Category Archives: Coronavirus

Australia Covid live update: NSW hospitals brace for cases surge, Scott Morrison faces questions over Father’s Day travel exemption

Posted on by

Gladys Berejiklian under pressure over modelling showing state’s health system to be ‘overwhelmed’ by Covid cases; rapid antigen tests approved for use at home. Follow the latest updates live

The New South Wales government has set a target of zero extinctions of native wildlife in the state’s national parks estate, the first time an Australian government has set the goal.

The environment minister, Matt Kean, said the target, which will apply to all parklands in NSW, was a response to the continued decline of threatened plants and animals and Australia’s status as the country with the highest rate of mammal extinctions.

Related: Zero extinction target for NSW national parks welcomed by environment groups

And the Victorian Liberal’s deputy position is filled, with member for Caufield, David Southwick, scoring the gig.

New VICLib team: Guy and deputy David Southwick. #springst

Continue reading...

UK workers on returning to the office: ‘No point if I end up doing video calls’

Posted on by

Some welcome the routine, while others are concerned about how it will work without everyone in at the same time

Workers in the UK have gradually been returning to offices in recent weeks, after the lifting of coronavirus restrictions. While many firms have adopted a flexible arrangement that combines remote and office work each week, many others have called their employees back full time.

For some, it is a welcome return to normality, but others have raised concerns about their health and working conditions.

Continue reading...

Coronavirus live news: Mississippi hospitals overwhelmed; New Zealand eases restrictions outside Auckland

Posted on by

Mississippi is least vaccinated state in US; New Zealand reports 20 new cases for third day

RDIF, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, which has backed the development of the nation’s Sputnik V vaccine, has this morning announced that the single-component Sputnik Light vaccine against coronavirus has been approved for use in Armenia.

Sky News Australia has denied broadcasting Covid misinformation, telling a parliamentary hearing that YouTube’s removal of 23 videos of the broadcaster was “totalitarian” and lacking in transparency.

Chief executive officer Paul Whittaker told the media diversity inquiry it “now appears commonplace to discredit any debate on contentious issues as ‘misinformation’” and vigorously defended Sky’s right to present a range of views on treatments such as ivermectin.

Continue reading...

Calls for asylum seekers to be freed from detention after Melbourne guard tests positive for Covid

Posted on by

Jeroen Wiemar downplayed the potential for spread at the Broadmeadows facility but advocates fear serious outbreak

Asylum seeker advocates are calling for people held in immigration detention to be released into the community after Victorian health officials revealed a guard at a facility in Melbourne had tested positive for Covid-19.

Victoria’s Covid commander, Jeroen Wiemar, on Sunday confirmed at least one coronavirus case at the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accomodation centre in Broadmeadows in Melbourne’s north.

Continue reading...

Australian music legends join forces in ‘vax the nation’ campaign

Posted on by

An industry brought to its knees by Covid-19 lockdowns calls on Australians to help bring back live performance in a national advertising campaign

Dozens of the biggest names in the Australian music industry have joined forces for a pro-vaccination advertising campaign launched on Monday.

Tim Minchin, Jimmy Barnes, Amy Shark, Paul Kelly and the Hilltop Hoods are just some of the more than 200 acts who have joined forces with major Australian record labels, ticketing agencies, tour promoters and festival organisers for the #Vaxthenation campaign.

Continue reading...

‘Lost generation’: education in quarter of countries at risk of collapse, study warns

Posted on by

Covid, climate breakdown, poverty and war threaten return to school after pandemic kept 1.5bn children out of classes

The education of hundreds of millions of children is hanging by a thread as a result of an unprecedented intensity of threats including Covid 19 and the climate crisis, a report warned today.

As classrooms across much of the world prepare to reopen after the summer holidays, a quarter of countries – most of them in sub-Saharan Africa – have school systems that are at extreme or high risk of collapse, according to Save the Children.

Continue reading...

Chaos as Brazil v Argentina match abandoned after officials storm pitch in Covid-19 row – video

Posted on by

Brazil’s World Cup qualifier with Argentina in São Paulo was suspended after just seven minutes as health authorities entered the field of play amid farcical scenes at Neo Química Arena. Three Premier League players - the Aston Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez and Tottenham’s Cristian Romero and Giovani Lo Celso - were on the pitch while a fourth, Aston Villa’s Emiliano Buendía, was in the stands. The quartet had apparently violated Brazilian regulations stating that travellers who have been in the UK, South Africa or India during the previous 14 days are forbidden from entering the country. The bizarre scenes saw officials, accompanied by police officers, march on to the pitch and bring proceedings to a halt.

