Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
First of all, it’s normal to be anxious when there’s such a big change for us as a society. I think the last time there was something similar was post-9/11 when people had to adjust to using transport at a time when people were anxious about that.
The “re-entry” syndrome people might be experiencing as lockdown ends is part of a healthy readjustment and something that people have to deal with when they’ve been off sick or on maternity leave for long periods.
Insiders tell of a Whitehall in panic mode and reveal virus spread far more widely than was acknowledged
Westminster is an infectious place. A tiny germ of controversy or rebellion can spread across parliament, through Whitehall and into the prime minister’s office within hours. The windowless offices are cramped, MPs sit elbow to elbow in a Commons chamber that can only squeeze just over 400 MPs into its seats, two-thirds of the number in parliament.
It is also a place of macho presenteeism, where the Greggs in Westminster tube station often serves as a nightly dinner spot for some of the most senior office-holders in the land.
The PM has rejected claims of favouring Coalition and marginal seats through subsidised flights; and WA opposition leader Zak Kirkup insists he has no regrets as he prepares for landslide defeat. Follow all the latest updates, live
Good news for NSW residents in Auckland, they will once again be allowed to return to Australia without quarantine, as the New Zeland cluster dies out with no more new cases reported in the recent Auckland cluster since 28 February.
NSW health released a statement last night confirming the (one-way) travel bubble will reopen:
People who have been in Auckland in the past 14 days will be exempt from hotel quarantine provided that they seek testing for Covid-19 after arriving in NSW. They must self-isolate in their accommodation until they receive a negative result.
NSW Health will follow up arrivals from Auckland if a negative test is not recorded for them, to inform them of their obligations.
The OECD has so far been unable to find a clear winner in the contest between former Australian finance minister Mathias Cormann and former European trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström – so the decision may not be finalised until later this month.
Cormann and Malmström, the Swedish candidate, are the final two nominees for the role of secretary general of the Paris based OECD. The selection process is based on seeking to find consensus among OECD member states.
Following discussion with the Selection Committee, the Chair’s conclusions were finalised and these were communicated first to the nominating ambassadors, and then to the Heads of Delegations in plenary. Following these consultations, the Chair has been unable to identify which candidate has the most support. Further steps will be taken in March, with the aim of concluding the process.
Delaying the second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine must be urgently reviewed for cancer patients after a single shot was found to offer inadequate protection, researchers have said.
A study from King’s College London and the Francis Crick Institute – which has not yet been peer reviewed – found that three weeks after the first jab antibody responses were found in 39% of people with solid cancers and 13% of people with blood cancer.
The European Medicines Agency has said the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine can continue to be used during an investigation into cases of blood clots that have prompted several European countries to pause their use of the shot.
The EMA said 30 cases of “thromboembolic events” or blood clots had been reported among 5 million people who had received the jab in Europe so far. “The vaccine’s benefits continue to outweigh its risks,” the regulator said in a statement.
Users told their pin was incorrect when they tried to log in to the state’s official contact-tracing app
New South Wales residents were left unable to check in to restaurants and other venues on Thursday afternoon using the state’s official Covid check-in app, Service NSW, after it went offline.
The outage lasted about four hours and affected the official Service NSW app, although Service NSW said its coronavirus webform check-in was not impacted.
Cairns hospital called a code yellow on Tuesday due to an influx of patients, including a number of Covid-19 payments from Papua New Guinea.
More from AAP:
More than 260 people presented at the emergency department on Tuesday, with road crash victims adding to increased pressure on services.
“A sustained high number of presentations to the ED, alongside a spike in trauma admissions and several patients needing isolation for Covid-19 had led to the hospital declaring a Code Yellow,” the hospital said in a statement on Wednesday.
News that the Hong Kong legislator Ted Hui is settling in Australia after being granted a travel exemption by the Australian government is unlikely to go down well in Beijing.
When Guardian Australia contacted the Chinese embassy in Canberra for comment on the matter, an official pointed us to remarks made by the foreign ministry spokesperson in Beijing last week. The foreign ministry spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, told reporters Monday last week:
China’s position on Hong Kong-related issues is consistent and clear. Hong Kong is China’s Hong Kong, and every bit of Hong Kong affairs belongs to China’s internal affairs, in which no other country has the right to interfere.
The Chinese side urges the Australian side to stop meddling in Hong Kong’s affairs and China’s internal affairs in any way. Otherwise the China-Australia relations will only sustain further damage.
The idea that vitamin D supplements can reduce susceptibility to, and the severity of, Covid-19 is seductive – it offers a simple, elegant solution to a very complex and lethal problem. But analyses encompassing large European datasets suggest the enthusiasm for the sunshine vitamin may be misplaced.
Two still to be peer-reviewed papers looked at the link between vitamin D levels and Covid-19 and both reached the same conclusion: evidence for a direct link between vitamin D deficiency and Covid outcomes is lacking.
Exclusive: union, health and aid groups plead with the Morrison government to support a WTO proposal to suspend vaccine patents during the pandemic
International aid groups, health organisations and unions are pleading with the Morrison government to support a World Trade Organization proposal designed to allow developing countries to make and sell cheap copies of patented vaccines, to achieve a quicker end to the global pandemic.
The WTO proposal would suspend Covid vaccine patents for successful jab formulas invented by pharmaceutical giants for the duration of the pandemic so poorer countries could acquire more affordable doses faster.
