Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Short-sailings around UK with dining and entertainment to restart but ships will not call at ports
Cruise operator P&O is to restart domestic holidays this summer, but only for UK residents who have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19.
After its fleet has been grounded for over a year, P&O is dipping its toes back in the water by offering passengers short sailings on two of its ships around the UK coastline. Coronavirus restrictions mean the ships will not call at any ports, although there will be the usual onboard dining and entertainment programme.
The day India started coronavirus vaccinations, Amit Mehra’s name was on the priority list. But he never made an appointment. “I’m not inclined to get vaccinated just because it’s available,” says the 47-year-old Delhi hospital worker.
Two and a half thousand miles away, strolling past a popup inoculation centre near Red Square in Moscow, Magomed Zurabov is similarly reluctant. Suspicious that the pandemic was deliberately engineered, he has no intention of being vaccinated, he says. Instead, he is “taking the necessary precautions”: wearing a mask and using disinfectant.
Humans might be tiring of video calls, Zoom birthdays and streamed performances, but the chimps at two Czech zoos are just starting to enjoy their new live online link-up.
To make up for the lack of interaction with visitors since the attractions closed in December under Covid-19 restrictions, the chimpanzees at Safari Park Dvur Kralove and the troop at a zoo 150km away in in Brno, can now watch one another’s daily lives on giant screens.
Port Moresby General Hospital is one of the few safe places for women to give birth, but 30% of our workforce has Covid-19 and we may have to shut our doors
At Port Moresby General Hospital, about 20% of women presenting in labour have symptoms of Covid-19. Of these, about one-third (four to five women a day) test positive.
We get the test results back about two to three hours after we take the swabs, so often by the time the woman is delivering her baby it is too late to transfer her to the Covid isolation ward for the birth and staff have attended to her and been exposed to the virus, without being able to don the appropriate level of PPE and practice other precautionary measures to protect themselves.
Analysis: Germany, France, Spain and Italy head an expanding list of EU countries to have put its use on hold
A host of European countries have put all vaccinations with this jab on hold, including Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Norway and Ireland. Some others such as Estonia and Austria have suspended vaccinations from particular batches of the vaccine.
The EMA is conducting an investigation into the safety of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine after Germany, France, Italy and other EU countries suspended its use over isolated cases of bleeding, blood clots and low platelet counts.
Director Emer Cooke stated the EMA is "still firmly convinced the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine … outweigh the risk of these side effects." The investigative panel will meet again on Thursday when they will publish their findings to the public.
In his Sky News interview Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative chair of the Commons defence committee, said the security and defence review said that the UK could use nuclear weapons to respond to an attack with chemical or biological weapons. That was a “big change” in policy, he said.
The UK will not use, or threaten to use, nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons 1968 (NPT). This assurance does not apply to any state in material breach of those non-proliferation obligations. However, we reserve the right to review this assurance if the future threat of weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical and biological capabilities, or emerging technologies that could have a comparable impact, makes it necessary.
Scotland’s indicative route out of lockdown. If we all stick with it and get the virus more under control as the vaccines do their work, there is hope for a much better summer on the horizon ☀️ pic.twitter.com/gTKHtJTNn5
This may not be overtly party political but there is no doubt it’s political. The trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, accused of murdering George Floyd last May, continues with jury selection and legal arguments.
In the arrest of May 6, 2019, a panicking Floyd swallowed several opioid pain-killer pills as police approached. Eric Nelson, Chauvin’s lead lawyer, has argued that the main cause of Floyd’s death a year later, which was ruled a homicide, was the opioid fentanyl found in his blood at autopsy.
“The similarities are incredible, it’s the exact same behavior in two incidents almost exactly one year apart,” Nelson told the court before the resumption of jury selection, noting Floyd called out for his “mama” in both arrests, according to video footage.
More on the coronavirus, as federal leaders and officials warn the country not to relax at what we all hope is the eleventh hour of the main thrust of the pandemic.
The Associated Press reports from North Carolina:
Duke University saw nearly as many cases of the coronavirus last week as it did during the entire fall semester, according to data released today.
The vast majority of the 231 new cases reported from March 8 through Sunday occurred within the university’s undergraduate student population.
welp this was a surprise to no one, given the recent disaffiliation of many fraternities from Duke into their own council, in response to being told to wait until fall 2021 for rush. And instead hold in person parties/rush events and why is Greek life still a thing?? https://t.co/SA1kgZWMh6
There's a strong reaction among Duke students after off-campus fraternity activities led to increased COVID-19 cases and a new stay-in-place order. https://t.co/mO0jdOpSxd
Senior doctors, government scientific advisers and a former head of the civil service have spoken out in favour of a public inquiry into the UK’s handling of Covid-19, raising pressure on Boris Johnson to finally launch the process as the UK’s coronavirus fatalities rose to almost 126,000.
Thousands of bereaved families, nurses and ethnic minority leaders also backed calls for an inquiry into everything from lockdown tactics to test and trace after the UK’s handling of the pandemic resulted in the worst death toll per capita of any of the world’s large economies.
The EU’s medicines regulator has said it remains “firmly convinced” the benefits of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine outweigh the risks, but isolated cases of blood clots “are a serious concern and need serious and detailed scientific evaluation”.
Emer Cooke, the head of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), said there was no indication that the shot had caused any of the incidents, but the agency was investigating them thoroughly and would report it conclusions on Thursday.
Adm Brett Giroir says Trump’s leadership ‘matters a great deal’
Poll found 49% of Republican men would refuse vaccine
Donald Trump’s former coronavirus testing tsar has urged the former president to address Covid vaccine hesitancy among Republicans, even as the man who some say has assumed Trump’s platform and megaphone, the Fox News host Tucker Carlson, criticized vaccine outreach by the Biden administration.
