Protest at property near Newcastle follows video of former England football captain urging people to get Covid booster
Anti-vaccination protesters who attempted to serve spurious legal papers to the former England football captain Alan Shearer delivered the documents to the wrong house, it has emerged.
The former Newcastle United and Blackburn Rovers striker had encouraged people to get a Covid booster jab in a video promoted by the Premier League last week.
Continue reading...Analysis: smaller proportion of people hospitalised with Covid variant means little when rise in infections is so huge, warn experts
Evidence that infections caused by Omicron may be less severe than other Covid variants is good news but is likely to make little or no difference to the duration of the pandemic, according to experts.
Several pieces of research published this week suggest that people infected with Omicron are much less likely to require hospitalisation.
Continue reading...Sometimes the only contact Covid intensive care patients had with their family was via FaceTime or Skype, Dr Katrina Tonga says
Three intensive care workers share the stories that have remained hidden from public view during the pandemic.
Continue reading...Healthcare workers around the world have been on the frontline of the coronavirus pandemic for almost two years, which put them through the darkest days of their careers. Five doctors who have worked in hospitals in Uganda, New Zealand, the US, India, the UK and Brazil told the Guardian about how the pandemic had tested them personally and professionally, but how they continue to find hope and resolve to keep working.
Thanks to Dr Peter Kavuma, Dr Dalilah Restrepo, Dr Yogesh Kalkonde, Dr Anne Menezes and Dr Megan Smith, who is also a spokesperson at the campaigning organisation EveryDoctor
WA to introduce mask mandate after community case; SA records 484 new Covid cases; fires break out at Melbourne hotel housing refugees; NSW records 5,715 cases and one death; Victoria records 2,005 cases and 10 death; Queensland reports record 369 casess. Follow all the day’s news live
Covid-19 testing clinics are reducing their openings hours during the Christmas period despite “unprecedented demand” and reports of hours-long wait times in several states.
Guardian Australia analysis shows 77% of the 490 testing sites listed on the NSW Health website on Wednesday will either close or operate on reduced hours through the Christmas and new year period.
Novavax is still going through the approval process. I know they’re getting closer. We’re looking forward to get Novavax into the mix of available vaccines as well. It won’t be until the new year. I don’t know exactly when.
As soon as Novavax is ready to go, we’ll be delighted to get it out there. I know some people have been holding out for Novavax specifically. It will be part of our arsenal and we look forward to helping people access that vaccine if that’s what they want.
Continue reading...Measure aimed at frontline workers to reduce spread of Omicron variant may increase unrest in country with low vaccine take-up, critics warn
Civil rights groups in Malawi have cautioned the government on its decision to make the Covid-19 vaccination mandatory for frontline workers.
From January, it will be compulsory for public sector workers, including healthcare staff, police and teachers, as well as journalists, to be vaccinated, after an announcement by Malawi’s health minister, Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda, last week.
Continue reading...Latest updates: UK says risk of hospitalisation 70% lower with Omicron; France set to report highest case numbers
The premier of Australia’s most populous state of NSW, Dominic Perrottet, addressed the media on Thursday to confirm masks will be mandated for inside areas and density limits would also be imposed.
As of midnight tonight, we will be requiring that masks are worn in indoor settings.
We are encouraging people, particularly over the holiday period, if you can work from home, please work from home.
In addition to that, we’re encouraging people not to mingle and when you’re out and out at a restaurant or cafe and a pub or a club, please where possible don’t mingle.
Continue reading...Few cases and high vaccination rates, but these successes have come at a cost
As the Covid-19 pandemic hurtles towards its second anniversary, New Zealand will emerge from 2021 with some of the best health outcomes in the world, despite confronting its toughest few pandemic months.
This year New Zealand experienced its longest lockdown, its highest daily case numbers (222 in mid-November), more hospitalisations than in 2020 and a pivot away from the government’s ambitious elimination approach to one of strict virus control. But it can now boast a 90% double vaccination for the eligible population and one of the lowest per capita death rates, while its cases in the current outbreak are trending downwards.
Continue reading...The pandemic has seen borders close and divisions widened. But in almost all aspects of life, humanity will only thrive by coming together
During the pandemic, the nations of the world set about energetically strengthening borders around themselves, and within themselves, as states restricted entry. During the early lockdowns, according to the UNHCR, 168 of the world’s 195 countries partially or entirely closed their borders. This hit refugees particularly hard. “Movement is vital for people who are in flight,” said Filippo Grandi, the head of UNHCR. “They save their lives, by running.”
The virus knows no borders; it is the ultimate globalist. Covid-19 put an end to the idea that the 19th-century European nation state is the political arrangement we should all aspire to. The nation state is an outdated concept, and ill serves the present emergency. The rich countries have frozen immigration. But when people can’t move, they also can’t earn. Global remittances – money sent back to their families by people working abroad – which amount to four times all the foreign aid given by the rich countries to the poor ones – have gone down two years in a row. Poor countries will be poorer.
