Prime minister Kim Boo-kyum says emergency measures may be imposed as cases spike just weeks after the country reopened
South Korea reported a new daily record of 4,116 new coronavirus cases as the country battles to contain a spike in serious cases requiring hospitalisation, health authorities said.
South Korea this month switched to a “living with Covid-19” plan aimed at lifting rigid distancing rules and ultimately reopening after reaching vaccination goals last month.
Continue reading...Border will first open to New Zealand citizens coming from Australia, then from the rest of the world, and finally to all other vaccinated visitors from April
New Zealand has announced it will reopen its borders to vaccinated visitors in the opening months of 2022, for the first time since prime minister Jacinda Ardern announced their snap closure in the first month of the Covid-19 pandemic. The country’s borders have been closed for more than a year and a half.
The border will initially open to New Zealand citizens and visa holders coming from Australia, then from the rest of the world, and finally to all other vaccinated visitors from the end of April. They will still have to self-isolate at home for a week, but will no longer have to pass through the country’s expensive and highly-space limited managed isolation facilities.
Continue reading...UK government guidance updated to cover socialising indoors, as Scotland’s first minister urges people to make ‘extra effort’
Covid guidance is being toughened across the UK to try to prevent a surge in cases before Christmas, with a focus on more rapid tests and home working. But scientists said messaging must be reinforced with a significant government publicity blitz.
In an update to official guidance, people in England are now advised to take a lateral flow test (LFT) if they expect to be in a “high risk situation” that day, such as spending time in “crowded and enclosed spaces” and where “there is limited fresh air”.
Continue reading...Dr Hans Kluge describes situation as ‘very serious’ with increasing strain on health services
Total deaths across Europe from Covid-19 are likely to exceed 2 million by March next year, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said, adding that the pandemic had become the number one cause of death in the region.
Reported deaths have risen to nearly 4,200 a day, double the number being recorded in September, the agency said, while cumulative reported deaths in the region, which includes the UK, have already surpassed 1.5 million.
Continue reading...Latest updates: Torridge in Devon had the highest rate in UK followed by Mid Ulster in Northern Ireland; France reports over 30,000 cases
Here’s the latest from Reuters on the situation in Germany, where the acting health minister called on Tuesday for further restrictions to contain a “dramatic” surge in coronavirus cases as the country’s infection rate hit a record high and the United States advised against travel there.
The seven-day incidence rate - the number of people per 100,000 to be infected over the last week - hit 399.8 on Tuesday, up from 386.5 on Monday, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed.
Access to healthcare is expensive and, in an emergency, villagers are forced to walk for hours to the nearest health facility. For women, the lack of facilities, combined with patriarchal attitudes, means they have had no control over their reproductive health. But Communities Health Africa Trust (Chat) organises mobile healthcare outreach to poorly served communities such as Lekiji. Chat identifies vulnerable communities with limited access to health facilities and significant family planning needs, and brings health provision and education to their door.
Lack of roads is no barrier to their work. If they cannot reach the communities by car, they switch to an older form of transport: camel. In the past three years Chat has reached more than 100,000 people with behaviour-changing messages that focus on family planning but include TB, HIV and Covid prevention services across 14 counties in Kenya.
Continue reading...• Reconstruction after Covid: a new series of long reads
While the rich nations focus on booster jabs and returning to the office, much of the world is facing devastating second-order coronavirus effects. Now is the time to build a fairer, more responsible international system for the future
For the past year and a half, people everywhere have been in the grip of a pandemic – but not necessarily the same one. In the affluent world, a viral respiratory disease, Covid-19, suddenly became a leading cause of death. In much of the developing world, by contrast, the main engine of destruction wasn’t this new disease, but its second-order effects: measures they took, and we took, in response to the coronavirus. Richer nations and poorer nations differ in their vulnerabilities.
Whenever I talk with members of my family in Ghana, Nigeria and Namibia, I’m reminded that a global event can also be a profoundly local one. Lives and livelihoods have been affected in these places very differently from the way they have in Europe or the US. That’s true in the economic and educational realm, but it’s true, too, in the realm of public health. And across all these realms, the stakes are often life or death.
Continue reading...Analysis shows job adverts requiring candidates to be jabbed rose by 189% between August and October
Employers in the UK are following the lead of their counterparts in the US by stepping up demands for staff to be vaccinated against Covid-19, analysis of recruitment adverts reveals.
According to figures from the jobs website Adzuna, the number of ads explicitly requiring candidates to be vaccinated rose by 189% between August and October as more firms ask for workers to be jabbed before they start on the job.
Continue reading...Survey also finds adults aged 18-24 and women more concerned about personal finances than other groups
Young people and women have taken the hardest psychological and financial hit from the pandemic, a YouGov survey has found – but few people anywhere are considering changing their lives as a result of it.
The annual YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project found that in many of the 27 countries surveyed, young people were consistently more likely than their elders to feel the Covid crisis had made their financial and mental health concerns worse.
Continue reading...The coronavirus pandemic in Australia has caused almost 2,000 deaths and resulted in close to 200,000 cases. In the worst-hit states of New South Wales and Victoria, high vaccination rates have now reduced the rate of hospital admissions. Here we have used an experimental mapping method to show how the outbreak spread across the two states from the start of the pandemic until now. Each dot represents a person who tested positive to Covid-19, and has been placed randomly within their postcode or local government area to visualise the number of cases in a region. It’s important to remember that this is not necessarily where they caught the virus and instead is where they live. Blue dots represent those who probably caught the coronavirus overseas, and red dots are those who caught the coronavirus locally. All dots fade to grey and are removed after two weeks
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UK also reports 45 further Covid-related deaths; from today Greeks barred from all enclosed public spaces if they are unvaccinated
Here’s some more detail from Agence France-Presse in Vienna on Austria’s move into its fourth Covid lockdown:
People in Austria are not allowed to leave home except to go to work, shop for essentials and exercise, as the country returned to a Covid-19 lockdown on Monday morning.
