Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
More than 450 key workers with long Covid have told a cross-party parliamentary inquiry of their experiences of the condition, including struggles to return to work and lack of financial support, with one in 10 having lost their job.
Nurses, teachers, GPs, police officers and midwives were among those who shared their experience of long Covid, symptoms of which include debilitating fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pains, sleeping difficulties and brain fog.
Virtual contact during the pandemic made many over-60s feel lonelier and more depressed than no contact at all, new research has found.
Many older people stayed in touch with family and friends during lockdown using the phone, video calls, and other forms of virtual contact. Zoom choirs, online book clubs and virtual bedtime stories with grandchildren helped many stave off isolation.
World Health Organization has called on government to impose tighter virus curbs
Indonesia’s government has said small businesses and some shopping malls can reopen despite warnings that loosening curbs could spark another Covid wave.
President Joko Widodo said measures imposed in early July would continue until 2 August as the Delta variant spreads across the country, which has been overtaking India and Brazil as the world’s virus epicentre.
That’s it from the blog today. Thank you for your time.
Italy reported seven coronavirus-related deaths on Sunday compared with five the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections fell to 4,743 from 5,140 on Saturday. Italy has registered 127,949 deaths linked to Covid-19 since its outbreak emerged in February last year, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the eighth-highest in the world. The country has reported more than 4.3 million cases to date.
‘We have had people under 30 in intensive care,’ says Prof Adam Finn of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation
Young people are getting “seriously ill” from Covid-19, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has warned, as he urged them to get vaccinated.
Prof Adam Finn, from the University of Bristol, said there have been close to 200 admissions, with a mean age of 40, in the city during the Delta variant wave. England’s remaining Covid restrictions were eased on Monday and pictures of crowded nightclubs, filled with revellers not wearing masks or social distancing, have raised fears among some experts that infections could surge among unvaccinated young people.
Health experts have warned the government that it needs to increase efforts to ensure more young adults are vaccinated against Covid-19 – as a matter of urgency.
They fear the current low take-up of jabs among 18- to 25-year-olds could lead to a pile-up of vaccine campaigns in September, when other groups are scheduled to get booster injections and also to be inoculated against influenza. In addition, they argue that vaccines also have a crucial role to play in protecting young adults against long Covid, which is now recognised as a serious problem associated with the disease.
With the school term finally over, Britons are flying to Europe in their tens of thousands, record levels for this Covid year. They are arriving in countries where the Delta variant paralysing Britain is just becoming dominant – and Europe is responding by clamping down.
Some countries have tightened border controls, with Malta barring entry to unvaccinated travellers and Germany bringing in stricter quarantine rules for people arriving from Spain and the Netherlands. More broadly, authorities from Greece to Italy and France to Portugal are bringing in what are effectively vaccine passports for a wide range of activities, although most are shying away from using that term, which has become incendiary.
I’ll see you bright and early on the blog Monday morning to kick start the next week of news.
Okay, here are the numbers on all the arrests and penalty notices to come out of the Syndey anti-lockdown protest so far.
NSW police say they have received more than 5,500 reports from members of the public, with 63 people arrested.
Thirty-five people – aged between 18 and 69 - were charged with various offences, including assault police officer in execution of duty, resist officer in execution of duty, wilfully obstruct officer in execution of duty and not comply with noticed direction...
Of these, 20 were refused bail to appear at Parramatta Local Court today [Sunday 25 July 2021].
Investigators are following up every report and have issued two court attendance notice and [penalty notices] to 16 people today.
Sajid Javid has provoked a wave of anger from families of the victims of Covid after he said people must no longer “cower” from the virus.
The health secretary announced on Saturday that he had made a “full recovery” from Covid-19 after falling ill eight days ago, and said: “Please, if you haven’t yet, get your jab, as we learn to live with, rather than cower from, this virus.”
Demonstrators in several cities denounce president for alleged corruption and Covid mismanagement
Protesters took to the streets in several Brazilian cities on Saturday to demand the impeachment of Jair Bolsonaro, the country’s far right president whose popularity has fallen in recent weeks amid corruption scandals against the backdrop of the pandemic.
This week, news broke that Brazil’s defence ministry told congressional leadership that next year’s elections would not take place without amending the country’s electronic voting system to include a paper trail of each vote.
A conservative radio host in Tennessee who urged listeners not to get vaccinated against Covid-19 has changed track and called on listeners to get the shot, after contracting the virus and ending up in hospital in “very serious condition”.
In the UK, discontent with the government’s self-isolation policy is growing as food industry bosses condemned changes to ease the “pingdemic” as “worse than useless”.
PA Media reports that hospitality leaders have warned of a summer of closures and train operators have been forced to cut services. The agency says:
There were increasing calls for Boris Johnson to bring forward his wider relaxation of quarantine rules for the fully vaccinated from 16 August as businesses were hampered by staff being told to isolate as coronavirus cases soar.
