Sub-lineage described as Omicron ‘like’ was identified in an overseas arrival to the state from South Africa
Queensland has declared a “world-first” sub-lineage of Omicron but experts say it’s not a new variant or a new strain and more information is needed.
The new Omicron Covid sub-lineage, known as Omicron “like”, was identified in an overseas arrival to Queensland from South Africa.
Continue reading...Analysis: After two decades of major financial aid, Beijing is rethinking its strategy on continent amid Covid crisis and fierce competition for power, analysts say
As debt concerns rise and a new coronavirus variant emerges, China appears to be adjusting its approach to Africa: cutting finance pledges while doubling down on vaccine diplomacy.
On Monday last week, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, opened a China-Africa forum with a pledge to supply 1bn vaccine doses to Africa, amid global concern over the emergence of the Omicron variant of Covid-19. He also pledged $40bn to the continent, ranging from credit lines to investments – a significant cut from the $60bn promised at the previous two summits.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson denies staff gatherings took place or rules were broken during last year’s lockdown
Downing Street is facing renewed pressure after TV footage emerged showing senior No 10 officials joking about a Christmas party during lockdown last December.
In the leaked video, obtained by ITV, an adviser to Johnson is seen joking with Allegra Stratton, the prime minister’s then press secretary, about “a Downing Street Christmas party on Friday night”.
Continue reading...Exchange between Ed Oldfield and Allegra Stratton took place last December days after alleged party took place
Boris Johnson is facing accusations of lying after senior No 10 officials were filmed joking about a lockdown Christmas party that Downing Street insists did not take place.
Johnson and his aides have repeatedly denied that the event, reportedly held for staff at No 10 in December last year, broke Covid rules or took place at all.
Continue reading...Researchers fear new Covid variant could spread unnoticed because rough means of flagging up cases does not work
Scientists have identified a “stealth” version of the Omicron variant which cannot be detected with the routine tests that public health officials are using to track its spread around the world.
The stealth variant has many mutations in common with standard Omicron, but it lacks a particular genetic change that allows lab-based PCR tests to be used as a rough and ready means of flagging up probable cases.
Continue reading...The arrival of the Omicron variant and rising infection rates has led to myriad new rules that travellers have to negotiate before setting off
Spain has banned all non-vaccinated Britons from entering the country. The ban is expected to last until at least 31 December, at which point the rules will be reviewed.
Continue reading...The Omicron variant has refocused attention on vaccination rates as data shows disparities in uptake across age, region and ethnicity
Hundreds of cases of the new Omicron Covid-19 variant have now been confirmed in the UK and experts have called for a renewed focus on vaccination rates.
As of 4 December, just over eight in 10 people aged 12 or older UK-wide had received two doses of a coronavirus vaccine, according to data from the UK Health Security Agency, while 89% had received a first dose. This means about 6 million eligible people may still be unvaccinated, based on ONS population figures as opposed to counts of GP records. So who are they?
Continue reading...Modern society has largely exiled death to the outskirts of existence, but Covid-19 has forced us all to confront it. Our relationship to the planet, each other and time itself can never be the same again
We have been asked to write about the future, the afterlife of the pandemic, but the future can never be told. This at least was the view of the economist John Maynard Keynes, who was commissioned to edit a series of essays for the Guardian in 1921, as the world was rebuilding after the first world war. The future is “fluctuating, vague and uncertain”, he wrote later, at a time when the mass unemployment of the 1930s had upended all confidence, the first stage on a road to international disaster that could, and could not, be foreseen. “The senses in which I am using the term [uncertain],” he said, “is that in which the prospect of a European war is uncertain, or the price of copper and the rate of interest 20 years hence, or the obsolescence of a new invention, or the position of private wealth-owners in the social system in 1970. About these matters there is no scientific basis on which to form any calculable probability whatever. We simply do not know.”
This may always be the case, but the pandemic has brought this truth so brutally into our lives that it threatens to crush the best hopes of the heart, which always look beyond the present. We are being robbed of the illusion that we can predict what will happen in the space of a second, a minute, an hour or a day. From one moment to the next, the pandemic seems to turn and point its finger at anyone, even at those who believed they were safely immune. The distribution of the virus and vaccination programme in different countries has been cruelly unequal, but as long as Covid remains a global presence, waves of increasing severity will be possible anywhere and at any moment in time. The most deadly pandemic of the 20th century, the Spanish flu at the end of the first world war, went through wave after wave and lasted for nearly four years. Across the world, people are desperate to feel they have turned a corner, that an end is in sight, only to be faced with a future that seems to be retreating like a vanishing horizon, a shadow, a blur. Nobody knows, with any degree of confidence, what will happen next. Anyone claiming to do so is a fraud.
Continue reading...David Littleproud says ‘conversations are happening’ about Olympics boycott; NSW teachers’ strike closes nearly 400 public schools; three new Omicron cases detected in ACT, six Covid-19 infections overall; Victoria pandemic bill becomes law; ; Victoria records 1,185 cases and seven deaths; NSW records 260 cases and two deaths – follow all the day’s news
A suspected shark attack on Victoria’s Bellarine Peninsula has left two teens in hospital and shut a beach, reports Callum Godde from AAP.
Emergency services were called to Ocean Grove, south east of Geelong, just after 7pm on Monday.
