Officials say rising Beta variant figures are from Réunion island
The government was embroiled in a rancorous diplomatic standoff with France on Saturday night after its surprise decision to continue imposing a 10-day quarantine on fully vaccinated people returning from the country.
French officials seemed baffled by the move, suspecting UK ministers may have based it on rising cases on the French island of Reunion – nearly 6,000 miles from Paris.
Continue reading...Friendships can be difficult, and lockdowns have made them even harder to maintain. But we should cherish them
Almost every day for the past few months, I’ve told my husband I am lonely. Obviously I’m glad that he’s around. What I miss are my friends. In the first lockdown, we stayed in touch with Zoom dates, which were awkward, often drunk and occasionally very joyful. Those days are long gone. I’ve returned to texting, and though I’m often deep in four or five conversations at once, it isn’t the same as being together.
In the past year, there was a difficult bereavement in my family, and work has been harder than normal. None of these things are unique or insurmountable but the isolation has left me feeling almost capsized by anxiety and paranoia.
Continue reading...Premier widens who can leave Fairfield, Canterbury-Bankstown and Liverpool to include all authorised workers, as long as they get tested regularly
Plans to allow only emergency and health staff to leave three south-western Sydney areas at the centre of the city’s Covid-19 outbreak for work were shelved on Sunday, despite another day of more than 100 new cases.
New South Wales health authorities announced 105 new local cases on Sunday, with 27 of them out in the community while they were infectious.
Continue reading...Seven terminates contract and British far-right figure expected to leave country after joking about plans to breach quarantine rules
British far-right figure Katie Hopkins has been dumped as a cast member of Seven’s Big Brother VIP and will leave the country after breaching her contract, Guardian Australia can reveal.
Hopkins, 46, broadcast a live video from what she claimed was a Sydney hotel room on Saturday morning, describing Covid-19 lockdowns as “the greatest hoax in human history” while joking about elaborate plans to breach quarantine rules.
Continue reading...We imagined a gleeful summer of pandemic relief. Instead, new anxieties have replaced old ones
We were promised a Hot Vax Summer.
The term – a riff on Hot Girl Summer, the hit 2019 summer single – emerged this spring as predictive shorthand for the (perhaps literally) orgiastic welcome of a post-vaccine reality. But, as might be expected of a phenomenon named for the last great summer anthem of a world before Covid-19, Hot Vax Summer connoted more than a gleeful exchange of fluids. It came to signal a best-case scenario for a time of transition. Pure celebration and best lives lived. In simplest terms, relief.
Continue reading...‘It feels qualitatively different this time.” There are few people I know in South Africa who don’t think this about the carnage now engulfing the nation. Violence was institutionalised during the years of apartheid. In the post-apartheid years, it has rarely been far from the surface – police violence, gangster violence, the violence of protest. What is being exposed now, however, is just how far the social contract that has held the nation together since the end of apartheid has eroded.
Many aspects of the disorder are peculiar to South Africa. There are also themes with wider resonance. Events in the country demonstrate in a particularly acute fashion a phenomenon we are witnessing in different ways and in degrees of severity across the globe: the old order breaking down, with little to fill the void but sectarian movements or identity politics.
Continue reading...Residents of Fairfield, Canterbury-Bankstown and Liverpool local government areas barred from leaving for work as NSW tries to control spread of Delta variant. Follow the latest developments live
The NSW branches of the Transport Workers’ Union and the Australian Road Transport Industrial Organisation are welcoming an exemption for their workers in the three local government areas where only health and emergency workers are allowed to leave.
The groups say updated advice now includes a list of “authorised workers” permitted to go to work, “which includes freight, logistics, courier and delivery workers, bus drivers, waste workers and airport workers”.
The exemption will come as a relief to the more than 20,000 transport workers in south-west Sydney who yesterday believed they would not be able to go to work. We commend the NSW government for responding quickly to our calls for an exemption, however the advice to workers and operators is still far too sluggish.
Deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce is asked about far-right media figure Katie Hopkins flying into Australia and going into hotel quarantine (maybe to appear on the local reality TV show Big Brother, as is the speculation).
I’m the one who wanted to send home Johnny Depp’s dog, so I have no problem sending home someone who wants to flout our laws. If you want to do that, pack your bongo and get out of country!
Continue reading...Study is part of £20m research drive that scientists hope will end stigma around the condition
A clinical trial has been launched to detect currently invisible lung damage in people with long Covid, as part of a £20m research drive that scientists hope will end stigma around the condition.
Patients still suffering breathlessness will be drawn from long Covid clinics in Sheffield, Manchester and Cardiff to undergo special scans using xenon gas to reveal damage that does not show up on conventional CT scans, leading to a mystery about why people are not getting better.
Continue reading...The company’s wide portfolio has been perfectly suited to pandemic shopping. This week’s results will be strong again
A vast portfolio of food and household brands has allowed the consumer goods giant Unilever to navigate its way through the pandemic.
