Category Archives: Health

Under attack: WHO and the coronavirus pandemic – podcast

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The World Health Organization has been at the forefront of the global response to new diseases and with differing outcomes. It was hailed for the way it dealt with Sars but pilloried for its handling of Ebola. Now, with its biggest challenge yet, it is in the crosshairs again as Donald Trump threatens to withdraw funding

When Donald Trump announced he was suspending funding to the World Health Organization it immediately put the future of the UN body in jeopardy. The US president accused the WHO of being too close to China and covering up the spread of Covid-19. But as the journalist Stephen Buranyi tells Anushka Asthana, the facts do not tally with the Trump’s version of events. In January, the WHO director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, declared an emergency and has since been urgently telling 194 of its members to “test, test, test” as the only route out of the crisis.

As a body with no formal powers to sanction its members, it relies on the effectiveness of its leader. In the past that has led to mixed results: exemplary in the fight against Sars, heavily criticised for its Ebola response. But as the WHO faces its biggest crisis yet, its future is now as uncertain as ever.

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WHO warns that few have developed antibodies to Covid-19

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Herd immunity hopes dealt blow by report suggesting only 2%-3% of people have been infected

Only a tiny proportion of the global population – maybe as few as 2% or 3% – appear to have antibodies in the blood showing they have been infected with Covid-19, according to the World Health Organization, a finding that bodes ill for hopes that herd immunity will ease the exit from lockdown.

“Easing restrictions is not the end of the epidemic in any country,” said WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a media briefing in Geneva on Monday. “So-called lockdowns can help to take the heat out of a country’s epidemic.”

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US scuppers G20 coronavirus statement on strengthening WHO

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Exclusive: objections leave health ministers unable to agree joint communique on cooperation

US hostility to the World Health Organization scuppered the publication of a communique by G20 health ministers on Sunday that committed to strengthening the WHO’s mandate in coordinating a response to the global coronavirus pandemic.

In place of a lengthy statement with paragraphs of detail, the leaders instead issued a brief statement saying that gaps existed in the way the world handled pandemics.

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Hospital leaders hit out at government as PPE shortage row escalates

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Health managers in England voice ‘intense frustration’ in unprecedented intervention

Hospital leaders have directly attacked the government for the first time during the coronavirus crisis over the shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) after a desperately needed consignment of surgical gowns that had been announced by ministers failed to arrive.

In an unprecedented intervention, which hospital leaders privately say is the result of “intense frustration and exasperation”, the organisations representing NHS trusts in England urged ministers to “just focus on what we can be certain of” after weeks of “bitter experience” with failed deliveries.

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Australia coronavirus live: health minister backs calls for global investigation into Covid-19 spread – latest updates

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Greg Hunt supports foreign affairs minister Marise Payne’s call for an independent review that must not be run by WHO as fresh privacy concerns raised over government’s contact-tracing app. Follow the latest news live

Hazzard has announced the $5,000 on-the-spot fine for people who spit or cough at healthcare workers has been extended now to include all workers.

Assistant police minister Karen Webb says that overnight, a 25-year-old man from Nowra was arrested for a number of offences including allegedly spitting at police officers.

Just in the last last week, I’ve had four matters raised with me by members across the state from people deliberately coughing or spitting on people ... It is vile and it is disgusting and unacceptable.

New South Wales health minister Brad Hazzard is providing an update on new cases in the state.

He says to 8pm last night there were 21 new cases of Covid-19, taking the state’s total number of confirmed cases to 2,957. There are 245 people being treated in hospital, including 21 in intensive care and 17 on ventilators.

“We’re doing much better than we could have expected at this point but I also want to remind the community this is a long game. It’s a team game. Probably at this point we aren’t very far into the game.

She looked at me and said minister probably if we’re lucky we’re 10 minutes into the first quarter. There is no room here for us to forget this is a long game and a game with a lot more to go.

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The exit strategy: how countries around the world are preparing for life after Covid-19

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As Australia makes plans to gradually lift its coronavirus lockdown, we look at what the rest of the world is doing

Australia has a road out of its coronavirus lockdown, long and winding though it may be.

