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“What we’re trying to do is move from a universal government diktat to relying on people’s personal responsibility,” he told Monday’s Downing Street press conference. “Clearly there’s a big difference between travelling on a crowded Tube train and sitting late at night in a virtually empty carriage on the main railway line. So what we want to do is for people to exercise their personal responsibility but to remember the value of face coverings both in protecting themselves and others.”
The health secretary said the government expects cases could reach as high as 50,000 cases a day by the time measures are fully relaxed on 19 July, and continue rising. Figures show 27,334 people across the UK tested positive reported on 5 July
Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has announced changes to restrictions in Brisbane, Townsville and several SEQ local government areas. Here’s the full list of what you can and can’t do in Qld
As hospitals in greater Sydney were placed on ‘red alert’ due to the latest Covid outbreak, restrictions on visitors triggered alarm among expectant mothers.
Prof Chris Whitty has warned that maintaining the current Covid restrictions through the summer would only delay a wave of hospitalisations and deaths rather than reduce them, as Boris Johnson announced that most social distancing and mask rules would be lifted on 19 July.
The chief medical officer for England said: 'At a certain point, you move to the situation where instead of actually averting hospitalisations and deaths, you move over to just delaying them. So you’re not actually changing the number of people who will go to hospital or die, you may change when they happen.'
However, Whitty also cautioned that while there was a 'pretty high' level of scientific agreement over the government's decision last month to delay the original lifting of restrictions for four weeks, the view in regards to opening back up is 'more mixed'.
Italian prosecutors are examining fresh evidence that suggests coronavirus was spreading in the country weeks before the first case of local transmission was officially detected as criminal investigations continue into continental Europe’s deadliest outbreak.
Lawyers representing the families of Covid-19 victims say the medical records of a man in his 50s who was admitted to a hospital with bilateral pneumonia at the end of January 2020 in Bergamo, the Lombardy province severely hit during the first wave of the pandemic, “could change the timeline of the pandemic in Italy”.
Reports claim Brazilian president, already accused of mishandling Covid, was involved in embezzlement scheme
The Brazilian president has come under further pressure after being personally implicated in an alleged corruption racket involving the supposed misappropriation of his workforce’s wages.
Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right populist who admires Donald Trump, took office in January 2019 vowing to “forever free the fatherland from the yoke of corruption”.
The pandemic has invited countless comparisons between coronavirus and influenza and the diseases do have some features in common. Both are contagious, potentially lethal respiratory viruses. They can spread through aerosols, droplets and contaminated surfaces. And they share some of the same symptoms in the form of fever, cough, headaches and fatigue. In the winter ahead, one challenge the NHS faces is separating the Covid patients from the flu cases.
Covid cases in the UK are rising exponentially, largely in younger age groups who are more likely to be partially or completely unvaccinated. What does this mean for the risk of new variants popping up?
New Zealand restarts the travel bubble with Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and the ACT; infected aged care resident at SummitCare home in NSW was not vaccinated. Follow latest updates
Circling back on that story involving the NRL penalties handed out to St George Illawarra players for attending a party in breach of Covid-19 restrictions.
Sure, there’s enormous fines of $305,000 total for the 13 players. But the suspensions are also fairly significant, ranging from eight matches, handed down to Paul Vaughan, who hosted the party, to one match for some of the attendees.
The NRL alleges that player Paul Vaughan invited players to a gathering at his home on Saturday 3 July which was attended by 12 teammates, in breach of NSW Public Health Orders and the Game’s biosecurity protocols. It’s alleged a number of players hid or fled the residence when NSW Police attended the home after complaints from neighbours.
It’s also alleged that a number of players gave or were involved in giving misleading information about the event during the NRL’s investigation into the breaches and that some of the players conspired to withhold key information from the NRL. The notices allege that all players involved knowingly breached the game’s biosecurity rules by attending the premeditated gathering. They were made aware of the game’s Biosecurity Protocols by the club and admit they knew they were breaching the game’s rules.
It has been very hot in New Zealand, which is not a great sign for the planet (but worth considering if you’re planning on travelling there now the bubble has reformed):
If you missed it yesterday, US president Joe Biden, speaking at a White House party marking the Fourth of July, urged Americans to get vaccinated to stave off a rise in cases of the coronavirus Delta variant, describing it as the patriotic thing to do.
“Think back to where this nation was a year ago,” the president said in a speech on the theme of “Independence Day and independence from Covid-19”.
Andrew Sparrow has launched his UK live blog for the day with this opening:
In September last year, announcing his winter economy plan, Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, gave a speech saying the country had to start getting back to normal because it could not live with restrictions forever. “We must learn to live with it [coronavirus] and live without fear,” he said. With its implied refusal to defer to the ‘health and safety’ science lobby, its worldly realism about risk and its focus on the interests of the economy, the speech delighted Conservative MPs.
