Exhausted doctors warn sceptical patients that Covid is real as Port Moresby general reaches capacity
The emergency department of the largest hospital in the capital of Papua New Guinea is hot, stuffy and full. People sit lined up outside the front counter, waiting to be seen.
It has been divided into two sections: the front continues to operate as a traditional emergency room, while the back is now a Covid-19 isolation ward, treating the most serious cases of the virus.
Continue reading...Tussles over supplies could last months despite commitment in public to work together
Tussles with the EU over vaccine supplies could continue for months, UK government insiders fear, despite a joint statement in which both sides committed to working together.
From Boris Johnson’s phone calls to EU leaders to the foreign secretary Dominic Raab’s discreet lobbying on the fringes of this week’s Nato meeting, a significant amount of senior government time and energy is being invested in trying to resolve the issue.
Continue reading...The prime minister says the only way to restore a normal way of life is to beat Covid-19 and that 'the best path to freedom is down the cautious but irreversible roadmap that we've set out'. He also denies telling Tory MPs this week that the success of the vaccine programme was down to 'greed'
Continue reading...The monotony of lockdown life has starved us of spontaneity and serendipity, which enhance learning and memory
I hit a wall in late February and felt that life had taken on a quality of stultifying sameness. Was it Wednesday or Sunday? I couldn’t really tell: every day of the week felt identical because there was nothing to distinguish them. Work, read, exercise, eat, repeat. Like nearly everyone I know, I have settled into a state of dreary uniformity.
The pandemic has been a vast uncontrolled experiment – not just in social isolation, which is bad enough, but in the deprivation of novelty. Overnight we were stripped of our ability to roam around our world the way we usually do. Gone were the chance encounters with other people and the experience of new things and places: no travel, no adventures, no restaurants, no theatres, no crowds. We weren’t just quarantined from Covid: we were cut off from the ubiquitous stimulation of the unfamiliar and new.
Continue reading...The Covid vaccination programme has begun in the Gaza Strip amid daily power cuts, and supply and capacity problems in the health system. Dr Ayman Rahma is part of the team responsible for the distribution of vaccines. The territory has only received 62,000 doses so far for a population of more than 2 million. With Israel disputing that it bears responsibility for vaccinating Gazans or for letting vaccines enter Gaza, Rahma explains how the political situation is impacting the health sector
Continue reading...More sceptical member states hope ‘stick will never be used’ amid concerns over supply chain
EU leaders are likely to shy away from supporting the use of new powers to block Covid vaccine shipments to countries such as the UK with better jab coverage than the bloc, according to a draft statement ahead of a meeting of EU leaders today.
The European commission has increased its scope for blocking vaccine exports but disquiet among capitals is set to be reflected in a muted statement at the end of the virtual summit on Thursday evening.
Continue reading...As country reaches 300,000 fatalities, doctors condemn ‘politics of death’ but pledge to fight on
Like so many on Brazil’s left, Pedro Carvalho was certain Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency would prove a nightmare: for human rights, for the environment and for the national health system the 41-year-old doctor cherishes and serves.
“I felt this profound sadness, just utter, personal sadness,” Carvalho remembered of the fateful moment in October 2018 that the far-right populist was confirmed as his country’s new leader.
Continue reading...Schoolgirl’s fake cosmetics site helps hundreds of women as domestic violence rises during Covid
In April 2020, weeks after Poland went into its first Covid-19 lockdown, Krysia Paszko, a 17-year-old high school pupil, watched a TV report about Europe’s surge in domestic violence cases, which had increased by up to 60% on 2019, according to the World Health Organization. Poland’s largest women’s rights centre, Centrum Praw Kobiet (CPK), had reported a 50% increase in calls to its domestic violence hotline in March.
Learning from the report that France had implemented a scheme in pharmacies that women could use to report domestic violence using the codewords “Mask 19”, Paszko had an idea. With help from a graphic designer friend, she created a Facebook page for a fictitious cosmetics company.
Continue reading...Country’s oldest autocine is calling for exemption from 10pm rule so it can survive summer’s later sunsets
At 7.30 on Friday evening, Godzilla and King Kong are scheduled to converge on a large lot in eastern Spain to trade blows and bellows, rip fistfuls of fur and scales off each other and generally wreak CGI havoc for an appreciative, car-bound audience.
Their titanic sparring, however, could be short-lived. This weekend, the wading reptilian metaphor for atomic warfare and the conflicted, skyscraper-bothering ape could find themselves cowed by the setting sun, the changing of the clocks and the local coronavirus curfew.
Continue reading...Charge of $3,100 will have to be paid if a returnee leaves again within six months, instead of the previous three months
New Zealanders overseas have reacted with despair to news that the government has doubled the time returning citizens are required to stay to avoid paying a $3,100 quarantine fee.
