PM to announce end to legal duty to quarantine next week as part of ‘living with Covid’ measures
The prime minister is to announce the end of the legal duty to self-isolate after testing positive for Covid-19 next week.
Downing Street said Boris Johnson will lay out his intentions to repeal all pandemic regulations that restrict public freedoms in England as part of his “living with Covid” plan on Monday.
Continue reading...Last wishes have gone unfulfilled, families been kept distant – the pandemic has made death a lonely experience. For carers, it’s underlined the value of a good death
Rachel Coghlan first witnessed death as a four-year-old when she watched her grandfather collapse and die in front of her. Later, as a physiotherapy student working as a carer in a nursing home, she found a woman dead in her bed. A nurse taught her not to recoil and instead showed her how to bathe and dress the body.
Later again, working as a physiotherapist in London, she watched as a man from Sudan struggled to weigh up a diabolical choice between staying in the UK to access treatment, or returning home to his family but with no prospect of healthcare. He chose his family.
Continue reading...While many assume they will be immune after catching Covid, experts say the emergence of Omicron has seen a significant increase in reinfection
When Peter Coleman took a rapid antigen test just weeks after recovering from Covid-19, it was partially “for the fun of it”.
Peter and his husband first tested positive to the virus on 10 January, during the post-holiday period that saw a spike in cases hit Melbourne and much of Australia.
Continue reading...With reproductive rights being increasingly restricted in Europe, people are relying on a network of volunteers to help them
When The Handmaid’s Tale first came out in 1985, the initial response was broadly that people thought such threats to women’s bodies and reproductive rights “couldn’t happen here”. By the time it aired as a TV series in 2017, just after Donald Trump was inaugurated in the US, people were no longer so sure. With every headline about gains in reproductive rights – Ireland repealing the eighth amendment in 2018, which had effectively banned abortions – there are others that underscore how fragile these rights are, wherever you live.
Recent changes to abortion law in Texas, which have prohibited abortions after six weeks – one of the most restrictive rules in the nation – and Poland’s near total ban on the procedure last year make it clear just how slippery the slope still is. We have to ask: what kind of country do we want to live in? A democratic one in which every individual is free to make decisions concerning their health and body, or one in which half the population is free and the state corrals the bodies of the other half?
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Myanmar to Mexico
Continue reading...Council chair says decision not guided by data or made in consultation with health profession
Ending all Covid restrictions is premature and “not based on current evidence”, the British Medical Association has said, as experts warned dropping testing and self-isolation could lead to a surge in cases.
Boris Johnson told MPs last week that he was preparing to lift the legal requirement in England to self-isolate on 24 February, a month earlier than originally planned, with a formal announcement expected on Monday.
Continue reading...Ambika Mod, who plays stressed junior doctor, reacts to criticism that BBC drama disrespects women
It is the TV drama that has divided its viewers. Hailed by some as a brutally accurate depiction of the realities of working in an NHS maternity unit, This Is Going to Hurt has been denounced by others as misogynistic and insulting to women giving birth.
Now the actor who plays an exhausted and stressed female junior doctor in the show has rejected criticism of the BBC series set on an NHS obstetrics and gynaecology ward.
Continue reading...Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia first countries to be assisted by global mRNA hub
Six African countries – Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia – will be the first on the continent to receive the technology needed to produce their own mRNA vaccines from a scheme headed by the World Health Organization.
The groundbreaking project aims to assist low- and middle-income countries in manufacturing mRNA vaccines at scale and according to international standards, with the aim of ending much of the reliance of African countries on vaccine manufacturers outside the continent.
Continue reading...Yes, we need to do something about obesity. But this new legislation seems unlikely to help
Everything I am, I owe to calories, as Sophia Loren never quite said. I have built myself, one edible unit of energy at a time. In truth I have more than built myself. I am over-engineered, in the way Mussolini’s Milan railway station is over-engineered, or Jason Momoa is over-engineered. See how deftly I compare myself to Momoa? We are exactly the same, him and me. Save that every calorie he consumes turns into a plank of rippling muscle, while mine turn into the greatest muffin top this side of the Greggs cake counter. But it’s all flesh, right?
Ah, calories. Mostly I try to ignore them; to regard them as I do the isobars on a meteorologist’s map which in no way describe the experience of standing outside in a howling gale. I know that not all calories are equal; that calories from carbs impact the body differently to those obtained from protein, for example. I also know that we all process foods differently. I have a metabolism that suggests I may at some point have been gene-spliced with a sloth, and hence spend hours in the gym brutalising myself. I also like my dinner very much. I regard the diet book industry as a massive scam. If a single diet book worked there would be no need to publish another one ever again. But still they come.
Continue reading...Authorities warn against surreptitious use of authorized vaccines for younger children due to no safety and efficacy data
As news broke recently that the Covid vaccine for children under five would be delayed in the US amid ongoing clinical trials, a call to make the vaccines off-label for use among those children gained force – but officials caution against vaccinating young children without any safety or efficacy data for this age group.
When providers sign an agreement to provide Covid-19 vaccine shots, they also agree not to give the vaccine off-label, or use it for purposes other than what it was approved to do.
Continue reading...Pfizer/BioNTech jab to be offered to younger children as experts decide benefits outweigh risks
Children aged between five and 11 in England will be offered a Covid vaccine, the UK government has confirmed, after similar announcements from Wales and Scotland this week.
The move was recommended by the Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which decided that the vaccination programme should be extended to younger children after lengthy discussions on the benefits and risks.
