Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
More than 90% of Covid cases in the UK are now down to the coronavirus Delta variant first discovered in India, data has revealed, as the total number of confirmed cases passed 42,000.
Also known as B.1.617.2, the Delta variant has been linked to a rise in Covid cases in the UK in the past weeks. It is believed to spread more easily than the Alpha variant, B.1.1.7, that was first detected in Kent, and is somewhat more resistant to Covid vaccines, particularly after just one dose. It may be also associated with a greater risk of hospitalisation.
In 30 years as an activist, he has fought to stop black gay men being forgotten, broken taboos about homosexuality and campaigned to make life-changing PrEP medication available on the NHS
Marc Thompson was 17 when he found out he had HIV. He had been out as gay for only a year when a friend suggested he get himself tested. “I thought: ‘Yeah, why not? I’m not going to be positive.’ You had to wait two weeks for the results back then – I’d actually arranged to have lunch with a friend on the day they were due, because it never occurred to me that I would be positive.”
Thompson says he will never forget how he felt that day – partly because he is still asked about it all the time. As one of the UK’s leading HIV, Aids and queer black men’s health campaigners, sharing his own experience comes with the job. “I felt complete and utter numbness,” he says. “All I could hear was white noise. I was walking around in a daze.”
A flood evacuation warning has been re-issued for Traralgon in Victoria’s Gippsland region, reports AAP.
Anyone near the Traralgon Creek was being told early on Friday afternoon to evacuate now.
Andrew Grech, a partner at Gordon Legal, is on the ABC now responding to the federal court judgment on the robodebt class action.
I think for many people, there’s been a lack of accountability, both of the ministers involved and senior public servants involved.
We think that it’s important that, through the proper parliamentary processes and, if necessary, through a royal commission, that those questions be answered for people, so that they can actually have far more closure on all those issues.
The UK will donate 100m surplus coronavirus vaccine doses within the next year to low-income countries as part of at least 1bn doses due from the G7.
The US has promised to buy 500m Pfizer vaccines at a cost of $3bn for distribution to 100 poorer countries, with 200m to be distributed this year, in addition to releasing 80m of its surplus by the end of June.
Covid-19 infections, hospitalisations and deaths are falling fast across Europe, but the risk of a deadly autumn resurgence remains high as societies open up and the more transmissible Delta variant advances, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.
The warning came as new case numbers continued to plunge in most of the continent, falling in some areas to their lowest levels since August, and multiple governments, including France and Germany, relaxed restrictions further.
A 52-year-old woman from NSW who died after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine is “likely” Australia’s second death from a rare and severe blood clotting syndrome linked to the Covid vaccine, Australia’s drugs regulator says.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration said on Thursday the woman had a severe form of the syndrome “with a blood clot in the brain known as a cerebral venous sinus thrombosis”.
Leaders at the G7 summit will call for a new, transparent investigation by the World Health Organization into the origins of the coronavirus, according to a leaked draft communique for the meeting.
The call was initiated by Joe Biden’s administration and follows the US president’s decision to expand the American investigation into the origins of the pandemic, with one intelligence agency leaning towards the theory that it escaped from a Wuhan laboratory.
Germany’s health minister is facing calls to resign over accusations his ministry planned to distribute face masks considered inadequate protection against Covid-19 to socially and physically vulnerable people.
Jens Spahn was the subject of a fierce debate in the German parliament, the Bundestag, on Wednesday afternoon, in which he was accused of putting the desire to be seen to be acting to tackle the pandemic ahead of safety concerns.
Belgium’s prime minister among signatories to open letter backing global right to safe abortions and reopening of clinics closed in pandemic
Government ministers from five European countries, including Belgium’s prime minister, Alexander de Croo, are among 29 politicians, healthcare and women’s rights activists who have signed an open letter calling for the removal of all legal barriers to abortion.
The letter, signed by gender and equality ministers from France, Canada and Norway, and international development ministers from Sweden and the Netherlands, states that women’s right to safe, legal abortion is being eroded by misinformation and attacks on services. It calls for the reopening of abortion clinics closed during the pandemic.
Travel to regional Victoria likely to be barred when lockdown ends Thursday midnight and federal wages support package to be cut off. Follow updates live
Khorshid is asked about the Victorian government’s response to the pandemic, and in particular the current lockdown.
He says:
The AMA has been supportive of the actions of the Victorian government. I think the public expects to be kept safe and this is what is necessary to be kept safe when we’re in an evolving situation. As information comes in, things become clearer, decisions become easier to make. I think the best thing for us all to do is support the advice that’s been given by the chief health officers around the country.
My colleague Paul Karp asked Omar Khorshid about the AMA’s concerns about the recent proposed changes to Medicare rebates.
He asked if the AMA’s concerns have been addressed and what he made of Labor’s warnings of a government assault on Medicare. Are we likely to see another “Mediscare campaign”?
I certainly hope we’re not going see a Mediscare campaign. The sad reality of Medicare is successive governments over the entire life of Medicare have failed to index it properly, and have therefore effectively cut Medicare for 30 years. This review that the AMA has supported was designed to modernise the MBS, and it has taken five years to do, we have a few quibbles and issues with how it was done, but at the end of the day the AMA is supportive of the review process and of most of the outcomes.
The last decent rain on Banaba was more than a year ago.
