Category Archives: Coronavirus

Australia Covid updates live: NSW due to hit single dose target; Singapore Airlines cancelling dozens of international flights

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Wednesday: NSW is on track to hit its 80% single dose vaccinations today, while Victoria is heading towards 70% by the end of the week – follow updates live

Hmmmmm it’s 8.56am and no Victorian Covid-19 numbers yet. Not happy Jan.

Federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg says businesses should be free to deny entry to people based on vaccination status.

He spoke with Nine Network a short time ago:

They control their premises. If they want to stop someone coming in based on the fact they’re not vaccinated then that is their right to do so.

Not only are they protecting their customers but they’re also making for a safer workplace for their staff. We’ve been very consistent on that.

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Experts warn of a rough winter but PM is clinging to plan A

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Analysis: despite Whitty and Vallance’s fears, Boris Johnson and his team remain optimistic

Twelve months ago, as a battle raged in Downing Street over whether to order a circuit-breaker lockdown, Prof Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance issued a stern public warning that England was headed for 200 deaths a day by November unless action was taken.

That was widely seen as a shocking and unacceptable figure. In the event, Boris Johnson finally caved in to the inevitable six weeks later, on 31 October, ordering a month-long lockdown.

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Boris Johnson says winter Covid measures may include ‘plan B’ of home working and face masks – video

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Outlining the government's winter Covid-19 plan, Boris Johnson said the government will 'will keep further measures in reserve. A plan B.' These measures include face masks, advice to work from home and vaccine passports, the prime minister said.

Speaking at a No 10 press conference, Johnson added that 'it might still make the difference between keeping businesses open at full capacity or not'


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Winter plan: what does government’s toolkit to combat Covid include?

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Boris Johnson announces restrictions that could be used in England if NHS comes under pressure

Boris Johnson has announced the government’s “autumn and winter plan” to combat an anticipated rise in Covid infection rates over the coming months, with a toolkit of restrictions that could be introduced in England if the NHS comes under significant pressure.

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Covid booster jab to be offered to those at most risk and over-50s in UK

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JCVI recommends Pfizer/BioNTech shot be used regardless of vaccine received first time around

Covid boosters will be offered to all over-50s and those at greatest risk of the disease as part of the “toolbox” of measures for controlling coronavirus over the autumn and winter following guidance from the government’s vaccine advisers.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said a third dose of vaccine would top up the immunity in those whose protection had likely waned since they completed their first round of shots earlier in the year.

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Fox News host Tucker Carlson tells interviewer: ‘I lie’

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The cable news personality also defended people who buy fake proof of vaccination against Covid-19

In an interview, Tucker Carlson admitted: “I lie.”

The Fox News host was speaking to Dave Rubin. The YouTube host and conservative author asked how Carlson felt about CNN hosts Brian Stelter, Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon, who Rubin called “clown people”.

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Putin self-isolates after coronavirus found in entourage

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Russian president is not sick but will no longer hold in-person meetings this week, says Kremlin

Vladimir Putin has gone into self-isolation because of an outbreak of coronavirus in his entourage, the Kremlin has announced.

Although the Russian president was not sick, a Kremlin spokesperson told journalists, he would cease holding in-person meetings and would not travel to Dushanbe this week for summits of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and Collective Security Treaty Organization.

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Coronavirus live news: new China outbreak grows; UK health secretary to set out booster plans

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China reports 59 new cases compared to 22 the day before; Sajid Javid will set out the details in winter Covid plan for England in on Tuesday

The UK vaccines minister has said he is hopeful that the over-50s booster campaign will be the “last piece of the jigsaw” for ending the pandemic, but that he is concerned about the incoming flu season.

Nadhim Zahawi told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:

This is probably the last piece of the jigsaw to allow us to transition this virus from pandemic to endemic and i hope by next year we’ll be in the position to deal with this virus... as we do with flu.

I am concerned, there’s not much flu circulating anywhere in the world and a bad flu year puts enormous pressure on the NHS but also we could lose 20,000-25,000 people to a bad flu season.

