Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Award-winning actor admits cutting his own hair with device long before salons closed this year due to Covid
With salons largely closed until this week, male grooming has been in freefall since the start of the spring lockdown. DIY haircuts have not been successful for all. Yet one Hollywood star has proved that even in a global pandemic, bad hair is not the great equaliser we hoped it would be.
George Clooney, the 59-year-old award-winning actor and human rights activist, has admitted to successfully cutting his own hair at home using a device called a Flowbee. “My hair’s really like straw, so it’s easy,” he told CBS Sunday Morning.
World Health Organization leaders have warned vaccines do not mean the end of the coronavirus pandemic, and renewed their advice to follow guidelines during the Christmas and new year period
The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) in the UK has not had a round of applause from anyone other than the UK’s politicians and the vaccine companies. It gave temporary authorisation to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine on Wednesday and within hours, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) put out a stiff statement implying more work was needed than the UK regulator had done. Its own decision could come as late as 29 December. It may well have been needled by the crowing of the health secretary, Matt Hancock, who claimed the fast approval as a Brexit triumph. He had to backtrack. The MHRA’s chief executive, June Raine, pointed out that the agency had simply taken advantage of a provision that any country in Europe could use, to fast-track approval in a pandemic.
In the UK saliva tests for Covid-19, which are being introduced for NHS workers as part of the government’s mass testing programme, pick up only 13% of people with low levels of the virus and not 91%, as the official assessment has claimed, according to experts.
Two members of the Royal Statistical Society’s working group looking at the accuracy of Covid tests have questioned the results and the way they have been evaluated.
Revelations of distorted corona virus tallies have caused growing controversy in Greece reports our correspondent Helena Smith in Athens.
Figures released by the government nightly have been slammed for not reflecting the truth after reports of mismanagement by the national public health organisation, EODY.
The need for federal guidance and money for states to deploy vaccines is real and urgent. Here’s a bit more from NBC News, which reports the bulk of planning for how to distribute the vaccine is still not finished nine months into the pandemic.
Yet beyond the guidelines advising states about how to deploy their vaccines — and a large Defense Department operation to deliver them — the Trump administration hasn’t prepared for a major federal role, a lack of planning that is causing significant anxiety among state and local health officials.
The significant checklist of unmet federal responsibilities underscores the challenges ahead for President-elect Joe Biden, who inherits most of the burden for executing a successful nationwide campaign to vaccinate all Americans, potentially without the billions of dollars in additional funding that will be needed.
One of the major sticking points of the relief bill is liability protections, especially for hard-hit long-term care homes. Although long-term care homes represent less than 1% of the US population, residents and staff represent 40% of Covid-19 deaths.
“We cannot sign off on Mitch McConnell’s idea of, like, a blanket liability, which will open up the floodgates to a whole host of bad conduct, putting in danger the American people,” said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., a Pelosi deputy. “So nothing is agreed upon until everything is agreed upon. But we’re working hard to arrive at a bipartisan agreement.”
New: Capitol Hill is buzzing with fresh optimism about a Covid-19 relief deal.
Party leaders are converging on a price tag and negotiating after months of deadlock.
But some policy disputes linger—primarily on state/local aid and liability protections.https://t.co/mEqQfKK6GL
New daily highs for cases, hospitalizations and deaths
Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings could fuel surge
The US set three grim coronavirus records on Thursday, as it recorded the highest daily number of coronavirus deaths, the highest number of new cases, and the number of people admitted to hospital with Covid exceeded 100,000 for the second day in a row.
Analysis: Vaccine hesitancy is growing, thanks in part to social media misinformation. Time for the Elvis approach?
The statement by the US president-elect, Joe Biden, that he would be happy to be publicly vaccinated against coronavirus to encourage people to follow suit – following similar pledges from Barack Obama, George W Bush and Bill Clinton – highlights a fundamental concern in global health circles.
Vaccine hesitancy – as well as anti-vaccination activism, sometimes promoted by celebrities – is growing. Countries that were once measles-free are seeing new cases due to suspicion over vaccination. Vaccine hesitancy was listed a year ago as one of the World Health Organization’s 10 global health threats to watch, alongside Ebola and the threat of a global influenza pandemic. Coronavirus came instead.
A possible link between the menopause and Covid-19 needs to be investigated, researchers have said, with some evidence suggesting that falling oestrogen levels could leave older women at increased risk from the disease.
