Category Archives: Coronavirus

Mental health patients ‘missed out on care’ during Covid

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Survey reveals remote consultations often felt inadequate and may have made symptoms worse

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    • Mental health patients found their conditions deteriorated during the pandemic because the NHS switched from in-person help to support by telephone, video and text messages, new research reveals.

    Many reported a lower quality of care, according to a study by University College London; others had trouble accessing medication, had appointments cancelled or felt the loss of face-to-face help meant they “were missing out on care”.

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    Seeking fun guy: tall, with GSOH … and a Covid jab

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    For many who use dating apps to find their ideal partner, the willingness to have a vaccination is becoming a deal breaker

    Before the pandemic, Neha knew exactly what she was looking for in a date: an athletic, liberal-minded guy who liked healthy living but wasn’t too outdoorsy. Ideally, he would be Indian like her. Party types were a no-no, pets were a turn-off. Now, multiple dating apps, three lockdowns and a handful of real-life dates later and Neha’s adding a new, elusive quality to that list: Covid vaccination status.

    Related: Dating apps: is it worth paying a premium to find love?

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    US states resume Johnson & Johnson vaccine in push to end Covid ‘nightmare’

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    Indiana, New York, Virginia, Missouri and Michigan among states ordering or recommending resumption after US officials lift pause

    Seeking in the words of one governor to put “the long Covid nightmare behind us”, several US states on Saturday resumed use of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine.

    Related: ‘No data’ linking Covid vaccines to menstrual changes, US experts say

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    Coronavirus live news: more than half of UK population has had first Covid jab; Germany restricts travel from India

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    Parts of western Australia in three-day lockdown; Germany reports 23,392 Covid cases; Thailand curbs shop opening hours after daily case record

    France has reported 32,633 new coronavirus cases, Reuters reports.

    The country has recorded over 5.44 million cases in total.

    Angela Merkel has urged Germans to accept nationwide pandemic restrictions that took effect at midnight, resulting in a 10 p.m.-to-5 a.m. curfew and further limits on personal contacts and access to nonessential stores in regions with high infections.

    Merkel acknowledged the new rules are “tough” but insisted they are needed to curb the spread of the virus in the country, Associated Press reports.

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    Mallorca man arrested for infecting 22 people with Covid

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    Police arrest man on suspicion of assault for going to work and the gym despite signs he had the virus

    A Mallorca man who infected 22 people with Covid-19 has been arrested on suspicion of assault for going to work and the gym despite signs he had the virus, police have said.

    Officers on the Spanish island began investigating at the end of January after an outbreak in the town of Manacor, following reports an employee had “become infected but hidden his illness”, a statement said on Saturday.

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    India’s daily Covid death toll hits new record amid oxygen shortages

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    Authorities battle to get oxygen supplies to hospitals overwhelmed by hundreds of thousands of new cases

    India’s daily coronavirus death toll passed a new record Saturday as the government battled to get oxygen supplies to hospitals overwhelmed by the hundreds of thousands of new daily cases.

    Queues of Covid-19 patients and their fearful relatives are building up outside hospitals in major cities across India, the new world pandemic hotspot, which has reported nearly a million new cases in three days.

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    Western Australia Covid lockdown: new case confirmed as hotel quarantine failures condemned

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    Australian Medical Association president Dr Omar Khorshid says state governments are not doing enough to protect those in quarantine from coronavirus

    Continued leaks from hotel quarantine are “a frustration to all Australians” and state governments are not doing enough to prevent it, the president of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Omar Khorshid, has said, while the Western Australian premier called on the federal government to “step up and help”.

    Authorities revealed one new community case was detected on Saturday – a man in his 40s – as WA’s Perth and Peel region began a snap three-day lockdown after the latest hotel quarantine outbreak. The virus spread in the corridors of the Mercure quarantine hotel in Perth, infecting a man who was staying adjacent to a couple with the virus who had returned from India.

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    ‘We’re the poo crew’: sleuths test for Covid by reading signs in sewage

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    Scientists in Exeter are identifying Covid through human faeces – this could be be expanded to monitor other diseases

    They call themselves the “poo crew” – a team of health detectives who are tracking down and heading off Covid outbreaks by reading the signs in our sewage. And they are expanding. Earlier this month, the Environmental Monitoring for Health Protection Programme opened a purpose-built laboratory on the fringes of Exeter, its sterile interior in stark contrast to the unsanitary subject of its investigations.

    The opening of the laboratory marks a dramatic expansion of what was, until less than a year ago, just a soil pipe dream: testing sewage for coronavirus to understand where it is circulating and get an early warning of future potential spikes in infection. In the future, this network could be expanded to monitor other infectious diseases including flu.

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    Yemen, Myanmar and George Floyd: human rights this fortnight in pictures

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    A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Cambodia to Peru

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    Fears Covid anxiety syndrome could stop people reintegrating

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    Exclusive: compulsive hygiene habits and fear of public places could remain for some after lockdown lifted, researchers say

    Scientists have expressed concern that residual anxiety over coronavirus may have led some people to develop compulsive hygiene habits that could prevent them from reintegrating into the outside world, even though Covid hospitalisations and deaths in the UK are coming down.

    The concept of “Covid anxiety syndrome” was first theorised by professors last year, when Ana Nikčević, of Kingston University, and Marcantonio Spada, at London South Bank University, noticed people were developing a particular set of traits in response to Covid.

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    US lifts pause on Johnson & Johnson vaccine after advisers say benefits outweigh risk

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    The vaccine was temporarily halted while scientists investigated rare but dangerous blood clots

    US health officials have lifted an 11-day pause on Johnson & Johnson vaccinations following a recommendation by an expert panel. Advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday the benefits of the single-dose Covid-19 shot outweigh a rare risk of blood clots.