Continue reading...People with albinism across Africa face the harsh sun as well as social exclusion and suspicion. Photographer Maroussia Mbaye hopes to bring greater understanding through her work
An estimated 10,000 people are living with albinism in Senegal. Albinism is genetically inherited and, while prevalence varies from region to region, some of the highest rates are found in sub-Saharan Africa. The deficit in melanin is characterised by the absence of pigment in the skin, hair and eyes. Albinism can lead to skin cancer, visual impairment and sun sensitivity. About 90% of people with the condition across Africa die of skin cancer before they are 40.
Myths surrounding people affected by albinism have led to extreme practices involving the use of body parts. Hundreds of attacks including horrific mutilations, ritual killings, sexual violence, kidnappings and trafficking of people and body parts have happened in many countries across the continent. Many people with the condition are at risk every day because of superstition and witchcraft practices.
Franco-Senegalese photographer Maroussia Mbaye is a graduate from the London School of Economics and the London College of Communication. She was raised in a politically active family and her experiences fuelled an interest in social division and justice, leading her to pursue documentary photography, through which she aims to capture human life in new, perspective-shifting ways
Continue reading...Female genital mutilation cannot be considered solely a ‘women’s issue’ if it is to be stamped out by 2030, say male campaigners in Guinea, Somalia, Kenya and Nigeria
There is a case from Dr Morissanda Kouyaté’s career that stays with him.
In 1983, Kouyaté, then 32, was working at a village hospital in Guinea when 12-year-old twins, Hassantou and Housseynatou, were brought in. Through wails, their relatives told Kouyaté that earlier that day, the girls had been taken into the bush to be submitted to genital mutilation. Now, they were barely conscious and bleeding heavily.
Continue reading...Across the continent, young Africans are using their unique local knowledge and bargaining power to challenge beliefs about female genital mutilation
It took courage for Ayodeji Bella to raise the subject of female genital mutilation in her rural community in southern Nigeria. She knew local chiefs were key to challenging beliefs around the practice but when Bella, who was cut at five, broached the issue with an elder from her village, she was rebuked.
“I was young and unmarried and they wouldn’t take me seriously.”
Continue reading...UK health agency notes research that also suggests jabs can improve long Covid symptoms among unvaccinated
Covid vaccination reduces the risk of developing long Covid, while current sufferers may experience an improvement in symptoms after getting jabbed, a comprehensive review by the UK Health Security Agency suggests.
The “rapid evidence briefing” drew together data from 15 UK and international studies, about half of which examined whether Covid vaccination protected against developing long Covid if someone had never been infected, while the rest looked at the impact of vaccination among people who already had long Covid.
Continue reading...I have blood cancer and continue to isolate, living without touch, hugs, intimacy or love. It is heartbreaking
Before the pandemic, I was an artist, activist, teacher, director and producer – living fully, despite having had blood cancer for 10 years. Today, I am classified as “A3” (a person with comorbidities) in the Philippines. In the UK, I am classified as extremely clinically vulnerable.
I don’t believe in labels, yet all of a sudden, I am one. Although I am fully vaccinated and boosted, there are no guarantees that the vaccines work in a body that has a suppressed immune system, like mine.
Continue reading...As girls are paraded through Kuria’s streets in the school holiday cutting season, hundreds more are hidden by a network of neighbours working to change attitudes on FGM from the ground up
Half rising from the plastic white chair, he jabs a finger toward a girl and her school friends sitting across the circle from him. “She will have a future,” says Patrick Ikware, almost shouting. “This cult is diminishing, but to eliminate it, we need to substitute education, send our daughters to school and block our ears to the elders.”
The handful of others sitting on mismatched chairs on the grass outside the school in Masaba nod. A parents’ meeting held for those opposed to female genital mutilation (FGM), a practice almost universal among women in the Kuria districts of Migori county, western Kenya, is sparsely attended.
Continue reading...When I was pregnant, I discovered that I had developed breast cancer – just like my mother before me. One day, the child I was carrying may face the same hard choices
When I was five, I would talk to my mother while she was in the bath. When she stood to get out, the water fell from her, her skin pink from the heat. Her body was miraculous to me. Women’s bodies are miraculous, with the things they can do, but I didn’t know any of that then. I just knew that she was soft and perfect, and mine.
By the time my mother developed breast cancer, I was 30. She was double that age and there was an ocean between us: I was married and living in New York, so when the news came, I couldn’t hold her to me, or be a practical support. I sat on my bed and cried. The next time I saw her, it was all over. One breast removed and carefully reconstructed. The cancer gone. My husband asked me, as we approached my parents in the airport, whether it was OK to give my mum a hug. The surgery was recent; I wasn’t sure. But it was OK. She seemed the same.
Continue reading...Female genital mutilation is about the subjugation of women. But I am optimistic about ending it in my lifetime
It is down to sheer ignorance that the misogynistic practice of female genital mutilation still exists in the world. In the UK, for example, FGM has been banned since 1985, but the country’s first court conviction occurred only in February 2019. The truth is, FGM will continue as long as there is inequality between men and women. It is about power and oppression, and its only purpose is to subjugate the woman and her sexuality to the man. Anyone who says otherwise is lying.
The UN has a stated goal of eliminating FGM by 2030. Unfortunately, this is pure announcement policy. I worked as a UN special envoy from 1997 to 2003 and came to realise that the organisation is not doing what it should. That disappointed me and is why I started my own organisation, the Desert Flower Foundation. And, in my opinion, we are doing a better job than the UN.
Continue reading...Last week Boris Johnson announced that all Covid regulations in England, including the requirement to isolate after testing positive, were due to be abolished on 24 February. Whilst the Omicron variant has caused fewer hospitalisations and deaths than many predicted, some scientists say the changes may be going too far, too soon. Madeleine Finlay gets the Guardian science correspondent Hannah Devlin’s view on whether there’s scientific evidence backing up this decision and what the changes could look like
Archive: Daily Mail, Sky News
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