Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
A flight from the Greek island of Zante was “full of selfish ‘covidiots’ and an inept crew”, according to a passenger among the almost 200 onboard who have been told to self-isolate after a coronavirus outbreak.
Tui said it had launched an investigation after 16 people tested positive for Covid-19 linked to its flight to Cardiff on 25 August, including seven passengers who were infectious or potentially infectious on the plane.
Covid could be ‘the straw that breaks the camel’s back’ health workers warn. Photographers Fardosa Hussein and Ismail Taxta captured a country battling seemingly insurmountable odds
Considering the country was in the middle of a pandemic, the silence at the entrance to Mogadishu’s De Martini hospital felt almost numbing, the expected noise replaced by stillness in its deserted, sanitised halls.
It sent a chill through me as I arrived in May to capture the work being done at what was, until recently, the Somali capital’s only hospital taking coronavirus patients. It felt like a prison.
Figure of 41 deaths in Victoria includes 33 people who died in aged care but not reported until yesterday; legislation to extend but reduce jobkeeper and jobseeker payments will be considered by the Senate today. Follow all the latest news and updates, live
Covid-19 has spread around the planet, sending billions of people into lockdown as health services struggle to cope. Find out where the virus has spread, and where it has been most deadly
Scientists worldwide are working against the clock to find a viable coronavirus vaccine – but are corners being cut for the sake of political gain and profit?
To begin with, it felt like a sleek performance from a well-honed relay team. On 11 January, only 10 days after reporting a new respiratory disease, the Chinese published the genome sequence of the virus that causes it. Researchers around the world set to work building vaccines against Covid-19, as the disease became known, and the first candidate entered human trials on 16 March; it was joined, as the months passed, by dozens of others.
Scientists were jubilant, and they had every right to be. They’d broken all vaccinology records to get to that point. But then tensions began to surface among the team members, and lately even the most distracted spectator will have noticed that they appear to be trying to nobble each other openly on the track. With accusations that the Russians and Chinese hacked research groups in other countries, biotech executives criticised for cashing in on their own, as yet unapproved vaccines, and Russia approving a vaccine that is still in clinical trials, the quest for a vaccine seems to have turned sour.
Young people have suffered more with mental health issues over the last few months than any other age group, according to a far-reaching study that has scrutinised the effects of the pandemic on the under-25s.
A troubling picture of growing levels of anxiety and an inability to concentrate was reported by those aged between 18 and 24 as part of an extensive survey of more than 6,000 adults carried out by YouGov and designed by the Resolution Foundation, which was subsequently analysed by the independent charity the Health Foundation.
Didier Raoult has touted many dubious treatments but is a hero in France’s second city, which has long railed against Paris
The people of Provence in the south of France have a word for a particularly comic or bizarrely dramatic situation: pagnolesque.
It is a tribute to one of the region’s most famous sons, the author Marcel Pagnol, who declared in his play Les Marchands de Gloire (The Glory Merchants): “In politics everything is a comedy.”
Demonstration against coronavirus curbs gets go-ahead for German capital; Australian state sees 18 deaths and 94 cases; India sets new daily record with more than 77,000 cases. Follow all the updates live
Russia said on Saturday 111 people had died from the new coronavirus in the last 24 hours, raising the official death toll to 17,025. Russia’s coronavirus taskforce reported 4,941 new cases, bringing its nationwide tally to 985,346, the fourth largest caseload in the world.
Operations have resumed at the world’s biggest gold mine in Indonesia, the company that runs it said on Saturday after workers blocked access to the site in protest at being stopped from visiting their families over virus concerns.
The miners at the Grasberg complex in the country’s easternmost Papua region reached an agreement with the US-based operator Freeport, which said it would resume bus services for workers to return home.
The number of new Covid-19 cases in Victoria has dropped below 100 for the first time since 5 July but the state has recorded another 18 deaths, 16 of those linked to aged care outbreaks.
The premier, Daniel Andrews, said while announcing the 94 new cases that the downward trend was promising but cases would need to drop to “the lowest number we can get” before restrictions were eased.
Access to clean, safe drinking water across the Pacific is the lowest of any region in the world, raising fears for the rapid spread of coronavirus
Papua New Guinea’s battle against a climbing rate of Covid-19 infections is being hampered by the most basic of shortages – access to clean water –public health experts have warned.
