Wealthy nations have ordered millions of doses of unproven candidates, but equal access is the key to beating virus
The UK has ordered a total of 340m doses of potential coronavirus vaccines from six manufacturers.
The EU has done a deal said to be worth €2.4bn (£2.2bn) with one developer, while the US has orders with six companies for 800m doses under Operation Warp Speed, with options on a further 1.6bn.
Continue reading...From the £100bn cost to the plan for getting football crowds back: what the official documents reveal
Operation Moonshot – the government’s bid to accelerate testing from around 200,000 a day to 10m a day by early 2021 – was met with derision by Labour MPs in the House of Commons on Thursday when the health and care secretary Matt Hancock set out the scale of the ambition. They were “naysayers”, Hancock responded. “They would do far better to support their constituents and get with the programme.”
Here are five key parts of that programme as revealed in the leaked official documents obtained by the British Medical Journal and the Guardian.
Continue reading...Greg Hunt says Melbourne curfew should be lifted if ‘there is no medical basis’ for it as two more Sydney healthcare workers test positive. Follow live
The woman who was at the centre of Scott Morrison’s plea today will be allowed to attend a private viewing of her father to say goodbye after her family has held their funeral.
She will be escorted to the funeral home, and then escorted back, a spokeswoman has confirmed.
John Barilaro, who is rumoured to have his eye set on Canberra and the federal Nationals leadership, has effectively removed the Nationals from the NSW coalition, plunged the Berejiklian government into minority after vowing to abstain from government votes (unless its to do with regional NSW), and removed itself from joint party room and leadership meetings – unless the koala protection legislation is scrapped.
Plan to provide rapid tests for 10 million people a day would be hugely costly – and the technology does not yet exist
They call it the “moonshot” – and it is as ambitious as any space adventure.
This is the name given to the government project that aims to ramp up testing to such a scale that it will return the country to some kind of normality. But is it feasible? And what about the cost?
Continue reading...Health workers and older people among those bearing brunt of added pressure brought by coronavirus
New Zealanders are experiencing more depression and anxiety since the coronavirus lockdown, doctors say, despite the country leading the world in its battle against the pandemic.
New Zealand has been lauded for its effective management of the virus, with most Kiwis returning to their normal routines following a strict seven-week lockdown in April and May. A recent outbreak in Auckland has now largely been contained.
Continue reading...Dallen died hours after the Guardian published piece that reflected on facing terminal illness
The family of a young man who wrote movingly of coping with terminal cancer against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic have told of taking comfort from the huge response to his articles, after he died on Monday.
Elliot Dallen, 31, died hours after the Guardian published the second of two articles by him in which he reflected on his life and shared the lessons which he had learned.
Continue reading...As life expectancy stalls and infant mortality rises, abolishing Public Health England will only make things worse
In the midst of Covid-19 it is easy to forget that the country is facing not just one, but two, very badly managed public health emergencies. The substantial and largely avoidable death toll in the current epidemic is undoubtedly due to a series of ill-informed and inept decisions about how the country should respond to its greatest public health crisis in more than a century. But the virus’s task was undoubtedly made easier by a serious deterioration in the health of the population over the past decade.
Since the beginning of the 20th century life expectancy in England has improved consistently. Until the last decade that is. As a result of government policies over the last 10 years improvement in life expectancy has stalled, and for women in the most deprived areas it has actually fallen. The widening gap between life expectancy in the best-off and worst-off areas is now almost 10 years for men and seven and a half years in women. Similarly, the infant mortality rate for England and Wales reached its lowest point in 2014 and has been consistently higher ever since. Across a whole range of other public health indicators, such as drug-related deaths, sexually transmitted diseases and childhood immunisations, the position has been deteriorating.
Continue reading...Victoria’s path out of shutdown is contentious and uncertain for cinemas, beauty salons and hospitality venues
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Soon after the pandemic began the sign out front of the Thornbury Picture House read: “Cinema closed until real life doesn’t feel like a movie.”
Now the message is a little less whimsical: “Stay strong, Thornbury. We love you.”
Continue reading...The conditions appeared to cause structural changes that harmed memory and thinking
High blood pressure and diabetes bring about brain changes that impair thinking and memory, research suggests.
Doctors examined brain scans and medical data from 22,000 volunteers enrolled in the UK Biobank project and found significant structural changes in the grey and white matter among those with diabetes and high blood pressure.
Continue reading...Melbourne’s stage 4 lockdown extended by two weeks in ‘roadmap’ as Victoria pursues aggressive suppression strategy. This blog has ended
Thanks for following our live coverage of the coronavirus coverage in Australia. You can continue to follow our rolling global coverage here.
A quick recap on what happened today:
Asked if he would step down as premier if the hotel quarantine inquiry laid the blame for the outbreak on his office, Andrews said his responsibility was to keep going.
My position and the responsibility I have is to see our state through this. What is what I’m focused on.
Let me be as frank as I can be: Politics has never mattered less to me. Leadership is not able doing what’s popular, it is about doing what’s right.
The politics of this, that is of no value. The only thing that matters is we all stay the course. We all keep following the data, the science and the doctors and get this done. Then move to the biggest economic repair job that our state has ever seen.