Unfortunately, it turned out to be premature. There were two more lockdowns to come. But this afternoon Boris Johnson is essentially going to resurrect Sunak’s message from last autumn when he explains what the government wants to happen in England from 19 July, the date set for the final lifting of restrictions.
Speaking at a White House party marking the Fourth of July, Joe Biden urged Americans to get vaccinated to stave off a rise in cases of the coronavirus Delta variant. 'Think back to where this nation was a year ago,' the president said in a speech on the theme of 'Independence Day and independence from Covid-19'. The Biden administration has missed its aim of having 70% of adult Americans with at least one shot by the holiday weekend
There are signs of renewal in a city that has weathered crisis after crisis, but what its future looks like remains an open question
For most of the past year, Manhattan’s signature yellow cabs have been a rarity on the avenues and cross-streets. Now, as the city picks up and office workers begin to return, they too are returning – but not yet on a pre-pandemic scale. At the same time, the city is gridlocked by traffic.
A patchwork of indicators suggest the recovery from a pandemic that hit hard and early, caused close to 30,000 deaths out of a 8.4-million population and placed the metropolis in an economic deep-freeze will be similarly uneven.
Parked outside an espresso bar on Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz junction, Maximilian Fritzsch’s mobile coronavirus testing unit aims for similar speed of service as an on-the-go shot of caffeine. Working from the back of a cargo e-bike, staff in lab coats take a quick swab from the nostrils of stressed commuters, who usually receive the result in their inboxes within 15 minutes.
“It is a bit physically intrusive”, said office worker Luisa Larsen, 42, as she impatiently checked her smartphone for the test result. “But then again it’s free, and it feels like the responsible thing to do.”
With the lifting of coronavirus restrictions in England probably two weeks away, the prospect of returning to offices means the revival of the daily commute.
In a push to bring back more people to town and city centres to boost the urban economy, a group of 50 business leaders, including the Canary Wharf executive chair, Sir George Iacobescu, the bosses of Heathrow and Gatwick airports, the Capita chief executive, Jon Lewis, and the BT chief executive, Philip Jansen, are calling for the government to encourage a return to the office.
Transport for London (TfL) has recorded a £100m plunge in advertising revenue across its network of tube stations, trains and buses after Covid-19 pandemic restrictions kept commuters away from travelling to work.
TfL’s advertising estate – which comprises more than 100,000 billboards, posters and panels throughout the capital’s tube and rail network, in trains and on buses and shelters – is one of the largest and most valuable in the world.
Boris Johnson is to announce that the lifting of most remaining Covid-19 restrictions in England will go ahead on 19 July amid a backlash from government scientific advisers who have warned that doing so would be like building new “variant factories”.
Despite cases having risen to their highest level since January 2021, the prime minister is set to press ahead with the final stage of unlocking in two weeks.
Experts are urging greater vaccination coverage and action over ventilation in public spaces before lifting restrictions
For months, the prime minister has repeated the mantra that further easing of Covid-19 restrictions would be about “data and not dates”. Yet, as coronavirus cases in the UK continue to surge, and scientists warn that fully reopening society risks building “variant factories” in our own back yard, the government appears poised to put one date – 19 July – ahead of everything else. Once again, politics has trumped science.
Since Sajid Javid’s appointment as health secretary on 26 June, the UK has confirmed a further 188,538 coronavirus cases, with approximately 25,000 extra people testing positive each day. On Sunday, Javid said that the best way to protect the nation’s health was by lifting the main Covid-19 restrictions, even though this would result in a further significant increase in cases. “We are going to have to learn to accept the existence of Covid and find ways to cope with it – just as we already do with flu,” he said.
International airlines claim they could be forced to suspend services to Australia from next week after national cabinet agreed to halve the number of people allowed to enter the country – and they say any suggestion of price gouging is “insulting and bizarre”.
From 14 July, overseas arrivals will be slashed from 6,070 to 3,035 a week – crushing the hopes of thousands of Australians stuck overseas and looking to get home.
Two residents of SummitCare home at Baulkham Hills taken to hospital as a precaution and facility is in lockdown; Queensland records one new local case. Follow live
Police have recovered the bodies of three fishermen and their upturned boat near Wollongong south of Sydney.
Relatives raised the alarm about 6am on Sunday after the trio set off from the Bellambi boat ramp in Wollongong about 2pm the previous day.
Tasmanian’s opposition leader, David O’Byrne, has announced he’s quitting as Labor leader, with the ALP investigating allegations he sexually harassed a woman more than a decade ago.
O’Byrne announced he was resigning on Sunday and said while he would remain in parliament as the member for Franklin, he would not seek or accept a position in the shadow cabinet.