Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Britain has given a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine to more than 10 million people, as public health experts call on ministers to target future vaccinations in hotspots where the disease is threatening to run out of control.
Official figures from across the UK’s four nations showed that 374,756 people received a jab on Tuesday, taking the headline total to 10.02 million, less than two months after the programme began.
Israel’s health ministry has said it will offer coronavirus vaccines to anyone over the age of 16, as part of a rapid campaign in which the majority of older and vulnerable people have already received shots.
The ministry has told healthcare providers they can start booking appointments for the new age group starting on Thursday.
The Sputnik V vaccine, which has been the subject of scepticism since Russia began using it last year before trials had ended, is 91.6% effective against symptomatic Covid according to data published in one of the world’s leading medical journals.
Results in the Lancet from 20,000 trial participants suggest Sputnik’s efficacy is on a par with that of some of the leading vaccines now in use. There was good efficacy in older adults, who are at highest risk for death, but little diversity, since most participants were white males.
Vaccines may have been described as the great escape route from the Covid pandemic – but treatments, which are bringing down death rates, will be needed as much as ever in the era of jabs because the virus is not expected to go away in the foreseeable future, experts say.
“It’s going to take a long time to vaccinate the world,” said Peter Horby of Oxford University, chief investigator of the Recovery trial into Covid treatments and chair of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag). “I don’t know what the estimates are, but we’ve already seen issues with manufacturing scale-up and difficulties in delivering at scale.
Last year, Covid-19 spread around the world, sending millions of people into lockdown as health services struggled to cope. The surge in new variants of the virus has prompted fresh questions and concerns. The Guardian's health editor, Sarah Boseley, explains what we now know about the Covid-19 variants and what they could mean for the future of the pandemic
When the coronavirus pandemic was in its infancy, one of the common silver linings scientists mentioned was the virus’s slow rate of mutation. It raised the hope that the virus lacked the agility to rapidly evolve around human immunity – whether from previous infection or vaccine. The virus is certainly slow to mutate by some standards. Sars-CoV-2 typically acquires two single letter changes in its genetic code a month, about half the rate seen in influenza.
So why are so many new variants emerging? At the heart of the problem is the fact the global pandemic is raging. Every new case is a chance for mutations to arise, spread and build up. In the simple arithmetic of evolution, when a virus mutates and gains an advantage it can rise above the others.
Death rates among people who end up in intensive care with Covid-19 have improved dramatically since the start of the pandemic thanks to advances in treatment, new research has found.
The proportion of those worst affected by the disease who die from it has fallen from 60% when it first appeared early last year to 36% by October, the study of global trends shows.
Billed as a celebration of humankind’s victory over coronavirus, Games could fall foul of pandemic for a second time
The Olympic rings have been spruced up and are once again overlooking Tokyo Bay. Countdown clocks have been reset, telling passersby there are just 171 days to go until the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games begin.
They are supposed to build excitement in the host city and among sports fans around the world. But Japan’s Olympic dream is quickly turning sour in the face of the worst global health crisis for a century.
Tens of thousands of people will be tested in a door-to-door “two-week sprint” to halt the spread of the South African coronavirus variant as cases were found across England.
Squads of health officials, firefighters and volunteers have been established to deliver and collect PCR test kits door-to-door and mobile testing units will be sent to each area. Wastewater could also be tested to determined the prevalence of the strain.
The South African variant, like the new UK variant, contains a mutation known as N501Y which is believed to make the virus more contagious than older variants. The South African variant also contains other mutations of concern, including E484K and K417N. These two mutations are thought to explain why the South African variant appears to be better able to evade neutralising antibody responses by the body.
Here are some of the main points from the Downing Street lobby briefing.
In Wales parents and children may know by the end of the week whether schools in Wales will be reopening after half-term, the Welsh government minister Eluned Morgan has indicated. She told a briefing:
We’re expecting an announcement on that on Friday but of course that will be determined by those negotiations [with teaching unions] that will be held this week.
