New Zealand, which has stamped out coronavirus, plans to cautiously reopen its borders to international travellers early next year. The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, said the government planned to follow the advice of experts and maintain the elimination strategy. She said borders would not reopen until after New Zealand's vaccine rollout was completed at the end of the year. About 29% of New Zealanders have received one dose of the vaccine and 17% are fully vaccinated
Continue reading...Category Archives: Coronavirus
‘Light at the end of the tunnel’: New Zealand welcomes border reopening plans
Health experts warn that reopening hinges on Covid vaccine programme reaching vulnerable communities
New Zealand’s much-awaited, albeit cautious, roadmap for reopening its borders has given businesses and families a taste of hope for the future, though health experts warn that it is dependent on improving the country’s vaccination strategy to reach vulnerable communities.
The prime minister Jacinda Ardern laid out the reopening plans at a forum in Wellington on Thursday, 17 months after borders closed in March 2020.
Continue reading...ACT to enter lockdown after Canberra records first locally acquired Covid case in more than a year
Health authorities yet to identify the source of the new case, who spent several days in the community while infectious
- Follow our live blog for the latest Covid updates
- Covid case locations: NSW and ACT
- Check Australia’s progress on the vaccine rollout tracker
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The Australian Capital Territory will go into lockdown after recording a locally acquired Covid-19 case for the first time in more than a year.
The chief minister, Andrew Barr, announced a seven-day lockdown from 5pm Thursday after a man in his 20s tested positive for Covid-19 on Thursday morning.
Continue reading...Google staff could see pay cut if they opt to work from home
Pay calculator suggests workers who commute long-distance could see salary drop if they shun the office in wake of pandemic
Google employees could see their pay cut if they switched to working from home permanently in the wake of the pandemic, according to a company pay calculator seen by Reuters.
It is an experiment taking place across Silicon Valley, which often sets trends for other large employers. Facebook and Twitter cut pay for remote employees who moved to less expensive areas. However, Google’s pay calculator tool – which allows staff to see the effects of a move – suggests remote employees, especially long-distance commuters, could experience pay cuts without moving.
Continue reading...Australian conspiracy theorists and anti-lockdown groups share fake Covid check-in apps
Exclusive: Spoof software likely to cause difficulties for contact tracers in the event of outbreaks
- Follow our Covid live blog for the latest updates
- Restrictions: NSW; Vic; Qld; borders
- Hotspots: NSW map; Vic list; Qld
- Vaccine rollout tracker; get our free news app; get our morning email briefing
A fake check-in app is being used by Covid-19 conspiracy theorists and anti-lockdown groups to dupe business owners and keep location data out of the hands of contact tracers in at least three states.
Guardian Australia can reveal that conspiratorial websites and Telegram groups with at least 15,000 followers are sharing links that allow users to generate fake check-in confirmations on their phones.
Continue reading...Covid live: UK sending poor countries ‘to back of queue’ by ordering boosters; Iran calls for urgent pandemic action
UK accused of sending countries who are struggling to access vaccines ‘to back of queue’; pandemic ‘number-one’ problem in Iran, says supreme leader
- Only most vulnerable may need booster jab in UK, expert says
- Facebook shuts accounts in anti-vaccine influencer campaign
- Nurse in Germany suspected of replacing vaccine with saline solution
- Delta variant renders herd immunity from Covid ‘mythical’
- See all our coronavirus coverage
Two US companies, Pfizer and Moderna, have raised the prices of their Covid-19 vaccines after data from clinical trials showed their mRNA formula was more effective than cheaper vaccines from Britain’s AstraZeneca and the American drugs maker Johnson & Johnson.
AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson have pledged to provide their doses on a not-for-profit basis until the pandemic ends.
Related: Covid-19 vaccines: the contracts, prices and profits
A new US practice of transferring asylum-seekers and migrants expelled under public health orders by plane to southern Mexico contravenes international law, the UN refugee agency has said.
Those being expelled may have urgent protection needs and risk being sent back to the very dangers they have fled in their countries of origin in central America without any opportunity to have those needs assessed and addressed, UNHCR said.
Continue reading...CDC urges pregnant women to get Covid vaccine, finding no increased risk of miscarriage
Updated guidance comes after a CDC analysis of new safety data, as vaccination rates remain low among pregnant women in the US
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention urged all pregnant women Wednesday to get the Covid-19 vaccine as hospitals in hot spots around the US see disturbing numbers of unvaccinated mothers-to-be seriously ill with the virus.