Having warned repeatedly that this pandemic response was taking Australia into “uncharted territory”, the prime minister, Scott Morrison, has leaned again on a navigational metaphor for our subsequent recovery.

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Failure to record ethnicity of Covid-19 victims a ‘scandal’, says BMA chief

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Dr Chaand Nagpaul says data must be gathered now to save lives of UK BAME citizens

The government’s failure to record and publish real-time data on the ethnicity of Covid-19 patients is a scandal that is endangering lives, according to the chair of the British Medical Association.

Speaking to the Observer, Dr Chaand Nagpaul said: “This is not an issue that should require further campaigning. It would be a scandal if it requires further lobbying as data recording needs to start now, not tomorrow. When you have stark statistics like this, it is an instruction for government to act.”

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Test and trace: lessons from Hong Kong on avoiding a coronavirus lockdown

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Semi-autonomous city followed WHO advice and moved swiftly to stem contagion without rigid curbs on movement

Governments in Europe and the US can learn from Hong Kong, which has kept infections and deaths from Covid-19 low without resorting to the socially and economically damaging lockdown that the UK and other countries have imposed, scientists say.

Hong Kong, with a population of nearly 7.5 million, has had just 715 confirmed cases of Covid-19 infection, including 94 asymptomatic infections, and four deaths.

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Refugees among hundreds of overseas medics to respond to NHS call

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Scheme allowing doctors to join as medical support workers is welcomed but calls to ‘permit doctors to work as doctors’ persist

  • Coronavirus – latest updates
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    • Hundreds of foreign-born doctors, including refugees, have signed up to become medical support workers as part of a new scheme aimed at helping the NHS tackle the coronavirus pandemic.

    NHS England launched the initiative for international medical graduates and doctors after calls to fast track the accreditation of overseas medics.

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    Q&A – Why don’t we know how many BAME people are dying?

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    Data on ethnicity is not recorded on death certificates in England and Wales

    Black, Asian and ethnic minorities appear to be disproportionately affected by Covid-19 in the UK. The government is launching an inquiry into why this is the case. However, we don’t currently have enough public data to be able to understand how minorities are being impacted by the virus.

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    What the UK’s coronavirus death toll is not telling us – video explainer

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    Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities appear to be disproportionately affected by Covid-19 in the UK. However, we don’t currently have enough public data to be able to understand how many of those who have died as a result of the virus come from minority ethnic backgrounds.

    The Guardian's data editor, Caelainn Barr, takes a look at this this issue, as well as the other key information that is missing from the government's daily death toll 

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    EU offers ‘heartfelt apology’ to Italy over coronavirus response

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    Ursula von der Leyen voices regret as expert warns herd immunity still a way off in Europe

    The EU has offered “a heartfelt apology” to Italy for letting it down at the start of the coronavirus crisis as fresh evidence emerged that few European countries are likely to have achieved herd immunity as they begin cautiously lifting their lockdowns.

    As the World Health Organization warned that the continent remained firmly “in the eye of the storm”, the president of the European commission said on Thursday that truth was needed to overcome the Covid-19 pandemic – including political honesty.

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    Polish parliament delays decision on new abortion restrictions

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    Proposal would ban terminations even on grounds of serious foetal abnormalities

    Poland’s parliament has deferred a final decision on a bill that seeks to tighten the country’s already strict abortion legislation.

    The bill would outlaw abortion on the grounds of serious foetal abnormalities, one of a small number of exceptions to a near-total ban on abortion currently in place in the country. It has been sent back to a parliamentary committee for further work.

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    ‘Crime against humanity’: Trump condemned for WHO funding freeze

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    Timing of move during Covid-19 crisis is deplored by UN chief and experts who say it will cost lives

    Leading health experts have labelled Donald Trump’s decision to cut funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) as a “crime against humanity” and a “damnable” act that will cost lives.

    The move also drew a rebuke from the head of the United Nations, who said the WHO was “absolutely critical to the world’s efforts to win the war against Covid-19”.

