Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
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.
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.”
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.
Sage expert responds to UK watchdog’s decision not to recommend vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds; 1,756 infections in Australia on Saturday
Vaccine passport restrictions in France could be eased if rates of Covid-19 infections in the country begin to slow, the labour minister, Élisabeth Borne, said on Saturday.
“The health situation is improving. If this is confirmed, we will be able to ease the rules,” Reuters quoted Borne telling France Inter radio, adding that this could be decided “in the coming days”.
In another sporting cancellation, the boxer Oscar De La Hoya has said his comeback fight due for next weekend has been cancelled after he caught Covid.
Wanted you to hear directly from me that despite being fully vaccinated, I have contracted Covid and am not going to be able to fight next weekend. Preparing for this comeback has been everything to me over the last months, & I want to thank everyone for their tremendous support. pic.twitter.com/0wKEnr5Jzv
I am currently in the hospital getting treatment and am confident I will be back in the ring before the year is up. God bless everyone and stay safe.
Before we wrap up the live blog, let’s recap the main events of today.
It’s been another grim day. The NSW and ACT reported record case numbers. Victoria has warned of a NSW-style growth in its numbers.
Civil liberties groups have criticised a lack of safeguards and primary legislation accompanying an app being trialled in South Australia that uses facial recognition and geolocation data to enforce home quarantine.
SA is trialling the app, which the government developed, on a small number of volunteers who have returned from interstate. It requires them to answer a message within 15 minutes, using facial recognition and geolocation to verify their identity and location. If they fail to do so, the app alerts police.
It’s the usual thing, it’s done in a very half-baked way, and without all the necessary provisions about what you actually do with the information you’re collecting.
Boris Johnson’s former director of communications has blamed a lack of expertise in Whitehall for the government’s struggle to get its message across in the early days of the Covid crisis.
To reach Nakida village in the highlands of Fiji, Dr Losalini Tabakei and her colleagues hiked for hours, up and down mountains, through forests, down muddy slopes, across rivers and along treacherous ridges with steep slopes of bamboo forest on either side.
Their supplies – clothing, medical equipment and, crucially, the Covid-19 vaccines they were bringing to administer to the remote community of just 60 people – were sent separately on horseback; the vaccines in refrigerated boxes, the rest in bags wrapped in plastic. The horses took the longer but flatter route to the town along the river.
The medical team hiked for five hours in 'horrendous' terrain to reach village and deliver just 25 vaccines to small community, as Fiji battles devastating outbreak of Covid-19, with more than 5% of the country's population having tested positive for the virus.
It was, the scientists said, a very finely balanced decision. On the one hand, Covid vaccines undoubtedly help to reduce infection and illness. On the other, Covid vaccines – like every other vaccine in medical history – are not without their risks. In children aged 12 to 15, the threat of serious Covid is tiny, but so is the risk of serious side-effects from the vaccine.
After much deliberation, the government’s independent vaccine advisers concluded that, on the strength of evidence so far, there was a marginal benefit to vaccinating healthy children aged 12 to 15 years old. But that benefit was deemed so very marginal the advisers would not give the green light to mass vaccination of healthy children in the age group.
Denmark has recorded a rise in cases in nursing homes; UK vaccines watchdog says not enough evidence to roll out Covid jabs to 12- to 15-year-olds; North Korea’s Kim Jong-un has ordered officials to fight Covid in ‘our style’
Consumers have been warned of an autumn rise in living costs from sharp increases in household energy bills and food prices, as Covid and Brexit disruption ripple through the UK economy.
Sounding the alarm for a wide range of products and services going up in price, business leaders said the UK was facing a “perfect storm” of worker shortages and problems with global supply chains that would lead to a burst of inflation within months.
Italy’s prime minister has announced his government could make Covid-19 vaccines mandatory, sparking a row in the country that has seen a recent rise in protests and violence from anti-vaxxers.
During a press conference on Thursday, Mario Draghi said all Italians of eligible age could soon be obliged to get a shot, as soon as the European Medicines Agency (EMA) gives its conditional approval for four vaccines.
In an open message to staff posted on LinkedIn, Nike’s senior manager of global marketing science, Matt Marrazzo, told staff: “In a year (or two) unlike any other, taking time for rest and recovery is key to performing well and staying sane.”
