journalists caught in the crosshairs

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The 2012 killing of Regina Martínez, who was investigating links between organised crime and politics, began a wave of violence in the most dangerous country to be a reporter

Regina Martínez Pérez was considered an enemy of the state. The 48-year-old journalist had made powerful foes investigating allegations of collusion between political leaders, security forces and narcotraffickers in the Mexican region of Veracruz.

She was a source of irritation for four consecutive state governors, highlighting violence, abuses of power and cover-ups in the pages of Mexico’s foremost investigative news magazine, Proceso.

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Only music reached my wife after dementia hit, says John Suchet

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Ex-ITN presenter tells how Abba transformed Bonnie Suchet as study reveals most carers are unaware of the benefits of music

When John Suchet discovered the effect that music had on his wife Bonnie’s dementia, it was transformational. “She would close her eyes and love it, beat in time to the music with her hands, tap her feet,” he said.

The former ITN newscaster’s wife had lost her ability to speak. She had been locked inside her head, sitting blankly, apparently unable to make sense of the outside world.

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The tactics retailers use to make us spend more – and how they harm the vulnerable

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Online stores draw in shoppers but those with mental health issues are particularly susceptible

As a digital marketer, Emily Ware spends a lot of time online, yet this comes with a risk. Ware has borderline personality disorder, a mental health condition linked with impulsive behaviours. In her case, that’s spending money online.

“At the start of 2020 I was £4,250 in debt with nothing to show for it,” she says. “A good 95% of this was due to impulse spending, from clothes to pub trips to gig tickets. One of the worst was spending £300 on tickets to see Cher on a whim.”

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Team behind Oxford Covid jab start final stage of malaria vaccine trials

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Vaccine could be in use by 2024 if next year’s human trials are successful

The Oxford team that has produced a successful coronavirus vaccine is about to enter the final stage of human trials in its quest for an inoculation against malaria.

The Jenner Institute director, Prof Adrian Hill, said the malaria vaccine would be tested on 4,800 children in Africa next year after early trials yielded promising results.

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‘Women feel they have no option but to give birth alone’: the rise of freebirthing

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As Covid infections rose, hospital felt like an increasingly dangerous place to have a baby. But is labouring without midwives or doctors the answer?

On the morning of 3 May, Victoria Johnson prepared to give birth at her home in the Highlands. One by one, her three children came downstairs to where she was labouring in a birthing pool surrounded by fairy lights, the curtains tightly shut against the outside world.

Suddenly, she felt an urge to get out of the pool. “I stood up and it felt as if the weight of the universe crashed from my head to my toes.” Her waters broke – “all over the carpet, which wasn’t ideal” – and the baby started to crown. “Everyone was there, including both grandmothers on video call,” she says. “Once the baby was out, my eight-year-old son came over and said, ‘I’m so proud of you.’ And that was everything.”

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Beating the anti-vaxxers: how star power can help squash vaccine myths

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Analysis: Vaccine hesitancy is growing, thanks in part to social media misinformation. Time for the Elvis approach?

The statement by the US president-elect, Joe Biden, that he would be happy to be publicly vaccinated against coronavirus to encourage people to follow suit – following similar pledges from Barack Obama, George W Bush and Bill Clinton – highlights a fundamental concern in global health circles.

Vaccine hesitancy – as well as anti-vaccination activism, sometimes promoted by celebrities – is growing. Countries that were once measles-free are seeing new cases due to suspicion over vaccination. Vaccine hesitancy was listed a year ago as one of the World Health Organization’s 10 global health threats to watch, alongside Ebola and the threat of a global influenza pandemic. Coronavirus came instead.

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Help us prevent Covid creating a lost generation of young people | Katharine Viner

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Life chances are in danger of being blighted by the pandemic. That’s why young people are at the heart of our charity appeal this year

  • Please donate to our appeal here

In a year of blight, uncertainty and lives interrupted, 21-year-old Aadam Patel’s experience of the pandemic will resonate among many young people and their families: “I have pressed pause on my life,” he told the Guardian in October, “and although I’m dying to resume it, I don’t even know if there’s a play button there any more.”

Getting life back on track during Covid has proved hard for many of us; but for millions of young people it will be a very major challenge. Society’s odds were already stacked against youngsters from economically deprived communities and from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds; the pandemic has brought those stark inequalities into even sharper focus, whether it is in the job market, around holiday hunger, or access to online schooling.

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‘These images are a crime scene … it’s massive for us to find the child’

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The Internet Watch Foundation is seeing a growing number of tipoffs about child abuse. We talk to one analyst about her work

Isobel* has been working throughout lockdown. With her colleagues in the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) analyst room in Cambridge she has been responding to a rising number of tipoffs from the public that child abuse images are circulating online. The work is gruelling.

“Today I started at 8.30 and I’ll be looking at content all day long: thousands and thousands of images in a day. We analysts come from all sorts of backgrounds. The main thing is your emotional resilience – it’s incredibly important that you can look at this content and then go home and not think about it.”

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