A summary of today's developments
- The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorised the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for children aged five to 11 years.
- After U.S. intelligence agencies concluded they may never be able to identify the origins of Covid-19, China responded by criticising the report.
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Brazil’s health regulator Anvisa said all five of its directors have received death threats over possible approval by the agency of Covid-19 vaccinations for children aged between five and 11 years old.
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Care home residents and some vulnerable people will be able to get their Covid booster vaccine a month early, ministers have announced, in an effort to boost immunity during the winter.
- Finance and health ministers from the world’s 20 biggest economies (G20) have said they will take steps to ensure 70% of the world’s population are vaccinated against Covid by mid-2022.
- The UK recorded 43,467 new Covid cases on Friday and 186 coronavirus-related deaths, data showed. It marks a slight increase from Thursday, when there were 39,842 cases and 165 deaths.
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The prevalence of Covid infections in England increased to about one in 50 people in the week ending 22 October, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
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Sweden’s response to the spread of coronavirus was too slow and preparations to handle a pandemic were insufficient, a commission investigating the country’s response to Covid has said.
- At least 44,265 people died in Russia in September due to the coronavirus and related causes, taking the toll to about 462,000 since the pandemic began, state statistics service Rosstat said today.
- Ukraine’s president has pleaded with citizens to get vaccinated quickly as daily infections soared to another all-time high. The health ministry reported 26,870 new confirmed infections in 24 hours – the highest level since the start of the pandemic. It recorded 648 daily deaths to bring the pandemic death toll to 66,852.
- More than 2,000 tourists visiting China’s Inner Mongolia region have been sent to hotels to begin two weeks of quarantine.
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Italy reported 33 coronavirus-related deaths on Friday compared with 50 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections rose to 5,335 from 4,866.
- More people have received a Covid booster vaccination in the UK per head of population than are reported to have had their first shot in Africa, according to the latest available data.
- Poland’s total number of Covid cases since the start of the pandemic passed three million today. It comes with daily cases hitting their highest in the fourth wave as a spike in infections gathers pace, health ministry data showed.
Mexico reported 4,001 new confirmed coronavirus cases and 320 more fatalities on Friday, health ministry data showed.
It brings the country’s overall death toll from the pandemic to 287,951 and the total number of cases to 3,802,287, Reuters reports. Officials have said the ministry’s official figures likely represent a significant undercount of both Covid-19 cases and deaths due to a lack of widespread testing.
After US intelligence agencies concluded they may never be able to identify the exact origins of Covid-19, China has responded by criticising the report.
“The US moves of relying on its intelligence apparatus instead of scientists to trace the origins of Covid-19 is a complete political farce,” Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said. “It will only undermine science-based origins study and hinder the global effort of finding the source of the virus.” China has faced international criticism for failing to cooperate more fully in investigations of coronavirus’s origins.
The embassy statement also dismissed that criticism, Reuters reports. “We have been supporting science-based efforts on origins tracing, and will continue to stay actively engaged. That said, we firmly oppose attempts to politicise this issue,” it said.
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Brazil on Friday reported 394 new Covid-19 deaths and 11,965 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, according to data released by the country’s health ministry.
Brazil has now registered 607,462 deaths due to the virus, the world’s second highest death toll behind the U.S., Reuters reports.
You can follow the latest Covid developments in Australia here:
The US had administered 419,020,753 doses of Covid-19 vaccines in the country as of Friday morning and distributed 514,925,015 doses, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Those figures are up from the 417,795,537 vaccine doses the CDC said had gone into arms by Oct 28 out of 510,735,525 doses delivered.
The agency said 220,860,887 people had received at least one dose, while 191,997,869 people were fully vaccinated as of 6am Eastern time on Friday, Reuters reports.
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Brazil’s health regulator Anvisa has said all five of its directors have received death threats over possible approval by the agency of Covid-19 vaccinations for children aged between five and 11. Anvisa said it had reported the emailed threats to the police and prosecutors, Reuters reports.
It said the messages threatened the lives of the directors if the agency approved vaccinations for that age group.
The threats came after Pfizer said on Wednesday it would seek approval from Anvisa for its vaccine to be used on children aged from 5 to 11.
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Here is more on a report by US intelligence agencies being unable to conclude whether Covid-19 spread by animal-to-human transmission or was leaked from a lab, as a fuller version of their review into the origins of the pandemic was released.