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    ‘I feel fear and guilt’: an NHS junior doctor on the effect of getting Covid-19

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    Rosie Hughes has tested positive for the coronavirus that has killed so many of her patients

    I am a junior doctor. In the past few weeks I have seen dozens of people die from Covid-19. I am 25 years old. I’ve been working in the NHS for just over eight months at a major metropolitan hospital. When my colleagues and I decided to apply for medical school six years ago, we knew that we were signing up for a challenge. We were under no illusion that it would be an easy ride. But I don’t think any of us imagined that we would be on the frontline of a pandemic less than a year into our careers.

    I have cared for patients from admission until death and I have held their hands when they have been too breathless to speak. I have fought hard for a patient to be considered for ventilation despite knowing that they didn’t meet the criteria. I stayed with them after my shift had ended, gowned and gloved, and watched them take their last breaths, knowing that a few months ago they might have stood a chance. I ring families to tell them that their loved one who came into hospital for something totally unrelated now has coronavirus and will not survive.

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    Can you get coronavirus twice? – video explainer

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    A serious concern since the emergence of Covid-19 has been whether those who have had it can get it a second time – and what that means for exiting this crisis.

    The Guardian's science correspondent Hannah Devlin looks at how our bodies fight coronavirus when infected, how we develop immunity and if we can get reinfected with Covid-19

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    Australian government plans to bring in mobile phone app to track people with coronavirus

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    Coalition wants to introduce app within fortnight as part of pandemic ‘road out’ strategy but PM says easing of restrictions still many weeks away

    Australia soon will adopt a sophisticated mobile phone app that tracks coronavirus victims and the people they come in contact with.

    The federal government wants to introduce the app, now being used in Singapore, within a fortnight and will outline the plan to premiers during the next meeting of the national cabinet on Thursday.

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    UK missed three chances to join EU scheme to bulk-buy PPE

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    Exclusive: Britain did not take part in €1.5bn order for kit to protect against Covid-19 despite shortages in NHS

    Britain missed three opportunities to be part of an EU scheme to bulk-buy masks, gowns and gloves and has been absent from key talks about future purchases, the Guardian can reveal, as pressure grows on ministers to protect NHS medics and care workers on the coronavirus frontline.

    European doctors and nurses are preparing to receive the first of €1.5bn (£1.3bn) worth of personal protective equipment (PPE) within days or a maximum of two weeks through a joint procurement scheme involving 25 countries and eight companies, according to internal EU documents.

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    How Covid-19 brought Britain back together | podcast

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    After a divisive period dominated by Brexit, the pandemic has brought about a newly fostered spirit of community engagement and everyday heroism

    It was the middle of March and, like almost everyone else in the country, Annemarie Plas, from south London, was sitting at home under the new conditions of the coronavirus lockdown. It was then that she had an idea about organising a community clap for NHS workers after seeing something similar in her home country of the Netherlands. Now, every Thursday at 8pm, millions of people head out into the streets to clap and cheer for the people risking their lives on the frontline. She tells Anushka Asthana how one idea became a national outpouring.

    The crisis is bringing people together in other ways too. Naveed Khan is using a customised vehicle to deliver food and supplies to vulnerable people across his home city of Bradford. Lucy Welling, an NHS nurse, had her bike stolen as Britain went into lockdown. But followers on social media rallied round and helped find the bike amid several offers of a new one. The episode inspired a new movement, #TourDeThanks, to offer up bikes to key workers. In Nunhead, south London, Claire Sheppard set up Nunhead Knocks to help out those living in isolation. In Sheffield, 23-year-old Sarah-Jane Clark is one of a number of colleagues who moved in to a care home to look after residents safely.

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    Documents contradict UK government stance on Covid-19 ‘herd immunity’

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    List of possible interventions included simulating impact of allowing majority to be infected

    The inclusion of “targeted herd immunity” as a possible UK government response to the Covid-19 pandemic – in a list of possible interventions considered for analysis by a contractor – appears to contradict strong denials by the health secretary 10 days earlier that it was any part of government policy.

    Matt Hancock gave that response on 14 March after two senior government officials had said publicly that achieving “herd immunity” was a key aim, prompting widespread alarm among medical experts that the British government was planning to allow the majority of the population to become infected.

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