Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Coronavirus infections in England are now 26 times the levels that were experienced this time last year, according to the Office for National Statistics. Scientists described the figures as “sobering”.
They warned that the reopening of schools in England this week was likely to trigger further rises in Covid cases – with more to follow when students return to universities and colleges. A fresh wave of infections could, in turn, lead to new social restrictions being imposed as winter approaches.
An unvaccinated teacher in a California elementary school infected half her students and 26 people in total when she contracted the Covid-19 Delta variant, researchers for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found.
That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, for today. Here’s a quick roundup of what’s been happening so far:
Tennis fans aged 12 or over will be required to show proof of Covid vaccination in order to attend the US Open, tournament officials have confirmed.
The tournament did not originally require any proof of vaccination or a recent negative test for fans to enter. Attendees were also not required to wear a mask.
When friends and family disagree about getting vaccinated, close ties can fray. Some siblings have even stopped talking to each other
Megan, a 30-year-old from rural Nebraska, feels torn. She hasn’t been vaccinated against Covid-19, but if left to her own devices, things would be different. She worries about what would happen if she caught the virus and passed it on to her toddler daughter, whose history of health complications includes hospitalization for lung problems. Megan feels a responsibility to protect her child. But she also doesn’t want to keep secrets from her husband – who, along with his mother, is adamantly against the vaccine for political reasons. (All names in this story have been changed.)
As she figures out how to protect herself and her daughter without inciting major family conflict, Megan admits that her husband’s reliance on conspiracy theories he learns from like-minded friends or social media posts has made it difficult to trust him. Especially now.
It has shipped more than a billion doses, saved countless lives – and faced controversy over its safety and supply. Here, some of those who created the vaccine tell the story of their epic race against the virus
In December 2019, hospitals in Wuhan, China, reported that they were dealing with dozens of cases of pneumonia of an unknown cause. They soon identified the disease as being caused by a novel coronavirus.
Teresa Lambe, associate professor, Jenner Institute My brother lived in China, so whenever there was an emerging or break pathogen there, I used to follow it. I remember thinking very early on that this was probably another influenza strain.
It’s time to wrap things up for another day. Here are today’s main events:
It has shipped more than a billion doses, saved countless lives – and faced controversy over its safety and supply.
In this piece by Oliver Franklin-Wallis, some of the people involved in the creation of the AstraZenca vaccine tell their story of the race against Covid-19.
Biden administration divided over whether Chinese laboratory incident was source of disease
The US intelligence community failed to resolve sharp debate within the Biden administration over whether a Chinese laboratory incident was the source of Covid-19, US officials said in a report summary on Friday.
The report, issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in response to Joe Biden’s request, said a satisfying answer to the question of how a virus that has killed 4.6 million people worldwide started remained out of reach.
The Delta variant doubles the risk of Covid hospitalisation compared with the previously dominant Alpha variant, a new study focused largely on unvaccinated or partially vaccinated people has found.
The analysis – based on data collected in England – suggests that outbreaks of the Delta variant are likely to put an additional strain on health services, particularly in places with low rates of vaccination.
Annual coronavirus vaccines could be a reality – but Australia is at least 18 months away from manufacturing its own
From September – more than nine months after it was approved for emergency use in the United States – the first doses of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine will arrive on Australian shores. The second mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) vaccine against the coronavirus is a welcome boon amid a period of rolling lockdowns and record case numbers.
Denmark is to lift all its remaining Covid-19 restrictions by 10 September after the health ministry declared the virus “no longer a critical threat to society” because of the country’s high level of vaccination.
“The epidemic is under control, we have record vaccination levels,” the health minister, Magnus Heunicke, said in a statement on Friday. “That is why we can drop the special rules we had to introduce in the fight against Covid-19.”
WHO to ship 100m doses of Sinovac and Sinopharm by the end of next month, while the number of coronavirus patients in US hospitals has breached the 100,000 mark again
Two government advisers have told i news that prime minister Boris Johnson has privately accepted that there could be at least 30,000 further Covid-related deaths in the UK over the next year.
Johnson would reportedly “only consider imposing further restrictions if that figure looked like it could rise above 50,000”, with the government adopting a cost-benefit analysis on whether to impose restrictions which takes into account the economic impact and controversially put the level of acceptable cost to save a life at up to £30,000.
