Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Here’s some video from earlier today of prime minister Scott Morrison being asked by Guardian Australia’s Daniel Hurst about his position towards AstraZeneca:
The latest edition of Weekly Beast covers Chris Kenny doing a Peta Credlin, among other things:
Reuters has more on the story from earlier (see 20:24) that at least 26,000 doses of expired Covid jabs were used in Brazil.
Cities and regions have denied giving out the jabs, with one, the southern city of Maringá saying the out-of-date jabs only appeared on public databases due to delays in them being registered on the health ministry’s system.
In its latest global vaccination distribution, the US will donate 4 million doses of the Moderna Covid jab to Indonesia.
According to Reuters, the US national security adviser Jake Sullivan confirmed the news to the Indonesian foreign minister in a call earlier on Friday.
When will life go back to normal? When can Australians fly overseas? How soon will lockdowns become a thing of the past? Here’s what we know about the national pandemic exit plan
Scott Morrison has revealed the triggers for moving to the next two phases of Australia’s opening-up plan, aimed at reducing the reliance on lockdowns and increasing freedom for vaccinated international travellers.
But the moves are conditional on dramatic increases in Covid-19 vaccination rates and the timing remains up in the air. Morrison declared there was an “in principle” agreement at a national cabinet meeting on Friday but at least one state leader subsequently warned that lockdowns may still be necessary in later phases. Here is a rundown of the latest version of the reopening plan.
Indonesia is tripling its oxygen supplies to hospitals as data suggests the Delta variant of coronavirus is now driving the country’s worsening outbreak, accounting for more than 60% of recent cases.
Indonesia’s health minister, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, told the Guardian that three-quarters of the national oxygen production used for industry would be redeployed to hospitals for the next two weeks.
For a while Australia seemed to be on top of Covid-19, but we have lost our way – and an ideology is to blame
Has Australia lost the plot? It’s the question many of us are asking. Our pandemic response, for so long admired as world-leading, is rapidly unravelling before our eyes. And as a nation, it feels like we are unravelling too.
Our tempers are frayed, our patience thin. We all want someone to blame. We’ve become a nation divided: by politics, by state, by age, even by vaccine.
Boris Johnson is to welcome Angela Merkel to Chequers on Friday, with coronavirus travel restrictions anticipated to be high on the agenda for their meeting.
The German chancellor, who is making her final visit to the UK before stepping down, has called for quarantine for all UK travellers entering the EU, regardless of whether they have been vaccinated, due to concerns over the Delta variant.
Germany has already designated the UK a “virus variant region”, meaning anyone travelling from the UK has to quarantine for two weeks on arrival – excluding those in transit.
Ending the furlough scheme too early could damage the recovery and push unemployment higher, trade unions warned as official figures showed the number of workers on the scheme in May fell at a slower rate than expected to 2.4 million employees.
Without an extension of furlough or extra support for the hardest-hit industries, the bounce back on economic activity could be choked off, unions said.
Authorities and health experts in Spain have called for prudence and responsibility amid a surge in cases among young people who are still waiting to be vaccinated after more than 1,000 Covid cases across the country were traced back to an end-of-year school trip to Mallorca.
Although more than a third of Spain’s 47 million people have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, case numbers have been rising over recent days – most notably among younger people still waiting to get their shots.
German interior minister Horst Seehofer has described as “absolutely irresponsible” Uefa’s decision to hold the Euro 2020 semifinals and finals in the UK due to the prevalence of the Delta variant.
“I suspect that once again it’s all about commercial [interests],” Horst Seehofer told reporters in Berlin, according to the FT. “But commercial interests should not override the need to protect people from infections.”
Italy’s justice minister Marta Cartabia has ordered a report into conditions in the country’s prisons after the release of video footage showing guards brutally beating inmates at a jail near Naples who had demanded better coronavirus protections.
New Covid cases in the World Health Organization’s 53-country European region rose 10% last week after falling for 10 straight weeks, the body has said, warning of a possible new surge before autumn and calling for more monitoring of Euro 2020 matches.
Infection numbers continue to fall in many parts of the region, including the EU, but Katy Smallwood, WHO Europe’s senior emergencies manager, said some – such as Russia – were recording their highest daily death tolls of the pandemic.
Cross-party group writes to Ursula von der Leyen over fraud, corruption and LGBTQ+ rights concerns
The European Commission is being urged to reject a coronavirus recovery plan for Hungary over concerns about fraud, corruption and the country’s stance on LGBTQ+ rights.
A cross-party group of left and liberal MEPs have written to the Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, demanding she send the Hungarian government back to the drawing board over its spending plans for a €7.2bn (£6.19bn) coronavirus recovery grant.
New South Wales recorded 24 new cases of Covid, including an aged care worker believed to be unvaccinated and a second healthcare worker, as the state’s coronavirus outbreak rose to 195.
The premier, Gladys Berejiklian, expressed concern that “around half” of the new cases on Thursday were out in the community while infectious and urged anyone with symptoms to get tested and isolate.
