Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Promising details were released this week about Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine but it remains in the early stages of development
Hopeful news about a Covid-19 vaccine developed by US government researchers and Moderna Inc has buoyed expectations – and markets – on the potential for a preventive measure against a global pandemic that has killed more than half a million people and upended daily life.
Moderna first announced its vaccine, backed by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, prompted an immune response in 45 adults in May.
More than 300 towns free of Covid-19 were allowed to reopen in May to mitigate the pandemic’s economic cost. With cases surging, most have been forced to close
As the coronavirus pandemic advances across Mexico, leaving thousands dead in its wake, Tepango de Rodríguez has – so far – remained untouched.
The town of about 4,000 people sits high in the mountains of the Sierra Norte in Puebla state, and was quick to apply strict preventive measures, closing its food market and installing health checkpoints.
Melinda Gates, the co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said in a paper this week that policymakers risked prolonging the crisis and slowing economic recovery if they ignored the gendered impacts of coronavirus. She added that overhauling systems could allow governments to build “more prosperous, more prepared and more equal” countries.
Acting Rural Fire Service commissioner Rob Rogers has been formally appointed to the position, replacing Shane Fitzsimmons as leader of the NSW fire agency.
Rogers began volunteering with the RFS in 1979 and has been acting in the role since April. He was a deputy commissioner during the horrific 2019-2020 fires.
Rob is truly a veteran of the RFS. From his seat on the ‘Belrose Blitz’ (fire tanker) to the commissioner’s chair - the community has benefited from Rob’s leadership in action over successive fire seasons.
We’ve been working in lockstep with Rob Rogers and the RFS to ensure the state is as prepared as it can be to face disaster again this bushfire season.
The Queensland Council for Civil Liberties has called on the state government to release the draft of its bill to increase the maximum penalty for breaching public health orders to six months imprisonment.
The public health act already carries fines of $4,003 for breaching the chief health officer’s directions, which currently includes entering Queensland without a valid border declaration pass.
The proposed further Covid-19 legislation containing prison terms of up to 6 months represents a significant increase in penalties and in that regard the proposed legislation should have been the subject of public consultation.
There has been no consultation with this Council and so far as I am aware no consultation with other stakeholders such as the Queensland Law Society or the Bar Association.
Activists fear devastation as virus arrives at indigenous reserve
At least six coronavirus cases among isolated Nahua people
The Covid-19 virus has reached a remote reserve for recently contacted indigenous people in the Peruvian Amazon, despite efforts to shield the extremely vulnerable population from the pandemic.
Part of the northern Spanish region of Catalonia has gone back into lockdown, with Barcelona suggesting it might also follow suit with restrictions in some districts, as authorities sought to control a resurgence of coronavirus cases emerging just weeks after a nationwide lockdown was lifted.
As a judge overturned a previous court decision to approve the stay-at-home order for the Lleida area, west of Barcelona, friction was emerging over how to handle an increase in cases in a suburb of the Catalan capital.
It happened one day during my first year of college at Rutgers University, in my home state of New Jersey. The anti-apartheid movement was raging on my college campus, there was still a massive buzz about Jesse Jackson’s first run for president and I had instantly become woke, as we say, because of names such as Winnie and Nelson Mandela, because of the Aids and crack epidemics, and because of my adopted big sister on campus, an older student named Lisa Williamson, who would later become the famed activist and bestselling author Sister Souljah.
For sure, Lisa was one of the most incredible speakers I had ever heard. She was a fearless leader, and I became so instantly fond of her, I even called her “Ma” just like I did my own mother. And she adored me, taught me and shared with me everything that she knew and was learning, in real time.
Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious diseases expert, has pushed back at a concerted campaign by Donald Trump and his allies to discredit his response to the coronavirus pandemic. 'I believe for the most part you can trust respected medical authorities,' Fauci told a virtual forum at Georgetown University in Washington. 'I believe I’m one of them, so I think you can trust me.'
With countries all over the world affected by the coronavirus pandemic, the US has emerged as a global hotspot. The Trump administration has been criticized for being slower to act than other countries. The US currently leads the world in both confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths according to Johns Hopkins University.
It’s important to point out that the actual death toll is believed to be far higher than the tally compiled from government figures.
Drug cartels and rebel groups are imposing their own bloody coronavirus lockdowns across Colombia – and killing those who do not obey, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
Boris Johnson has indicated he has not read a government-commissioned report setting out urgent measures needed to prepare for a possible second wave of coronavirus, telling the Commons only that he was “aware” of it.
Johnson was questioned at length by Keir Starmer at prime minister’s questions about the study by 37 senior doctors and scientists, published this week, and the need for an effective test-and-trace system to mitigate any new outbreak.
The failure of leaders to take into account the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on women, and their roles in lessening its harm, will mean a long, slow recovery that could cost the world economy trillions of dollars, Melinda Gates has warned.