Expectant women run a higher higher risk of severe illness and pregnancy complications from the coronavirus, including perhaps miscarriages and stillbirths. But their vaccination rates are low, with only about 23% having received at least one dose, according to CDC data.
Continue reading...Covid-19 vaccines: the contracts, prices and profits
Raised charges and Covax deals on order books of Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca
Two US companies, Pfizer and Moderna, have raised the prices of their Covid-19 vaccines after data from clinical trials showed their mRNA formula was more effective than cheaper vaccines from Britain’s AstraZeneca and the American drugs maker Johnson & Johnson.
AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson have pledged to provide their doses on a not-for-profit basis until the pandemic ends.
Continue reading...UK orders extra Covid vaccines for autumn 2022 booster campaign
Pfizer reportedly asked to supply 35m more doses, with final go-ahead for this year’s programme still awaited
Ministers have started ordering vaccines for a booster campaign in autumn 2022, with Pfizer reportedly being asked to supply the UK with a further 35m doses.
The government has still not give the final go-ahead for the vaccine booster programme expected this autumn, but it is understood to have placed the order with Pfizer despite the company raising its prices.
Continue reading...Nurse in Germany suspected of replacing Covid vaccines with saline solution
Authorities say about 8,600 people may have been affected
Authorities in northern Germany have appealed to thousands of people to get another shot of Covid vaccine after a police investigation found that a Red Cross nurse may have injected them with a saline solution.
The nurse is suspected of injecting salt solution into people’s arms instead of genuine doses at a vaccination centre in Friesland – a rural district near the North Sea coast – in the early spring.
Continue reading...Australia Covid live update: NSW on edge as cases spread in regions; Melbourne waits for news on lockdown
Melbourne faces the possibility of a lockdown extension as shopping centre workers ordered into quarantine; new cases emerge across regional NSW. Follow all the day’s news
- Restrictions: NSW; Vic; Qld; borders
- Hotspots: NSW; Vic; Qld
- Vaccine rollout tracker; get our free news app; get our morning email briefing
Queensland LNP MP George Christensen has spoken to Sydney radio 2GB about being censured through a parliamentary motion yesterday.
The whole House, including the government, voted to support Labor’s motion disassociating the parliament with Christensen’s anti-lockdown and anti-public health measure comments yesterday (although Scott Morrison couldn’t bring himself to name or reference Christensen in his speech and just a hour or so later, cabinet minister Paul Fletcher declined five times on national TV to say he disagreed with Christensen’s views)
Happy Wednesday!
It’s not just hump day; we’re also halfway through the parliamentary sitting. At this stage, there’s a week break and then it’s back into it, but you have to wonder whether any of the east coast MPs will risk going home, given how quickly Covid is changing the landscape. Although, it doesn’t seem like anyone is missing the deputy prime minister, who has been in lockdown in Armidale, and apparently, unable to zoom in for the sitting (he has answered no questions in QT and offered no contributions to debate).
Continue reading...Economic recovery from Covid ‘running out of steam’ – OECD
Data collected from 38 member countries says UK among the major economies now in the slow lane
The world’s major economies have seen their rapid recovery after easing Covid restrictions begin to run out of steam in the past month as a resurgence in the virus depressed consumer spending, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
There are signs that the recovery in the US and Japan is losing momentum, the OECD said, while parts of Europe and China have slowed as consumers remain reluctant to eat out, visit attractions and shop as they did before the pandemic.
Continue reading...New Zealand should take phased approach to border reopening, experts advise
Panel says country should also continue to pursue ambitious Covid elimination strategy, even after border reopens
New Zealand should take a phased approach to reopening its border but not before a high percentage of the population is vaccinated, according to an expert governmental advisory panel.
The advice’s release comes a day before the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, is expected to make an announcement on the government’s approach to the reopening of the country on Thursday.
Continue reading...US urged to fast-track vaccine approval for children under 12 as cases rise
Children accounted for 15% of new Covid cases reported last week, American Academy of Pediatrics data analysis shows
As Covid cases among children continue to rise in the US due to spread of the Delta variant, experts are urging the federal government to fast-track vaccine approval for those under the age of 12.
New data analysis from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) indicated that children accounted for 15% of new cases reported last week, with a total of almost 94,000 cases. There was a 4% increase in child cases over the past two weeks, the AAP found.