Men are at greater risk of severe Covid, and dying of the disease, than women but recent research has suggested that in women, infections and long-lasting symptoms might be more common among those who have gone through the menopause.
In a year of blight, uncertainty and lives interrupted, 21-year-old Aadam Patel’s experience of the pandemic will resonate among many young people and their families: “I have pressed pause on my life,” he told the Guardian in October, “and although I’m dying to resume it, I don’t even know if there’s a play button there any more.”
Getting life back on track during Covid has proved hard for many of us; but for millions of young people it will be a very major challenge. Society’s odds were already stacked against youngsters from economically deprived communities and from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds; the pandemic has brought those stark inequalities into even sharper focus, whether it is in the job market, around holiday hunger, or access to online schooling.
Brian Pallister, the premier of Manitoba, has urged people not to get together this Christmas, as lockdowns in the province continue amid a surge in coronavirus cases. Speaking to the press on Thursday, he said: ‘I’m the guy who’s stealing Christmas to keep you safe because you need to do this now.’ Pallister has repeatedly faced criticism during the pandemic, reportedly vacationing in Costa Rica during the early stages and being accused of rushing to reopen Manitoba’s economy
The US’s leading infectious diseases scientist has apologised for implying that he thought Britain’s drug regulator had rushed through its coronavirus vaccine approval. Anthony Fauci, who leads the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the BBC: 'I have great faith in both the scientific community and the regulatory community in the UK.'
Millions of people in low-income countries have been forced to go without healthcare or have had to pay for it during the coronavirus pandemic, despite billions of pounds in emergency World Bank funding, research has found.
The World Bank’s $6bn (£4.45bn) emergency health fund to 71 countries in response to Covid-19 failed to strengthen health systems or remove financial barriers to using them, according to an Oxfam report published on Friday.
In an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, US president-elect Joe Biden says that he will ask Americans to commit to 100 days of wearing masks as one of his first acts as president. Biden and vice-president-elect, Kamala Harris, also committed to receiving coronavirus vaccinations as soon as possible, when approved by US regulators.
MP Andrew Hastie has criticised the release of details included in the war crimes report for allowing China to ‘malign our troops’; PM faces questions over Murdoch Christmas party flight; NSW awaits update on new Covid cluster. Follow all today’s news
Good morning, Matilda Boseley here. It’s nearly the end of the week and what better way to reach the finish line than to stick around on the Guardian live blog and get all your much-needed news updates, Covid-19 or otherwise.
First up, Liberal MP Andrew Hastie has criticised the Brereton Report which he says was filled with “unproven rumours” of Australian soldiers murdering Afghan children, saying the report has given China an opening to malign Australian troops.
Senator Marsha Blackburn invokes Chinese stereotype a racist tweet
Republican senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee received swift backlash Thursday for a racist tweet invoking the history of China to allude to a stereotype of cheating.
China has a 5,000 year history of cheating and stealing. Some things will never change...
While recognizing Republican criticism, Donald Trump still refused to back down from earlier calls to repeal Section 230, a provision of the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that protects tech firms from liability over third-party content. In a tweet, the president called it a “must.”
Looks like certain Republican Senators are getting cold feet with respect to the termination of Big Tech’s Section 230, a National Security and Election Integrity MUST. For years, all talk, no action. Termination must be put in Defense Bill!!!
Across the US a Covid surge has swamped hospitals as the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said December, January and February would be ‘rough times’ for the country.
Dr Robert Redfield said he believed the US was facing its ‘most difficult time in the public health history of this nation’, adding that about 90% of hospitals in the country were at stretched capacity
The Italian government has approved a ban on inter-regional travel during the Christmas period as the country registered the highest daily coronavirus death toll of the pandemic.
Under a new decree signed by the prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, on Thursday night, people will be barred from travelling beyond their regions between 20 December and 6 January except for work, health or emergency reasons.
Urgent alert issued over millions struggling with ‘catastophic levels’ of hunger as less than half of required aid received
The window to prevent the return of famine to Yemen is rapidly closing, UN agencies have warned, with a new assessment showing millions could head further into hunger in the coming months.
The alert came as a World Health Organization food security assessment showed thousands of people are slipping into famine – a number that is predicted to triple in the first half of next year – while millions more have seen declining access to food.