Several recent surveys have shown vaccine hesitancy is highest among Republican men. Public health experts are scrambling to respond.
The African state was already struggling to cope with TB, HIV and Covid before latest response to demands for equal pay
Lesotho has sacked hundreds of its nurses over the past few days in a row over pay. The small southern African country’s main hospital in the capital, Maseru, fired 345 nurses and nursing assistants, who have been on strike for the past month, with immediate effect.
The nurses went on strike to press the government-owned Queen Mamohato Memorial Hospital (QMMH) to give them the same salaries as their counterparts in other government and private institutions. Opened in 2011, QMMH is state-owned but run by the Tšepong Consortium, comprising five companies, namely Netcare Healthcare Group and Afri’nnai of South Africa, and Excel Health, Women Investment, and D10 Investments of Lesotho.
There has been chaos and confusion in Germany and Italy after their decisions to suspend use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine, with vaccination centres closing their doors and appointments being abruptly cancelled.
The countries are two of the biggest on a growing list of European nations that have in recent days ordered a pause in the distribution of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
After 100,000 women marched for justice on Monday, the federal government faces scrutiny over whether it’s listening. Follow all today’s latest news and updates, live
Scott Morrison’s address to the joint party room spoke about the March4Justice issues, as well as the wider concerns about harassment and abuse at work, included a comparison to the Kokoda Trail.
He said, according to Sky News’ Andrew Clennell,
He actually compared it to walking the Kokoda Trail, is what I’ve been told out of the party room and said we are on a narrow path, we have to look after each other and focus on what matters.”
You wonder how you’ve got over the first hill and the next one’s even bigger.
That’s what it’s like in the pandemic,” he said, citing the next hill as being weaning the economy off government support.
Russia’s Covid vaccines have proven effective against new variants of the coronavirus in trials, a scientist with Moscow’s consumer regulator has said, after the agency reported its first cases of a variant first detected in South Africa (see 10.02am).
Reuters has the story:
In fact, trials have already been done in Russia and we can say with confidence that the [Sputnik V and EpiVacCoriona] vaccines registered in Russia also work against new strains,” Alexander Gorelov, deputy head of research at Rospotrebnadzor’s Institute of Epidemiology, said on state television.
Gorelov gave no details on trials that had tested vaccines against variants first discovered abroad. Researchers conducting trials under the review ordered by Putin said on 27 February that results were looking strong when volunteers were re-vaccinated with Sputnik V against new mutations of the virus.
Public health experts in the US have called for access to vaccines to be widened to better cater for Latino migrants – among the groups hardest hit by Covid-19.
Zackary Berger and Kathleen Page, both associate professors at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and Alicia Fernández, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, write:
Current vaccine priority algorithms are inequitable, particularly those that focus on age. Almost 90% of deaths among whites have been in people over 65, but, as CDC data clearly indicate, among Latinos and African Americans more than one-third of those dying of Covid-19 have been younger than 65. And although shared living spaces have undoubtedly fueled the rapid transmission of Covid-19 in immigrant communities, living in a crowded house does not qualify people for the vaccine.
As for essential workers, it’s one thing for a hospital employee to prove they are a healthcare worker, but another thing entirely for a day laborer getting paid in cash to show proof of occupation. Finally, while people all over the country are struggling with poorly designed websites and busy call centers, these approaches are particularly insurmountable for low-income Latino workers who lack the digital skills, language capabilities and time to overcome these barriers.
Washington Post reported on the study which confirmed what researchers have long argued about: the echo chamber effect
A small subset of Facebook users is reportedly responsible for the majority of content expressing or encouraging skepticism about Covid-19 vaccines, according to early results from an internal Facebook study.
The study, first reported by the Washington Post, confirms what researchers have long argued about how the echo chamber effect can amplify certain beliefs within social media communities. It also shows how speech that falls short of outright misinformation about vaccines, which is banned on Facebook, can still contribute to vaccine hesitancy.
Eduardo Pazuello expected to depart after 10 months as coronavirus fatalities near 280,000
The Brazilian health minister, Eduardo Pazuello, is set to be sacked after an inglorious 10-month tenure during which more than 260,000 Brazilians have been killed by a coronavirus outbreak that his government stands accused of catastrophically mismanaging.
Female children are seen as an economic burden, and tough times are setting back progress by a generation, gender equality charity says
Thousands of adolescent girls across south-east Asia and the Pacific are being forced to leave school and get married instead as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, a charity has warned, saying “a generation of girls could be lost”.
A new report by Plan International Australia highlighted the importance of secondary education for girls, and detailed the increased risk and long-term impacts of child, early and forced marriage in the region.
As France and Germany join Ireland, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands in suspending the use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine – even though the European Medicines Agency and the World Health Organization are advising people to continue taking it – the common refrain in European governments is that they are acting out of “an abundance of caution”.
There have been a handful of reports of blood clots in people recently vaccinated and also a rarer condition called thrombocytopenia, in which people do not make enough platelets. That can result in excessive bleeding. Deaths have been reported in Austria and Italy, which stopped the use of one batch of vaccine for fear it was contaminated. Meanwhile a further death from thrombocytopenia has been reported in Norway, as well as three hospitalisations.
Police issued a warrant for the arrest of Terry Wright, 65, of Grants Pass, Oregon. The woman's detention on Thursday at a Bank of America in Galveston was captured by the officer’s body camera.
An arrest warrant was issued for Wright, who refused to wear a mask at a Texas bank, saying to a police officer: 'What are you going to do, arrest me?'
Police said they had obtained an arrest warrant on resisting arrest and criminal trespassing charges