Continue reading...Coronavirus live news: China reports highest cases since January; India reports lowest infections since March
UK reports 146 daily deaths, highest figure since 12 March; more than three-quarters of adults in UK now fully vaccinated
- Delta variant renders herd immunity from Covid ‘mythical’
- Germany to abolish free Covid testing in bid to boost vaccinations
- London civil servants could see pay cut if they resist office return
- Manila in lockdown as Delta cases soar in Philippines
- Think it’s all over? Why the Covid experts are not so sure about that
- See all our coronavirus coverage
As Covid cases among children continue to rise in the US due to spread of the Delta variant, experts are urging the federal government to fast-track vaccine approval for those under the age of 12.
New data analysis from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) indicated that children accounted for 15% of new cases reported last week, with a total of almost 94,000 cases. There was a 4% increase in child cases over the past two weeks, the AAP found.
All of this was likely unnecessary if we as adults did what we needed to do and get the vaccine. We could have protected these children.
Related: US urged to fast-track vaccine approval for children under 12 as cases rise
School districts in Florida and Texas are bucking their Republican governors’ bans on requiring masks for children and teachers as coronavirus cases soar in conservative areas with low vaccination rates, Reuters reports.
The Broward County school board in Florida on Tuesday became the latest major district to flout an order by the governor Rick DeSantis outlawing mask requirements in that state. The Dallas Independent School District said late Monday that it would also require masks, despite an order banning such mandates from the governor Greg Abbott.
Continue reading...Elegantly wasted: has lockdown made booze dangerously aspirational?
Drinking at home was once a guilty pleasure. Now everyone from bored homeworkers to professional influencers is swapping cocktail recipes and photos of colourful aperitifs. Is gin o’clock turning into unhappy hour?
The shadow of a palm frond falls on a young woman in a bikini, holding an emerald-coloured cocktail in one manicured hand. A negroni glows from the depths of a darkened bar; a tray of fruit-laden glasses sits beside a swimming pool. The #cocktail hashtag on Instagram is a passport to a magical land of aspirational drinking, where everything comes garnished with rose petals and nobody ever seems to get hangovers.
Its inhabitants are a mix of amateur enthusiasts reviewing their latest discoveries, and professional “ginfluencers” making a living from creating lusciously photographed cocktail recipes or sponsored posts promoting this rhubarb gin or that new tequila. Colourful drinks are popular, says Inka Kukkamäki, a full-time drinks influencer whose @onthesauceagain account has 21,000 Instagram followers. “Something a bit interesting and unusual, or just something simple like a negroni – any kind of negroni twist becomes popular. The Italian aperitivo culture has really spread into the UK in the last year.”
Continue reading...Morrison responds to IPCC report; NSW records 356 Covid cases, Victoria 20 and Qld three – as it happened
NSW records 356 new Covid cases as virus spreads across the state; Queensland records three new cases; Victoria records 20 new cases. This blog is now closed
That’s where we will leave the live blog for Tuesday.
If you haven’t been one of the millions to fill out your census already, tonight is the night.
The former prime ministers Malcom Turnbull and Kevin Rudd are addressing a La Trobe Asia webinar focused on Australia’s relationship with China.
The discussion has turned to climate action, a day after the IPCC report on the threat the climate emergency poses.
The proposition that we should all down tools until China does more is very naive.
We’re not. So that’s a huge, huge problem.
Continue reading...‘Our morgues are full’: Zimbabwe struggles with surge in Covid burials
Pressure on undertakers leads to widespread delays after record number of coronavirus infections and deaths last month
A group of women sing hymns at the cemetery in Harare as undertakers, dressed in Covid-19 protective gear, gently lower a white casket into the grave.
“This world is not our home,” they sing, as relatives, standing a few metres away, mourn their loss.
Continue reading...Support for Japan’s PM reaches all-time low over Covid-19, despite Olympics success
Public support for Yoshihide Suga’s cabinet dipped below 30%, despite widespread support for going ahead with the Games
Public support for the government of Japan’s prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, has slumped to an all-time low, despite evidence that most people support the decision to go ahead with the Tokyo Olympics during the coronavirus pandemic.
Suga had been hoping to bask in the afterglow of the Games, which ended on Sunday, but support for his cabinet has dipped below 30% for the first time since he became prime minister last September, largely over its response to a recent surge in infections.
Continue reading...Think it’s all over? Why the Covid experts are not so sure about that
Analysis: the end of restrictions in the UK has not led to a surge in cases, but coronavirus remains unpredictable
They are questions lurking in many people’s minds: just how upbeat or pessimistic should we be about the pandemic now? How does the UK compare with other countries? And is the worst of the crisis really over?
Two weeks after “freedom day” in England and with case numbers across the UK remaining lower than some modellers had feared, the worst seems to have eased. Future lockdowns, according to experts, seem unlikely unless new variants emerge.
Continue reading...