Case rates rising in England except London and Yorkshire & the Humber; thousands of shots from Moderna batch given before use suspended .This live blog has now closed, for the latest reporting on coronavirus, visit our dedicated site
- Seven destinations to be added to England’s Covid travel green list
- NHS planning Covid vaccines for children from age 12, reports say
- US Covid hospitalisations rise above 100,000 for first time since January
- NZ: Ardern rejects criticism of elimination strategy after 68 new cases
The number of people hospitalised with Covid-19 in the US has risen above 100,000 for the first time since January, when the mass vaccination campaign was just getting under way.
Related: US Covid hospitalisations rise above 100,000 for first time since January
Gary Lewis, CEO of the Travel Network Group, the UK’s largest independent travel membership organisation, representing over 1,200 members, comments on news that Canada, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and the Azores will move from amber to the UK’s green list at the end of the month.
This announcement is little comfort to the travel sector whose recovery has been hampered by the complicated and ever-changing restrictions around travel.
Until people are travelling close to pre-2020 levels again, redundancies and business closures are a real threat to those working in the sector. The industry needs continued support from the government alongside an increased effort to allow the public to travel more freely or travel businesses will struggle to survive. This would be a tragedy for the industry and have a negative impact on high-streets and communities across the country.
Related: Seven destinations to be added to England’s Covid travel green list
UK ministers have been accused of doing the “bare minimum” to curb companies charging “misleading” prices for Covid travel tests and instead have been urged to name and shame the firms.
Ahead of a review of the traffic light system of quarantine rules which government sources said was unlikely to result in many major changes, Labour urged the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, to take tougher action against businesses “exploiting” the pandemic by imposing “rip-off” prices.
Related: Ministers doing bare minimum to stop Covid travel test ‘rip-offs’, says Labour
Newquay is reeling after health officials said that almost 5,000 cases had been linked to the music and surfing festival Boardmasters, which took place in the Cornish town earlier this month, my colleague Steven Morris reports. About three-quarters of them were aged 16-21 and about 800 live in Cornwall. Many of those who attended believe the number of infections is probably much higher.
It prompted tourism bosses to urge people not to visit the region unless they had pre-booked and to test themselves for Covid-19 before, during and after their stay.
Related: ‘It’s really hit us now’: Newquay becomes England’s Covid capital
Today’s top reader comment, from Mitch44:
So, jabs for those 12 and upwards to get the nod. As predicted by the teaching unions, it’s all being done too late, with pupils due back next week. At least the government weren’t disturbed during their holiday, though. That’s the main thing.
Related: NHS planning Covid vaccines for children from age 12, reports say
More than a third of young adults in most cities in England have not had a first dose of Covid-19 vaccine, new analysis shows. These include Liverpool, where an estimated 47.2% of 18 to 29-year-olds are still unvaccinated, Manchester (44.0%), Leicester (42.4%), and Leeds (39.1%).
In two cities more than a half of young adults have not received any vaccine: Birmingham (52.1%) and Coventry (50.2%). The figures have been calculated by the PA news agency based on the latest data from NHS England, which covers vaccinations delivered up to 25 August.
Italy reported 43 coronavirus-related deaths on Thursday, compared with 59 the day before, Reuters reports. The health ministry also said the daily tally of new infections fell to 7,221 from 7,548.
Italy has registered 128,957 deaths linked to Covid-19 since its outbreak emerged in February last year, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the eighth-highest in the world. The country has reported 4.51 million cases to date.
New research is to be carried out in the UK into how long immunity lasts after a coronavirus vaccine, Press Association reports, with scientists hoping this could help inform the design of future jabs.
Some £1.5m is being invested in understanding why some people get Covid-19 despite being jabbed or having had the virus before, while others do not.
Here’s our more detailed take on the changes to England’s green and red travel list destinations. The changes will take effect at 4am BST on Monday.
Related: Seven countries to be added to England’s Covid travel green list
England to move Denmark, Canada and others to green list while Thailand goes red
I'm told these are the changes to England's traffic light system to be announced today and in force from 4am next Monday.
Going : Canada, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and the Azores
Going : Montenegro and Thailand
Confirmation coming from DFT soon
The UK government has said a further 140 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19.
As of 9am today, there had been a further 38,281 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases in the UK, it added.