Children aged 12-15 will be given their first coronavirus vaccines from next week, the UK’s vaccines minister has confirmed.

Nadhim Zahawi told BBC Breakfast:

The NHS has been making plans that will hopefully be able to see the first vaccinations take place after consent, because obviously you need the information and the letters to go out and to receive that consent, by the 22nd of this month.

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‘The virus is painfully real’: vaccine hesitant people are dying – and their loved ones want the world to listen

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In the UK, the majority of those now in hospital with Covid-19 are unvaccinated. Many face their last days with enormous regret, and their relatives are telling their stories to try to convince others like them

Matt Wynter, a 42-year-old music agent from Leek, Staffordshire, was working out in his local gym in mid-August when he saw, to his great surprise, that his best friend, Marcus Birks, was on the television. He jumped off the elliptical trainer and listened carefully.

The first thing he noticed was that Birks, who was also from Leek and a performer with the dance group Cappella, looked terrible. He was gasping for breath and his face was pale. “Marcus would never usually have gone on TV without having done his hair and had a shave,” Wynter says.

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LA officers sue over vaccine mandate as police across California threaten to resign

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Police department employees claim ‘hostile work environment’ for the unvaccinated and say mandate violates civil rights

Los Angeles police department (LAPD) employees have sued over requirements they get vaccinated for Covid-19, alleging that the department has created a “hostile work environment” for the unvaccinated and that the mandate violates employees’ privacy and civil rights.

The suit is one of several aggressive challenges to vaccine mandates by police unions and officers across California, some of whom have threatened mass resignations in response to new rules. It comes as staff at law enforcement agencies remain unvaccinated at disproportionately high rates.

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Covid live: UK and EU urged to stop blocking vaccine patent waiver; ‘sudden and severe wave’ in Syria’s Idlib

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Médecins Sans Frontières says waiver would allow faster production; cases in Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province have soared since mid-August

Trials of localised lockdowns will begin in the Philippines’ capital Manila this week as the country tries to contain its worst coronavirus outbreak while also opening the economy.

A shift towards localised lockdowns in the Manila area was delayed last week because of the levels of infection.

After months of uncertainty, the UK’s four chief medical officers have said that Covid-19 vaccinations can be offered to all 12-to-15-year-olds. How was the decision made, how will the vaccines be rolled out, and what difference will they make?

Related: How will the Covid vaccine rollout to 12-to-15-year-olds in UK work?

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Fully vaccinated people account for 1.2% of England’s Covid-19 deaths

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ONS figures show 51,281 Covid deaths between January and July, with 458 dying at least 21 days after second dose

People who were fully vaccinated accounted for just 1.2% of all deaths involving Covid-19 in England in the first seven months of this year.

The figures, published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), have been seized on as proof of the success of the vaccine programme.

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New York hospital to stop delivering babies as staff quit over vaccine rules

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• Lewis county hospital to suspend service next week

• Covid-19 vaccines compulsory for all New York health workers

A hospital in upstate New York will at least temporarily stop delivering babies later this month, after too many employees resigned over a Covid-19 vaccination mandate.

“We are unable to safely staff the service after 24 September,” Gerald Cayer, chief executive of the Lewis County Health System, told reporters.

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UK children aged 12 to 15 to be offered Covid jab

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UK’s four chief medical officers decide to set aside view of vaccine watchdog that benefits of jabs were too minimal to justify them

Children aged 12 to 15 can be offered Covid vaccinations, the UK’s four chief medical officers have decided, saying the likely impact in reducing disruption to schools meant such a plan could be clinically justified.

All children in the age group will be offered a first Pfizer jab as soon as possible, with the programme led by in-school vaccination services. A second injection will be potentially given once more evidence is gathered, so not before the spring term at the earliest.

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Senator and congressman condemn Amazon for promoting anti-vaxxer books

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Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff have written to complain about search algorithms that appear to spread misinformation

American senator Elizabeth Warren has accused Amazon of “peddling misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines and treatments” through its search and bestseller algorithms, after the online retail giant pushed a book by an author the New York Times called “the most influential spreader of coronavirus misinformation online”.