In a bid to calm the concerns of industry, ministers published a limited list of sectors whose double-jabbed workers are eligible to avoid isolation if they undergo daily testing before the wider easing of rules for England.
Tunisia suffered 317 deaths in the last 24 hours, its worst daily toll since the start of the pandemic, its health ministry has said.
According to Reuters, the ministry also reported 5,624 new cases, increasing concerns about the country’s ability to fight the pandemic, with intensive care units in hospitals completely full and a lack of oxygen supplies. The vaccination campaign is moving slowly. The agency reports:
The World Health Organization (WHO) says the daily death tally in Tunisia is now the highest in Africa and in the Arab world.
The total number of cases since the start of the pandemic has reached about 560,000, with more than 18,300 deaths, out of a total population of 11.6 million people.
Durbanites expected another lockdown, not isolation enforced by violence and looting. But as the city I love turned to ruin, I saw fear change to bravery and community spirit
The past week has been one of the most difficult of my life. My home descended into chaos. Durban, a holiday city with a melting pot of cultures and a diverse range of people who live and work here, came to a standstill as rioters took to the streets to spread chaos after the arrest of former president Jacob Zuma.
As the variant tears its way through the US and vaccination rates plateau in the state, hospitals are experiencing a new wave of cases
Nurse Matt Robinson braced himself before pushing the heavy doors to the recently reopened Covid-19 ward at Methodist University hospital in downtown Memphis, Tennessee.
This hadn’t been in the script. After over a year of continuous work with Covid-19 patients throughout the pandemic, the burnout brought on by constant exposure to death and trauma, Robinson had hoped his job might return to normal.
PM wants to echo Blair’s promise of an ‘opportunity society’ and energise those who feel left behind
Boris Johnson intends to mimic aspects of Tony Blair’s political project in the hope of winning over more voters in former Labour heartlands, Downing Street sources have revealed.
While the Conservatives’ 2019-intake MPs are more likely to model themselves on Margaret Thatcher than the former Labour prime minister, No 10 insiders said Johnson had been studying Blair’s approach.
A scientist advising the government has accused ministers of allowing infections to rip through the younger population in an effort to bolster levels of immunity before the NHS faces winter pressures.
The allegation comes after England’s remaining Covid restrictions were eased on Monday, with nightclubs throwing open their doors for the first time in the pandemic and all rules on social distancing and mask wearing dropped even as infections run high.
Covid cases likely to accelerate through summer, new forecasts say
CDC director warns Americans in ‘another pivotal moment’ in pandemic
As the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony comes to an end, First Lady Jill Biden cheers from the stands. On Saturday, she is expected to attend the USA v France women’s 3x3 basketball game and the USA v Nw Zealand women’s soccer game.
First Lady @DrBiden will attend the following Olympic events in Tokyo on Saturday, per the White House:
- USA v France women's 3x3 basketball game - Various swimming races - USA v New Zealand women's soccer game
The bust of a man who was a Confederate general, Ku Klux Klan leader and slave trader was removed from the Tennessee state capitol this morning, a year after the governor said it was high time it was gone.
Nathan Bedford Forrest had been immortalized at the Tennessee capitol in Nashville since the late 1970s.
HAPPENING NOW: Crews are starting the process of removing the Nathan Bedford Forrest bust from the capitol. @WKRN#GMNpic.twitter.com/8HwOG3zsoY
The State Building Commission on Thursday gave approval for the relocation of the Forrest bust to the Tennessee State Museum, a final step in a process that has taken more than a year since Gov. Bill Lee first said it was time for the statue to be moved.
“It’s been a year long journey, and this is an appropriate step in that process,” Lee said prior to the Building Commission meeting Thursday morning. “It’s most important to me that we followed the process. We talked about that from the very beginning.”
The bust of Confederate Gen. and KKK leader Nathan Bedford Forrest is off its pedestal and being wheeled out of the Tennessee Capitol. pic.twitter.com/dgAg4isvxw
“Of course, the pandemic has exacerbated our pre-existing condition of extremely rich people,” Stephen Colbert said last night, citing a Bloomberg report on super-yacht charters, which are up over 340%.
“This is disgusting. At a time of dire need, the ultra-rich shouldn’t be blowing their money on boats. That’s money that could be used to launch giant penises into space,” Colbert joked, referring to Jeff Bezos’s phallic-shaped rocket, which traveled to space earlier this week.
South Africa’s Covid-19 vaccination campaign is regaining momentum after being disrupted earlier this month by a week of riots sparked by the imprisonment of former president Jacob Zuma, the country’s acting health minister has said.
The Associated Press reports that at least 120 pharmacies, including 71 that were vaccination sites, were damaged and closed during the unrest in the KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces, according to acting health minister Mamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane. More than 47,000 vaccine doses were destroyed when the sites were ransacked, she said.