Cases of Covid-19 are still high, especially among young people. If you have Covid-19 symptoms, please do not go out - stay at home and get a PCR test as soon as possible. If you are heading to a festival or other event this Bank Holiday weekend, to protect your friends and others we encourage you to take a free rapid test before you leave to check that you do not have the virus.”
The Germany city-state of Hamburg is to allow hairdressers, clubs, restaurants and religious institutions to prevent unvaccinated adults or those who have not built up immunity Covid infection from entering.
The New York Times reports that the policy is a first for Germany, and that those businesses which impose the measure could then forego limits on indoor seating, dancing and distancing requirements. But masks would remain mandatory, while not eating or drinking.
Pfizer-BioNTech have said they have signed a deal with Brazil’s Eurofarma Laboratorios SA to manufacture their Covid-19 vaccine for distribution within Latin America.
Reuters reports that Eurofarma will start manufacturing finished doses beginning in 2022. The agreement does not cover the complicated process of mRNA drug substance production that will be done at Pfizer and BioNTech’s US facilities.
An Arkansas jail physician has defended the prescribing of widely used anti-parasite medicine ivermectin to prisoners after criticism, including from the state’s American Civil Liberties Union.
The Associated Press reports that in a video posted on his Facebook page, Dr Rob Karas said ivermectin is one of nine medications, including vitamin C and D, he has prescribed for Covid-19 to inmates at the jail and has been administering it since October. He said inmates are not forced to take the medications and they can refuse.
Do you want us to try and fight like we’re at the beaches of Normandy or do you want me to tell what a lot of people do, which is go home and ride it out and go to the ER when your lips turn blue?
You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y'all. Stop it. https://t.co/TWb75xYEY4
Covid-19 case rates are rising in all regions of England except London, and Yorkshire and the Humber, as summer moves into autumn, according to the latest weekly surveillance report from Public Health England.
PA reports that south-west England has the highest rate, with 481.7 cases per 100,000 people in the seven days to August 22, up sharply week-on-week from 351.8. The east Midlands has the second highest rate at 360.9, up from 351.5. London has the lowest rate with 247.3, down from 277.6.
Covid-19 vaccination administrations in Africa tripled over the past week, though protecting even 10% of the continent by the end of September remains “a very daunting task”, the Africa director of the World Health Organization has said.
The WHO Africa director, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, said 13m doses were administered in the past week, three times more than the number of shots given in the previous week as donations of doses increased from developed countries.
Australia’s major research funder has ruled more than 20 fellowship applications ineligible because they mentioned preprints and other non-peer reviewed materials, Nature reports.
The pandemic has seen preprints given unprecedented news coverage as scientists attempt to decipher a number of unknowns, and while there has been criticism that affording preprints significance can be short-sighted as they have not been peer-reviewed, there was criticism over the allegedly anti-open science move.
#ARCNotice: Thank you to everyone who has contacted the ARC to provide your disciplinary perspective about including pre-prints in applications for funding. We appreciate your contribution to the discussion. We are looking into the issues raised & will respond as soon as we can.
Nature reports on how small numbers of young people with blood clots following the AstraZeneca jab began to arrive at UK hospitals earlier this year after the vaccine rollout was extended.
In an article on Tuesday, it said scientists were still trying to understand why a small number of people develop a mysterious clotting disorder after receiving a Covid jab.
It was when the second person with unusual clots came in that Phillip Nicolson knew something was wrong. Blood clots are uncommon in young people, and it’s even rarer to see a combination of blood clots and alarmingly low levels of platelets — cell fragments that help to form clots.
Yet in the space of one week in March, two young people with this pairing of symptoms had arrived at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, UK, where Nicolson works as a haematology specialist. And both had recently been given the Oxford–AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine.
It is unclear whether other countries will have the same luxury of restricting Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccines to older people, given that it is relatively cheap and widely available compared with the mRNA vaccines, for example. Until now, VITT has primarily been reported in Europe and the United States, but researchers don’t yet know whether this reflects regional differences in susceptibility to VITT, or differences in reporting systems that gather data on potential vaccine side effects. In Thailand, for instance, researchers reported in July that there had been no cases of VITT after 1.7m doses of the Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine were given.
The UK government has successfully resisted disclosure of potentially explosive WhatsApp messages between ministers and Boris Johnson about decisions to send hospital patients into care homes without first testing them for Covid.