The maker of Domestos bleach, Dove soap and Cif cleaner benefited from a surge in demand for cleaning products in the initial stages of the health crisis. Its shares rose, and Unilever briefly became the most valuable company in the FTSE 100 index last year. And the company behind Marmite, Colman’s mustard and Magnum ice-cream benefited from the forced shift to eating out less and cooking at home, which some analysts think could be a long-term change.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson may be forced to self-isolate after meeting health secretary, who confirms he has virus
Sajid Javid was self-isolating on Saturday after testing positive for Covid, as senior public health leaders from across the UK accused Boris Johnson today of “letting Covid rip” by relaxing legal restrictions.
The health secretary, who is fully vaccinated, said he had mild symptoms and confirmed the result of a lateral flow test with a positive PCR test. “I will continue to isolate and work from home,” he tweeted.
Continue reading...CCDH finds ‘disinformation dozen’ have combined following of 59 million people across multiple social media platforms
The vast majority of Covid-19 anti-vaccine misinformation and conspiracy theories originated from just 12 people, a report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) cited by the White House this week found.
Related: ‘They’re killing people’: Biden slams Facebook for Covid disinformation
Continue reading...The health secretary for England, Sajid Javid, has announced in a video on Twitter that he has tested positive for coronavirus and has mild symptoms.
In a video, Javid said: “This morning I tested positive for Covid. I’m waiting for my PCR result, but thankfully I have had my jabs and symptoms are mild.”
Chief health officer Brett Sutton says Victoria needs to brace itself for ‘any possibility’
Victoria has entered day two of its latest Covid-19 lockdown to news of a further 19 locally acquired cases.
The state’s health department said all were linked to the current outbreak, which now numbers 43 community cases in total. All but one were active in the community while potentially infectious, as the state identified some 10,000 “primary close contacts”.
Continue reading...Analysis: opinion is becoming sharply divided in the absence of official recommendations
The delay in deciding whether to vaccinate children over 12 against Covid is unlikely to help resolve what is already a contentious issue.
A survey by the Office for National Statistics has found that almost 90% of parents in England would favour giving their children a vaccine if offered, and school leaders have also backed jabs for pupils.
Continue reading...Rail industry resists calls from passenger groups to release data on risk of contracting Covid on trains
Train operators have been urged to release research showing the risk of contracting Covid on trains, with the chances now believed to be substantially higher than the figure publicised by the rail industry last year.
The industry-funded Rail Research and Safety Board (RSSB) said in July 2020 that the risk was just one infection in 11,000 average journeys in Great Britain.
Continue reading...More restrictions are being considered as the country battles its worst outbreak yet
Thailand has imposed a nationwide ban on public gatherings and was considering more restrictions on movement as authorities reported record numbers of new cases and deaths on Saturday.
Despite partial lockdowns in Bangkok and nine other provinces this week, the country’s Covid-19 task force reported 10,082 new coronavirus cases and 141 new deaths, bringing the total number of infections to 391,989 cases and 3,240 fatalities since the pandemic started.
Continue reading...False claims about vaccines has proliferated on the social network, and on other sites including Twitter and YouTube, says president
Joe Biden says social media platforms such as Facebook “are killing people” for allowing disinformation about coronavirus vaccines to be posted on its platform, as the administration continued criticising the company.
“They’re killing people. ... Look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. And they’re killing people,” the US president told reporters at the White House on Friday, when asked about disinformation and what his message was to social media platforms such as Facebook.
Continue reading...Pros at dealing with long-term Covid restrictions, Melbourne residents share their advice for those in Sydney
We may have escaped the ravages of Covid that have maimed nations elsewhere, but Australians have still endured its consequences through lengthy, disruptive lockdowns.
Nowhere is this as intimately understood than in Melbourne, which is now in its fifth lockdown. And as our fellows in Sydney stare down a potentially long road stuck at home, we thought it useful this week to invite Melburnians to offer tips on how best to cope.
Continue reading...Polls show New Zealanders accept that life will be different in future and they still feel their country is headed in the right direction
As countries look for a post-pandemic pathway back to “normal”, New Zealand is making no promises – and its population seems startlingly happy with that.
Around the world, some governments are hitting full throttle with rhetoric about a “return to normal” and the freedoms of a pre-pandemic world. New Zealand’s approach has been cautious by contrast. The government has made no assurances of a return to normal anytime soon, announced no multi-step “pathway out”, and put forward no timeline for re-opening borders even to vaccinated travellers.
Continue reading...Speaking during a White House briefing, Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control, said US coronavirus cases were up about 70% over the last week, with nearly all hospital admissions and deaths among the unvaccinated. The White House Covid-19 coordinator, Jeffrey Zients, added that the pandemic is 'one that predominantly threatens unvaccinated people' and that the administration expects cases to increase in the weeks ahead because of spread in communities with low vaccination rates
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