Category Archives: Coronavirus

The number of people in need is frightening – we need a global response | Axel van Trotsenburg

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We can rise to the challenge of a green, resilient and inclusive recovery from Covid, but only if critical changes are made

The numbers are well-publicised but bear repeating. Around 120 million more people were pushed into extreme poverty in 2020, a number that could rise to 150 million in 2021. An estimated 250 million jobs have been lost around the world, and the number of people affected by acute food insecurity was estimated to have doubled to 272 million by the end of last year. A decade of progress in the most fragile countries wiped out.

Let’s put a human dimension on these numbers. More than a billion children have been out of school during the Covid-19 pandemic, and girls are much less likely to return to the classroom.

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Sydney hotel quarantine – a photo diary

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The photographer Jillian Edelstein flew to Australia in December to visit her mother, who had been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in October. On arrival in Sydney she was bussed to a police hotel. A quarantine exemption was refused so she had to endure a 14-day wait before being able to see her mum. These images form her very personal diary of that experience, some of which she shared on Instagram, edited for publication

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How the beach ‘super-spreader’ myth may have hampered UK Covid reaction

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News that no outbreaks were linked to beach trips highlights important message about outdoor transmission, says expert

They were images that seemed to define a hot, febrile, and dangerous summer: massed ranks of daytrippers swamping Britain’s beaches, making the most of the June sunshine after months of restrictions – and, some front pages suggested, creating an appalling risk of coronavirus infection.

Eight months later, the headlines tell a different story: there was no real danger at all.

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South Africa leads backlash against big pharma over Covid vaccine access

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Pressure mounts for patent waivers to allow poorer countries to develop their own manufacturing capacity to boost availability

The domination of global medicine by major pharmaceutical companies needs to be confronted to provide fairer access to vaccines, a leading South African official has said.

The scramble over Covid vaccines should alert rich countries to the power of profit-driven companies that control production of crucial medicines, said Mustaqeem De Gama, South Africa’s delegate at the World Trade Organization (WTO) on intellectual property rights.

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Vaccine diplomacy: west falling behind in race for influence

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While the UK and US strive for herd immunity, Russia and China are leveraging their Covid jabs

“Today it is easier to get a nuclear weapon than to get a vaccine,” the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, declared in January. He was bragging. The Balkans country had just received its first shipment of almost 1m Covid-19 vaccine doses from Sinopharm, a state-owned Chinese pharmaceutical company.

Since then, Serbia has augmented its stockpile with tens of thousands of shots of Russia’s Sputnik V, signed an agreement to build a bottling plant for the Russian vaccine and now boasts the fastest vaccination rate in continental Europe.

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Coronavirus live news: European countries seeing public resistance to AstraZeneca vaccine

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Italy, Austria and Bulgaria report no-shows for appointments as France, Germany and Sweden also register public resistance

Marriages are becoming increasingly rare in Italy, all the more so during the pandemic, official data shows.

In the first quarter of 2020 – when the country was struck by the virus – the number of Italians who tied the knot was down by about 20% year on year, the national statistics office Istat said.

The World Health Organization has urged nations producing Covid vaccines not to distribute them unilaterally but to donate them to the global Covax scheme to ensure fairness, Reuters reports.

The WHO director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, made the plea as China makes agreements across Africa, Russia distributes shots in Latin America and the EU eyes giving vaccines to poorer countries, all outside of the Covax facility.

What we can do, if that comes through Covax, is the earmarked donation can go to those countries and the Covax stocks can go to other countries. So we can strike a balance.

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Macron proposes vaccine sharing plan as UK prepares to host G7

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French proposal comes after accusations wealthier nations have ordered more than they need

As Britain prepares to host the G7 club of wealthy nations on Friday under the chairmanship of Boris Johnson, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has proposed that 5% of its vaccines are sent to poorer countries, especially in Africa.

Johnson is expected to advance a parallel plan to cut the amount of time it takes to create vaccines, and may be unimpressed it has been upstaged by Macron.

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Indigenous peoples face rise in rights abuses during pandemic, report finds

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Increasing land grabs endangering forest communities and wildlife as governments expand mining and agriculture to combat economic impact of Covid

Indigenous communities in some of the world’s most forested tropical countries have faced a wave of human rights abuses during the Covid-19 pandemic as governments prioritise extractive industries in economic recovery plans, according to a new report.

