Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Experts are urging greater vaccination coverage and action over ventilation in public spaces before lifting restrictions
For months, the prime minister has repeated the mantra that further easing of Covid-19 restrictions would be about “data and not dates”. Yet, as coronavirus cases in the UK continue to surge, and scientists warn that fully reopening society risks building “variant factories” in our own back yard, the government appears poised to put one date – 19 July – ahead of everything else. Once again, politics has trumped science.
Since Sajid Javid’s appointment as health secretary on 26 June, the UK has confirmed a further 188,538 coronavirus cases, with approximately 25,000 extra people testing positive each day. On Sunday, Javid said that the best way to protect the nation’s health was by lifting the main Covid-19 restrictions, even though this would result in a further significant increase in cases. “We are going to have to learn to accept the existence of Covid and find ways to cope with it – just as we already do with flu,” he said.
Prime minister defies warnings from his own MPs concerned that bill to shake up health service will prove gift to Labour
Boris Johnson is set to spark a political row this week by announcing plans to seize greater control of the NHS, despite warnings that the “power grab” will see ministers blamed for delays in treatment and closure of local hospital units.
The prime minister has told the new health secretary, Sajid Javid, to put the long-awaited health and care bill before parliament despite Javid’s own misgivings and concerns among hospital bosses and doctors’ leaders.
International airlines claim they could be forced to suspend services to Australia from next week after national cabinet agreed to halve the number of people allowed to enter the country – and they say any suggestion of price gouging is “insulting and bizarre”.
From 14 July, overseas arrivals will be slashed from 6,070 to 3,035 a week – crushing the hopes of thousands of Australians stuck overseas and looking to get home.
Rich nations are sharing vaccines with low-income countries too slowly to prevent the spread of the Delta variant of Covid, risking millions of lives, the head of the World Health Organization has warned.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the WHO, said the sharing of vaccines was “only a trickle, which is being outpaced by variants”, after it emerged that the Delta variant is now present in at least 98 countries.
The UK government has confirmed that proposals to end the requirement to self-isolate for those who have received two doses of a coronavirus vaccine are under “consideration”.
Downing Street said it was looking at whether to drop all legal self-isolation measures for fully vaccinated people who come into contact with someone who is infected “as part of the post-Step 4 world”.
Hundreds of healthcare workers in Italy have launched a legal bid against the requirement that they get the Covid-19 vaccination, according to media reports.
The case, brought by professionals throughout northern Italy, will be heard on 14 July.
Allowing those who have received two doses of a Covid vaccine to skip quarantine could breed resentment and result in mass non-compliance, a scientific adviser has warned.
Downing Street has confirmed it is looking at whether to drop all legal self-isolation measures for fully vaccinated people who come into contact with someone who is infected “as part of the post-step 4 world”.
More than a million Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine doses held in Israel that are due to expire at the end of July may be thrown away after attempts to broker a swap deal with the UK failed.
Israel had reportedly offered the jabs to Britain in return for a similar number of vaccines that the UK is due to receive from Pfizer in September. Health authorities are racing to vaccinate as many of its adult population as possible before Covid restrictions are lifted in England later this month.
British travellers hoping to visit Europe this summer face an extra hurdle as it emerged that those vaccinated with Indian-manufactured AstraZeneca jabs would not automatically skip quarantine.
Under the EU vaccine passport scheme, people given the AstraZeneca jab produced by the Serum Institute of India (SII) would not automatically avoid quarantine and mandatory testing when travelling in Europe.
Not for the first time in the coronavirus pandemic, the UK finds itself in a unique position. Through a combination of history, biology, mathematics and politics, the country stands alone in pitting an advanced vaccination programme against a substantial wave of Covid driven almost entirely by the fast-spreading Delta variant.
Nowhere in the world is the race between vaccination and virus more keenly watched than here.
Here’s some video from earlier today of prime minister Scott Morrison being asked by Guardian Australia’s Daniel Hurst about his position towards AstraZeneca:
The latest edition of Weekly Beast covers Chris Kenny doing a Peta Credlin, among other things:
Public health bodies and families say term carries racial bias and is used to justify lethal use of force by police
Public health bodies, charities and the families of men who died after being restrained by police have condemned the inclusion of a controversial medical term in one of the UK’s leading medical handbooks.
Acute behavioural disturbance (ABD), more commonly known as “excited delirium”, a contentious expression used in fatal cases of police violence, has recently been added to the Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines (MPG).
New South Wales recorded 24 new cases of Covid, including an aged care worker believed to be unvaccinated and a second healthcare worker, as the state’s coronavirus outbreak rose to 195.
The premier, Gladys Berejiklian, expressed concern that “around half” of the new cases on Thursday were out in the community while infectious and urged anyone with symptoms to get tested and isolate.
