Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Public health chiefs warn of ‘extraordinary surge’ as less than half the US population fully vaccinated
Covid cases are rising in all 50 US states as the Delta variant spreads coast to coast, news outlets reported on Friday , and with less thanhalf the US population fully vaccinated, public health chiefs warned of an “extraordinary surge”.
Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said at a White House briefing: “This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
Boris Johnson’s plan to lift virtually all of England’s pandemic restrictions on Monday is a threat to the world and provides fertile ground for the emergence of vaccine-resistant variants, international experts say.
Britain’s position as a global transport hub would mean any new variant here would rapidly spread around the world, scientists and physicians warned at an emergency summit. They also expressed grave concerns about Downing Street’s plans.
Once a bastion of Covid success, now two of the country’s largest cities are under tight restrictions amid mishandled vaccine program and growing Delta outbreak
At a press conference on Thursday morning, one day after a lockdown was extended by two weeks in Sydney and a few hours before a fifth lockdown would be declared in Melbourne, the premier of New South Wales grew flustered. “One question at a time. I will get to all of them,” Gladys Berejiklian said. “It is not nice being shouted at.”
Australians have a lot of questions. After managing the pandemic better than almost any country in the world, they are now watching the world open up while their own borders remain strictly closed.Meanwhile,just 10% of adults have been fully vaccinated and an outbreak of the Delta variant is slowly spreading.
The Western NSW Local Health District has posted on its Facebook page that it has been notified of cases that travelled to Molong, near Orange in the state’s central west, on 16 July.
No venues of concern are currently identified and contacts of the cases are being tested while in isolation. Urgent investigations are underway and contact tracing is continuing.
As a precautionary measure, a drive-through (testing) clinic will be established in Molong and capacity in Orange and Bathurst will be increased.
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has released a statement following today’s national cabinet meeting:
National Cabinet discussed the outbreak in Greater Sydney and the additional measures introduced by the New South Wales Government to stop the spread of the virus. National Cabinet has agreed to a suppression strategy for COVID-19 with the goal of no community transmission.
All leaders expressed their full support for NSW to get on top of the current outbreak. National Cabinet noted the Commonwealth’s extension of the COVID-19 Disaster Payment support for Greater Sydney and Victoria, based on Commonwealth hotspot declarations.
National Cabinet received an update from the Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet on the four step plan to reopening and the progress of the Covid-19 Risk Analysis and Response Taskforce report and the Doherty modelling for the National Plan to transition Australia’s National Covid Response.
All leaders reiterated the importance of Australians, especially those in vulnerable groups, to get a COVID-19 vaccination.
Russia on Friday reported 799 coronavirus-related deaths, the most in a single day since the pandemic began and the fourth day in a row it has set a record.
Reuters notes that the Russian coronavirus task force confirmed 25,704 new Covid infections in the last 24 hours.
Shaun Keasey is the general manager of Gorgeous nightclub in Dudley, in England’s West Midlands. He has been on Sky News explaining the precautions staff will be taking when they reopen on 19 July and they are … not much, to be honest.
He told Sky News:
We were expecting this huge freedom celebration. It’s not quite turning out that way though, with cases rising, but we’ve got to make the best of it. We’re a bit nervous, but we can’t wait to open the doors of the club, which will happen at one second past midnight from Sunday going into Monday.
No, we won’t be insisting on that. The majority of our customers are younger people. They haven’t yet had the opportunity to have two jabs. If anyone wants to wear a mask, they’re free to wear it. There will still be hand sanitisation points to make sure that we encourage the best personal hygiene, but we just want to get on with business now. We will still have our entry procedures where you show your age, and the door staff will be looking for people who potentially don’t look well. But other than that, you know, we’re a nightclub, we’re not a medical facility.
"We just want to get on with business."
Gorgeous Nightclub owner Shaun Keasey tells Sky News he is "a bit nervous" but "can't wait to open the doors one second past midnight from Sunday into Monday".
The head of the World Health Organization has acknowledged it was premature to rule out a potential link between the Covid-19 pandemic and a laboratory leak, and said he was asking China to be more transparent as scientists search for the origins of the coronavirus.
In a rare departure from his usual deference to powerful member countries, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said getting access to raw data had been a challenge for the international team that travelled to China earlier this year to investigate the source of Covid-19. The first human cases were identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Every day, before 7am, volunteers gather in front of a house in Yogyakarta. Wearing masks and maintaining distance, they measure and cut panels of wood, smoothing the edges with sandpaper. For the past 11 days, the front yard has been turned into an emergency casket-making workshop. The coffins are painted white, and lined inside with plastic.