Analysis: leader’s talk of huge crisis, despite no admission of Covid cases, comes amid concerns over health infrastructure and food shortages
Almost 18 months after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, North Korea has come close to conceding that its attempts to keep the virus from its borders have failed.
While North Korea’s state-controlled media have not reported any cases, some analysts assume the virus has breached the country’s defences, prompting its leader, Kim Jong-un, to issue a coded request for outside help this week.
Bulk of Pfizer and other mRNA vaccines expected to arrive in third quarter of this year, despite widespread lockdowns
Australia’s finance minister has said the country is at the “back of the queue” for Pfizer vaccines, contradicting assurances from the prime minister Scott Morrison and the health minister that “our strategy puts Australia at the front of the queue”.
Simon Birmingham on Thursday said Australia has had supply challenges “because European countries and drug companies have favoured those nations who’ve had high rates of Covid for the delivery of vaccines like Pfizer”.
Gladys Berejiklian says half of new cases were active in the community while infectious; Simon Birmingham admits Australia is ‘back of the queue’ for Pfizer vaccines; Atagi co-chair says AstraZeneca should only be used by under-40s in ‘pressing’ circumstances; Follow latest updates
Ahead of the daily health press conference in Victoria, premier Daniel Andrews has said he is “determined” to avoid another lockdown in the state, and part of that will be arguing in national cabinet on Friday for a reduction in the number of people able to return through hotel quarantine.
He repeated that it was better to lock out a small number of people than lock down whole cities or states, particularly while Victoria will not have a dedicated quarantine facility up and running in Mickleham until January.
Talk to your doctor, talk to your pharmacist. They’re the people to talk to, because whether it’s Atagi or others, there can be very broad statements made. Safety is always a concern – they are risk averse, they need to be. But everyone’s individual circumstances are different, and many people come to this question of ‘should I, shouldn’t I’ when, what vaccine with pre-existing conditions, with all sorts of other issues. So the best thing to do is not to be getting your epidemiological or your vaccination advice from politicians.
Talk to your GP, that’s what I would ask Victorians to do.
NSW police commissioner Mick Fuller is up now:
In the last 24 hours, 65 personnel infringement notices were issued. One of those of concern was a hairdresser in Auburn in the shopping area of Auburn.
In the last 24 hours, 65 personnel infringement notices were issued. One of those of concern was a hairdresser in Auburn in the shopping area of Auburn.
What police will be doing is matching our taskings to those areas and places of concern on the health website, but in particular today I want to send a very clear message that we will double our efforts in terms of visibility and compliance in south-western Sydney, in particular, around that Auburn, Bankstown area, in those shopping areas, the central business areas, and also back to the eastern suburbs as well. The message is quite clear – police continue to be visible in the community, on public transport. We are stopping and proposing many people and, again, it is just disappointing that infringements continue to be issued.
Lewis Hughes, 24, apologises for ‘any upset caused’ after video of incident in London went viral
A man who was called a “thug” by Boris Johnson after being filmed accosting Prof Chris Whitty has apologised for “any upset I caused”.
Lewis Hughes, 24, said if he made England’s chief medical officer feel “uncomfortable”, then “I am sorry to him for that”. He said he had lost his job as a result of the video.
Senior scientists have called for the UK to expand its official list of Covid symptoms to reduce the number of missed cases and ensure more people know they should self-isolate.
The researchers, who include Prof Calum Semple, a member of the government’s Sage committee of experts, argue the UK’s narrow clinical definition of Covid leads to delays in identifying people with the disease and may miss them altogether, hampering efforts to disrupt the spread of the virus.
The cost to the global economy of the tourism freeze caused by Covid-19 could reach $4tn (£2.9tn) by the end of this year, a UN body has said, with the varying pace of vaccine rollouts expected to cost developing nations and tourist centres particularly dear.
Nations including Turkey and Ecuador will be among the hardest hit by the severe disruption to international tourism, with holiday favourites such as Spain, Greece and Portugal also badly affected. Pandemic-related losses have reached up to $2.4tn this year, according to a report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad). The potential lost tourism-related income in 2021 is equivalent to the effect of switching off 85% of the UK economy, while projected losses over 2020 and 2021 could equate to removing Germany from the global economy for two years.
Vladimir Putin has for the first time said that he was inoculated with Russia’s own Sputnik V vaccine as he gave a careful endorsement of the country’s floundering campaign while distancing himself from tough new measures designed to pressure more Russians into taking the jabs.
Putin has cut a mercurial figure during the pandemic, intrepidly donning a medical suit to visit a coronavirus hospital last March and then shunning public events for months, prompting ridicule that he was sheltering in a “bunker”.
Generation Equality Forum in Paris announces plans to radically speed up progress on women’s rights
Billions of pounds will be pledged to support efforts to tackle gender inequality this week at the largest international conference on women’s rights in more than 25 years.
The Generation Equality Forum, hosted in Paris by UN Women and the governments of France and Mexico, will launch plans to radically speed up progress over the next five years.