Two bereaved women whose fathers died from Covid in care homes which received infected NHS patients in April and May 2020, asked the high court to force disclosure of the texts as well as emails sent from a private account by the then health secretary, Matt Hancock.
Related: Attempt to force release of Johnson’s messages on Covid in care homes fails
The number of courses of dental treatment given to children in England dropped by 70% in the year after the first coronavirus lockdown, figures show.
Data from NHS Digital shows there were 3.3m courses of dental treatment given to children between April 2020 and March 2021, down from the 11.6m delivered in the previous 12 months.
Millions are still missing out on dental care, and patients will be paying the price for years to come. Dentists in England have had capacity slashed by pandemic restrictions and need help to get patients back through their doors.
Related: Dentists say lockdown measures are causing 'unnecessary suffering'
Social care managers fear an “exodus” of staff by the autumn due to opposition to mandatory vaccination, Covid burnout and a staffing crisis which is already compromising safe care.
PA reports that senior care staff say they are “genuinely concerned about the safety and sustainability of services” amid ongoing staffing shortages, extreme difficulty in recruiting and exhaustion.
We’re going to see a mass exodus of staff not wanting a vaccine. We’re already seeing an exodus of good, strong managers who we need in the system. We will then end up with inexperienced managers being promoted, so we will have a lot of inexperienced people running services that are not staffed adequately. It just doesn’t feel safe, it doesn’t feel right, and we’re letting down those people that we’re there to support.
In October, the head of the UK government’s vaccine task force said that “we just need to vaccinate everyone at risk” and noted that vaccinating healthy people “could cause them some freak harm”.
Kate Bingham told the Financial Times:
People keep talking about ‘time to vaccinate the whole population’, but that is misguided. There’s going to be no vaccination of people under 18. It’s an adult-only vaccine, for people over 50, focusing on health workers and care home workers and the vulnerable.
There will be a definite analysis of who is the priority for the vaccine, based on where they live, their occupation and their age bracket. We’re not fundamentally using the vaccine to create population immunity, we’re just changing the likelihood people will get harmed or hurt. It will be strategic.
An award-winning BBC radio presenter died due to complications of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccination, a coroner has concluded.
Lisa Shaw, 44, died in May, just over three weeks after she had her first dose of the jab, an inquest in Newcastle heard today.
This is another difficult day in what has been a devastating time for us. The death of our beloved Lisa has left a terrible void in our family and in our lives. She truly was the most wonderful wife, mum, daughter, sister and friend. We have said all we want to say in public at this time and ask to be left alone to grieve and rebuild our lives in private. Thank you.
On April 29 2021, she had a first doze of the AstraZeneca vaccine and, following that, she developed a vaccine-induced thrombosis and thrombocytopenia – a rare and aggressive complication associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine, which was the underlying cause of her death.
This was one of the first cases of this kind of vaccine-induced immune thrombocytopenia and thrombosis I had seen and had been seen nationally.
Related: Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine: rare blood clot syndrome has high mortality rate
More than £7m worth of unneeded masks, gowns and hand sanitiser are being donated from Wales to Namibia, and a further £500,000 grant is being given for oxygen equipment and nurse training, the government said.
With roughly similar populations, the two countries have enjoyed a longstanding relationship, it said, and the gift seeks to help bolster Namibia’s healthcare response to the pandemic.
I have heard directly from Namibia on the extremely difficult situation that they face in the battle against Covid-19. We have a duty to help those in need and I’m proud that Wales is stepping forward to fight the global threat of coronavirus. Wales will stand alongside Namibia and we will do everything we can to help them through this difficult time.”
Are Covid booster shots necessary? – video explainer
Here’s the latest full story on Japan halting the use of 1.63m doses of Moderna’s Covid vaccine after reports of contamination in several vials.
AFP reports that the drugmaker Takeda, which is in charge of sales and distribution of the Moderna shot in Japan, said it had “received reports from several vaccination centres that foreign substances have been found inside unopened vials”.
Moderna confirms having been notified of cases of particulate matter being seen in drug product vials of its Covid-19 vaccine. The company is investigating the reports and remains committed to working expeditiously with its partner, Takeda, and regulators to address this.
Moderna believes the manufacturing issue was generated in one of the lines used at its contract manufacturing site in Spain ... Out of an abundance of caution, Moderna has put this lot and two adjacent lots on hold.