Bulk of Pfizer and other mRNA vaccines expected to arrive in third quarter of this year, despite widespread lockdowns
Australia’s finance minister has said the country is at the “back of the queue” for Pfizer vaccines, contradicting assurances from the prime minister Scott Morrison and the health minister that “our strategy puts Australia at the front of the queue”.
Simon Birmingham on Thursday said Australia has had supply challenges “because European countries and drug companies have favoured those nations who’ve had high rates of Covid for the delivery of vaccines like Pfizer”.
In 2020-21, only 31,261 out of 47,000 managed to access perinatal mental health services
Thousands of pregnant women in England were denied vital help for their mental health because of the pandemic, analysis from leading psychiatrists shows.
In 2020-21, 47,000 were expected to access perinatal mental health services to help with conditions such as anxiety and depression during or after giving birth, but only 31,261 managed to get help in the most recent data for the 2020 calendar year only, according to analysis from the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
Gladys Berejiklian says half of new cases were active in the community while infectious; Simon Birmingham admits Australia is ‘back of the queue’ for Pfizer vaccines; Atagi co-chair says AstraZeneca should only be used by under-40s in ‘pressing’ circumstances; Follow latest updates
Ahead of the daily health press conference in Victoria, premier Daniel Andrews has said he is “determined” to avoid another lockdown in the state, and part of that will be arguing in national cabinet on Friday for a reduction in the number of people able to return through hotel quarantine.
He repeated that it was better to lock out a small number of people than lock down whole cities or states, particularly while Victoria will not have a dedicated quarantine facility up and running in Mickleham until January.
Talk to your doctor, talk to your pharmacist. They’re the people to talk to, because whether it’s Atagi or others, there can be very broad statements made. Safety is always a concern – they are risk averse, they need to be. But everyone’s individual circumstances are different, and many people come to this question of ‘should I, shouldn’t I’ when, what vaccine with pre-existing conditions, with all sorts of other issues. So the best thing to do is not to be getting your epidemiological or your vaccination advice from politicians.
Talk to your GP, that’s what I would ask Victorians to do.
NSW police commissioner Mick Fuller is up now:
In the last 24 hours, 65 personnel infringement notices were issued. One of those of concern was a hairdresser in Auburn in the shopping area of Auburn.
In the last 24 hours, 65 personnel infringement notices were issued. One of those of concern was a hairdresser in Auburn in the shopping area of Auburn.
What police will be doing is matching our taskings to those areas and places of concern on the health website, but in particular today I want to send a very clear message that we will double our efforts in terms of visibility and compliance in south-western Sydney, in particular, around that Auburn, Bankstown area, in those shopping areas, the central business areas, and also back to the eastern suburbs as well. The message is quite clear – police continue to be visible in the community, on public transport. We are stopping and proposing many people and, again, it is just disappointing that infringements continue to be issued.
Senior scientists have called for the UK to expand its official list of Covid symptoms to reduce the number of missed cases and ensure more people know they should self-isolate.
The researchers, who include Prof Calum Semple, a member of the government’s Sage committee of experts, argue the UK’s narrow clinical definition of Covid leads to delays in identifying people with the disease and may miss them altogether, hampering efforts to disrupt the spread of the virus.
Vladimir Putin has for the first time said that he was inoculated with Russia’s own Sputnik V vaccine as he gave a careful endorsement of the country’s floundering campaign while distancing himself from tough new measures designed to pressure more Russians into taking the jabs.
Putin has cut a mercurial figure during the pandemic, intrepidly donning a medical suit to visit a coronavirus hospital last March and then shunning public events for months, prompting ridicule that he was sheltering in a “bunker”.
Many women have lost children, been separated from newborns or are unable to breastfeed and bond with their babies because of the war
In the last month of her pregnancy, May al-Masri was preparing dinner when a rocket landed outside her home in northern Gaza, killing her one-year-old son, Yasser.
Masri had felt the explosion’s shockwave when the attack happened last month, but was largely unharmed. Running outside once the air had cleared, she found her husband severely wounded and her child’s body covered in blood.
People with ME/CFS face debilitating symptoms but often feel dismissed by doctors. The focus on long Covid could help change that
In the fall of 2016, Ashanti Daniel, a nurse in Beverly Hills, California, went to an infectious disease physician looking for answers about a weird illness she couldn’t shake. After falling sick with a virus four months earlier, she still felt too tired to stand up in the shower.
The appointment lasted five minutes, she said. The doctor didn’t do a physical exam or check her vitals. His assessment: her illness was psychogenic, resulting from something psychological.
Lockdown hit LGBTQ+ communities hard but even as Pride events are called off there is hope and a promise that the parades will return
This month, for the second year in a row, there was no Pride parade in San Francisco, arguably the city most laden with history and symbolism for the LGBTQ+ community.
It is a decision Fred Lopez, who took over as executive director of San Francisco Pride at the beginning of last year describes as “heartbreaking”.