Continue reading...

Brazil v Argentina abandoned as health authorities invade pitch

Posted on by
  • Argentinian quartet accused of lying when entering Brazil
  • Match abandoned after 10 minutes by Brazilian health officials

A World Cup qualifier between Argentina and Brazil was abandoned amid farcical, confused scenes after four Premier League players apparently violated Brazilian regulations designed to contain a Covid outbreak that has killed more than 580,000 Brazilians.

The Aston Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez and Tottenham’s Cristian Romero and Giovani Lo Celso were all on the pitch at São Paulo’s Neo Química Arena on Sunday afternoon when federal police and officials from Brazil’s health agency, Anvisa, took to the field to halt play after just seven minutes.

Continue reading...

Coronavirus live: passports ‘needed to keep England venues open’; Vietnam says city residents must get vaccine

Posted on by

England vaccines minister says passes needed for nightclubs and mass events; Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi residents must receive one dose by 15 September

The BBC reports that Scottish Labour will not support the Scottish government’s plans to introduce vaccine passports.

Anas Sarwar told BBC Scotland’s The Sunday Show:

This is not opposition for opposition’s sake. Neither is this an ideological opposition to the principle of vaccine passports. This is about what works, and what’s going to make a meaningful difference. We all agree the vaccine is working in helping reduce hospitalisations and reduce deaths but there is a fear that using vaccine passports might actually entrench vaccine hesitancy rather than encourage uptake.

US officials have expressed optimism that Covid-19 booster shot delivery can start for all adults on 20 September, the goal set by President Joe Biden, as cases continue to rage across the country fueled by the highly transmissible Delta variant.

The officials insist, however, that boosters will not be rolled out without US health agencies’ authorisation, leaving open the possibility of delays.

Related: US officials optimistic Covid booster rollout can start on 20 September

Continue reading...

US officials optimistic Covid booster rollout will start on 20 September

Posted on by

But they insist shots won’t be rolled out without health agencies’ authorization, leaving open possibility of delays

US officials have expressed optimism that Covid-19 booster shot delivery can start for all adults on 20 September, the goal set by President Joe Biden, as cases continue to rage across the country fueled by the highly transmissible Delta variant.

The officials insist, however, that boosters will not be rolled out without US health agencies’ authorization, leaving open the possibility of delays.

Continue reading...

‘We won’t let it fade’: bereaved call for UK Covid memorial to be preserved

Posted on by

Group who meet weekly to refresh wall of hearts in London want specialist lacquer applied to memorial

Few memorials require restoration before they are complete, but that is the reality facing the bereaved who care for the national Covid memorial wall opposite the Houses of Parliament in London.

Armed with pots of crimson masonry paint, they have started refreshing the wall of more than 150,000 hearts, many of which are already fading in the sun and rain. They also have the sad task of adding 5,000 more, to catch up with the still-rising death toll. Like the pandemic, there is no end in sight. But soon, sections could be preserved using a specialist lacquer that has previously been deployed to protect street art by Banksy to create a memorial that could stand for years to come.

Continue reading...

Life being put on hold was just the spur this writer needed to fulfil her youthful ambition

Posted on by
Charlotte Northedge wrote a new novel in lockdown. She considers others who have realised the dreams of their youth

I wrote a novel in the last lockdown. To be clear, it wasn’t one of those creative outpourings some people had in between yoga with Adriene and baking banana bread. I had a deadline. Some days, I thought I’d never cut through the brain fog brought about by living through a pandemic. But gradually, as the initial panic subsided and the usual distractions of daily life fell away, I found the words did start to come, and the process of writing my second book was much more fluid and focused than my first.

Which is hardly surprising. I started my debut while on maternity leave with my second baby. I had dreamed of writing a novel since I was a child. I was one of those bookish kids whose weekly highlight was a visit to the library and who spent the best part of my teens squirrelling away short stories and beginnings of novels that never seemed to go anywhere. When I moved to London after my English degree, I joined a writing group and started a thriller.

Continue reading...

Nadhim Zahawi: vaccine passports necessary to keep large venues in England open – video

Posted on by

Certification process will be required for nightclubs, mass events and large venues in England by the end of September, the vaccines minister has confirmed, saying that would allow businesses to stay open during the winter months if Covid-19 surges. Zahawi said the government wanted to 'make sure the whole economy remains open' through the autumn amid fears that a return to school could set off a new wave of infections

Continue reading...