Continue reading...Using an experimental mapping method, the outbreak of Covid-19 across the two states can be plotted from the start of the pandemic
The coronavirus pandemic in Australia has caused almost 2,000 deaths and resulted in close to 200,000 cases.
In the worst-hit states of New South Wales and Victoria, high vaccination rates have now reduced the rate of hospital admissions.
Continue reading...Reintroduction of restrictions has led to violent protests in European cities
Germany and the Netherlands have been told they should face still tougher Covid restrictions as the German health minister, Jens Spahn, made the startling prediction that most of his compatriots would be “vaccinated, cured or dead” by the end of winter.
With Europe again the centre of the pandemic, ushering in tighter controls mainly on the unvaccinated across the continent, on Monday Austria became the first west European country to re-enter lockdown since vaccination began earlier this year.
Continue reading...In 82% of countries surveyed, women were disproportionately hit, from loss of income to extra responsibility for caring, report shows
The social and economic burden of Covid-19 has fallen disproportionately on women around the world, the Red Cross has warned, in a stark analysis of the impact of the pandemic.
Women were particularly affected by loss of income and education, rises in domestic violence, child marriage and trafficking, and responsibility for caring for children and sick relatives, according to a comprehensive report published by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) on Monday.
Continue reading...Analysis: scientists say high transmission rates mean caution is critical if people are to stay safe
As Christmas approached in 2020, it was not a Dickensian spirit but the spectre of Covid that haunted households up and down the UK.
With cases soaring, government-approved plans to allow three households to mix for five days in England were scrapped within weeks of being made, while scientists urged families to connect over Zoom or host drinks on the pavement rather than meeting for a hug.
Continue reading...Riot police and protesters clashed in the streets of Brussels on Sunday in demonstrations over government-imposed Covid-19 restrictions, with police firing water cannon and teargas at crowds. Protesters threw smoke bombs, fireworks and rocks at officers. Belgium tightened its coronavirus restrictions on Wednesday, mandating wider use of masks and enforcing working from home, as cases surged in the country
Continue reading...International border changes announced; hundreds leave NT public service over vaccine mandate; Katherine lockdown extended; question time begins in Canberra; Labor and Coalition scrap over PM’s response to protesters’ threats; Victoria records 1,029 Covid cases, three deaths; 180 new cases, one death in NSW. Follow all the day’s news live
Simon Birmingham may be trying to walk back the “both sides” of the so-called freedom protests, which included threats of violence and death against sitting state MPs, but Barnaby Joyce is holding the line. There is a lot of work being done by a small group of people to make sure those protesting aren’t all labelled as “mad”. This is despite that same group of people usually condemning peaceful protests from the left.
Here is Joyce on the Seven network this morning:
There’s not there’s not a person in this building, not any one, I hope exists that says that threatening a person’s life, building gallows, doing all that kind of total garbage is something that is just … we don’t want it.
OK. So, no one is suggesting for one second, we do that. And it’s outrageous.
Continue reading...Scott Morrison plays down government division, saying Liberal and National parties are ‘not run as an autocracy’
One Nation’s anti-Covid vaccination mandate bill has been rejected in the Senate, despite five government senators crossing the floor to support it.
On Monday morning Liberals Gerard Rennick and Alex Antic, who have threatened to withhold support from government legislation, voted for the bill contradicting the Morrison government’s aged care vaccine mandate and state government public health orders.
Continue reading...Latest updates: tens of thousands of people march in Belgian capital against Covid measure; UK health secretary says vaccination must be voluntary
From Monday, people aged 40-49 in England will be able to book a Covid jab, the Department of Health and Social Care has confirmed. Sixteen and 17-year-olds will also be able to book in for their second jab.
Taking up the offer of a second or third dose will help protect the progress of the vaccine rollout in the face of waning immunity, and mean people can “enjoy Christmas safely”, the Department of Health and Social Care said.
We simply don’t know how many people who didn’t come forward during Covid-19, during the pandemic, will actually come forward, and therefore we are in a bit of a guessing game about exactly how many.
But the bit I can assure you is that NHS staff and NHS leaders are working incredibly hard at the moment to create that plan to ensure that we can get through that backlog as quickly as possible.
Continue reading...Anger at government restrictions spreads to Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark and Croatia
Violence erupted at demonstrations in Belgium and the Netherlands over the weekend as tougher Covid-19 restrictions to curb the resurgent pandemic led to angry protests in several European countries.
Ten of thousands of people marched through central Brussels on Sunday to protest against reinforced restrictions imposed by the Belgian government to counter the latest rise in coronavirus cases. The march, which police estimated involved 35,000 people, began peacefully but descended into violence as several hundred people started pelting officers, smashing cars and setting rubbish bins on fire. Police responded with teargas and water cannon.
Continue reading...Coronavirus cases rising across the country for the first time in weeks as experts fear Thanksgiving will fuel a further increase
The US government’s chief medical adviser Dr Anthony Fauci warned on Sunday that time was running short to prevent a “dangerous” new surge of Covid-19 infections from overwhelming the upcoming holiday season.
Coronavirus cases across the US are rising again for the first time in weeks, and approaching 100,000 per day. Experts fear that this week’s Thanksgiving holiday, for which tens of millions of Americans will travel for indoor celebrations with family and friends, will fuel a further surge.
Continue reading...