The volunteers are lecturers, security guards, artists and police officers who set aside their time to help the community, which is being ravaged by Covid. They work until nightfall.
Up to 1.6 million people in England have been told to isolate in a single week, Guardian analysis has found as the government said the Covid app is unlikely to be changed for weeks.
The number of new UK coronavirus cases climbed to 48,553 on Thursday – the highest since mid-January and the start of the third lockdown – with the upward curve showing no signs of abating, raising fears of a summer of chaos as businesses and households are hit by self-isolation. Sixty-three people were reported on Thursday to have died from the virus.
The preprint endorsing ivermectin as a coronavirus therapy has been widely cited, but independent researchers find glaring discrepancies in the data
The efficacy of a drug being promoted by rightwing figures worldwide for treating Covid-19 is in serious doubt after a major study suggesting the treatment is effective against the virus was withdrawn due to “ethical concerns”.
The preprint study on the efficacy and safety of ivermectin – a drug used against parasites such as worms and headlice – in treating Covid-19, led by Dr Ahmed Elgazzar from Benha University in Egypt, was published on the Research Square website in November.
The muddle of rules and recommendations leaves the question open of what people will actually do. Will mask-wearing continue as caution prevails, or will people decide that dropping the law means there’s no longer a need to do so?
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus will share proposals for a phase 2 study into the origins of the coronavirus with member states tomorrow, its emergency director Mike Ryan has said.
“We look forward to working with our Chinese counterparts on that process and the director-general will outline measures to member states”, Ryan said.
Increased drinking during the Covid pandemic may have fuelled a sharp rise in deaths from diseases caused by alcohol, data for England suggests. While hospitality venues closed for much of last year during lockdown, figures suggest an increase in drinking at home.
According to a report by Public Health England, which looked at alcohol consumption and harm during the pandemic, the number of deaths in England from diseases caused by drinking increased by 20% in 2020 compared with 2019.
Police have fired teargas to disperse demonstrators in Paris as thousands of people protested throughout France over new coronavirus restrictions. Protests began in the French capital on Wednesday morning as the annual military parade for Bastille Day was taking place along the Champs-Élysées, watched by Emmanuel Macron
Victoria is entering a five-day lockdown in an effort to contain two growing Covid clusters connected to the larger Sydney outbreak.
Victoria’s fifth lockdown starting on Friday will cover the entire state until 11.59pm on Tuesday 20 July. It was announced by the premier, Daniel Andrews, after four people who were in the MCG members’ stand at a Geelong-Carlton AFL game on the weekend at the same time as a positive case tested positive.
Within 72 hours of the French learning they would soon need to be vaccinated or tested to go to the cafe, more than 3 million had booked appointments and France had broken its vaccination record, administering 800,000 shots in a single day.
At the same time, daily infections, driven by the more contagious Delta variant, continued to climb, reaching nearly 9,000 on Wednesday – and on Bastille Day, about 20,000 demonstrators nationwide protested against what some called a “dictatorship”.
The largest ever international study of people with long Covid has identified more than 200 symptoms and prompted researchers to call for a national screening programme.
The study found the myriad symptoms of long Covid – from brain fog and hallucinations to tremors and tinnitus – spanned 10 of the body’s organ systems, and a third of the symptoms continued to affect patients for at least six months.
Sydney’s hospitals are being stretched to “the brink” as healthcare professionals continue to be sidelined by exposure to Covid, with two major hospitals reporting cases, including a fully vaccinated nurse.
NSW Health confirmed the nurse, who tested positive on Tuesday, works at Westmead hospital and the source of the infection was being urgently investigated.
Earlier this month, 21-year-old Lakhu BK decided to have her baby at home in her village in the far west of Nepal. She had feared contracting Covid-19 if she went to a health centre. She lost her life giving birth.
“I thought my daughter-in-law will die from [the] virus but did not think she would die from being unable to give birth,” said her mother-in-law, Pamfi BK, 50.
Cameras have been allowed in a Sydney hospital's Covid-19 intensive care unit, showing the struggle of one patient on a ventilator. The 53-year-old Covid patient from NSW is only able to take shallow breaths of air through the ventilator. His medical teams, dressed in full PPE, adjusts his ventilator tubes and monitor his oxygen levels. The patient has given his consent for his images to be published
Mexico’s health ministry on Wednesday reported 12,116 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 230 more fatalities, bringing its total figures to 2,616,827 infections and 235,507 deaths, Reuters reports.
The government has said the real number of cases is likely significantly higher, and separate data published recently suggested the actual death toll could be 60% higher than the official count.