Category Archives: Science

UK tightens borders and travel rules as variants spark new alarm

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PHE data indicates dominant variant ‘more likely to cause serious illness’ as Grant Shapps warns of threat to reopening on 21 June

Ministers have moved to tighten Britain’s borders as new data suggests the Delta coronavirus variant is much more likely to cause serious illness and is circulating more rapidly within schools.

With England’s reopening on 21 June hanging in the balance, the government removed Portugal from the green list of countries and added seven more countries to the red list – moves that provoked fury within the travel industry and left many holidaymakers in limbo.

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Coronavirus live news: Italy opens vaccinations for all over-12s; over 2bn Covid jabs given worldwide

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After a slow start, Italy has now given 35m doses to adults; Johns Hopkins figures show Israel remains most vaccinated country

The UK has recorded 5,274 new cases - the highest daily figure since March. There were 18 deaths reported within 28 days of a positive test.

Airlines and travel firms have reacted with dismay to the latest UK government guidance on foreign holidays, saying it has “failed on a promise” to the industry to provide greater notice on its directives.

PA has the story:

Many were angry at the lack of consultation and said it risked the summer being ruined for the struggling sector.

John Holland-Kaye, boss of Heathrow, the UK’s largest airport, said: “Ministers spent last month hailing the restart of international travel, only to close it down three weeks later all but guaranteeing another lost summer for the travel sector.

Related: Portugal removed from ‘green list’ of Covid travel destinations

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Climate tipping points could topple like dominoes, warn scientists

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Analysis shows significant risk of cascading events even at 2C of heating, with severe long-term effects

Ice sheets and ocean currents at risk of climate tipping points can destabilise each other as the world heats up, leading to a domino effect with severe consequences for humanity, according to a risk analysis.

Tipping points occur when global heating pushes temperatures beyond a critical threshold, leading to accelerated and irreversible impacts. Some large ice sheets in Antarctica are thought to already have passed their tipping points, meaning large sea-level rises in coming centuries.

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Covid variants: how much protection do the different vaccines offer?

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While restrictions in England could lift soon, impact of Delta variant on vaccination programme is uncertain

On Wednesday Boris Johnson said he saw nothing in the current data to stop the planned lifting of Covid restrictions in England on 21 June. But he said questions remained over how much protection the current vaccines offered against the Delta variant, B.1.617.2.

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Nasa plans return to Venus with two missions by 2030

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Nasa sets aside $1bn for two ventures, which will be first US exploration of the planet since 1989

Nasa is returning to Venus for the first time in more than three decades to gain a better understanding of the history of what scientists believe could have been the first habitable planet in the solar system.

Plans for two separate and ambitious deep space missions to Earth’s nearest neighbour were announced on Wednesday by the head of the US space agency, Bill Nelson. Launches were targeted for a 2028-2030 time frame, he said.

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‘Zero’: how the UK papers covered a day without a single reported Covid death

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All eyes now turn to whether this makes an easing of England’s Covid measures on 21 June more likely

Good news is broadcast across Wednesday’s front pages, as editors seize a rare opportunity to report on hope in the battle against the coronavirus.

Many papers suggest that the first day without a single Covid death for 10 months means the complete easing of lockdown restrictions will go ahead in England as planned on 21 June.

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UK Covid dashboard showing ‘zero deaths’ but also flashing warning signals

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Analysis: vaccine programme could sever link between infections and deaths but there are reasons to be seriously doubtful

For those who are urging the government to push ahead with easing of lockdown restrictions later this month, Tuesday’s announcement of ‘zero deaths’ in the UK will be cited as further proof of the necessity to end the delay.

Certainly, the country has come a long way since the new year Covid surge, when the daily number of infections reached a peak of more than 68,000, and the number of people in hospital would later rise to almost 40,000. Daily death tolls of more than 1,000 were common during the bleakest weeks of winter.

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‘Scary stuff’: International Space Station robotic arm struck by space junk

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  • ‘Lucky strike’ did not endanger seven astronauts on board
  • Not known what debris struck station or when it occurred

The sudden appearance of a small hole in a robotic arm aboard the international space station (ISS) has brought renewed attention to the danger posed by space junk.

Related: Chinese cargo craft docks with future space station in orbit

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China confirms first human case of H10N3 bird flu strain

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Man, 41, in Jiangsu, diagnosed on 28 May but risk of avian virus spread is low, says state health agency

A 41-year-old man in China’s eastern province of Jiangsu has been confirmed as the first human case of infection with the H10N3 strain of bird flu, although health officials in China said the risk of large-scale spread remained low.

The man, a resident of the city of Zhenjiang, went to hospital on 28 April after developing a fever and other symptoms, China’s national health commission said.

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Zero daily Covid deaths announced in UK

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Britain records no new deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test for first time since July 2020

The UK has announced no deaths from Covid-19 for the first time since July last year.

Official figures showed all four nations of the country recorded no new deaths on Tuesday within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test and 3,165 new cases of the virus. It means the official UK total number of deaths remains at 127,782, the first time the daily total has not risen since 30 July 2020.

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Human challenge: the people volunteering to be infected with Covid

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Amid claims PM wanted to be infected with Covid on TV, volunteers tell of taking part in a human challenge trial

If Dominic Cummings is to be believed, Boris Johnson was so sceptical that Covid-19 was a threat early last year that he was willing to inject himself with the virus that causes the disease on television. But there are actual volunteers – young and healthy people – who elected to be infected with the virus, all in the name of science.

These volunteers lined up to participate in “human challenge trials”, which have long been successfully employed to develop vaccines for diseases from typhoid to cholera.

