Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Sara Duterte ahead in the polls despite refusing to commit to presidential race
It was a decade ago, before her father had become Philippine president, that Sara Duterte attracted national attention. A local sheriff had ignored orders issued by her, the mayor of Davao City, to delay the demolition of a shantytown. She arrived at the scene furious and punched him, not once, but four times in the head, in front of reporters.
Duterte, 43, a motorbike lover and tough talker, has a combative image that echoes that of her 76-year-old father, the populist president Rodrigo Duterte. It is widely believed that, as he nears the end of his six-year term limit, she will follow in his footsteps to Manila’s Malacañang Palace.
Household names may have unwittingly helped spread fake news, investigation reveals
Dozens of the world’s biggest brands, including Nike, Amazon, Ted Baker and Asos, have been advertising on websites that spread Covid-19 misinformation and conspiracy theories, it has emerged. The companies, as well as an NHS service, are among a string of household names whose ads appear to have helped fund websites that host false and outlandish claims, for example that powerful people secretly engineered the pandemic, or that vaccines have caused thousands of deaths.
Analysis of nearly 60 sites, performed by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and shared with the Observer, found that ads were placed through the “opaque” digital advertising market, which is forecast to be worth more than $455bn (£387bn) this year.
Exhausted healthcare workers admit they feel demoralized as the fourth surge spreads across the US
Last February, Dr Bryce Meck, 30, would lock herself in the bathroom to cry for five minutes when her patients, whom she had watched over for weeks in the medical intensive care unit, were dying from Covid-19. They begged her to tell people in their community to get vaccinated. Of the 20 patients with Covid-19 in her care, only three survived.
Each week, Meck’s frustration grew when she saw patients in a Columbia, Missouri, primary care clinic. They expressed vaccine hesitancy, shared misinformation or told her that their friends were pressuring them to remain unvaccinated. “If only the patients in the clinic could just meet the people who are suffering in the hospital,” said Meck, who continues to experience long-term effects of the virus herself.
Thomas Cook chief executive predicts this weekend will be biggest of the year so far; about 1,000 protesters gather in Melbourne as state records 535 cases
Prof Adam Finn, a member of the UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, has said while it is not “essential” for 12-15 years to get the Covid-19 vaccination, it is also “perfectly sensible” for them to have it.
He told Times Radio:
It’s a finely balanced decision. It’s not a black and white decision. It’s not essential that these children receive the vaccine, but equally it’s a perfectly sensible thing to do. It’s being offered because the benefits do outweigh the risks, and it’s available for people who want it. And I’m afraid that’s the truth of the situation.
Because the risks on either side are not that high. It’s not like these children are at great risk from Covid, or indeed that they’re at great risk from the vaccination.
Ronapreve, the Covid antibody drug, is to be given to vulnerable NHS patients.
Covid antibody drug Ronapreve to be given to vulnerable NHS patients https://t.co/lU6CTVlE3g
Victoria police arrested 235 protesters and three officers remained in hospital on Saturday evening following violent anti-lockdown demonstrations in Melbourne’s inner city.
As the state recorded 535 new cases and one death, around 1,000 protesters gathered in the north-eastern suburbs of Richmond and Hawthorn, forced to make a last-minute change of location after 2,000 police officers formed a “ring of steel” around the Melbourne CBD.
A drug given to the former US president Donald Trump when he had coronavirus last year is to be used to treat vulnerable NHS hospital patients.
Last month, the health secretary, Sajid Javid, heralded Ronapreve as the first treatment designed specifically for Covid-19 to receive regulatory approval in the UK.
People living with chronic conditions such as Down’s syndrome and dementia remain among the most vulnerable to Covid-19 even after vaccination, research has found.
The study, based on data from more than 6.9 million vaccinated adults, 5.2 million of whom had received both doses, found that being vaccinated offers powerful protection against hospitalisation for almost all groups. However, a risk calculator based on the data shows that some groups remain at particular risk and may benefit from booster vaccine doses and treatments such as monoclonal antibodies.
Vote may be significant blow to Biden administration
Panel does back boosters for those older than 65
Scientific advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have voted not to recommend a third shot of the Pfizer vaccine for most Americans, a potentially significant blow to the Biden administration after it announced a plan to “boost” adults before advisory committees had a chance to review scientific evidence in public.
The US administered 383,994,877 doses of Covid-19 vaccines in the country as of Friday morning and distributed 464,315,725 doses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Those figures are up from the 383,038,403 vaccine doses the CDC said had gone into arms by Sept. 16 out of 462,384,885 doses delivered, Reuters reports.
A spokesman for Edinburgh Airport criticised the Scottish government’s “decision to diverge yet again and further curtail Scotland’s aviation and travel industries in their recovery”.