Continue reading...Labour calls on Matt Hancock to explain reasons behind increase and testing centre problems
The UK has recorded a massive rise in the number of people testing positive for coronavirus, amid concerns the government has lost control of the epidemic just as people are returning to work and universities prepare to reopen.
Labour has demanded the health secretary, Matt Hancock, give an urgent statement to the House of Commons to explain the increase and why some people are still being told to drive hundreds of miles to have a test.
Continue reading...The UK health secretary has commented on Sunday’s sharp rise in coronavirus cases, after nearly 3,000 more people tested positive. Matt Hancock said: 'The rise in the number of cases is concerning ... We've seen in other countries across the world and in Europe this sort of rise in the cases amongst younger people leading to a rise across the population as a whole'
Drugs now under development are unlikely to end the pandemic, the Wellcome Trust’s Jeremy Farrar warns
Vaccines will not be a silver bullet to end the Covid-19 pandemic and leaders must avoid creating false hope, a key government adviser has warned.
Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, writes in today’s Observer that the first vaccines are likely to be only partially effective. Raising expectations and rushing new drugs into production risks damaging public trust in any vaccination programmes that eventually arrive, he said.
Continue reading...Victoria premier Daniel Andrews says existing restrictions with only minor changes will remain in place until 28 September
Stage four restrictions in Melbourne will be extended for two weeks to 28 September with the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, declaring “we can’t run out of lockdown”.
“I want a Christmas that is as close to normal as possible and this is the only way, these steps are the only way, that we will get to that point,” Andrews said when revealing a roadmap to eventually lift restrictions which currently include a night-time curfew.
Continue reading...New survey finds two-thirds of respondents plan to leave within three years, citing Covid-19 burnout and frustrations over pay
Over 1,000 doctors plan to quit the NHS because they are disillusioned with the government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and frustrated about their pay, a new survey has found.
The doctors either intend to move abroad, take a career break, switch to private hospitals or resign to work as locums instead, amid growing concern about mental health and stress levels in the profession.
Continue reading...At least 6,000 people say they caught coronavirus in Ischgl, dubbed ‘Ibiza on ice’, and their class action is gaining pace. Those who were there recall a terrifying week
In the first week of March, Charlie Jackson had an argument with his wife. The recruitment agent, 53, from Pangbourne in Berkshire, was due to catch a flight to Innsbruck for a three-day “boys’ holiday”, skiing in the Tirolean Alps. Jackson’s wife, Carol, felt Ischgl, the resort booked by the group, was a bit too close to the parts of northern Italy that had recently been shut down to contain the spread of a mystery flu-like illness. But Jackson threw caution to the wind: he had already spent more than £1,000 on the trip.
Ischgl, one of the most popular ski resorts in Europe, is what Jackson calls “a boyish kind of place”. He and his friends had been visiting the town in the Paznaun valley, Austria, for the past nine years. The snow is reliably powdery from November to May. The compact nature of the place means you don’t need a car to get around. The facilities are well-run: Ischgl has 45 state-of-the-art ski lifts, three of which take you directly from the edge of town to the mountain.
Continue reading...New South Wales announces five more Covid-19 cases while Queensland and South Australia report one more each
Daniel Andrews says Victoria’s roadmap out of coronavirus lockdown has “not been finalised” as government and health experts meet before the unveiling of the plan on Sunday.
At his press conference on Saturday, the Victorian premier announced 76 new coronavirus cases and 11 deaths, five of which were historical cases from recent days.
Continue reading...Widespread vaccinations against Covid-19 are not expected until the middle of next year, according to the World Health Organization, which has stressed the importance of rigorous checks on their effectiveness and safety.
'This phase 3 must take longer because we need to see how truly protective the vaccine is and we also need to see how safe it is,' said spokeswoman Margaret Harris, referring to vaccine clinical trials
Continue reading...Victoria reports nine deaths in the past 24 hours and 50 people added to total who died in aged care facilities in July and August. Follow live news and updates today
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who was celebrating the AFL’s decision to stage the grand final in her state just two days ago, has called for tough penalties to be meted out to the two Richmond players arrested on the Surfers Paradise strip in the early hours of this morning.
With the AFL and police investigating the incident, which left Sydney Stack and Callum Coleman-Jones with facial injuries, Palaszczuk wants the pair thrown out of the state.
AFL players caught breaking Covid rules should be sent home,.
Queensland won’t tolerate it. I know the AFL takes these issues seriously and will take appropriate action.”
Related: Two Richmond AFL players arrested after late-night brawl outside Gold Coast strip club
One of the announcements out of national cabinet was that leaders “agreed that we needed to further boost the capacity for inbound arrivals into Australia, particularly for those Australians seeking to come home”.
However, Scott Morrison did not outline any detail of exactly how the arrival caps – which currently allow for about 4,000 passengers to enter Australian quarantine hotels each week – would be further boosted to help repatriate the 23,000 Australians (at least that’s how many have registered with Dfat) who want to come home but can’t.
Continue reading...Research suggests stomach trouble more predictive of virus in young people than a cough
Diarrhoea and vomiting could be an important sign of Covid-19 in children, researchers say, leading to calls for the official NHS list of symptoms to be updated.
The checklist for coronavirus in children currently includes just three symptoms: a high temperature, a new, continuous cough, and a loss or change to the sense of smell or taste. The latter was added to the list in May.
Continue reading...