Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Germans are in the midst of holiday fever following the widespread relaxation of coronavirus restrictions at home and abroad, opening the prospect of travel again for a nation that considers the summer break to be a basic human right.
A considerable improvement week on week since May in the country’s virus incidence rate, which stood at 22 per 100,000 on Thursday, a 42% decrease on last week, a vaccine campaign that was slow to start but has picked up pace, and relaxations of rules in holiday destinations such as Mallorca, have prompted a boom in bookings.
The US Food and Drug Agency (FDA) has raised significant concerns about the rapid Covid test on which the UK government has based its multibillion-pound mass testing programme.
In a scathing review, the US health agency suggested the performance of the test had not been established, presenting a risk to health, and that the tests should be thrown in the bin or returned to the California-based manufacturer Innova.
More than 90% of Covid cases in the UK are now down to the coronavirus Delta variant first discovered in India, data has revealed, as the total number of confirmed cases passed 42,000.
Also known as B.1.617.2, the Delta variant has been linked to a rise in Covid cases in the UK in the past weeks. It is believed to spread more easily than the Alpha variant, B.1.1.7, that was first detected in Kent, and is somewhat more resistant to Covid vaccines, particularly after just one dose. It may be also associated with a greater risk of hospitalisation.
Father suspected of killing six-year-old and dumping body at sea, amid surge in domestic violence
Protests against gender-based violence are to be held across Spain after the discovery of the body of a six-year-old girl who is suspected to have been murdered by her father and dumped at sea.
A surge in domestic violence cases has coincided with the end of Spain’s state of emergency restrictions last month.
A flood evacuation warning has been re-issued for Traralgon in Victoria’s Gippsland region, reports AAP.
Anyone near the Traralgon Creek was being told early on Friday afternoon to evacuate now.
Andrew Grech, a partner at Gordon Legal, is on the ABC now responding to the federal court judgment on the robodebt class action.
I think for many people, there’s been a lack of accountability, both of the ministers involved and senior public servants involved.
We think that it’s important that, through the proper parliamentary processes and, if necessary, through a royal commission, that those questions be answered for people, so that they can actually have far more closure on all those issues.
The UK will donate 100m surplus coronavirus vaccine doses within the next year to low-income countries as part of at least 1bn doses due from the G7.
The US has promised to buy 500m Pfizer vaccines at a cost of $3bn for distribution to 100 poorer countries, with 200m to be distributed this year, in addition to releasing 80m of its surplus by the end of June.
Covid-19 infections, hospitalisations and deaths are falling fast across Europe, but the risk of a deadly autumn resurgence remains high as societies open up and the more transmissible Delta variant advances, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.
The warning came as new case numbers continued to plunge in most of the continent, falling in some areas to their lowest levels since August, and multiple governments, including France and Germany, relaxed restrictions further.
Ukraine has reiterated that it will not allow foreigners inoculated with the Russian Covid-19 vaccine Sputnik into the country if they do not also provide a negative test for the coronavirus
Reuters report that current border crossing rules require a negative Covid-19 test or documentary proof of receiving a vaccine approved by the World Health Organization.
Bulgaria plans to lift the compulsory wearing of face masks in gyms, hairdressing salons, small shops and offices where all workers are vaccinated as coronavirus infections decrease, a deputy health minister said.
“We have seen a drop in new infections and given the coming summer heat, we plan to take steps to ease the wearing of masks in some indoor spaces,” deputy minister Alexander Zlatanov told reporters.
A 52-year-old woman from NSW who died after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine is “likely” Australia’s second death from a rare and severe blood clotting syndrome linked to the Covid vaccine, Australia’s drugs regulator says.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration said on Thursday the woman had a severe form of the syndrome “with a blood clot in the brain known as a cerebral venous sinus thrombosis”.
UN warns that coronavirus crisis threatens to push millions more children into work
Child labour has risen for the first time in two decades and the coronavirus crisis threatens to push millions more youngsters towards the same fate, Unicef has said.
In a joint report, the International Labour Organization and the UN children’s agency say the number in child labour stood at 160 million at the start of 2020 – an increase of 8.4 million in four years.
Leaders at the G7 summit will call for a new, transparent investigation by the World Health Organization into the origins of the coronavirus, according to a leaked draft communique for the meeting.