Australia’s vaccine program has received a boost, with a doubling of the number of Pfizer vaccines flowing into the country, after a “dose swap” deal was secured with the UK.
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, says the deal will “break the back” of the September supply issues, with his UK counterpart, Boris Johnson, agreeing to send 4m Pfizer doses to Australia, which will be distributed to the states and territories on a per capita basis.
NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian says Covid-19 case numbers are expected to continue rising and peak in the next two weeks after a record high 1,431 new cases and 12 deaths were recorded across the state. 'In terms of hospitalisation in ICU beds, there is often a week or two week lag. It means that the highest number of people in our intensive care wards are likely to present during the month of October,' Berejiklian said.
Friday's numbers were the highest daily infection figures ever recorded by an Australian jurisdiction in a day.
The ACT has recorded 18 new cases today, with 13 linked to previous cases and 5 under investigation.
Only 3 of the cases were in quarantine for their full infectious period.
So contact tracing feels like the theme of todays NSW press conference, with the premier saying the system will move to a “self-monitoring” system.
The premier was asked about the long delays that some had seen in getting responses from health authorities, and Berejiklian said NSW Health had moved to a text message system to ease some of the strain:
Without giving away anybody’s private circumstances, some people who are very sick aren’t getting a test until right at the last minute,” the Premier said, adding “the job of our contact tracers is made easier if people get tested as soon as they think they may have been exposed.
But I want to make sure every citizen knows we will account for every type of circumstance. We don’t want anyone to feel excluded, quite the opposite. Our plans are based on inclusiveness to make sure everyone feel safe and part of the system. Of course we will also make adjustments for people who may not have access to technology in the way that others do.
Obviously there will be a transition.
We have already started transitioning as Doctor Chant and Dr Gale have spoken about, we are advising people by text message to make sure they get the message as soon as possible if they test positive so we are using technology in an efficient way to make sure people get the message as quickly as possible.
Man’s mother said she had called police on her son when he left home in Auckland after receiving his positive test result
A man who tested positive for Covid-19 before absconding from a quarantine facility in Auckland on Thursday had attempted to escape three times before he was successful, health officials report.
New Zealand police arrested the man at a south Auckland address on Thursday afternoon, roughly 10km from the NovotelIbis hotel in Ellerslie, where he was quarantining. He had been in the community for at least 12 hours at the time of his arrest.
Survey of specialists forms part of Brendan Murphy’s brief to national cabinet on the ability of the health system to cope with rising Covid cases
Intensive care doctors have warned that Australia’s health system could face months of surge demand that will strain the workforce as a result of the Delta outbreak, as they stress the need for an increase in Covid vaccination rates to ease the burden on hospitals.
The federal health secretary, Brendan Murphy, will update Friday’s meeting of national cabinet about the hospital system’s ability to cope, informed by a survey from the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society (Anzics), after the Australian Medical Association warned that the system was already struggling.
There is “almost certainly no urgency” to press ahead with booster shots for healthy adults and it may be better to see how the pandemic pans out before a decision is made, the scientist leading key research into third shots has said.
Prof Saul Faust, chief investigator of the Cov-Boost study whose data next week is expected to help inform a decision on the rollout of boosters across the UK, told the Guardian that for now it may be preferable to prioritise only the vulnerable, including those with compromised immune systems.
Members of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) have been sent suspicious packages and hate mail throughout the pandemic, one of the UK’s leading virologists has revealed.
Prof Calum Semple, a member of Sage and the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), said the incidents of abuse included one “particularly nasty” experience when he was targeted by anti-vaxxers.
President wants to spread ‘common prosperity’ but Covid and material shortages could spell trouble
For decades the aim in China has been the pursuit of growth, building the world’s second-largest economy from a relative backwater on the international stage. Now, the promise from Beijing is to enlarge the economic pie and divide it well.
President Xi Jinping announced plans this month to spread “common prosperity” in what is one of the world’s most unequal major economies, signalling a shift from his predecessors’ pursuit of growth and heralding a tough crackdown on wealthy elites – including China’s burgeoning group of technology billionaires.