New mines, infrastructure projects and agricultural plantations in Brazil, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Indonesia and Peru are driving land grabs and violence against indigenous peoples as governments seek to revive economies hit by the pandemic, research by the NGO Forest Peoples Programme has found.

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‘6.2cm-tall man’ offered priority Covid vaccine after NHS blunder

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Liam Thorp, whose real height is 6ft 2in, was recorded as having a BMI of 28,000

A 32-year-old man with no underlying health conditions was offered a Covid vaccine early because of a blunder at his GP surgery which recorded him as being 6.2cm tall, giving him an astonishing body mass index (BMI) of 28,000.

The Liverpool Echo’s political editor, Liam Thorp, said he was left “really confused” after he was offered the jab this week seemingly ahead of the government’s rollout plan, and shared the “frankly surreal” experience in a Twitter thread which quickly went viral.

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Biden’s offer to work with Republicans faces first real test on Covid relief

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Analysis: The president stressed a willingness to work with Republicans – but some say his outreach has its limits

Joe Biden and his team have promised to extend the bipartisan olive branch like no previous administration in a move that on the surface appears to match the new president’s long political history of seeking support from Republicans.

Since taking office, the Biden administration has stressed a willingness to work with Republicans on its major initiatives like a Covid relief bill. Behind the scenes, it has initiated a broad push to reach out to as many congressional offices as possible, getting in contact with both former and current Republican lawmakers and their staffs, and hosting a high-visibility meeting between almost a dozen Republican senators and Biden himself.

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Brazil health workers accused of giving Covid vaccinations with empty syringes

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Police are looking into allegations of so-called ‘wind vaccinations’ amid speculation about possible motives

Police in Brazil are investigating allegations that healthcare workers are giving fake Covid-19 inoculations, amid reports of nurses injecting people with empty syringes.

Cases of what local media are calling “wind vaccination” have been reported in four states, adding to the woes of the country’s halting and uncoordinated immunisation programme.

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Mink farms a continuing Covid risk to humans and wildlife, warn EU experts

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Health experts call for regular testing of staff and animals after coronavirus found at 400 breeding units across Europe

All mink farms are at risk of becoming infected with Covid-19 and spreading the virus, and staff and animals should be regularly tested, EU disease and food safety experts said on Thursday.

Mink are highly susceptible to coronavirus, which spreads rapidly in intensive farms that often breed thousands of animals in open housing caged systems (outdoor wire cages covered with a roof). Humans are the most likely initial source of infection.

Denmark, the world’s largest exporter of mink fur, announced that it would cull up to 15 million mink in November, after discovering a mutated variant of the virus that scientists feared might have jeopardised the effectiveness of future vaccines.

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Educating Zimbabwe: illegal ‘home schools’ defy lockdown in townships

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Priced out of online access, poor children are turning to backyard teachers as Covid closes state classrooms

It’s Friday morning and Help Mabwe is preparing to give the day’s illicit lessons. Round the back of his house the teacher has created a classroom out of some old canvas and some wooden poles.

A few broken chairs and benches, and an ancient chalkboard complete the furniture in Mabwe’s backyard college in Kuwadzana, a township 15km west of central Harare.

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Australian politics live: Facebook blocks news across the country; Victoria comes out of lockdown

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Social media giant blames proposed media bargaining code for decision; some restrictions remain in place in Victoria as businesses reopen. Follow all the developments live

Meanwhile, the government which absolutely tore apart Australia Post executive Christine Holgate for awarding executives Cartier watches as bonuses (Holgate resigned, after Scott Morrison called the combined $20,000 bonus “disgraceful” in a parliament) executives at the NBN Co received $78m in personal bonuses in the second half of last year. During a pandemic.

Paul Fletcher effectively told ABC radio he didn’t have a problem with it, as the NBN was critical with keeping Australia running during the pandemic lockdowns. (One could argue the same for Australia Post, but anyway)

The Australia Institute has reponded to Facebook’s news.