The call was initiated by Joe Biden’s administration and follows the US president’s decision to expand the American investigation into the origins of the pandemic, with one intelligence agency leaning towards the theory that it escaped from a Wuhan laboratory.
Some of the UK’s biggest care home operators have told the Guardian they repeatedly warned Matt Hancock’s department about the risk of not testing people discharged from hospitals into care homes in March 2020.
Their claims are likely to increase pressure on the health secretary when he appears before MPs on Thursday to defend his handling of the Covid pandemic to a parliamentary inquiry.
Biden’s initiative aims to help vaccinate the world against Covid and to restore America’s global influence and soft power
The US has reached an agreement with Pfizer to buy 500m doses of their coronavirus vaccine to distribute to nearly 100 countries around the world, as the centrepiece of Joe Biden’s initiative to help vaccinate the world against Covid-19, according to US reports.
Germany’s health minister is facing calls to resign over accusations his ministry planned to distribute face masks considered inadequate protection against Covid-19 to socially and physically vulnerable people.
Jens Spahn was the subject of a fierce debate in the German parliament, the Bundestag, on Wednesday afternoon, in which he was accused of putting the desire to be seen to be acting to tackle the pandemic ahead of safety concerns.
Alongside coronavirus measures, huge security operation under way as thousands plan to join protests
Everybody from the most junior official to the president of the United States will have to follow the rules. Take daily Covid tests, wear masks at appropriate times and respect everything from one-way systems around venues to limits on how many people can gather around a table for a meal or drink.
Welcome to G7 UK 2021, the first world summit in the times of Covid.
Scientists are concerned that measures to combat Covid-19 have weakened the immune systems of young children who have not been able to build up resistance to common bugs, leaving them vulnerable when mask-wearing and social distancing eventually end.
Contact with viral pathogens happens on a fairly regular basis and although it does not always lead to sickness, the exposure helps shore the immune system against the threat should the bugs be encountered again.
A Nobel prize-winning US biologist, who has been widely quoted describing a “smoking gun” to support the thesis that Covid-19 was genetically modified and escaped from a Wuhan lab, has said he overstated the case.
David Baltimore, a distinguished biology professor, had become one of the most prominent figures cited by proponents of the so-called lab leak theory.
Travel to regional Victoria likely to be barred when lockdown ends Thursday midnight and federal wages support package to be cut off. Follow updates live
Khorshid is asked about the Victorian government’s response to the pandemic, and in particular the current lockdown.
He says:
The AMA has been supportive of the actions of the Victorian government. I think the public expects to be kept safe and this is what is necessary to be kept safe when we’re in an evolving situation. As information comes in, things become clearer, decisions become easier to make. I think the best thing for us all to do is support the advice that’s been given by the chief health officers around the country.
My colleague Paul Karp asked Omar Khorshid about the AMA’s concerns about the recent proposed changes to Medicare rebates.
He asked if the AMA’s concerns have been addressed and what he made of Labor’s warnings of a government assault on Medicare. Are we likely to see another “Mediscare campaign”?
I certainly hope we’re not going see a Mediscare campaign. The sad reality of Medicare is successive governments over the entire life of Medicare have failed to index it properly, and have therefore effectively cut Medicare for 30 years. This review that the AMA has supported was designed to modernise the MBS, and it has taken five years to do, we have a few quibbles and issues with how it was done, but at the end of the day the AMA is supportive of the review process and of most of the outcomes.
Comprising more than 200 colour photographs, Porch Diaries is a series by Melbourne-based photographer Alana Holmberg featuring portraits of neighbours, strangers, workers and loved ones who passed by her Brunswick home during the 2020 pandemic lockdown months in Melbourne. With the recent spike in cases, Melbourne was back in lockdown and Holmberg was back on the porch
30 March 2020
Some days I feel like a creep. My spot up here on the porch, partially obscured behind the lemon tree, kept vertical by a stake, and the row of spindly roses. Twice this morning my presence went undetected. A metre or so above the path, I sit on a worn-out couch with a worn-out laptop, my eyes flicking from screen to street and down to screen again. Who else will pass by today? Mara, my housemate’s dog, takes her usual position to my right, propped up on my thigh. We watch and we wait.