We have not received reports of health problems stemming from the foreign object. But we are asking people to consult their physicians if they experience any abnormality.
EU countries that decide to administer booster shots may face increased legal risks because the additional dose has not yet been given emergency recommendation by the EU drugs regulator, the European Commission has said.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has repeatedly said that more data is needed before it can approve the use of boosters, but eight European countries have decided to recommend the additional dose, and more than a dozen are to make similar moves shortly.
The responsibility to decide to include boosters in their vaccination campaign remains with the member states. As long as the booster doses are not part of the marketing authorisation, companies’ liability is modified.
On the boosters, first of all, its not conclusive, in terms of its benefits; and also, we don’t know, if it’s safe. The second problem is that when some countries can afford to have the booster and others are not even vaccinating the first and second round, it’s a moral issue.
Its technically wrong and morally wrong; and that’s why we had this two- month moratorium, so that countries could refrain from using boosters, so that other countries who don’t have vaccines at hand ... could have access to vaccines. We’re in the same boat, and treating one part won’t help us recover soon from the pandemic. It’s in the interests of all of us to show real solidarity.
With a quarter of Shepparton’s residents unable to leave their homes, food and medicine supplies disrupted, and the defence force moving in, it is as if the town in Victoria, Australia, has been hit by an earthquake or major flooding, not a Covid cluster.
“It almost needs to be treated as you would a natural disaster,” Chris Hazelman, the manager of the Ethnic Council of Shepparton and District, said. “It’s a huge, huge challenge. Look at Melbourne: if you said 2 million people were in isolation, how would you deal with it?”
Related: Shepparton on disaster footing as Covid cluster forces thousands into isolation
That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, for today. I’m handing over to my colleague Mattha Busby. Here’s a quick roundup of what’s been happening so far:
Air travel to the UK continues to be severely affected by the pandemic, new figures by the Home Office show.
Just 1.4m airline passengers arrived in the country last month, up 14% compared with July 2020 but 87% lower than July 2019. About 54% of arrivals last month were British nationals, PA reports.
An Aboriginal woman with Covid and breathing difficulties was allegedly turned away from a local hospital in the town of Wilcannia in New South Wales in Australia, as local health officials admit the town does not have a ventilator despite having the highest rate of Covid transmission in the state.
Wilcannia has a higher Covid transmission rate than the worst hotspots in Sydney, sparking fresh calls for a coordinated state and federal effort to help the tiny, majority-Aboriginal town manage increasing illness, as well as securing essential supplies and safe places for people to self-isolate.
Related: Aboriginal woman ‘turned away’ from hospital as data reveals Wilcannia worst hit by Covid
Inmates at a prison in Arkansas in the United States have been prescribed a medicine used to deworm livestock to combat Covid, despite warnings from health officials that the antiparasitic drug should not be used to treat the coronavirus.
Washington County’s sheriff confirmed that the jail’s health provider had been prescribing the drug but didn’t say how many inmates at the 710-bed facility had been given ivermectin, AP reports.
Russia recorded 19,630 new Covid cases and 820 deaths in the latest 24-hour period, the government’s coronavirus task force said on Thursday.
The latest figures compare to 19,536 new cases and 809 deaths the previous day.
Here’s the full story on the proposed plans to extend the UK’s vaccination programme to 12- to 15-year-olds, from my colleague Damien Gayle.
NHS England has been told to prepare to administer Covid vaccinations to all children aged 12 and above, according to reports.
Related: NHS planning Covid vaccines for children from age 12, reports say
A “dramatic” recovery in the UK jobs market has led to wage inflation and shortages of qualified workers in some industries.
Recruiters’ fees are closely correlated to the strength of the jobs market, which was hit hard at the start of the coronavirus pandemic as workers were forced to stay at home and companies paused hiring because of uncertainty over economic prospects.
Related: Jobs market rebound has led to UK wage inflation and worker shortages, says Hays
More on the story of Moderna withdrawing a supply of about 1.63m doses of its Covid-19 vaccine in Japan after a report of contamination of vials with particulate matter.
Spain’s drugmaker Rovi, which bottles or “fills and finishes” Moderna vaccines for markets other than the US, has confirmed that the potential contamination is under investigation and appears to be limited to “a few batches” for Japan.
As back to school looms and in-person teaching returns, there is an expectation that Covid-19 cases will rise, especially among children.
