Category Archives: Vaccines and immunisation

Up to 90% of Covid patients in ICU are unboosted, says Boris Johnson

Posted on by

Prime minister urges people to get third jab during visit to a vaccination centre in Milton Keynes

Boris Johnson has urged people to get their booster vaccine as he said up to 90% of those in intensive care had not had their third Covid jabs.

On a visit to a vaccine centre in Milton Keynes, the prime minister said people should enjoy their new year celebrations while taking extra precautions such as ventilation and testing, and he urged people to take up the offer of a third dose.

Continue reading...

Australia Covid news live update: NSW records 11,201 cases, Victoria 3,767; states consider shorter isolation time; Qld to change border testing requirements

Posted on by

NSW records three Covid-19 deaths as cases spiral; Queensland to allow rapid antigen test to cross border; chief health officers are reportedly considering cutting isolation periods to match the US and UK. Follow all the latest updates

NSW cases have jumped again, significantly this time, recording 11,201 cases today. Its the highest ever tally recorded by a state in a single day, and the first time a state has recorded over 10,000 cases in a day.

Sadly, three people have lost their lives overnight.

Continue reading...

The Guardian view on Africa rising: the continent must develop in its own way | Editorial

Posted on by

African nations have huddled together in face of climate and Covid storms. They must make that unity pay off for their citizens

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” So opens Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Set in London and Paris during the late 1700s and the lead-up to the French Revolution, the novel was a warning about what happens when wealth funnels upwards while the masses stagnate. Nowhere do the best and worst of times collide with more geopolitical force than in Africa.

African writers swept the board for literature awards from the Nobel to the Booker, while seven out of eight children in the continent’s sub-Saharan region are unable to read by the age of 10. This year the continent was home to the slowest internet speeds on the planet, as African judges granted the world’s first patent given to a robot inventor. About 50 million Africans are expected to fall into extreme poverty in 2021, when the continent’s richest billionaires have seen their wealth increase by a fifth.

Continue reading...

What to do about the UK’s unvaccinated? No 10’s Covid dilemma

Posted on by

Analysis: growing frustration at vaccine refusers has crept into ministers’ speeches recently

A growing sense of frustration with people who have not been vaccinated against Covid has been creeping into the speeches of senior government figures from Sajid Javid to Boris Johnson in recent weeks.

The health secretary has accused those who have chosen not to take up the offer of free vaccination of taking up hospital beds, damaging society and potentially harming their families as well as themselves.

Continue reading...

Australia Covid live news updates: almost 500 extra Sydney cases undetected in community for days after mistake by major testing facility

Posted on by

More positive cases after Sydney lab testing error; ‘sacred’ SCG Ashes Test to go ahead, NSW minister says; Queensland reports 1,158 cases, scraps day five testing requirement after Brad Hazzard criticises ‘tourism testing’; massive demand for testing in NSW blows out wait times as state records 6,062 cases and one death; Victoria records 2,738 Covid cases and four deaths; Tasmania reports 43 cases and the ACT 252 – follow all the latest news

More footage of those queues – this one in Sydney. Yikes. A big thank you to everyone involved for their patience ...

Back on those testing queues, waiting times for results and calls for more rapid antigen testing.

Of the people AAP spoke to, around half were from interstate and were required to take a PCR test. Car batteries were going flat in the line and people, including the elderly, were forced to wait for hours in hot vehicles.

The numbers appear to correlate with people lining up in the ACT to get tested, with the territory’s health minister saying anecdotal evidence from testing teams pointed to half of all swabs being for people getting tested to travel.

Continue reading...

Germany toughens Covid restrictions as Omicron variant takes hold

Posted on by

Indoor and outdoor gatherings restricted in size with leisure facilities closing in several states

Germans across large parts of the country face a tightening of rules governing both private and public spaces in an effort to slow down a wave of coronavirus infections triggered by the Omicron variant.

Gatherings both indoors and outdoors are to be restricted in size from Monday, with leisure facilities – from gyms to swimming pools and nightclubs to cinemas – shutting in several states and restaurants facing earlier closing times.

Continue reading...

Engineering the future: meet the Africa prize shortlist innovators

Posted on by

Turning invasive plants into a force for good and powering healthcare with solar – here are three of the 2022 nominees

From a solar-powered crib that treats jaundiced babies to fibre made from water hyacinth that absorbs oil spills, innovators from nine African countries have been shortlisted for the Royal Academy of Engineering’s 2022 Africa prize.

