Authorities accuse partygoers of throwing Molotov cocktails, metal balls and bits of breeze blocks at officers, who fired teargas to break up party
French police clashed for hours with partygoers at a 1,500-strong illegal rave over the weekend, with one partygoer losing a hand and five officers injured.
Local official Emmanuel Berthier said partygoers threw “Molotov cocktails, metal balls and bits of breeze blocks” at officers during “very violent clashes” in western France.
Continue reading...Mexico City had reduced restrictions only two weeks ago; US says 317,117,797 Covid vaccines have been administered
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) will suspend travellers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Namibia from entering the country on national and foreign flights, effective from 23.59 on 21 June, Reuters reports.
Restrictions would also include transit passengers, with the exception of transit flights travelling to the UAE and bound for those countries.
Continue reading...Teachers say plans by Australian universities to boost in-person classes while keeping online options will greatly increase their workload
Staff at Australian universities say plans to “ramp up” in-person learning next semester while continuing to offer the majority of online classes means they will do twice the amount of work for the same pay.
While staff and students have both welcomed the gradual return to face-to-face classes, teachers say that job cuts and pay cuts, combined with new demands for online classes, are “not sustainable”.
Continue reading...Country’s death toll nears 500,000 as opposition to the president grows and vaccination rates remain low
Thousands of Brazilians returned to the streets on Saturday in protest against the response of Jair Bolsonaro’s administration to a pandemic that has killed close on half a million people in the country – the most after the United States.
On the second day of demonstrations in less than a month, the anti-Bolsonaro mobilisation is gaining momentum amid an ascendant curve of Covid-19 infections, while only 11% of 212 million Brazilians have been fully vaccinated, according to local media.
Continue reading...Tens of thousands turn up to grounds of West Ham, Spurs and others, as young people are urged to get jabs
Londoners received tens of thousands of Covid jabs in just a few hours on Saturday as football grounds in the capital were transformed into mass vaccination centres.
Huge jab clinics have been set up at the London Stadium, Stamford Bridge, the Tottenham Hotspur stadium, the Valley, home of Charlton Athletic, and Selhurst Park.
Continue reading...We look at the drug firms – led by Pfizer and Moderna – that are set to profit most in an unprecedented global vaccination drive
Drugmakers led by US firms Pfizer and Moderna stand to make tens of billions of dollars from their Covid-19 vaccines this year and next, given G7 governments’ pledge to vaccinate the entire world by the end of 2022, but sales are likely to drop sharply thereafter, according to analysts.
Acclaimed for allowing a return to more normal life, Covid vaccines will also substantially benefit some pharmaceutical companies. The global market for the vaccines is worth $70bn (£50bn) this year, says Karen Andersen of Morningstar.
Continue reading...More supplies and vaccination centres have put France, Italy and Germany back on track in battle against coronavirus
On Friday morning, Leyla Çelik woke up with butterflies in her stomach. For weeks, the 22-year-old student at Berlin’s Freie Universität had tried in vain to get an appointment for her first Covid-19 vaccine shot so she could volunteer as a polling station administrator at federal elections in September. “I’d basically given up hope.”
But last week her university had suddenly got in touch via email, offering her a chance to get a first dose of Moderna vaccine on campus, and within a few days. By 9am on Friday, the anxiety has turned into euphoria: “It’s such a relief,” said the native Berliner, nursing her achey shoulder at Freie’s biology institute, converted into a vaccine delivery point as of this week. “At last I can catch a train or a bus without feeling anxious.”
Continue reading...Prof Adam Finn’s comments come after PHE reported 79% rise in number of Delta variant cases in just one week
A government scientific adviser has said a third wave of the coronavirus pandemic is “definitely under way” as the vaccine programme races to outpace the Delta variant’s spread across the UK.
It comes after Public Health England reported a 79% rise in the number of cases of the variant first identified in India in a week. Hospital admissions have almost doubled.
Continue reading...‘Fleeting contact’ spurs decision to introduce mask mandate but no other restrictions in place yet
New South Wales reported three cases of Covid-19 on Saturday, taking the total associated with the Bondi outbreak to six.
Two previously unreported cases were announced, including a woman in her 40s from the eastern suburbs who visited a number of venues in Westfield Bondi Junction. The second case, reported overnight, is a man in his 30s who lives in Sydney and also visited Westfield Bondi Junction.
Continue reading...Understanding the connection between humans, animals and the environment is key to planning for future pandemics, experts warn
In late 2019, Kirby Institute virologist Prof Stuart Turville was looking for another job.
“The funding rates were too low to survive,” he says.
Continue reading...But Brussels court says AstraZeneca should have used UK plants in the past to fulfil EU deliveries
The EU has failed in a legal attempt to secure an urgent 120m vaccine doses from AstraZeneca by the end of this month, while securing a judgment that sites in Oxford and Staffordshire should have been used in the past to make good on deliveries.