Continue reading...Snap lockdown, which prompted panic in the city, comes little over a month before Beijing is set to host the Winter Olympics
Up to 13 million people have been placed into lockdown in the city of Xi’an in China, as authorities move to clamp down on the community spread of Covid-19 after 127 infections were found in a second round of mass testing.
The snap lockdown on Thursday comes little over a month before Beijing is set to host the Winter Olympics.
Continue reading...President tells ABC that country is in better position than last Christmas but is struggling with testing
Pressed about US testing shortages amid the omicron surge, Biden conceded in an interview that “nothing’s been good enough”.
In an interview with ABC’s David Muir on Wednesday, the president signaled that the country was in a better shape now than last Christmas but said he wished he had ordered free at-home tests earlier than this week. A surging demand for tests, driven by the new variant and the winter holidays, has led to long lines and shortages around the country.
Continue reading...The World Health Organization has said booster programmes are more likely to lengthen the pandemic rather than shorten it, as vaccine inequality means many countries have not yet hit their 40% vaccination target while wealthier nations move on to offer booster jabs. The WHO director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said Covid would continue to mutate and spread through unvaccinated populations
Continue reading...Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says there will be enough vaccines for world’s adults – if they are not hoarded
The world will have enough doses of Covid vaccines early next year to inoculate all of the global adult population – if western countries do not hoard those vaccines to use in blanket booster programmes, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday there would be sufficient vaccine supplies in global circulation in the first quarter of 2022.
Continue reading...Latest updates: German health minister says ‘offensive booster campaign’ needed to fight variant; French health minister says Omicron will be dominant in early January
Researchers in Melbourne, Australia, have turned one of the world’s most-used blood-thinning drugs into a nasal spray which they hope could prevent Covid-19 transmission.
Northern Health medical divisional director Don Campbell and researchers at Melbourne, Monash and Oxford Universities found that heparin can block the transmission of Covid-19 and prevent infection.
It won’t matter if a new variant comes along, this drug will block that protein from infecting the cells.
I’m very confident that we can demonstrate that it will work, and people will be using this before they go to the shops and before they go to school.”
Due to large-scale flooding near the Port of Vancouver … and the global supply chain crunch caused by the coronavirus pandemic, there are delays in the supply of potatoes.”
Continue reading...Annual multibillion-euro draw goes ahead despite Covid surge and first ever strike by lottery ticket sellers
Spain’s Christmas lottery, a lucrative and much-loved annual tradition that often ends in the joyous detonation of cava corks and the hatching of big plans, took place on Wednesday amid soaring Covid infections and the first ever strike by ticket vendors.
After the country recorded a record 49,823 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday night, many Spaniards welcomed the chance to focus instead on El Gordo (the Fat One) and its €2.4bn in prizes.
Continue reading...Devolved nations to reintroduce rule of six for hospitality venues and other measures from Boxing Day
Wales and Northern Ireland have announced stringent restrictions that will come into force from Boxing Day, including the return of the rule of six for hospitality venues, in an effort to curb the spread of the Omicron variant.
The first minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, accused Boris Johnson of being in a “state of paralysis,” over Omicron as he set out a package of strict measures he said would put his country at “alert level two”.
Continue reading...Booster will also be available to medical teams and immunodeficient people four months after third dose
Israel is set to become the first country in the world to offer a fourth dose of Covid-19 vaccines in an effort to protect against the Omicron variant.
People over the age of 60 and healthcare workers will be eligible for a second booster shot, the prime minister, Naftali Bennett, said on Tuesday night, following a recommendation made by Israel’s panel of pandemic experts.
Continue reading...Scientists warn, however, that lower severity of cases is not fully understood and may not occur elsewhere
South Africa has reported data on Covid cases driven by the Omicron variant that appears to give added impetus to claims the country is experiencing a lower severity of disease.
“In South Africa, this is the epidemiology: Omicron is behaving in a way that is less severe,” said Prof Cheryl Cohen of the country’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), one of the authors of the study.
Continue reading...We’re making progress in the arms race against the virus, but work in the lab must be supported by public health measures
It’s beginning to feel a lot like last Christmas. Case numbers of a new Covid variant are exploding across the UK, and the prime minister is cautioning that restrictions may be called for. But while the threat of Omicron likely surpasses that of previous variants, our tools to track and combat the virus have also advanced since last year.
The world was alerted to Omicron by the Botswanan and South African scientists who first sequenced the novel variant on 24 November, and it was designated as a variant of concern by the World Health Organization two days later. It was immediately obvious to them that they had something alarming on their hands when they saw the large number of mutations in the Omicron genome.
Dr Manon Ragonnet-Cronin is an MRC Fellow at Imperial College London and a member of the Imperial College Covid-19 response team
Continue reading...The US continues to lag in testing, leading many people to wait in line for hours amid increased demand due to the emergence of Omicron
As a history professor at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, Kevin Bruyneel had been tested for Covid-19 more than 100 times and typically waited less than 15 minutes for the free tests.
So Bruyneel was upset when he went to get a PCR test at a clinic Sunday in Brooklyn, New York, and waited more than an hour after his scheduled appointment and was billed at least $100 – though he could owe more depending on what his insurance covers.
Continue reading...