The changes, announced on Wednesday, mean people coming home from overseas will need to stay six months, rather than the previous three, to be exempt from the fee – a move the government has said will help make the managed isolation system “more financially sustainable”.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson has told the EU that Europe would be the loser if it imposed a Covid vaccine blockade on Britain, as Brussels empowered officials to prohibit shipments to countries with a better record in vaccinating their population. The prime minister also discussed whether pubs should be allowed to set rules on vaccine passports as a condition of entry
Investigation is fresh sign of breakdown in relations between Brussels and Anglo-Swedish vaccine supplier
An AstraZeneca plant has come under investigation by the Italian police at the request of Brussels in a sign of the breakdown in relations between the Anglo-Swedish vaccine supplier and the EU.
Officers were sent into the facility in the town Anagni, east of Rome, on Saturday evening after the European commission contacted the Italian government with concerns.
Continue reading...No exports were made on Thursday; Belgium imposes fresh lockdown; Iceland imposes three-week shutdown; France locks down more areas
AstraZeneca has dismissed as “inaccurate” a report in the Italian press that 29m doses of its Covid-19 vaccine found in factory near Rome were destined for the UK.
La Stampa reported on Wednesday that the doses – almost twice the amount the EU has so far received from AstraZeneca – were found “hidden” in the factory following a search by Italian police on Saturday at the request of the European commission, and that they were probably destined for the UK.
Related: AstraZeneca dismisses claim 29m vaccine doses in Italy were bound for UK
Luxembourg has announced a partial reopening of its hospitality industry, with cafés and restaurants able to serve customers again in outdoor areas from 7 April.
The European country’s venues have been closed since the end of November.
Continue reading...Temporary hold put on exports of vaccines by Serum Institute of India to meet demand at home
Delhi has reportedly put a temporary hold on all major exports of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India (SII) to meet demand at home as infections surge.
The move, first reported by Reuters, will affect supplies to the Gavi/WHO-backed Covax vaccine-sharing facility through which more than 180 countries are expected to get doses, one of the sources said.
Continue reading...This week an investment bank announced Zoom-free Fridays – and they are far from the first to question the stress and fatigue that comes with 24/7 screen time
Name: Zoom refuseniks.
Age: One year old, give or take.
Continue reading...European commission revising export authorisation mechanism ‘to ensure vaccination of EU’
Britain has been singled out for failing to export Covid vaccines to the EU as Brussels empowered officials to prohibit shipments of doses to countries with a better vaccination coverage than within the bloc.
Valdis Dombrovskis, a European commission vice-president, said the commission was revising its export authorisation mechanism in order to “ensure vaccination of our own population”.
Continue reading...Taipei’s success shows lives might have been saved had the UK government acted differently
Along central Taipei’s busy Yongkang Street crowds spill out of restaurants and bars every evening, mingling with people queueing outside popular eateries for a tiny table to cram around with groups of friends. Children out way past their bedtime run amok over the play equipment in a nearby park, shrieking and laughing as their parents chat nearby.
In London, it would be unthinkable. In the Taiwanese capital, it is just another spring evening.
Continue reading...The pandemic, climate crisis and conflict combining to drive ‘alarming’ levels of global hunger, says report
Acute hunger is likely to soar in more than 20 countries in the next few months, the UN has warned.
Families in pockets of Yemen and South Sudan are already in the grip of starvation, according to a report on hunger hotspots published by the agency’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP).
Continue reading...President also urges Senate to pass bills to close background checks loopholes
Earlier, while he was touring the James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute in Columbus, Biden was asked if he thinks he has the political capital to get gun control measures passed through the Senate.
“I hope so,” he said, his fingers crossed per the White House press pool report.
.@POTUS crosses his fingers as he's asked about the possibility of gun control legislation, during a tour of the James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute in Columbus, Ohio. pic.twitter.com/qMZ3soPuGJ
Hours after America's second mass shooting in a week, Sen. John Kennedy downplays the gun problem by noting that "we have a lot of drunk drivers in America that kill a lot of people. We ought to try to combat that too ... the answer is not to get rid of all sober drivers." pic.twitter.com/BvqhNvuWRJ
Getting vaccinated and following public health guidelines are patriotic duties, Biden said.
“We need all Americans to keep washing their hands, stay socially distanced, wearing their masks,” he said. “Get vaccinated, when it’s your turn. It’s a patriotic responsibility.
Prime minister Boris Johnson said the coronavirus pandemic ‘is something that we will all remember and be dealing with in different ways – certainly in my case – for as long as I live’, adding that ‘the single biggest false assumption’ made early on was misunderstanding the risk of asymptomatic transmission. Speaking during the same briefing, the chief scientific officer, Sir Patrick Vallance, said it was unlikely that Covid-19 would ever be completely eradicated