Without rain, people on the isolated central Pacific island, which is part of the country of Kiribati, have been forced to rely on a desalination plant for all their water for drinking, bathing and growing crops.
Conservative backbencher Steve Baker has urged the UK government to press ahead with lifting England’s remaining Covid restrictions on 21 June despite a sharp rise in cases.
He claimed that by that date, all over-50s and vulnerable younger adults should have been given the opportunity to receive two doses of Covid vaccine.
These groups represent about 99% of Covid deaths and about 80% of hospitalisations. As of today, according to announcements made by the government, these groups should all have been offered a chance to have had a second dose. It would be helpful for the government to clarify that this has been achieved.
If this brilliant milestone isn’t enough to convince ministers that we need to lift all remaining restrictions – especially social distancing requirements – on 21 June, nothing will ever get us out of this.
The Dutch government has promised an independent investigation into a supposedly not-for-profit €100m deal to buy facemasks from China last year that ended up making three young entrepreneurs about €20m richer.
The investigative website Follow the Money revealed that Sywert van Lienden, 30, a former civil servant turned TV pundit and activist, who co-wrote the manifesto of the Christian Democrat (CDA) party (part of the ruling coalition), netted €9.2m.
Female genital mutilation has revived under Covid but activists are pushing hard to save girls at risk
It was when the phone started ringing with calls from worried mothers in Somalia that Ifrah Ahmed knew she was making an impact. The women told her their daughters had been bleeding for hours after undergoing female genital mutilation and asked what to do. Ahmed told them to seek medical attention, and probably saved lives by doing so.
The mothers called because they had heard the story of a 10-year-old girl who had bled to death after being cut in central Galmudug state in July 2018. It was the first confirmed death in years in a country where any complications arising from FGM are generally denied and it gained worldwide attention. The death was first revealed by a local activist who had been trained by Ahmed’s foundation in how to use the media to publicise her work.
It’s been a bit of a heavy morning so far, so here is some dinosaur news from the Guardian’s amazing new science reporter Donna Lu:
A new species of dinosaur discovered in south-west Queensland has been officially recognised as the largest ever found in Australia and among the biggest in the world.
The Australotitan cooperensis, a plant-eating dinosaur of the family known as titanosaurs, likely lived between 92m and 96m years ago, during the Cretaceous period.
Less than 3% of Australians over 16 have been fully vaccinated against coronavirus but health chiefs are tipping numbers will soar in coming weeks.
The sluggish national rollout of jabs continues to spark concern with Melbourne in the grips of another lockdown-inducing outbreak, reports Matt Coughlan from AAP.
There are multiple strains and we will continue to see Covid adapt and mutate – that’s what these viruses do.
We’re likely to see other strains emerging. The sooner we can get the world vaccinated, the less likely it is that it can mutate.
African countries face a last-ditch battle against a third wave of Covid infections, as the supply of vaccines to the continent “grinds to a halt”, top health officials have warned.
“The threat of a third wave in Africa is real and rising. Our priority is clear – it’s crucial that we swiftly get vaccines into the arms of Africans at high risk of falling seriously ill and dying of Covid-19,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organization (WHO) regional director for Africa.
Usefulness of aducanumab is disputed but US approval will trigger push to make it available globally
A controversial new drug for Alzheimer’s disease, the first in nearly 20 years, was approved in the US on Monday, which will trigger pressure to make it available worldwide in spite of mixed evidence over its efficacy.
While doctors, patients and the organisations that support them are desperate for treatments that can slow mental deterioration, the usefulness of the new drug, aducanumab, is disputed by scientists. Two trials were stopped in March 2019 because the drugs appeared not to work. The manufacturer, Biogen, said the drugs were unlikely to improve people’s memory and thinking.
Thailand has started its Covid vaccination campaign amid concerns over the supply of doses, which are mainly being produced locally by a royal-owned company that has no prior experience of making vaccines.
Thailand aims to vaccinate 70% of the population before the end of the year, and is relying primarily on AstraZeneca doses produced by Siam Bioscience, a company owned by King Maha Vajiralongkorn. The company is also due to supply vaccines to eight other countries in the region.
Hundreds of healthcare workers treating Covid patients around the world have experienced verbal, physical, and sometimes life-threatening attacks during the pandemic, prompting calls for immediate action from human rights campaigners.
Covid-related attacks on healthcare workers are expected to rise as new variants cause havoc in countries such as India and rollouts of vaccination programmes belatedly get under way in some countries, according to the UN special rapporteur on the right to health.
First came the idea of making Covid vaccinations mandatory to go to the pub, while Israel offered free pizza and beer with a shot. Now UK officials have hit on what they hope is an even more persuasive reason for young people to get their jab: more chance of getting a date.
In an eye-catching policy coinciding with the rollout of vaccinations for the under-30s beginning this week, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has teamed up with popular dating apps to encourage take-up of the programme.
More than 100 former prime ministers, presidents and foreign ministers are among 230 prominent figures calling on the leaders of the powerful G7 countries to pay two-thirds of the $66bn (£46.6bn) needed to vaccinate low-income countries against Covid.
A letter seen by the Guardian ahead of the G7 summit to be hosted by Boris Johnson in Cornwall warns that the leaders of the UK, US, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada must make 2021 “a turning point in global cooperation”. Fewer than 2% of people in sub-Saharan Africa have been vaccinated against Covid, while the UK has now immunised 70% of its population with at least one dose.