In the UK, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MRHA) has approved the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines for children aged 12 to 17, but they are still not available to most people in this demographic. At present, children aged 12 to 15 are only offered a jab if they are considered clinically vulnerable.
I think right now, if we know the options with Delta, given how infectious it is, is that either you’re going to be exposed to Covid without any protection or you can be exposed and have a vaccine.
And we should be offering teens that vaccine so they have that protection before going back into schools.
Time is the currency now that matters because it’s not like we can wait and watch and in six months say, ‘OK, it’s safe, let’s vaccinate.’
In those six months if a large percentage of 12- to 15-year-olds get infected, in some ways they’ve lost that window of time and so I think perhaps they don’t feel the urgency that they should be feeling given it’s an emergency situation and we have Delta, which is so infectious. I mean, it’s just flying through schools as we know.
A store in Malaysia is selling handmade paper Covid jabs for people to honour their loved ones who lost their lives during the pandemic.
A box set of a syringe and two vaccine vials made of paper have become a popular praying item at Raymond Shieh Siow Leong’s religious goods store in the southern Malaysian city of Johor Bahru.
A government campaign urging students in England to have twice-weekly Covid tests for “a more normal year” at school and college has been labelled “naive” by school union leaders.
The campaign includes an Olympic gold medallist, the 18-year-old swimmer Matt Richards, telling students that regular testing allowed him to compete at Tokyo and will allow them to “get back to the things you love, like competitive sports and school matches”.
Related: Unions criticise English schools ‘more normal year’ campaign as naive
St Lucia could be added to the UK’s travel red list, as ministers prepare to update the traffic-light system for the final time this summer.
Covid data analyst Tim White warned PA news agency that the Caribbean island is “in real peril” of being put on the red list as “the numbers keep getting worse”.
India reported 46,164 new Covid cases and 607 deaths in the latest 24 hour period, according to data released by the health ministry on Thursday.
The figures compare to 37,593 new cases and 648 deaths the previous day.
Hello! It’s Léonie Chao-Fong here, taking over the live blog.
In the UK, teachers and families are being urged to take precautions to reduce outbreaks of the winter sickness bug before pupils return to school next week.
That’s it from me, Helen Livingstone, for today. I’m handing over to my UK colleague Léonie Chao-Fong.
Here’s a quick roundup of what’s been happening so far:
A foreign participant in the Paralympic Games in Japan has been hospitalised with non-severe symptoms of Covid-19, Kyodo News has reported, citing the Games’ organising committee.
It is the first hospitalisation of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, which opened on Tuesday. Hospitals in Japan treating Covid-19 patients have usually reserved beds for people showing severe symptoms.
If you’re commuting to work or doing the washing up and need something to listen to, check out our Science Weekly podcast, which this week looks at why children in the UK aren’t being vaccinated against Covid-19 even as in-person teaching is set to resume.
Related: Why aren’t children being vaccinated in the UK? – podcast
A Covid-19 modeller has suggested New Zealand’s North and South islands could become separate bubbles as the country grapples with a coronavirus outbreak.
New Zealand is battling to contain an outbreak of the Delta variant that swiftly led to a nationwide, level four lockdown – the highest setting – which has been extended until at least the end of the week. There are now 210 cases in the community.
Related: New Zealand could be split into North and South Island bubbles, Covid modeller suggests
The premier of the Australian state of New South Wales, Gladys Berejiklian, has relaxed rules on outdoor gatherings for fully vaccinated people, even as the region reported a record 1,029 infections and three deaths on Thursday.
Small groups of fully vaccinated people will now be allowed to meet outdoors, but the so-called “picnic rules” are more limited for the 12 local government areas of concern than the rest of the state, and do not come into effect until 13 September.
Related: NSW Covid update: rules relaxed for vaccinated despite record 1,029 cases
Moderna Inc says it has withheld supply of about 1.63 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine in Japan after a report of contamination of vials with particulate matter, which it suspects involves a production line in Spain, Reuters reports.
While Moderna said no safety or efficacy issues had been identified, the suspension is a fresh setback for the firm whose partners had production delays last month that disrupted supply to countries including South Korea.
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s rolling coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Livingstone.
Moderna Inc says it has withheld supply of about 1.63 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine in Japan after a report of contamination of vials with particulate matter, which it suspects involves a production line in Spain.
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