Covid-19 Australia data tracker: cases today, coronavirus map, hospitalisations and deaths

Posted on by

Guardian Australia brings together all the latest on active and daily new Covid-19 cases, as well as maps, stats, live data and state by state graphs from NSW, Victoria, Queensland, SA, WA, Tasmania, ACT and NT to get a broad picture of the Australian outbreaks and track the impact of government responses

Due to the difference in reporting times between states, territories and the federal government, it can be difficult to get a current picture of how many confirmed cases of coronavirus there are in Australia, where cases are increasing, and the overall trend for each state and territory.

Continue reading...

Speed, decisiveness, cooperation: how a tiny Taiwan village overcame Delta

Posted on by

Rural community with an under-resourced health system came together to take on the virus, but anger at the authorities remains

The work day in Fangshan starts before dawn and finishes at midday, when fishers or farmers of mango and onion sit together in the shade, sharing a bucket of cooked prawns and bottles of Taiwan beer.

The hometown of Taiwan’s president, Fangshan’s borders encompass a long stretch of coast and four villages home to around 5,500 people, sandwiched between mountains and oceans. Quiet and picturesque, it’s left off most tourist trails, which instead focus on Kenting national park to the south.

Continue reading...

Australia Covid live updates: Victoria records 183 new cases as NSW rushes to vaccinate essential workers

Posted on by

Essential workers over the age of 16 who live in local government areas of concern won’t be allowed to leave their LGA from Monday unless they have had at least one dose of a Covid vaccine. Follow latest updates

Independent federal senator, Rex Patrick, appears to have tweeted an ultimatum to the government: be transparent about the profitable corporations that wrongly pocketed jobkeeper, or he will withdraw support for the government’s changes to the EPBC Act.

The government needs Patrick’s vote in the Senate to pass the legislation.

I’m done with ‘em. @ScottMorrisonMP gifting hard earned taxpayer money to his business mates & donors makes him the most shameless & unethical PM ever. @JoshFrydenberg’s JK prudential failure makes him the most incompetent Treasurer ever. EPBC discussions over @sussanley! #auspol pic.twitter.com/rMctoje7Xy

Finally, Speers asked Robert why the government won’t, at least, publish a list for taxpayers of “where the money went and let the firms decide whether to pay it back”?

But Robert argued that that would interfere with the privacy of these companies.

The transparency if you like, or what pertained in the Senate which was a demand for all the records of so many Australian companies, and vast majority of them being small to medium enterprises under tax law, that would substantially invade the privacy and would substantially make a huge step in the wrong direction as to how we manage the privacy of all of those individuals and all of those companies, David. It would be a massive retrograde step in how we do things.

Continue reading...

‘Complex and quite ambiguous loss’: what Covid has done to our mental health

Posted on by

Melbourne psychologist Chris Cheers says the pandemic’s effect has been akin to grief, and acceptance of it is hard to reach

After 18 months, psychologist Chris Cheers has begun to understand emotional responses to the global Covid pandemic as a kind of grief.

It’s a collective grief, experienced by the whole world at once, but also deeply personal: our losses are not the same just as our experiences have not been the same.

Continue reading...

Australians urged to plan ahead for Christmas shopping amid ‘dramatically bad’ global supply chain crisis

Posted on by

Covid shutdowns of major international ports are putting extreme pressure on retailers to fill orders and keep shelves stocked

Australians have been warned not to leave their Christmas shopping until the last minute with the global supply chain crisis leaving retailers struggling to fill orders and keep shelves stocked.

The “dramatically bad” global supply chain situation in Asia could also see major Australian retailers dumping Black Friday sales as they are left with limited stock.

Continue reading...

‘A kick in the teeth’: British mothers and pregnant women fear return to workplace

Posted on by

Companies recalling staff this month have been accused of not offering flexitime and failing to protect employees

Before the pandemic, every morning and night was a cycle of stress and rushing around for single mother Emma Woodburn, getting her two young sons to and from school, childcare before and after work and staying on top of housework.

But when, 18 months ago, the 39-year-old from Lancashire was told by her employer she could work from home, everything changed. “It was like a weight was lifted. It was less rush in the morning. I could put the washing on throughout the day and hang it out on my dinner break. It just felt easier.”

Continue reading...

Oklahoma hospitals deluged by ivermectin overdoses, doctor says

Posted on by

Jason McElyea says people overdosing on anti-parasitic drug that some people believe without evidence can cure or treat Covid

An Oklahoma doctor has said overdoses of the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin, which many believe without evidence can prevent or cure Covid-19, are helping cause delays and problems for rural hospitals and ambulance services struggling to cope with the resurgent pandemic.

Related: Arizona father held after threat to zip-tie school principal over Covid rules

Continue reading...