The focus will absolutely be on those children who are youngest, who find it most difficult to learn online and need that socialisation perhaps more than some of the older children.
Western Australia has imposed a five-day lockdown in metropolitan Perth, the Peel region and the state’s south-west region amid fears a hotel quarantine worker who has tested positive to Covid-19 has contracted the highly contagious UK variant.
South Australia and Victoria shut its borders to the affected areas late on Sunday evening, and in other states and territories, WA residents were told to immediately go into self-isolation, potentially creating chaos in Canberra where MPs had flown in for the resumption of parliament this week.
The UK could help the EU and other nations with coronavirus vaccine supplies even before the domestic vaccination programme has been completed, the international trade secretary, Liz Truss, has said.
As ministers sought to smooth relations with Brussels after the EU’s much-criticised and swiftly rescinded decision to impose a vaccine border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, Truss sought to stress the need for international cooperation.
Leading infectious disease expert predicts that deadlier British strain will become dominant this spring
A leading infectious disease expert predicted on Sunday that the deadlier British variant of Covid-19 will become the dominant strain of the virus in the US and could hit the country like a hurricane.
The worrying forecast came as the total of confirmed infections in the US passed the 26m mark, with the death toll advancing steadily towards the grim milestone of half a million after on Sunday surpassing the total of 440,000, by far the highest in the world according to data gathered by the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus research center.
As a hospital consultant working in intensive care, the reality of coronavirus and patients’ fear is brought home to me every day
I’m not ready,” the patient implores me through her CPAP [continuous positive airway pressure] hood. She’s breathing at more than triple her normal rate and I’ve been asked to intubate her as she’s deteriorating, despite three days in intensive care. She is 42 years old.
There’s terror in her eyes. A tear runs down her cheek. She’s looking at the patient opposite who is in an induced coma, intubated and ventilated, and isn’t doing well.
The European Union’s threat to impose a vaccine border between Northern Ireland and the Republic risks reigniting one of Brexit’s bitterest disputes, as senior Tories said the move proved the need for an immediate overhaul of the bloc’s treatment of Northern Ireland.
The renewed demands emerged with the EU facing an extraordinary backlash over its bungled announcement of potential export controls on vaccines produced within the bloc. The World Health Organization (WHO) condemned the move and the pharmaceutical industry warned that the measures would damage their vaccination efforts.
Hello everyone, I’m Molly Blackall, taking over the blog in London. I’ll be bringing you all the key updates in the coronavirus pandemic around the world over the next few hours.
If you spot something you think we should be reporting on in this blog, please feel free to drop me a message on Twitter. Tips and pointers always much appreciated!
The former Northern Ireland secretary Julian Smith has weighed into the row over the EU’s threat to override part of Northern Ireland Protocol under its coronavirus vaccine controls, calling it “almost Trumpian.”
The Tory MP told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Years have been spent trying to ensure goods will flow freely and there will be no hard border and last night the EU pulled the emergency cord without following any of the process that are in the protocol if one side wants to suspend it.
And they did that, in my view, without anywhere near the understanding of the Good Friday Agreement, of the sensitivity of the situation in Northern Ireland, and it was an almost Trumpian act.
It is not just a backdoor for goods going to Britain, it is a very sensitive place and we have a duty of care between the EU and the UK to preserve no hard border and stability in Northern Ireland.
A year ago, on 30 January, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of the new coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern – the highest level of alarm at our disposal under international law.
At the time there were 98 confirmed cases and no deaths reported outside China. The WHO repeatedly urged all countries to capitalise on the “window of opportunity” to prevent widespread transmission of this new virus.
Covid-19 infections in the UK are reducing but remain stubbornly high, despite a month of lockdown measures. So could we be doing more as individuals to curb transmission of the virus? A virologist, a psychologist and a public health expert share their views on some of the Covid-19 mistakes that we are all still making.