Category Archives: Vaccines and immunisation

Sterling reaches $1.39 in best performance for three years

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FTSE 100 posts biggest daily gain for over a month as investors buoyed up by vaccine and US economy hopes

The pound has hit its highest level against the dollar for almost three years as global markets were buoyed up by hopes for a faster economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

Sterling rose by 0.5% to hit a 33-month high against the dollar on Monday, trading above $1.39 on the global currency markets for the first time since 2018, while also rising to a nine-month high against the euro of almost €1.15.

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Israel battles Covid misinformation as vaccination drive slows

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Plan for incentives to increase takeup, while study shows two Pfizer doses give 94% protection

Israel is considering a carrot and stick approach to persuade people to get vaccinated, including granting inoculated people access to restaurants, hotels and concerts, while forcing some vaccine refusers to get uncomfortable Covid tests every two days.

“Will you be eligible to enter gyms and cultural events, or will you be left behind?” tweeted the health minister, Yuli Edelstein. “Go get vaccinated!”

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How the Covid pandemic could end – and what will make it happen faster | Devi Sridhar

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Pandemics are global by definition. Only travel restrictions and equal vaccine access for all countries will end this crisis

Most people have already adjusted their expectations to a spring of disruption – but most are quietly hoping that by the summer, and into the autumn, life in the UK will have returned more or less to normal. Are they right to be confident? What can we do to avoid slipping back into a cycle of lockdowns? In short: how does this pandemic end, and how can we end it faster?

Globally, the UK is in the strong position of having at least five effective and safe vaccines, but there are major challenges ahead. We already know about variants, such as those arising in Kent, Brazil and South Africa, which are proving challenging in terms of being more transmissible, and having potentially more severe health outcomes in the case of the UK variant.

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Pakistan to allow private firms to import coronavirus vaccines

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Vaccines also exempt from price caps in divisive move that health experts fear will deepen inequality

Pakistan will allow private companies to import coronavirus vaccines and has exempted the vaccines from price caps in a divisive move that health experts fear will create vast inequalities in access.

The country has been scrambling to secure vaccine supplies but so far only the Chinese-made Sinopharm treatment is being deployed. This month 500,000 doses were donated to Pakistan.

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Peru’s foreign minister resigns in scandal over early vaccination of officials

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Health minister had already quit after it emerged ministers received jabs before health workers

Peru’s foreign minister has resigned amid uproar over government officials being secretly vaccinated against coronavirus before the country recently received 1m doses for health workers facing a resurgence in the pandemic.

The president, Francisco Sagasti, confirmed that Elizabeth Astete had stepped down and told a local television channel that Peruvians should feel “outraged and angry about this situation that jeopardises the enormous effort of many Peruvians working on the frontline against Covid”.

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Australia politics live: Daniel Andrews gives press conference update on Victoria cases; jobseeker in spotlight as parliament returns

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Pressure mounts for Coalition to announce a permanent increase to unemployment payment; Australia closes quarantine-free border to New Zealand after coronavirus cases confirmed as UK variant. Follow all the latest news and updates, live

• Victoria Covid hotspots

NSW has recorded no new locally acquired cases - or any cases in hotel quarantine.

So another zero day for NSW

Daniel Andrews:

Again, the types of cases, this UK strain, the fact that despite the amazing efforts of all of our contact traces and testers and lab workers and the work of so many genuine hard-working Victorians, we had a situation where at the same time as we are becoming aware of the primary case, they have already infected their close contacts, that is not something we’ve seen before.

The speed at which this has moved saw our public health team make the very difficult decisions based on the best of science and the best understanding you can possibly have on any outbreak, that this was a difficult but proportionate and necessary thing to do.

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Ministers flatly reject Tory demands to end Covid controls by May

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Backbenchers’ calls dismissed but clamour for a more fixed schedule seems set to increase

Downing Street is pushing back against pressure from Conservative MPs to set a swift timetable to end the lockdown in England after meeting its first major vaccination target, saying any hastiness in reopening could risk undoing the progress made in combating the coronavirus pandemic.