Even a four-year delay in programmes that promote gender equality, such as advancing women’s digital and financial inclusion, would wipe a potential $5tn (£4tn) from global GDP by 2030.
Brazil has suffered 1,233 more deaths and registered 39,924 new cases, its health ministry has said. The country has now recorded a total off 75,366 deaths and confirmed 1,996,748 cases in all, making it the world’s second worst-affected.
As the figures were released, the far-right president, who has repeatedly dismissed the dangers posed by the pandemic, publicly acknowledged a second positive test that suggests he has not recovered. Bolsonaro told reporters he would get tested again in a few days.
Scotland could ask people arriving from England to quarantine, its first minister Nicola Sturgeon has said. In an interview with ITV’s Peston programme due to be broadcast in the next couple of hours, she has said:
Scotland would have the ability through public health measures to ask people to quarantine if they came to Scotland. And I’ve said, again, this is not political, it is not constitutional, I’m taking these decisions purely from a public health perspective. We do see prevalence of the virus at a lower level at the moment – although we’re not complacent – than we do in England.
But that’s not something I want to do if we can avoid that. I think the first thing we want to do is work very constructively as we do already with authorities in England to look at good outbreak management and where that requires localised travel restrictions, then rely on that in the first instance.
Well, my calculation is that if we are more successful in driving the virus to very low levels, getting as close as possible to elimination of it before a potential second wave in the autumn and winter, then we will build ourselves a much more sustainable foundation for economic recovery.
So, the judgement is that taking a couple of weeks, and that’s pretty much what we’re talking about here, longer to come out of lockdown, if that buys us a more sustainable recovery in the medium to long term, then that’s the right thing to do.
Restrictions imposed on Indian city of Bangalore and state of Bihar; Venezuela’s capital Caracas to go into a strict lockdown on Wednesday; Face masks mandatory in France; Follow the latest updates
AFP is reporting on Tokyo being on its highest coronavirus alert level after a rise in new cases - particularly in younger people, in nightlife areas and also in workplaces and in families - as experts said the rising infections were a clear “red flag”.
However, the move to a “red” alert does not mean the city will ask businesses to close or events to be postponed. Even during a national state of emergency in April, there was no “lockdown” in Japan of the type seen in Europe.
AP are also reporting on how virus restrictions in Australia are being reimposed, shutting businesses and curbing people’s social lives as communities try to curb a disease resurgence before it spins out of control.
Residents of Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, were warned today to comply with lockdown regulations or face tougher restrictions. Melbourne’s 5 million people and part of the city’s semi-rural surrounds are a week into a new, six-week lockdown to contain a new outbreak there.
The health department now recommends masks where community transmission of coronavirus is occurring and physical distancing is difficult. From washable cloth face masks to reusable ones and how to wear them, here’s what you need to know
Last week, the national cabinet updated its position on the use of face masks, deciding that people should wear them in locations where there is community transmission of the coronavirus and where social distancing is difficult.
The announcement was a response to rising case numbers in Melbourne, which is now in the early stages of a six-week stage three lockdown.
Analysis: The administration’s barrage of attacks on the public health expert comes as little surprise, observers say
Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious diseases expert, has pushed back at a concerted campaign by Donald Trump and his allies to discredit his response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Officials and advisers have publicly sought to undermine Fauci in at least five separate instances over the past four days, even as the coronavirus surges across the US, with the death toll now above 135,000.
Nurses not wearing face masks or staying two metres apart led to an outbreak of Covid-19 that shut an A&E unit after 70 staff at a hospital had to go into quarantine, an inquiry has found.
An investigation by Hillingdon hospital in north-west London has found that a nurse who had coronavirus unwittingly infected 16 others during a training session they all attended on 30 June, in what was described by a doctor as a “super-spreading event”.
Exclusive: A litany of failings meant that when Italy faced disaster, its distress call to the EU met with a shocking silence
It was a moment of chilling clarity. On 26 February, with the numbers of Italians known to be infected by coronavirus tripling every 48 hours, the country’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, appealed to fellow EU member states for help.
His hospitals were overwhelmed. Italian doctors and nurses had run out of the masks, gloves and aprons they needed to keep themselves safe, and medics were being forced to play God with the lives of the critically-ill due to an acute lack of ventilators.
Governments are spending vastly more in support of fossil fuels than on low-carbon energy in rescue packages triggered by the coronavirus crisis, new data has shown, despite rhetoric from many countries in support of a “green recovery”.
Data from the Energy Policy Tracker, a new research effort by several civil society groups, shows that at least $151bn (£120bn) of bailout cash has been spent or earmarked so far to support fossil fuels by the G20 group of large economies. Only about a fifth of this spending is conditional on environmental requirements such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions or cleaning up pollution.