Searching for Covid-19 on the site gives the top result as Joseph Mercola and Ronnie Cummins’s The Truth About Covid-19, a title that claims to reveal how the “effectiveness of the vaccines has been wildly exaggerated”, how the virus was lab-engineered in Wuhan, and how “safe, simple, and inexpensive treatment and prevention for Covid-19 have been censored and suppressed to create a clear path for vaccine acceptance”.

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NSW Covid lockdown restrictions: update to Sydney, regional NSW and Canberra, ACT coronavirus rules explained

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Gladys Berejiklian has revealed a roadmap out of lockdown for the state, and an easing of restrictions for some parts of regional NSW. Here’s the full list of what you can and can’t do in NSW and the ACT

The premier, Gladys Berejiklian, has revealed a roadmap out of lockdown for the state, and an easing of restrictions for some parts of regional NSW.

From Saturday 11 September, parts of regional NSW that had seen zero Covid cases for at least 14 days emerged from lockdown. One of those areas, Yass Valley Council, was plunged back into a two-week lockdown from Tuesday 14 September after a new Covid case was detected.

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‘China’s Dr Fauci’: How Zhang Wenhong became the face of Beijing’s Covid battle

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Expert’s clever analogies and frank messages to public have won him respect – and millions of followers

Early last year, as Covid-19 began to disrupt livelihoods in Shanghai, local media struggled to persuade the public to stay at home. Then they turned to an infectious diseases expert, Dr Zhang Wenhong, who also heads up Shanghai’s expert panel on Covid-19.

“You’re bored to death at home, so the virus will be bored to death, too,” Zhang said in rapid-fire mandarin mixed with a distinctive Shanghainese accent. “Stay at home for two weeks … then we’ll be an inch closer to success.”

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Coronavirus live news: Italy sends 100,000 vaccines to Iraq; England to scrap Covid vaccine passport plans

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Latest updates: follow all our coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic from the UK and around the world

Conservative MPs fear vaccine passports could still be made mandatory later this year amid a warning the NHS faces “the worst winter in living memory”, despite the health secretary’s announcement earlier today that they are to be scrapped.

The dramatic U-turn came just weeks after Boris Johnson announced the controversial documents would be necessary for fully vaccinated people to go to nightclubs and other crowded venues.

They shouldn’t be kept in reserve – they are pointless, damaging and discriminatory.

“The very concept of vaccine passports needs to be ruled out for good, as they are fundamentally unconservative, discriminatory and would lead to a two-tier society that I am confident no one actually wants to see.

“I don’t believe that, sadly it’s probably politics.

Related: Some Tories fear second U-turn over plan for Covid vaccine passports in England

South Africa’s president has announced an easing of Covid-19 restrictions and a shortening of the national curfew after a decline in infections.

Authorities will also extend the hours of alcohol sales, further relaxing restrictions introduced in June to combat a third wave of cases caused by the Delta variant, Reuters reports.

While the third wave is not yet over, we have seen a sustained decline in infections across the country over the last few weeks.

With the decline of infections across all provinces, the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Covid-19 has recommended an easing of restrictions.

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Morning mail: calls to extend aged care vaccination, Covid inequities, and the joy of tinned food

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Monday: A union is pushing for a compulsory vaccination deadline of aged care workers to be extended. Plus: why tinned food is no longer the embarrassing option

Good morning. A union is calling for the extension to the compulsory vaccination for aged care workers as the Friday deadline approaches. Analysis of green space in greater Sydney reveals another element of how Covid lockdowns are magnifying inequity. The Taliban will allow women to study in universities in gender-segregated classrooms. And it’s time to stop looking down on tinned fruit and veggies as a lesser choice.

The Health Services Union is calling for the federal government to extend compulsory Covid vaccination for aged care workers beyond Friday’s deadline, saying the sector cannot afford to lose even 5% of its workforce. The federal government has said that 90.8% of staff have now received a single dose of a Covid vaccine and 70.5% two doses. The HSU’s federal president, Gerard Hayes, said the government needed to extend the deadline by between two weeks and a month given existing workforce pressures.

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