Peter Lewis, director of the Australia Institute’s Centre for Responsible Technology says it might time for people to close their accounts:

Facebook’s decision to prevent users viewing for sharing public interest journalism will make it a weaker social network,”

The social network is destroying its social license to operate. Facebook actions mean the company’s failures in privacy, disinformation, and data protection will require a bigger push for stronger government regulation.

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Rush Limbaugh dies after suffering from lung cancer – US politics live

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Joe Biden had an hour-long conversation with Benjamin Netanyahu today, the Israeli prime minister said.

In a tweet, Netanyahu’s office shared a photo of the prime minister on the phone with Biden. Netanyahu said the conversation was friendly, and the two leaders committed to strengthening the alliance between their nations.

ראש הממשלה בנימין נתניהו שוחח הערב עם נשיא ארה"ב ג'ו ביידן.

השיחה הייתה ידידותית וחמה ביותר ונמשכה כשעה. שני המנהיגים ציינו את הקשר האישי רב השנים ביניהם ואמרו שיפעלו יחד להמשך חיזוק הברית האיתנה בין ישראל לארה"ב pic.twitter.com/8LolsBhi0r

Related: Call me maybe? Disquiet in Israel that Biden has yet to phone Netanyahu

Jill Biden will soon sit down with Kelly Clarkson for her first solo television interview since Joe Biden was sworn in, the first lady’s office announced today.

A spokesperson for Jill Biden said the interview will be aired next Thursday, on “The Kelly Clarkson Show: White House Edition with the First Lady, Dr. Jill Biden”.

NEW! @FLOTUS will sit down with @KellyClarkson for her FIRST solo TV interview, when @KellyClarksonTV comes to the White House! “The Kelly Clarkson Show: White House Edition with the First Lady, Dr. Jill Biden” will air Thursday, Feb. 25 #kellyoke

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Mexico calls on rich countries not to hoard coronavirus vaccines

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  • Foreign minister says 100 countries have yet to give out vaccine
  • Three-quarters of all doses administered in just 10 countries

Mexico has made a plea at the UN security council for countries to stop hoarding vaccines against Covid-19 as poorer ones fall behind in the race to vaccinate their citizens.

Three-quarters of the first doses have been administered to citizens in only 10 countries that account for 60% of global gross domestic product (GDP), the Mexican foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, said, while in more than 100 countries no vaccines have been applied at all.

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Mindfulness, laughter and robot dogs may relieve lockdown loneliness – study

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University of Cambridge researchers identify potentially effective interventions to help people

Robotic dogs, laughter therapy and mindfulness could help people cope with loneliness and social isolation during the Covid-19 pandemic, researchers at the University of Cambridge have found.

The team at the university’s School of Medicine, led by Dr Christopher Williams, reviewed 58 existing studies on loneliness and identified interventions that could be adapted for people living in lockdown or under pandemic-related social distancing measures.

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England’s poorest areas hit by Covid ‘perfect storm’ – leaked report

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Exclusive: government analysis reveals unmet financial needs of many people needing to self-isolate

A “perfect storm” of low wages, cramped housing and failures of the £22bn test-and-trace scheme has led to “stubbornly high” coronavirus rates in England’s most deprived communities, an unpublished government report has found.

A classified analysis by the Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC), produced last month, concluded that “unmet financial needs” meant people in poorer areas were less likely to be able to self-isolate because they could not afford to lose income.

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‘I’ve accepted the risk’: volunteering to be exposed to Covid in new trials

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Healthy adult volunteers aged 18 to 30 will be exposed to virus in controlled environment

Human challenge trials for coronavirus are to begin in the UK, a world first in the global fight against Covid-19.

Healthy adult volunteers aged between 18 and 30 will be exposed to coronavirus in a controlled environment, to learn more about how their body reacts to the virus, how it is transmitted and how much of the virus is needed to cause infection.

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New prime minister, Mario Draghi, vows to speed up Italy’s Covid vaccinations

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Italy recorded 336 more coronavirus deaths – the second highest rate in Europe

Italy’s new prime minister, Mario Draghi, has pledged to speed up the country’s coronavirus vaccination programme as he presented his government’s priorities before a confidence vote in the upper house of parliament on Wednesday.

In his much-anticipated maiden speech, Draghi, who was sworn into office on Saturday, said the government’s first duty was to “fight the pandemic by all means and safeguard the lives of citizens”.

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