In a sign of the likely battle ahead in the coming weeks, ministers and officials flatly ruled out a demand from Tory backbenchers for all Covid restrictions to be over by the start of May, saying any plan needed to be both more cautious and decided step by step.

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What are the pros and cons of Covid vaccine passports?

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The UK government is reconsidering the idea of certificates of vaccination to help reopen travel and business

Desperate to return to pre-pandemic normality, many countries where vaccination campaigns for Covid-19 are in full swing are considering endorsing “vaccine passports” to reignite international travel and reopen economies.

A week ago, the UK government ruled out plans for such passports – with vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi calling them “discriminatory” – but on Sunday, the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said the documents were “under consideration”. Labour politicians have advocated their introduction, with the former prime minister Tony Blair making the case for domestic vaccine passports in this week’s Mail on Sunday. So what are the pros and cons of such “immunity certificates”?

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Our understanding of Covid and the vaccines is constantly evolving. That’s a good thing | Abby Bloom

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There will continue to be plenty more data gaps because the Covid-19 strain simply behaves like all influenzas and mutates continuously

By the time you read this it will be out of date.

Why? Because every day we receive new data that causes us to rethink and rewrite our response to Covid-19, notably vaccine programs. This is good. I will explain.

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Coronavirus live news: New Zealand puts Auckland in level 3 lockdown; Australia to receive first Pfizer vaccine delivery this week

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Victoria’s Holiday Inn outbreak rises to 16 cases on second day of state lockdown; Boris Johnson urges G7 leader to unite against virus. Follow the latest updates live

The press conference in Wellington, held in response to the discovery of three community cases in Auckland, has now finished. As of 11.59PM tonight Auckland will be placed under tougher restrictions, at level three, while the rest of the country will be moved to level two restrictions. (Details of the alert levels can be found online here).

Ardern said she was asking the public “to be strong and to be kind”:

I know we all feel the same way when this happens, we all get that sense of - not again. But remember we have been here before and that means we know how to get out of this again, and that is together. If you know someone in Auckland reach out, please check on them. If you are in Auckland please check on your neighburs and ensure they are looked after and supported.

Related: New Zealand Covid outbreak: Ardern puts Auckland into three-day lockdown

Dr Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealand’s director-general of health, said officials were working under the assumption that the new Auckland cases were one of the new variants of Covid-19. “Regardless of where people have come from, these are the common variants and we do know they are more transmissible,” he said.

Ardern said that the decision to introduce tougher restrictions was “not taken lightly”. However, the cost to the economy would be far greater, she said, if the country was slow to react.

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France hospitals in ‘crisis organisation’ – as it happened

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This blog is now closed. We’ve launched a new blog at the link below:

We’ve launched a new blog at the link below – head there for the latest:

Related: Coronavirus live news: UK variant hits New Zealand; CDC says 'absolutely' too soon to lift US mask mandate

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Nelson urged mistress to give their baby girl ‘new’ smallpox vaccine

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Naval hero praises Jenner’s cowpox jab in a newly found love letter to Emma Hamilton, written as he prepared for war

He is best remembered as the one-armed hero who defeated Napoleon, rewrote the rules of naval warfare and died at sea, in battle, onboard HMS Victory.

Now, the “chance discovery” of a 220-year-old love letter from Admiral Horatio Nelson to Lady Emma Hamilton, his mistress, reveals how open-minded and ahead of his time the formidable captain was about a radical new scientific breakthrough: the smallpox vaccine. In the letter, dated July 1801, Nelson appears to advocate the use of the brand new vaccine on his own baby daughter.

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‘We’ve made huge progress’ says Johnson on UK vaccine rollout – video

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During a visit to the Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies plant in Billingham, Teesside, where the new Novavax vaccine will be manufactured, the prime minister hailed the coronavirus vaccine rollout, but said the infection rate was still high.

Johnson said he would announce an outline for the 'roadmap forward' on 22 February, with priority being given to schools

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Boris Johnson ‘optimistic’ about easing some England lockdown measures

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Prime minister says priority is to reopen schools on 8 March once 15m in priority groups vaccinated

Boris Johnson has said he is optimistic about announcing the easing of some lockdown measures soon as the government nears its target of offering vaccines to 15 million people in priority groups.