The court of first instance in Brussels ordered the Anglo-Swedish company to deliver just 10m more than it has already provided by the end of September, and make “best efforts”, including potentially the use of UK facilities, to provide the further 220m jabs to which it is contractually committed.
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– Joan E Greve and Maanvi Singh
The history of the race massacre in Elaine, Arkansas, has always been contested.
It is widely accepted that in 1919, a group of white men, with the backing of federal troops, tortured and killed scores of Black residents – the exact number is disputed but assumed to number at least in the hundreds – who were starting to organize against the exploitation of their labor. The massacre came at the tail end of what would become known as the “red summer”, a season of racial terror fueled by white resentment of the strides Black people were making across the country.
Related: ‘We want our land back’: for descendants of the Elaine massacre, history is far from settled
Continue reading...WHO expert says Delta variant becoming dominant because of its increased transmissibility as underreporting in Africa means case levels are worrying
The EU has lost its attempt to require AstraZeneca to deliver fewer Covid-19 vaccines to the European Union, Reuters reports.
Reuters reports:
AstraZeneca said that the EU had lost its legal case, but European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the court ruling supported its view that the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical giant had failed to honour its commitments.
The row plunged the EU into crisis earlier this year as states scrambled for shots, highlighting the pressure on them to speed up vaccinations. Brussels has since largely cut ties with AstraZeneca, choosing not to buy any more of its shots for now.
Official data in Britain reported 10,476 new cases of Covid-19 on Friday and 11 deaths within 28 days of a positive test, Reuters reports.
The figures showed 42.5 million people had received their first vaccine dose and 30.9 million had received both shots.
Headteachers across the country have been forced to get inventive to recreate a sense of occasion
Headteacher Ben Davis bowed to the inevitable this week and wrote to all of his year-11 pupils and their families to inform them that the school prom – the now-fashionable highlight at the end of secondary school – had been postponed.
The hotel that was to have hosted the event contacted the school to say that in the light of the prime minister’s announcement on Monday that final Covid restrictions were to remain in place for another month, the prom could sadly no longer go ahead.
Continue reading...Nicola Sturgeon prohibits non-essential travel as Delta variant spreads through north of England
Nicola Sturgeon has imposed a travel ban between Scotland and Manchester and Salford as a result of rising Covid cases.
The restrictions, which will come into force from Monday, add to travel limits put in place last month as the Delta variant spread rapidly through the north of England.
Continue reading...Amid the heavily politicised debate, a lot of evidence now points to a natural spillover event – but other causes cannot be ruled out
The coronavirus pandemic has raised so many questions as it has continued its inexorable spread across the planet, but perhaps the first of them remains the most contentious: where did Sars-CoV-2 come from?
In recent weeks there has been renewed focus on whether it could have escaped from a Chinese laboratory. However, new findings strengthen the case for a natural origin, in what has become a heavily politicised debate.
Continue reading...Strained and underfunded health systems, economics and misinformation have all led to a surge in deaths
The cold, tired and desperate relatives camped outside the Barrio Obrero general hospital in Asunción don’t need charts or datasets to confirm what they can see with their own eyes.
As Paraguay records the world’s highest daily proportion of Covid deaths, the huddled families wait for news of their loved ones – and for the sudden requests for medicine and supplies that the country’s chronically underfunded health system cannot provide.
Continue reading...Exposure sites in Canberra after Sydney man who tested positive to coronavirus visits gallery. Follow updates live
Jeroen Weimar, the Victorian Covid commander, says Victoria has shifted its AstraZeneca vaccine appointments for 50-59 year olds to Pfizer in line with the new advice:
People who had a confirmed appointment forAstraZeneca, that will now be a Pfizer appointment and we have contacted them to make sure they are comfortable with that. I would urge anyone who has had their first dose of AstraZeneca to please come forward when your time is due for your second dose of AstraZeneca. We will continue to assess options with the commonwealth around the long-term implications for the program.
Greg Hunt will hold his press conference with Lieutenant General John Frewen at 1pm
Continue reading...Decision will be left in the hands of businesses following damaging headlines last summer
Workers will not be told by ministers that they should return to their offices when the final phase of lockdown restrictions are expected to be lifted next month, government sources have told the Guardian.
In a significant change of approach from last summer, the government is minded to let companies make their own decisions – a strategy that could lead to conflict and confusion among staff.
Continue reading...List will be reassessed by 28 June but sources do not expect rapid growth as Delta variant cases rise
Holidaymakers should not pin their hopes on a slew of extra countries being added to the quarantine-free green list when it is updated later this month, government sources have warned.
With ministers monitoring data daily on the spread of the Delta variant, after stage four of the reopening roadmap was postponed by a month to 19 July, Whitehall insiders say the mood remains extremely cautious.
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