    Panel members said it is critical that younger women be told about that risk so they can decide if they’d rather choose another vaccine. The CDC and Food and Drug Administration agreed. European regulators earlier this week made a similar decision, deciding the clot risk was small enough to allow the rollout of Johnson & Johnson’s shot.

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    India Covid crisis: families’ plea for help amid oxygen shortages and mass cremations – video report

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    India's underfunded health system is on the brink of collapse as the world's worst coronavirus surge wears out the nation. This week the number of recorded cases passed 300,000 a day, along with more than 2,000 deaths - which is close to twice the daily deaths India experienced during the first peak of the virus between July and September 2020.

    Hospitals in Delhi have now issued SOS alerts on Friday, saying they had only a few hours’ supply of oxygen left and pleading for government help, while social media was flooded with requests for oxygen cylinders, shared by people seeking urgent care for their relatives.

    India, the world's second most populous nation, has confirmed 16 million cases so far, second only to the US. The country's real death toll from the virus is thought to be significantly higher than official figures, amid reports of some state governments fudging data, and crematorium equipment in some states melting due to the constant heat of fires burning day and night.

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    Rural doctors braced for ‘devastating’ second wave as India’s workers flee cities

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    As Covid cases spike, countryside physicians say hospital space is scarce while most infections go unreported

    Scenes of migrant workers massing at bus and train stations, fleeing lockdowns in Indian cities for their villages, are ominous to doctors in the country’s hinterlands.

    They know that many of those in the crowds will be returning with Covid-19 strains that are ravaging urban India, leading to record numbers of daily infections this week and the country’s highest daily death tolls since the virus emerged. In parts of rural West Bengal state, where politicians were holding mass election rallies until late this week, the surge has already started.

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    Latin America’s lack of a united front on Covid has had disastrous consequences | Andre Pagliarini

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    The regional coordination of the pink tide era has given way to various governments, left and right, going it alone

    A terse report filed from São Paulo, Brazil, appeared in the 17 March 1919 edition of the New York Times. It read: “Influenza again has appeared here in epidemic form. The Government is taking steps to prevent the spread of the disease.” Just over one hundred years later, faced with another pandemic, the Brazilian government has taken a different approach. President Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right extremist elected in 2018, has repeatedly downplayed the coronavirus, urging citizens to suck it up and get back to work so that the economy can once again get moving.

    The president has frequently appeared in public places without a mask, stopping to greet supporters, creating potential super-spreader events as a matter of course. Bolsonaro’s recklessness has had terrible consequences: Latin America’s largest nation has been ravaged by the pandemic, with more than 13m cases.

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    Brazil’s ‘rapid and violent’ Covid variant devastates Latin America

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    Expert says global leaders must not ignore Brazil, which is ‘brewing variants left, right and centre’

    As a coronavirus variant traced to the Brazilian Amazon marauded through Peru’s coastal capital last month, Rommel Heredia raced to his local hospital to seek help for his brother, mother and father.

    “I said goodbye and promised I’d come back to take them home,” said the 47-year-old PE teacher, his voice muffled by two black masks pulled tightly over his face.

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    Australian authorities say three new cases of blood clots ‘very likely linked’ to AstraZeneca vaccine

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    The Therapeutic Goods Administration says the patients, including an 80-year-old man, are all in a stable condition and recovering

    Australian health authorities say another three cases of rare blood clots – including in an 80-year-old Victorian man – are very likely linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine.

    The medicines regulator on Friday night said the suspected cases of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) were in a 35-year-old New South Wales woman, a 49-year-old Queensland man and the 80-year-old.

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    UK scientists find evidence of human-to-cat Covid transmission

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    Researchers in Glasgow find two cases where cats were infected by owners with coronavirus symptoms

    Two cases of human-to-cat transmission of Covid-19 have been identified by researchers. Scientists from the University of Glasgow found the cases of Sars-CoV-2 transmission as part of a screening programme of the feline population in the UK.

    The cats, of different breeds, were living in separate households and displayed mild to severe respiratory signs. Researchers believe both pets were infected by their owners, who had Covid-19 symptoms before the cats became unwell.

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    Everest Covid cases shine harsh light on Nepalese decision to open mountain

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    Norwegian climber airlifted from mountain while Sherpa reported to have also tested positive

    The first cases of Covid-19 have been identified at Everest base camp, renewing the controversy over the decision by Nepal to open the world’s highest mountain to climbers.

    With access from the Chinese side of Everest closed to outside climbers, and some expedition operators on the Nepalese side increasing prices, the Nepalese decision in the midst of a global pandemic has come under scrutiny.

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    Perth to enter snap three-day lockdown after Covid spreads from hotel quarantine into community

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    WA premier Mark McGowan announces restrictions after Victorian man, who contracted coronavirus at the Mercure in Perth, infected a friend

    Perth and Peel will enter a snap three-day lockdown from midnight Friday after a Victorian man, who tested positive to Covid-19, spent five days in the community while infectious after leaving hotel quarantine.

    The Western Australian premier, Mark McGowan, announced the lockdown – which will remain in place until midnight Monday – after a close contact of the Victorian man also tested positive.

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    Japan to declare targeted state of emergency as Covid cases surge

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    Yoshihide Suga under pressure to act after sharp rise in infections in Tokyo, only months before Olympics

    Japan is hoping that a short blast of tough coronavirus measures will halt a recent surge in coronavirus cases, with the prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, poised to announce a targeted state of emergency for Tokyo, Osaka and two other prefectures, just three months before the Tokyo Olympics.

    Suga has come under pressure to take action after a sharp rise in infections in the capital, and evidence that new variants of the virus are driving serious outbreaks in Osaka and the two neighbouring prefectures of Hyogo and Kyoto.

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