Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Brexit threatens the UK’s ability to respond to the novel coronavirus and future pandemics
The coronavirus pandemic could not have come at a worse time for the UK and its citizens. Just as UK government ministers are digging in for the really difficult part of Brexit, the negotiations on future relationships with the EU and the rest of the world, a new virus comes out of China that reminds us of just why international co-operation is so important.
A nation supposedly forged in the hellfire of war almost crumbled in the face of a virulent threat at home
Newly federated Australia, with its population not yet 5 million, was still enduring shocking fatalities on the European western front when its authorities began paying attention to the virulent strain of pneumonic influenza sweeping Britain.
Early Australian awareness of the “Spanish influenza” – an epidemic in Britain by mid to late 1918 – came with an acknowledgment that the new states grown of old colonies would need to stick together should the virus reach this isolated continent.
There’s a strange mood in the intensive care unit (ICU) where I work at the moment. It’s one of controlled planning, paperwork and people pulling together in ways that on a normal day perhaps wouldn’t happen.
ICUs are as prepared as they can be. Locally business as usual has made way for preparations for caring for high numbers of patients. We are finding every ventilator we may have and identifying every suitably qualified member of staff. We will work together to fill gaps as best we can.
The startling spread of the coronavirus across the globe is causing understandable alarm. But though it is still too early to draw definitive conclusions about how many deaths may occur, the statistics do point to general trends that can get lost in the drama.
At present, one thing that does seem clear is that the vast majority of people who get the disease will survive.
Australia’s chief medical officer says supply problems are a ‘temporary issue’ but one that is hampering testing in Australia and across the globe
A global shortage of Covid-19 testing kits is hitting Australia as other nations limit exports and keep equipment for their own use, the country’s chief medical officer has said.
State health ministers have reported shortages of reagents and kits used to conduct coronavirus tests in laboratories, as unprecedented demand for testing combines with limits on exports from other nations struggling to contain Covid-19.
No scientific evidence that technology poses threat to human health, say experts
5G is safe, according to the international body in charge of setting limits on exposure to radiation, which has updated its advisory guidelines for the first time in more than 20 years.
The International Commission on Non‐Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), the Germany-based scientific body that assesses the health risks of radio broadcasts, called for new guidelines for millimetre-wave 5G, the most high-frequency version of the telecommunications standard.
Thinktank praises Covid-19 response but says ‘splurge’ relies on already announced plans
Rishi Sunak’s first budget is not as generous as it seems and will leave many Whitehall departments worse off than they were before the spending squeeze began in 2010, according to Britain’s foremost economics thinktank.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies said the chancellor made the budget sound more substantial than it was, while relying on previously announced spending plans.
The World Health Organization has described the outbreak of the new coronavirus as a pandemic.
WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: ‘We are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity and by the alarming levels of inaction. We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterised as a pandemic.’
The Covid-19 virus is a member of the coronavirus family that made the jump from animals to humans late last year. Many of those initially infected either worked or frequently shopped in the Huanan seafood wholesale market in the centre of the Chinese city of Wuhan. Unusually for a virus that has made the jump from one species to another, it appears to transmit effectively in humans – current estimates show that without strong containment measures the average person who catches Covid-19 will pass it on to two others. The virus also appears to have a higher mortality rate than common illnesses such as seasonal flu. The combination of coronavirus’s ability to spread and cause serious illness has prompted many countries, including the UK, to introduce or plan extensive public health measures aimed at containing and limiting the impact of the epidemic.
Wave of anti-migrant violence has left refugees without food and medical care – and more vulnerable to disease than ever before
News of a confirmed case of Covid-19 on Lesbos has sparked fears of the impact of an outbreak at the overcrowded Moria refugee camp, where refugees live in dire conditions with appalling hygiene and little medical care.
The troubling conditions in the camp have worsened this week, and tensions on the island have seen several NGOs forced to reduce or close services over safety fears.
Political prisoners, including the University of Melbourne academic, have overwhelmingly been excluded from furloughing
Iran has temporarily freed 70,000 prisoners from jails around the country out of fear coronavirus could spread through prisons unchecked, but British-Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert has not been released.
Adam Castillejo, known as the London patient, goes public to give hope to others with illness
The second person ever to be cleared of HIV has revealed his identity, saying he wants to be an “ambassador of hope” to others with the condition.
Adam Castillejo, the so-called London patient, was declared free of HIV last year, 18 months after stopping antiretroviral therapy following a stem cell – or bone marrow – transplant to treat blood cancer.
This week we will hear from people working on the frontline of the health system as it manages the outbreak of Covid-19 around Australia. Today, we hear from a GP working in a private practice in Sydney’s southern suburbs
Bleary eyed as usual on an 8am Saturday morning start, I stumble into work, sit down at my desk and sip on the coffee my wonderful colleague has left for me. I glance at the screen and notice the familiar list of 30 patients booked in six hours. Sigh.