Speaking on Saturday at a visit to the Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies plant in Billingham, Teesside, where the new Novavax vaccine will be manufactured, the prime minister said his first priority remained opening schools in England from 8 March, to be followed by other sectors.

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Children as young as six to be tested for Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine efficacy

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Trial will use 300 volunteers to assess whether jab produces strong immune response in children aged six to 17

The efficacy of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in children is due to be tested in a new clinical trial beginning this month.

Researchers will use 300 volunteers to assess whether the jab – known as the the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine – produces a strong immune response in children aged between six and 17.

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UK immigration officials ‘have had no information’ about hotel quarantine

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Border staff not briefed about even basics of Covid protection system starting on Monday, says union

Immigration officials expected to enforce a mandatory quarantine intended to protect the UK from new coronavirus variants have not been briefed on even the basics about how the system will work, little more than 48 hours before it begins, the Guardian has been told.

The Immigration Services Union (ISU), which represents many of the Home Office’s immigration officers, said that before the start on Monday of the new policy, staff had not been told if they would be expected to check for arrivals who had not properly declared their status, or when and how those obliged to quarantine would be taken to hotels.

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Wales is first UK nation to offer Covid jab to top four priority groups

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Everyone in top four categories has been offered first vaccine dose, says first minister

Wales has become the first UK nation to have offered a Covid jab to everyone in the top four priority groups, the first minister, Mark Drakeford has announced.

Last month, Drakeford was forced to defend Wales’s vaccination programme after criticism of delays from opposition parties and doctors. But at a press conference on Friday, he said that 66 days after people in Wales first began getting the jab, the key target had been achieved.

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Coronavirus live news: US could have prevented 40% of deaths; new China cases at five-month low

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Lancet commission review condemns Trump’s virus response; Two masks ‘substantially reduce expose US CDC says; cheap asthma drug appears to reduce risk of severe illness. Follow latest updates

The Czech Republic on Thursday announced a stricter lockdown in three districts from east to west where coronavirus infections have soared and hospitals are struggling to cope.

The order means a ban on movement from and into the eastern district of Trutnov on the border with Poland and the western districts of Cheb and Sokolov on the border with Germany, the health minister Jan Blatny said.

CNA is reporting three community cases among 12 new Covid-19 infections in Singapore.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) said the remaining nine infections were imported and had been placed on stay-home notice upon arrival in Singapore. No new infections were reported in foreign worker dormitories.

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‘Pure, liquid hope’: what the vaccine means to me as a GP

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For almost a year our small clinic has been struggling with the horrors of the coronavirus pandemic. So being able to give our staff and most vulnerable patients their first doses of the vaccine has been a real turning point

During the week I work in a small, inner-city GP practice in Edinburgh with 14 staff, caring for almost 4,000 patients. Before the pandemic, I used to see 25-30 people in face-to-face appointments every day. A year into the pandemic, the need out there is the same, but my GP colleagues and I manage more like five or six face-to-face (or mask-to-mask) consultations, a home visit or two, and the remainder on the phone or through video calls. It’s not the best way to practise medicine, but for the moment, it’s the best we have.

The first I heard of the vaccine rollout was back in October, when our practice manager received an email from the health board asking if we would have capacity to vaccinate the over-80s among our patients. We said yes, of course: in the past year we’ve had four patients die of Covid-19, three of them over 80.

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Coronavirus live news: WHO backs AstraZeneca jab for over-65s; Israel to open leisure facilities to vaccinated

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World Health Organization recommends AstraZeneca jab ‘even if variants present’; Israel to open hotels and gyms to those who have had vaccine or recovered from virus

Update from earlier post about Israel’s planned re-opening of sections of its society:

With some elementary schools due to open on Thursday, health minister Yuli Edelstein, speaking separately with reporters, said he would seek to require teachers who are not documented as being immune to Covid-19 to test negative every 48 hours.

#BREAKING WHO vaccine experts recommend AstraZeneca Covid jab for over-65s pic.twitter.com/Uoiv9wKxaW

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