He said: “We are now the most restrictive country in Europe yet there is no justification or health benefit to retaining testing measures, something clinical professionals and experts have themselves said.
An overhaul of England’s Covid-19 rules governing international travel has been announced by the Department for Transport, scrapping the traffic light system and signalling changes to requirements to undergo PCR testing on arrival.
The aim, according to the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, is to simplify rules and decrease the burden on people travelling by replacing the system with a single red list and one for the rest of the world.
Half-term holiday bookings are expected to surge after ministers unveiled a simplification of Covid foreign travel rules, replacing the traffic-light system with a single red list and bringing in a laxer regime for tests.
But while MPs and some travel groups welcomed the new system, airlines voiced anger that fully vaccinated travellers returning to England will still have to take a test after they return, even if this will be changed to a cheaper lateral flow version.
New Doherty Institute modelling presented to national cabinet warns that maintaining “medium” public health and social measures would be “prudent” until Australia reaches 80% vaccination if caseloads are high – with “medium” measures previously defined as including stay-at-home orders except for work, study and other essential purposes.
The institute – which conducted the modelling informing Australia’s four-phase reopening plan – has updated its work after a dispute erupted within the federation about whether or not it was safe to ease restrictions once 70% of Australians over the age of 16 were vaccinated.
New South Wales will introduce a home quarantine “pilot” for international arrivals as part of a plan to begin opening international borders even as parts of the state returned to lockdown.
The pilot, which will be run as a partnership between the NSW government and the commonwealth, will trial a seven-day home quarantine program for about 175 fully vaccinated people.
The Chinese embassy in Canberra has accused the Australian and US governments of a “staged farce” after ministers at the Ausmin talks criticised China over a range of issues including human rights in Xinjiang.
The embassy also accused Australia of “sliding further down on the road of harming China-Australia relations” and of lacking independence from the US.
We firmly oppose and reject the unfounded accusations and erroneous remarks against China on issues related to the South China Sea, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other China-related issues in the Joint Statement of Australia-U.S. Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) on 17th September.
Those assertions, in disregard of basic facts, violated international law and basic norms governing international relations and grossly interfered in China’s internal affairs.
Victorian presser conference:
Reporter:
Do Victorians have to be prepared, though - if case numbers are going to go up, we’ll see more Victorians die if we open up?
Current projections continue to see case numbers go up and as we see case numbers go up, we see more Victorians treated in the community through the Covid positive path way arrangements at home.
We see more people admitted to hospital and we see, sadly, a small number continue to die, like we had tragically another death to report this morning. The best thing we can all do is if those numbers increase, get ahead of that increase by following the rules, getting tested and getting vaccinated.
In Jacinda Ardern’s ‘team of 5 million’, some players have been rewarded very differently to others
The only thing more predictable than rising house prices is the tenor of stories as monthly data from governments or the real estate sector are reported. Record highs in particular places, predictions of trends from economists. Or, the young couple who managed to “get on the housing ladder”, but upon reading you realise it was with financial help from parents.
However, behind these articles a much larger housing story has gradually unfolded. An account of huge and growing inequality. How a government policy designed to respond to the global pandemic and the fear of economic recession has not just created significant wealth, but distributed it in such a concentrated way that it will change the nature of Aotearoa New Zealand for generations to come.
Children and adolescents who are infected with Covid-19 rarely have symptoms that last for longer than 12 weeks, according to a review of international research.
The review, published in the Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, suggests that long Covid in children and adolescents is less common than previously feared.
An anti-vaxxer mother and her daughter died just days apart in a Belfast hospital after they contracted Covid-19, leaving their family “devastated”.
The BBC reported that Sammie-Jo Forde, 32, died in the Ulster hospital on Saturday, where she had been treated on the same ward as her mother, Heather Maddern, 55, who died on 31 August.
Premier Jason Kennedy admits ‘we were wrong –and, for that, I apologize’ as he warns ICU beds may run out in 10 days
Alberta’s premier has announced sweeping new restrictions to combat the spread of the coronavirus, admitting the Canadian province was gripped by a “crisis of the unvaccinated”.
The new measures marked a major reversal from Jason Kenney’s hands-off approach to the pandemic previously, and come amid warnings from frontline medical workers that the province’s healthcare system is on the verge of collapse.
Following the decision by the US president, Joe Biden, to introduce a vaccine mandate for millions of workers, and the UK government’s decision to row back on its push to require vaccine passports for nightclubs and other crowded events, where does the issue of insisting on vaccination stand globally?
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has said dozens of people in his inner circle at the Kremlin have tested positive for coronavirus, which has affected more than 7 million people in the badly-hit country.
Earlier this week, the 68-year-old Putin said he was self-isolating after announcing an outbreak among members of his entourage.