England’s chief medical officer has warned MPs that revising the government’s roadmap to emerge from lockdown sooner than planned would risk a more serious third wave of Covid infections.
Prof Chris Whitty said he expected a surge of infections once restrictions were lifted but that exiting lockdown faster, when fewer people are vaccinated, would send more people into hospital and lead to more deaths.
SA Health says positive Covid-19 wastewater results may be linked to hotel quarantine, but further investigations are under way. Follow the latest updates
Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has defended the pace of the vaccine rollout saying it can only be rolled out as fast as it’s being supplied by the federal government, reports AAP.
Queensland gave 6,300 people their first doses of the Pfizer jab last week, against a target of 3,000, but there’s been media criticism of the state’s slow rollout compared with other states.
All of this is being done in consultation with the Commonwealth, so please don’t disrespect the process...
We want to get it right, we want it to be rolled out smoothly, and of course we are making sure that the people have the adequate training to do this.
We are adapting very quickly to the numbers that we’re getting, but the Commonwealth are adjusting these numbers on a regular basis how much we’ll get.
And in some cases, as in the figures I was given like last week, we’re getting triple what we expected and they have to last us for a few weeks because they can’t necessarily guarantee (how much) we’re going to get each week.
Wentworth Liberal MP Dave Sharma’s idea for International Women’s Day seems to have backfired this morning after he handed out what I believe are pink carnations to women.
Around the world, coronavirus has both highlighted and worsened existing inequalities
One year into the pandemic, women have little cause to celebrate International Women’s Day tomorrow, and less energy to battle for change. Men are more likely to die from Covid-19. But women have suffered the greatest economic and social blows. They have taken the brunt of increased caregiving, have been more likely to lose their jobs and have seen a sharp rise in domestic abuse.
In the UK, women did two-thirds of the extra childcare in the first lockdown, and were more likely to be furloughed. In the US, every one of the 140,000 jobs lost in December belonged to a woman: they saw 156,000 jobs disappear, while men gained 16,000. But white women actually made gains, while black and Latina women – disproportionately in jobs that offer no sick pay and little flexibility – lost out. Race, wealth, disability and migration status have all determined who is hit hardest. Previous experience suggests that the effects of health crises can be long-lasting: in Sierra Leone, over a year after Ebola broke out, 63% of men had returned to work but only 17% of women.
Former Manchester United manager tells of brain surgery worries ahead of documentary about his life
Sir Alex Ferguson has said he feared he would never be able to speak again after suffering a brain haemorrhage in 2018. The former Manchester United manager told a Q&A at Glasgow film festival he was worried that he could lose his voice and memory after undergoing emergency surgery.
A new documentary about the two-time Champions League-winning manager premiered at the the film festival on Saturday.
Forty years after the mutant genes that cause the deadliest cancers were discovered, drugs that target them could be approved
In the early 1980s, Channing Der was just beginning his career as a scientist at Harvard Medical School when he happened upon a discovery that would change the course of cancer research. At the time, the holy grail of cancer biology was discovering so-called oncogenes – genetic switches that can turn a normal cell into a cancer cell – in the genomes of tumours. But while teams of scientists had thrown everything at it for the best part of a decade, their efforts had proved fruitless. One by one, they were beginning to accept that it might be a dead end.
Der found himself assigned to test 20 different genes that had been identified as possible oncogene candidates. His question was simple: did any of them actually exist in tumours in a form that was different from normal cells?
The arrival of Covid-19 vaccines promises a return to more normal life – and has created a global market worth tens of billions of dollars in annual sales for some pharmaceutical companies.
Among the biggest winners will be Moderna and Pfizer – two very different US pharma firms which are both charging more than $30 per person for the protection of their two-dose vaccines. While Moderna was founded just 11 years ago, has never made a profit and employed just 830 staff pre-pandemic, Pfizer traces its roots back to 1849, made a net profit of $9.6bn last year and employs nearly 80,000 staff.
BMA, Royal College of Nursing, Royal College of Midwives and Unison say pay recommendation ‘fails the test of honesty’
The government is under mounting pressure to reconsider its proposed 1% pay rise for NHS staff in England, with four trade unions writing a joint letter to the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, to express their “dismay” and calling for a fair pay deal.
The British Medical Association (BMA), the Royal College of Midwives, the Royal College of Nursing and Unison said the pay deal “fails the test of honesty and fails to provide staff who have been on the very frontline of the pandemic the fair pay deal they need”.
Aid groups warn of collapsed health system as traumatised people displaced by Islamist insurgency in Cabo Delgado seek help
The insurgency in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province is causing a mental health crisis, with a quarter of the region’s population now displaced.
People are struggling with untreated trauma after witnessing extreme violence, including mass beheadings, said humanitarian groups concerned about the strain on those who have sheltered dozens of displaced people in their homes.
“It’s not that I feel I have been abandoned, I think that is perfectly obvious,” says Rachel Pope. “If you speak to any long Covid patient, they have been abandoned.”
Until exactly a year ago – 5 March 2020 – Pope was “an incredibly fit woman”. A senior lecturer in European prehistory at the University of Liverpool, her work and lifestyle were very active. But after falling ill to Covid, she spent four months unable to walk, then three more when she could manage little more than “a sort of shuffle”.