Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
For the past 17 months, Saurav Dutt has had to watch from afar as relatives were lost to Covid, ancestral homes were damaged by a typhoon, and the mental toll of isolation, grief and illness led elders to question their very existence.
He had flights booked for May, but with cases soaring and India on the UK’s travel red list from 23 April, that is no longer an option. “It’s a very worrying time,” Dutt said. “You would think there are a million ways to help from over here, but we’re handcuffed. To deal with these things we need to be there.”
EU capitals have been asked by the European commission to back legal action against AstraZeneca by the end of the week over an alleged breach of its contractual obligations to supply member states with its Covid vaccine.
At a meeting with commission officials on Wednesday, diplomats from some member states raised concerns about the wisdom of the move, warning against rushing into a decision that might further undermine confidence in the vaccine.
EU member states are starting to administer Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine after Europe’s drug regulator this week backed the single-dose shot, with several expected to impose age restrictions, as with the AstraZeneca jab.
Spain’s regional health authorities began using the shot on Thursday for people aged 70 to 79, two days after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced a possible link to a rare clotting disorder but stressed the shot’s benefits outweighed the risks.
The global vaccine-sharing initiative Covax has so far delivered about one in five of the Oxford/AstraZeneca doses it estimated would arrive in countries by May, according to a Guardian analysis, starkly illustrating the cost of export bans, hoarding and supply shortages for a scheme that represents a key lifeline for many in the developing world.
The organisations that run Covax had predicted countries would receive fewer vaccines than expected after the Indian government restricted exports from its largest manufacturer in response to a catastrophic second wave there, but the figures reveal the shortfall to be severe, leaving many governments scrambling to secure doses elsewhere.
Is it really true that only 32 vaccinated people have been hospitalised with Covid? People might have reason to think so after the claim circulated in the media on Wednesday. The story was prompted by a Telegraph “exclusive” that stated “just 32 vaccinated people” had been hospitalised “in recent months”, according to data described as “extraordinary”.
And it would be extraordinary, were it true. Sadly, the real number of people admitted to hospital even several weeks after receiving a shot of vaccine – the time it takes for the immune system to mount a good defence – will be many times higher.
The blindspots in India’s response to its second, devastating wave of coronavirus infections serve as a stark warning to other countries.
In retrospect it was clear that the figures for new infections that India was reporting in January and February were probably too good to be true, with a country of more than 1.3 billion people seeing its caseload drop from its first peak last year of over 100,000 cases a day to under 10,000.
After nearly two decades of fighting, Biden has declared that the war in Afghanistan is coming to an end. The President plans to officially close the chapter by the anniversary of Sept. 11 this year, the New York Times reports.
But, it still remains unclear what that means for 40 remaining detainees still imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay. Layers for two of the prisoners reportedly told federal judges this week that their clients could not be held after the war ends and filed motions for their release.
One of the detainees, Khalid Qassim, 44, is a Yemeni man who has been held without trial at Guantánamo for nearly 19 years; he was captured in late 2001 or early 2002 and is being held as a Qaeda trainee who “may have fought for the Taliban in or near Kabul and Bagram, Afghanistan, before fleeing to the Tora Bora mountains in late 2001.”
The other, an Afghan named Asadullah Haroon Gul, who is about 40, was captured in 2007 by Afghan forces and turned over to the United States military. A basis for holding him is his past affiliation with a militia that made peace with the Afghan government in 2017, essentially breaking with the Taliban.
The House has passed legislation to curb presidential power to institute travel bans like those Trump imposed to limit entry into the US from predominantly Muslim countries.
The National Origin-Based Antidiscrimination for Nonimmigrants Act (or the NO BAN Act), which prevents presidents from issuing future orders based on religion, requires bans to be temporary, and will give Congress more oversight, passed the house 218-208.
The Muslim Ban was always wrong, needless, and cruel and failed to live up to the requirements laid out by the Supreme Court. Religious bans have no place in our country or our laws and today, we are voting to make sure this never happens again. pic.twitter.com/njTtTEBuiU
Although the travel ban has been reversed, we must ensure that no future presidents abuse their power through executive action. That’s why I voted in support of the NO BAN Act. No president should have the authority to discriminate against migrants based on their religion.
At least 22 patients have died in a western Indian hospital after their oxygen supply was interrupted. The leak was plugged by the fire service within 15 minutes, but there was disruption in the Zakir Hussain Hospital in Nashik, a city in Maharashtra state, that is the worst-hit by the latest surge in coronavirus cases in India. Television showed images of people with empty oxygen cylinders crowding refilling facilities as they scrambled to save stricken relatives in hospital.
Hundred of Indians, including Delhi government administrators, have begged for help finding oxygen and other crucial medical supplies on social media as India reels from a devastating second wave of coronavirus, leading to caseloads growing by nearly 300,000 every day.
Faulty oxygen supplies at a western Indian hospital have killed more than 20 Covid-19 patients, adding to the country’s highest-ever daily death toll from the virus.
Australia’s glacially slow delivery of jabs derided as a ‘farce’, while in New Zealand only 4.5% of eligible people have been vaccinated
They were held up as Covid success stories, two countries at the bottom of the world that kept outbreaks under control and deaths low as the pandemic swept the rest of the globe.