FDA ban brings an end to decades-long battle against use of ‘aversive therapy’ at the Judge Rotenberg Center in Massachusetts
The US government has banned an electric shock machine that is used to zap children and young adults with special needs in a school outside Boston – the only institution in the world known to practice the controversial punishment “treatment”.
Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including the Commons health committee questioning Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer
Boris Johnson and Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England and the UK government’s chief medical adviser have both been speaking about coronavirus this morning. Whitty gave evidence to the Commons health committee for about an hour and a half, and Johnson gave a much shorter interview to ITV’s This Morning. They did not contract each other in any way, but there was a marked difference in tone. Whitty was calm and factual, in no way alarmist, but also very honest about the fact that coronavirus is likely to lead to a significant disruption to normal life, and particularly to the NHS, for a short period later this year. In contrast, Johnson was much keener to gloss over the downsides and assure viewers that the UK was going to get through this “in good shape”.
Perhaps this is a sophisticated “good cop, bad cop” routine. But it is more likely that Johnson is just congenitally programmed for optimism, and resistant to anything that might make him sound like a “gloomster”. People expect their leaders to be positive, and at the moment Johnson is getting mostly plaudits for his handling of this crisis, but there may come a point where he does not seem to be acknowledging the risk.
The most important message at this stage, as we start to see the spread, is number one, wash your hands, but number two, as far as possible, it should be business as usual for the overwhelming majority of people in this country, for the simple reason this is a great country, massively strong economy, the British public I think understands completely the balance of risk involved. The scientists have done a very good job of explaining to us what the risks are, and they are really quite small. They are appreciable, but quite small. And people can see that this country is going to get through this in good shape.
One of the theories is perhaps you could take it in on the chin, take it all in one go and allow the disease to move through the population without really taking as many draconian measures. I think we need to strike a balance.
I think it would be better if we take all the measures that we can now just to stop the peak of the disease being as difficult for the NHS as it might. I think there are things we may be able to do.
At the moment what they are telling me is, actually, slightly counter-intuitively, things like closing schools and stopping big gatherings don’t work as well perhaps as people think in stopping the spread.
Let me clear that up immediately because it is very important that we are transparent, people understand that we are transparent.
Public Health England needs to be absolutely sure about the diagnosis of these cases so what they are doing is they are immediately identifying the region where they think there’s an incidence and then within 24 hours confirming the exact location to be sure that we have got the right thing.
The bit of the system which will come under pressure first will be those conditions that require people to have oxygen and particularly to have critical care beds, and that bit, I think, will come under pressure at quite an early stage if we have a high-end-of-the-range epidemic for this.
Q: Will coronavirus affect the talks?
Barnier says there are a lot of people at these meetings. At most there are 200 people at a meeting. But the EU will be taking steps to protect people.
In South Korea, those worried about new coronavirus cases can trace the commute and daily movements of infected people before their diagnosis by logging on to an app. In China too, you can track new cases as they are confirmed in real time and find out whether you have been on a flight or in a train with somebody who was later diagnosed.
In the UK, however, as confirmed cases jumped by 36 – the biggest surge so far – the Department of Health and Social Care announced on Twitter that it would no longer be tweeting their general locations, let alone their travelling habits, “due to the number of new cases”. Instead, it planned to put out a regional breakdown once a week, it said.
The session just ended, so we’re just getting some insight into what kinds of questions the justices asked.
Questions focused on whether doctors can sue on behalf of patients.
The focus of a lot of the arguments at #SCOTUS today was on whether doctors can sue on behalf of patients – a question of "standing". Liberal Justice Stephen Breyer pointed out overturning precedent on standing would draw into question 8 cases just in abortion law.
Oral arguments just ended at the Supreme Court – Chief Justice John Roberts is going to be the focus of a lot of analysis, as the liberal and conservative wings of the court appear to have already developed strong opinions on the case
Activist, actress and author Busy Phillips, who has been outspoken about the abortion she had when she was 15-year-old, gave an impassioned speech on the importance of protecting the right to abortion at the pro-choice rally in front of the Supreme Court.
A new report concludes that women are not being given epidurals and not being fully informed about pain relief by NHS trusts. Does a belief in natural births lie behind this?
Giving birth was, for Kate, like going “through a war”. She had repeatedly asked for an epidural; instead, she was allowed only gas and air and two paracetamol. She was “exhausted, dazed, torn, bloody and frightened” by the time her healthy son was placed in her arms.
“I asked three times for an epidural,” Kate says of her 26-hour labour to deliver her baby, who was back to back and breech. “The first time the midwives said I wasn’t far enough along. The second time, they said I didn’t need it. Finally, they said I was too far along.