This year half of the shortlist of 16 are women, and for the first time it includes Togolese and Congolese inventors. The entrepreneurs will undergo eight months of business training and mentoring before a winner is chosen, who will receive £25,000, and three runners-up, who win £10,000 each. All the projects are sustainable solutions to issues such as access to healthcare, farming resilience, reducing waste, and energy efficiency. The Guardian spoke to three of the shortlisted candidates.

Continue reading...

Head of US FDA’s advisory group: ‘We never expected Covid vaccines to be so good, so effective’

Posted on by

Dr Arnold Monto says he watched as a vaccine was developed both faster and more effectively than any dared to hope – but says it’s unlikely to give ‘permanent protection’

It is likely that in the “before times”, few Americans knew that independent experts advised the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the safety and efficacy of vaccines, and that the FDA usually took their advice.

Less than a year into the Covid-19 pandemic, that quickly changed.

Continue reading...

Covid live news: 1.7 million people in UK had coronavirus last week; hundreds of Christmas flights cancelled

Posted on by

ONS figures are highest on record so far; Christmas for many in disarray as US and Australian airlines say flight crews hit by Covid

Here’s a story that echoes the cancellation of flights happening over the US.

Thousands of Australians have had their domestic flights cancelled in the hours leading up to Christmas, as frontline staff were ordered to test and isolate amid a rise in Covid cases.

Continue reading...

More options for Covid treatments in January as FDA approves two antiviral pills

Posted on by

The approval comes as reports of shortages in monoclonal antibody treatment arise and cases spike

People at greater risk of becoming seriously ill from Covid-19 will likely have more treatment options in January.

That’s the forecast in the wake of the US Food and Drug Administration’s approval this week of the first two antiviral pills used to treat Covid-19 and reports of shortages of a monoclonal antibody treatment used against the Omicron variant.

Continue reading...

Airport chaos as Christmas flights cancelled over Covid surge – as it happened

Posted on by

Labor MP Jim Chalmers was up and about on breakfast television earlier today, expressing shock at NSW premier Dominic Perrottet’s slow limp to reintroducing mask mandates.

He said mask mandates were just “common sense” right now:

It’s a bit strange frankly that they held out for so long and in that period we probably lost a bit of ground when it came to tracing and tracking outbreaks of the virus, particularly the new strain.

It’s an interesting thought but it’s not a thought which I think should turn into practice. We have a universal health system ... we care for people who need that care. We should encourage people to get vaccinated, it’s the best thing we can do to protect our health, but I don’t think our health system should discriminate.

Continue reading...

Anti-vaxxers serving ‘legal papers’ to Alan Shearer go to wrong address

Posted on by

Protest at property near Newcastle follows video of former England football captain urging people to get Covid booster

Anti-vaccination protesters who attempted to serve spurious legal papers to the former England football captain Alan Shearer delivered the documents to the wrong house, it has emerged.

The former Newcastle United and Blackburn Rovers striker had encouraged people to get a Covid booster jab in a video promoted by the Premier League last week.

Continue reading...

Australia Covid news live: Chant says roughly 80% of NSW cases are Omicron; WA to introduce mask mandate after community case

Posted on by

WA to introduce mask mandate after community case; SA records 484 new Covid cases; fires break out at Melbourne hotel housing refugees; NSW records 5,715 cases and one death; Victoria records 2,005 cases and 10 death; Queensland reports record 369 casess. Follow all the day’s news live

Covid-19 testing clinics are reducing their openings hours during the Christmas period despite “unprecedented demand” and reports of hours-long wait times in several states.

Guardian Australia analysis shows 77% of the 490 testing sites listed on the NSW Health website on Wednesday will either close or operate on reduced hours through the Christmas and new year period.

Novavax is still going through the approval process. I know they’re getting closer. We’re looking forward to get Novavax into the mix of available vaccines as well. It won’t be until the new year. I don’t know exactly when.

As soon as Novavax is ready to go, we’ll be delighted to get it out there. I know some people have been holding out for Novavax specifically. It will be part of our arsenal and we look forward to helping people access that vaccine if that’s what they want.

Continue reading...

Mandatory Covid jabs in Malawi ‘violate human rights’, say civil society groups

Posted on by

Measure aimed at frontline workers to reduce spread of Omicron variant may increase unrest in country with low vaccine take-up, critics warn

Civil rights groups in Malawi have cautioned the government on its decision to make the Covid-19 vaccination mandatory for frontline workers.