Continue reading...Early indications Omicron more transmissible than Delta, says Boris Johnson; Nicola Sturgeon says staff should work from home until mid-January
All international arrivals to the UK are now required to take a pre-departure Covid-19 test to tackle the new Omicron variant.
The tightened requirements have just come into force from 4am (GMT) on Tuesday 7 December.
Continue reading...Industry body warns that some operators won’t last the winter after return of strict Covid travel rules
Travel firms have called on the government to provide urgent financial help as fresh Covid-19 restrictions come in to force on Tuesday, hitting holiday travel just before the peak booking period.
Turnover has been at just 22% of normal levels for tour operators, according to figures from the travel association Abta.
Continue reading...Finding is good news for lower-income countries that have not yet completed their primary vaccination campaigns
Combining a first dose of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine with a second dose of either the Moderna or the Novavax jabs results in far higher levels of neutralising antibodies and T-cells compared with two doses of the AstraZeneca jab, a study has found.
The finding has important implications for lower-income countries that have not yet completed their primary vaccination campaigns, as it suggests you do not need access to mRNA vaccines – and therefore ultra-cold storage facilities – to trigger an extremely potent Covid-19 vaccine response.
Continue reading...The health secretary has updated the Commons on the latest numbers of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus virus, as well as new travel restrictions for those arriving in the UK
Continue reading...Two-thirds of contracts awarded before ‘eight-stage process’ was put in place were given out after referrals from ‘VIP lane’
At least 46 PPE deals were awarded to firms put in a special “VIP lane” by Conservative ministers, MPs and officials during the Covid pandemic before a formal due diligence process was put in place, it has emerged.
Ministers had claimed all PPE contracts were put through a rigorous “eight-stage process” for assuring quality and value for money, when criticised over the “VIP lane” via which contracts worth £5bn were handed to companies with political or Whitehall connections.
Continue reading...High commissioner says Omicron is mild variant and travel ban not necessary; fully vaccinated traveller to Argentina had tested negative on departure and arrival
The Johnson & Johnson booster shot may work well for those who originally had a Pfizer vaccine, a recent study has found.
Researchers at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston studied 65 people who had received two shots of the Pfizer vaccine. Six months after the second dose, the researchers gave 24 of the volunteers a third dose of the Pfizer vaccine and gave 41 the Johnson & Johnson shot.
Continue reading...Exclusive: at least 16 notices issued to prevent future deaths after inquests highlight care failures
Coroners in England have said lessons must be learned from failings made by overstretched services that struggled to adapt during the Covid pandemic, as details of inquests into deaths only now emerge.
At the height of the pandemic, everything from mental health and coastguard services to care homes had to quickly change how they operated, and coroners across England are highlighting failures made during this time through reports that identify avoidable deaths.
Azra Hussain, 41, who died in secure accommodation in Birmingham on 6 May 2020. Two months before her death, she had been due to begin electroconvulsive therapy, but because of an administrative error the treatment was cancelled and was then no longer possible because of Covid restrictions. The inquest jury concluded that had she been given this treatment, she would probably have lived.
Ruth Jones, a frail older woman thought to have caught Covid, who died in a care home after a fall in self-isolation. A coroner said the care home was not equipped to watch Jones during her isolation but she needed to be monitored because of her risk of injury if left alone.
Anthony Williamson, an experienced sea kayaker who died on his 54th birthday after getting into difficulty. The coroner said he was concerned there was a reduced level of coastguard cover around the Cornish coastline owing to the pandemic.
Continue reading...Many Americans’ mental health has suffered during the pandemic, and anxiety and depression persists
Sarah Isaacs, a therapist in Raleigh, North Carolina, sees mostly clients between the ages of 22 and 30, many of whom missed out on the usual dating and networking because of the Covid pandemic.
“They literally haven’t been able to do anything for two years,” said Isaacs, who specializes in working with people with eating disorders and people who identify as LGBTQ+.
Continue reading...Venues that say they respect personal choices may sound community-minded but really they undermine efforts to keep everyone safe
Like most Aucklanders, I can’t wait to get out of the city. After more than three months in lockdown, I’m keen for a break. Last summer, my partner and I went to Tauranga. We had so much fun that we’re planning to return – but this time, things will be different.
As Aotearoa New Zealand shifts from the Covid-19 “alert level” system to the new “traffic light” system, hospitality venues have been given a choice. Under the “red” and “orange” settings, they can welcome customers inside, but only if they’re willing to check vaccine passes. If they don’t want to do that, their service has to be contactless.
Continue reading...Covid vaccine rollout must reach developing world to prevent further variants, experts say
Failure to vaccinate the world against coronavirus created the perfect breeding ground for the emergence of the Omicron variant and should serve as a wake-up call to wealthy nations, campaigners have said.
Scientists and global health experts have called for action since the summer to tackle the crisis of vaccine inequality between rich and poor countries. The longer large parts of the world remained unvaccinated, they said, the more likely the virus was to mutate significantly.
Continue reading...Prof Dame Sarah Gilbert says this will not be the last time a virus threatens our lives and our livelihoods
The coronavirus pandemic that has so far killed more than 5 million people worldwide is far from over and the next one could be even more lethal, the creator of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine has said.
As fears grow over the threat posed by the highly mutated Omicron variant, detected in more than 30 countries, Prof Dame Sarah Gilbert cautioned that while it was increasingly obvious that “this pandemic is not done with us”, the next one could be worse.
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