Case numbers have jumped from just 11 cases two months ago to 424 on Friday, with four deaths. And efforts to contain escalating case numbers throughout the archipelago, and to prevent outbreaks across the Pacific region, are being hamstrung because thousands cannot access clean water for hand-washing and cleaning, the region’s key development agency says.
India has set a new national record of daily coronavirus infections, reporting more than 77,000 cases in 24 hours, just shy of the global one-day record tally held by America.
India’s health ministry reported 77, 266 new cases on Friday. The largest ever one day rise is 78,427, reported by the US on 25 July. India also recorded more than 1,000 new deaths taking total fatalities, to 61,529, the fourth highest total in the world, behind the US, Brazil and Mexico.
Davey’s victory over Moran means the three biggest UK-wide parties are led by white men with seats in London, a fact which may not do much to realise the hopes all three have espoused to speak more effectively for the whole country.
Turning back to coronavirus, new figures from the Department of Health and Social Care show that 75.5% of close contacts of people who tested positive for Covid-19 in England were reached through the Test and Trace system in the week ending August 19.
That figure is up from 71.6% in the previous week. For cases handled by local health protection teams, 95.6% of contacts were reached and asked to self-isolate in the week to August 19. By contrast, for those cases handled either online or by call centres, 61.6% of close contacts have been reached and asked to self-isolate.
That is where we will leave the live blog for this evening. If you want to follow the latest global coronavirus news you can follow our other live blog here.
Infections in Indonesian city plummet after release of mosquitoes injected with Wolbachia bacteria
Infecting mosquitoes with a naturally occurring bacteria dramatically reduces their ability to transmit dengue, according to a breakthrough study that could pave the way to eliminating the disease.
Research conducted in Indonesia, where dengue is endemic, found that releasing mosquitoes infected with the bacteria Wolbachia into parts of Yogyakarta city reduced the number of dengue infections by 77% compared with untreated areas.
The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, appears to have employed the services of a celebrity personal trainer after admitting he needed to lose weight after contracting Covid-19.
Germany will end mandatory coronavirus tests for travellers returning from high-risk areas abroad and again focus its testing strategy on people with symptoms or possible exposure to Covid-19 patients, the country’s health minister said today.
Health minister Jens Spahn said that over the summer vacation period the number of virus tests performed in Germany nearly doubled to 900,000 a week in part to identify people who caught the virus during trips abroad, the Associated Press agency reports.
Obesity increases the risk of death from Covid-19 by nearly 50% and may make vaccines against the disease less effective, according to a comprehensive study using global data.
The research from leading global experts warns that the risks for people with obesity are greater than previously thought.
The Irish government wants the embattled European trade commissioner, Phil Hogan, to quit or be sacked after concluding he flouted coronavirus regulations during a golfing break in Ireland.
The Green party leader, Eamon Ryan, part of the ruling coalition, on Wednesday said the government had lost confidence in Hogan.
While some scientists believe the virus has become less deadly, others look at the factors that suggest otherwise
Are Covid-19 death rates decreasing? Most statistics indicate that although cases of Covid-19 are rising in many parts of Europe and the United States, the number of deaths and cases of severe complications remain relatively low. For example, patients on ventilators have dropped from 3,000 at the epidemic’s peak in Britain to 70. At the same time, the number of cases in the UK have begun to rise in many areas.
What lies behind this trend? Doctors are unsure exactly what is going on. Some suggest that medical interventions are more successful at treating those who suffer complications from the disease. For example, the drug dexamethasone was recently shown to improve survival rates among patients requiring ventilation. Others argue that different factors are involved. One suggestion is that Covid-19 is now becoming a disease of younger people who are less likely to die or suffer serious complications.
Carnival’s Princess Cruises has said it will cancel early 2021 cruises on two ships, citing travel, border and port restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Cruise lines, hammered by a crisis that has seen some ships turn into infection hotspots, had earlier said they were expecting solid 2021 bookings, mainly as repeat cruisers were eager to book their trips.
Kate Green, Labour’s shadow education secretary, has called the Department of Education change on face coverings a “half baked U-turn”.
Parents and schools needed clarity and leadership, but instead the government have just passed the buck back to them.
Face coverings should be compulsory in communal areas in schools.
It was inevitable that the policy on face coverings would change following guidance from the World Health Organization, and we recognise that the government in Westminster has responded to our call for a quick direction on this matter with the reopening of schools imminent.
The new policy is discretionary, other than in places where coronavirus restrictions apply, and secondary school and college leaders will welcome the flexibility this affords them to decide what best suits their circumstances.