Daily life in cities including Sydney and Auckland now feels largely back to pre-pandemic normal – restaurants are full, theatres are open, masks are scarce and offices are busy. A degree of international travel is also a reality thanks to the new “trans-Tasman travel bubble” – a two-way quarantine-free corridor between the neighbours.
More than a million new infections in four days, rampant oxygen shortages and the Indian capital, Delhi, awash with sirens: this is what happens when wildly infectious new variants hit a population that was no longer socially distancing, or never could.
The UAE announced on Wednesday it had given nearly 10 million vaccine doses, equal to one for every resident, after warning that those who remained unvaccinated would face restrictions on their movement, AFP reports.
The country has mounted an energetic coronavirus vaccination campaign for its citizens as well as the foreigners who make up the majority of the population.
Argentina is facing its “worst moment” of the pandemic, the country’s health minister said on Wednesday, as deaths from the virus neared 60,000 amid a sharp second wave that has forced the country to re-impose some lockdown measures.
Reuters reports that Carla Vizzotti warned the country’s healthcare system was at risk, especially in the metropolitan area around the capital BuenosAires, which had forced the government to restrict movement and suspend indoor activities.
It’s growing exponentially in most of the country.
State commits $50m to domestic manufacturing of cutting-edge vaccines; former Liberal staffer to ask Scott Morrison to fix ‘systemic coercive control’ in Parliament House. Follow live
That is where we will leave the blog for Wednesday. Thanks for following along. Here’s what made the news today:
The government has closed a loophole that would have allowed Australians to use New Zealand as a stepping stone to travelling to another country following the opening of the Trans Tasman travel bubble.
On Monday, health minister Greg Hunt amended the biosecurity legislation to specify that Australians could not go to any country other than New Zealand. Unlike Australia, New Zealand does not have an outbound travel ban.
Travellers should be aware that international travel to any other country, except New Zealand, continues to pose a significant risk to public health, and for that reason outgoing travel to other countries remains restricted.
“Australians considering travel outside of Australia or New Zealand are still required to apply for an exemption from the outgoing travel restrictions through ABF, and ensure they review the information available on Smartraveller relevant to their destination.”
Japan is poised to declare a state of emergency in Tokyo and two other regions amid a surge in coronavirus cases just three months before the start of the Olympic Games.
Domestic media said the government was considering tougher measures for Tokyo, Osaka prefecture and neighbouring Hyogo prefecture, as experts warned that mutant strains of the virus were driving new outbreaks and straining health services.
Lockdown revolutionised women’s access to home treatment – and strengthened the anti-abortion backlash
Kay, 34, realised her period was late a month into Britain’s lockdown. The coronavirus death count was spiralling across the country. Covid-19 was putting the NHS under unprecedented strain and Boris Johnson had given the British people what he described as “a very simple instruction” in an address to the nation from Downing Street: “You must stay at home.”
A worrying, unsettling time, and Kay, a mother of a six-year-old girl, needed to get hold of a pregnancy test kit. She went online and, two days later, took delivery of the test, learning of a positive result via two pink lines. It was the news she had dreaded.
A ‘double mutant’ strain, lack of medical supplies and the relaxation of lockdowns have combined to foment disaster
India has seen a terrifying increase in coronavirus cases in the past few weeks. Tuesday saw another new record when the country racked up 295,041 new cases, up from around 273,000 from the previous day, with no sign that the surge is abating.
The capital Delhi was placed in lockdown for a week from Monday, and Maharashtra state, the centre of the surge and home to the financial capital, Mumbai, further tightened restrictions on shops and home deliveries from Tuesday.
Indian authorities scrambled to shore up supplies of medical oxygen to hospitals in the capital, Delhi, on Wednesday as a fast-spreading second wave of coronavirus stretched medical infrastructure to breaking point, officials and doctors said.
India, the world’s second most populous country, is reporting the world’s highest number of new daily cases and is approaching a peak of about 297,000 cases in one day that the US hit in January.
Nearly six months after the first Covid-19 vaccines were approved for emergency use, Guardian analysis shows that the vast majority of the world is yet to see a substantial benefit.
Supply shortages, safety concerns, public apathy and slow rollouts have resulted in most countries still being reliant on onerous lockdowns and other quarantine measures to reduce the severity of their outbreaks.
Trying to downplay the risk of severe but rare clotting that appears to be associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine by comparing it with the clotting risk from taking the contraceptive pill, or to the chances of dying in a car crash, is unhelpful and likely ineffective in building vaccine confidence, an expert medical panel said.
Earlier in April the Australian Technical Advisory Group for Immunisation (Atagi) recommended those aged under 50 be offered an alternative to the AstraZeneca vaccine due to a small but potentially increased risk of developing a rare and severe clotting disorder following the vaccine in that age group.
Company blames dearth of new content and last year’s growth
Netflix reported a dramatic slowdown in subscribers in the first three months of 2021, ending a record run in growth during the coronavirus pandemic.
The streaming giant added 4 million new subscribers in the first quarter, 2 million fewer than its original estimate of 6 million and a quarter of the 8 million it added in the last three months of 2020. The company expects to add only about 1 million subscribers in the current quarter, which would be its slowest growth on record.