From January, it will be compulsory for public sector workers, including healthcare staff, police and teachers, as well as journalists, to be vaccinated, after an announcement by Malawi’s health minister, Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda, last week.

Continue reading...

WHO boss: western countries’ Covid booster drives likely to prolong pandemic

Posted on by

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says there will be enough vaccines for world’s adults – if they are not hoarded

The world will have enough doses of Covid vaccines early next year to inoculate all of the global adult population – if western countries do not hoard those vaccines to use in blanket booster programmes, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday there would be sufficient vaccine supplies in global circulation in the first quarter of 2022.

Continue reading...

Israeli PM announces fourth Covid jab for over-60s to tackle Omicron

Posted on by

Booster will also be available to medical teams and immunodeficient people four months after third dose

Israel is set to become the first country in the world to offer a fourth dose of Covid-19 vaccines in an effort to protect against the Omicron variant.

People over the age of 60 and healthcare workers will be eligible for a second booster shot, the prime minister, Naftali Bennett, said on Tuesday night, following a recommendation made by Israel’s panel of pandemic experts.

Continue reading...

Data appears to support claims that Omicron is less severe in South Africa

Posted on by

Scientists warn, however, that lower severity of cases is not fully understood and may not occur elsewhere

South Africa has reported data on Covid cases driven by the Omicron variant that appears to give added impetus to claims the country is experiencing a lower severity of disease.

“In South Africa, this is the epidemiology: Omicron is behaving in a way that is less severe,” said Prof Cheryl Cohen of the country’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), one of the authors of the study.

Continue reading...

Omicron is exploding – but scientists are better prepared than for any past variant | Manon Ragonnet-Cronin

Posted on by

We’re making progress in the arms race against the virus, but work in the lab must be supported by public health measures

It’s beginning to feel a lot like last Christmas. Case numbers of a new Covid variant are exploding across the UK, and the prime minister is cautioning that restrictions may be called for. But while the threat of Omicron likely surpasses that of previous variants, our tools to track and combat the virus have also advanced since last year.

The world was alerted to Omicron by the Botswanan and South African scientists who first sequenced the novel variant on 24 November, and it was designated as a variant of concern by the World Health Organization two days later. It was immediately obvious to them that they had something alarming on their hands when they saw the large number of mutations in the Omicron genome.

Dr Manon Ragonnet-Cronin is an MRC Fellow at Imperial College London and a member of the Imperial College Covid-19 response team

Continue reading...

Covid live news update: Australia Covid live news update: national cabinet to meet as testing centres overwhelmed; NSW records 3,763 new cases, Victoria 1,503 cases

Posted on by

PM says mask guidelines up to states; NSW records 3,763 new cases and two deaths; Victoria records 1,503 cases and six deaths; ACT records 58 cases; Tasmania records 12 cases; national cabinet to meet as confidence in interstate travel plummets. Follow all the day’s news

More than 300 doctors around the world have written to deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce today urging him to seek Julian Assange’s immediate release from prison in the UK on medical grounds.

The letter cites concern over Assange’s apparent mini stroke, warning it may be “the tip of a medical iceberg”:

Indeed his symptoms suggest as much. It is therefore imperative that Mr Assange be released from prison, where his health will otherwise continue to deteriorate and where his complex medical needs cannot be met.

Perhaps our concerns were previously dismissed by your colleagues as hyperbolic. They are not. On the issue of cardiovascular pathology, we have been proven right. We do not wish to be proven right on the issue of Mr Assange’s survival.

We implore you, as Deputy Prime Minister, to intervene with the UK Government to seek Mr Assange’s immediate release on urgent medical grounds. We reiterate that he is an Australian citizen innocent in the eyes of the law, and guilty of and charged with nothing in the UK.

Continue reading...

Covid self-isolation cut to seven days with negative test in England

Posted on by

Public health bosses say move for those who test negative on days six and seven will help support essential services

The Covid self-isolation period has been cut to seven days in a move that could save Christmas for thousands of people and ease mounting staff shortages.

From Tuesday, new guidance will enable the 10-day self-isolation period for vaccinated people in England who have tested positive for coronavirus to be reduced by three days if they get the all-clear from lateral flow tests.

Continue reading...