The prime minister is minded to implement another lockdown or new restrictions only if the figure of annual deaths looks like it’s going to go above 50,000. That means deaths from Covid of 137 a day, or just under 1,000 a week.
However, it won’t be an immediate reaction. A sustained rate of death of around a 1,000 a week for two or three weeks will, though, lead to discussion on restrictions being reimposed. Unfortunately, prime ministers have to weigh up the cost of saving lives to the impact on the economy. No one wants to talk about that’s how it works.
Decisions about how much to intervene to improve public health are always difficult for governments. Measures such as vaccinating children against meningitis or imposing speed limits on roads reduce death and disease, but also cost money and limit freedoms.
Finding the balance is one of the hardest decisions for governments, but is essentially what we vote politicians to do. In normal times, it is possible to use calculations of, say, cost per life saved, to provide some framework to guide decisions. In the UK, if an intervention costs less than £30,000 per year of life saved, then it is usually accepted in terms of healthcare.
That’s it from me today. Time to hand over to my colleague, Mattha Busby.
Here’s a brief roundup of what’s been happening over the past 24 hours:
Here are the current coronavirus hotspots and Tier 1, 2 and 3 Covid-19 public exposure site locations in Victoria and Melbourne, and what to do if you’ve visited them
The state is poised to ban mandates next month – even as the threat to young children grows
Sherry Dorathy has long lived in Miami, Arizona, a small, once prosperous copper mining town tucked behind rugged hills and wind-carved rock formations.
A former special education teacher, she’s now the gentle-voiced superintendent of the Miami Unified school district 40. The district, like at least 13 others in the Grand Canyon state, requires students and staffers to wear masks indoors amid Arizona’s dangerous new surge of Covid-19 spurred by the Delta variant.
Greg Hunt has promised that all children aged 12 to 15 will be able to be vaccinated by the end of 2021, after technical advice confirmed they are eligible for Pfizer.
But the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation has warned that, given supply constraints, Pfizer doses should be prioritised for young adults. And the government should also consider offering older Australians choice of vaccine before vaccinating teenagers.
New Zealand will remain in a full lockdown until midnight on Tuesday, with regions south of Auckland moving to level 3 after then, the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has announced.
The update came after 70 new cases of coronavirus were reported in the community, bringing the total number in New Zealand’s outbreak to 347.
An Instagram account had called on people to get involved in the Queen Street demonstration
A one-person anti-lockdown protest in central Auckland has been shut down, after the police were alerted to discussions of a potential gathering on social media.
New Zealand police said officers were on Queen Street on Friday after hearing a protest was being planned, but only one person arrived with the intention of protesting, Newshub reported.
UK ministers have been accused of doing the “bare minimum” to curb companies charging “misleading” prices for Covid travel tests and instead have been urged to name and shame the firms.
Ahead of a review of the traffic light system of quarantine rules which government sources said was unlikely to result in many major changes, Labour urged the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, to take tougher action against businesses “exploiting” the pandemic by imposing “rip-off” prices.
Newquay is reeling after health officials said that almost 5,000 cases had been linked to the music and surfing festival Boardmasters, which took place in the Cornish town earlier this month, my colleague Steven Morris reports. About three-quarters of them were aged 16-21 and about 800 live in Cornwall. Many of those who attended believe the number of infections is probably much higher.
It prompted tourism bosses to urge people not to visit the region unless they had pre-booked and to test themselves for Covid-19 before, during and after their stay.
North Cornwall town reeling and people urged not to visit as thousands of cases linked to festival
At first glance it looked like a pretty perfect day in the self-styled surfing capital of the UK. The sandy beaches were packed, the pubs, cafes and shops humming.
Look at little closer, though, and it became clear all was not quite right. A tapas bar was closed because a team member had tested positive; a surf shop shut its doors at lunchtime because of staff shortages; a scribbled note stuck on the window of a fudge shop summed up the problem – “Covid in Newquay is on the increase” – and urged customers to wear a mask and socially distance.
Many countries with already high vaccination rates are considering offering people an additional coronavirus vaccine dose. But are booster shots necessary? And what about the issue of vaccine equity? The Guardian's Natalie Grover examines the costs and benefits of possibly introducing a third jab