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Peru has world’s worst per capita Covid toll after death data revised

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Updated figures give country a per capita death toll of 500 per 100,000 people – double that of Brazil

Peru has almost tripled its official Covid-19 death toll to 180,764, after a government review, making it the country with the highest death rate per capita, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Peru has been among the hardest hit Latin American countries during the pandemic, with its hospitals overcrowded and demand for oxygen outstripping availability.

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In rich countries, vaccines are making Covid-19 a manageable health issue | Devi Sridhar

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For the UK and elsewhere the pandemic’s end is in sight, but less fortunate parts of the world urgently need help

When Covid-19 began to spread rapidly in January 2020, governments across the world had limited strategies to deal with it. Without a vaccine or proven treatments for the disease, or even access to mass testing, the only choice political leaders faced was taking the least bad option available.

There were four approaches that different governments took during the beginning of the pandemic. China, New Zealand, Vietnam and Thailand chose to eliminate the virus at the cost of stopping international travel. Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea suppressed the virus through rigorous testing, tracing and isolating while avoiding harsh lockdowns. Sweden allowed the virus to spread through the population before realising health systems could not cope with an influx of Covid-19 patients. Meanwhile, European countries including England and France controlled the virus through a cycle of lockdown measures while keeping borders largely open. This resembled a holding pattern for a plane running out of fuel: people grew tired of continual restrictions, the economy suffered and Covid-19 was never fully suppressed.

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Third wave of Covid may be under way in UK, scientists say

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With new infections at level last seen in March, experts have cautioned against lifting restrictions too soon

Scientists have warned ministers that a third wave of coronavirus may have already begun in Britain, casting doubt on plans in England to lift all lockdown restrictions in three weeks’ time.

Experts cautioned that any rise in coronavirus hospital admissions could leave the NHS struggling to cope as it battles to clear the huge backlog in non-Covid cases.

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Bees give me a sense of calm: discovering nature in my back garden

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Their busy buzzing supplies the soundtrack to our summer – and by spotting them I’ve found a fresh sense of inner peace

Lockdown started, or reignited, a love of nature in many people. The RSPB reported a 70% increase in visitors to its website during the first lockdown. This came as no surprise to me; stuck at home, without the usual distraction of social engagement, my interest in nature grew. During the winter, I would look up into leafless trees trying to locate a bird whose loud call I could clearly hear. I even bought myself a pair of binoculars so I could acquaint myself with some of the local avian population.

But now I have a new hobby. As the warmer weather slowly arrives, I have been lowering my gaze towards the stirring flower beds and roadside verges, as well as rustling in the undergrowth in the hope of spotting my favourite insects. On a sunny day, there’s nothing better than sitting quietly by a patch of swaying flowers or under a blossoming tree to listen for the tell-tale sign of buzzing. This quintessential sound of summer connects me to the seasons and the natural world, even in the inner city, and fills me with joy. It is also a welcome break from staring at a screen all day. I wait peacefully, in anticipation and excitement of seeing different types of bees.

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Covid investigators must interview Wuhan stall owners, says virologist

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Efforts to find origin of coronavirus ‘must look at what animals were in the market in late 2019’

A leading scientist has called for stallholders at the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan to be interviewed in any further investigation of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Prof Eddie Holmes has joined a growing chorus of voices calling for increased efforts to identify the source of the outbreak. The US president, Joe Biden, has ordered the US intelligence community to intensify its scrutiny of the origins of coronavirus, as the theory that the virus might have come from a lab in Wuhan gains traction.

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Why is the new Covid variant spreading? | David Spiegelhalter and Anthony Masters

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The virus is now in a race with the vaccines and the victor is increasingly uncertain

The UK’s fine performance in sequencing Sars-CoV-2 genomes allows Public Health England to publish detailed analyses on the progress of variants and the latest report represents the changing of the guard. The B.1.1.7 lineage, first identified in Kent, had been dominant in the UK, but the B.1.617.2 lineage, first identified in India, comprised 58% of the most recent sequences, up from 44% the week before. There are strong regional differences, with under 10% of cases in Yorkshire and the Humber being the Indian-identified variant, while in north-west England that share is over 60%.

The main concern is about increased risk of transmission and reports also include estimates of what is known as the “secondary attack rate” (SAR), which simply means the proportion of an infected person’s contacts who also get infected. Using NHS test-and-trace data for recent non-travel cases, the estimated SAR for the B.1.1.7 variant was 8.1% (+/- 0.2%), while for the variant identified in India it was substantially higher at 13.5% (+/- 1.0%) – although these are likely to understate the true values due to the limitations of contact tracing.

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Chinese cargo craft docks with future space station in orbit

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Mission comes after China was rebuked for uncontrolled crash of rocket that launched the station itself

A Chinese cargo spacecraft carrying equipment and supplies has successfully docked with the core module of the country’s future space station, according to state media.

A Long March 7 rocket carrying the Tianzhou-2 cargo craft – loaded with essentials such as food, equipment and fuel – blasted off late on Saturday from the Wenchang launch site on the tropical southern island of Hainan, the Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday.

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Coronavirus news: UK records another 3,398 cases and seven deaths; Italy reports fall in daily fatalities

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Health experts urge caution on giving Covid vaccines to UK children; Victoria records five new cases of Covid-19 taking Melbourne outbreak to 35

Anti-vaccine protest in London descends into clashes between protesters and police.

Boris Johnson and the UK government are too busy “covering their own backs” to properly counter the threat posed by the Indian coronavirus variant, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer claimed.

Following Dominic Cummings’ explosive evidence about the prime minister’s handling of the pandemic, Sir Keir said “mistakes are being repeated” as the government considers whether to further ease restrictions.

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