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US health authorities approve Covid vaccine for children
The US health regulator has authorised the Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE coronavirus vaccine for children aged 5 to 11, making it the first Covid-19 jab approved for use on young children in the US.
Pfizer said it would begin shipping paediatric vials of vaccine to pharmacies on Saturday.
The decision by the regulator is expected to make the shot available to 28 million American children, many of whom are back in school for in-person learning, Reuters reports.
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Here is more on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle joining the World Health Organization (WHO) and Save the Children in appealing to G20 leaders meeting this weekend to honour promises to send Covid-19 vaccines to low-income countries where just 3% of people have had a jab.
They said 7bn doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered globally with some people now receiving three vaccines, but Covax – the initiative designed to help fairly achieve global access to vaccines – had only received 11.5% of the promised 1.3bn doses.
The Office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a declassified intelligence community assessment on the Covid-19 origins which concluded the coronavirus was not developed as a biological weapon.
It added it believed China did not have prior knowledge of the virus before the first outbreak, Reuters reports.
People calling for an ambulance in Victoria, Australia, have been waiting up to 39 minutes on the phone, the Victorian Ambulance Union says, with aged care staff resorting to calling police for help to transport residents to hospital.
Union secretary Danny Hill described the situation as “becoming catastrophic”.
“We’ve had cases just in the past 48 hours where we’re aware of patients making their own way to hospital, and of aged care facilities calling for an ambulance and then not able to get a response, so they give up and call police,” said Hill, who is fully vaccinated and quarantining after contracting Covid.
Enrollment in the US government-run health insurance program Medicaid during the Covid-19 pandemic grew 16%, with more than 11 million additional Americans signing up, the Department of Health and Human Services said.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted our lives in many ways, yet today’s report shows we made significant strides to protect Americans’ health,” said the HHS secretary, Xavier Becerra, Reuters reports.
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Pupils across England have made a recovery in learning lost during the Covid pandemic but concerns remain over worsening results for disadvantaged secondary school students, according to new research published by the Department for Education.
The findings show a national trend of recovery in reading and maths, especially among primary school pupils, when comparing results between autumn, spring and summer this year. But cold spots remain in parts of England and among pupils who were eligible for free school meals.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have written an open letter to G20 leaders claiming that promises of vaccine donations from nations are not reaching the globe’s most vulnerable.
On the eve of the G20 summit, Harry and Meghan said access to the Covid-19 vaccine was a “fundamental human right” in the letter also written with the WHO director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PA reports. In their letter, the trio said: “When the leaders of the world’s wealthiest nations met at the G7 Summit in June, they collectively announced that one billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines would be sent to low- and low-and-middle-income countries to help vaccinate the world. “Pharmaceutical companies have pledged almost the same. “Yet, as several nations still don’t even have enough vaccines for their own health workers, the world is left asking, where are the doses?”
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New York City officials are preparing for shortages of firefighters, police officers and other first responders as a showdown looms between the city and its unvaccinated uniformed workforce, who face a 5pm EDT (2100 GMT) deadline to be immunised.
Leaders of unions representing firefighters and police officers have said more than one-third of their members could be sent home on unpaid leave when enforcement of the Covid-19 vaccine mandate takes effect on Monday, Reuters reports. “If you’re going to take a third of the ambulances offline, if you*re going to take a third of the engine companies offline, you’ll without question increase response times and increase the rate of death,” the Uniformed Firefighters Association president, Andrew Ansbro, told NY1 TV. But the mayor, Bill de Blasio, who announced the mandate nine days ago, said officials were prepared to manage any staffing gaps with overtime and schedule changes and by enlisting private ambulance companies to cover for the city’s paramedics.
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Summary
Here is a round-up of all today’s top Covid stories:
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Care home residents and some vulnerable people will be able to get their Covid booster vaccine a month early, ministers have announced, in an effort to boost immunity during the winter.
- Finance and health ministers from the world’s 20 biggest economies (G20) have said they will take steps to ensure 70% of the world’s population are vaccinated against Covid by mid-2022.
- The UK recorded 43,467 new Covid cases on Friday and 186 coronavirus-related deaths, data showed. It marks a slight increase from Thursday, when there were 39,842 cases and 165 deaths.
- England’s Covid weekly reproduction R number was estimated to have risen to between 1.1 and 1.3, the UK Health Security Agency said on Friday, and the epidemic is estimated to be growing.
- The prevalence of Covid infections in England increased to about one in 50 people in the week ending 22 October, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
- The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to authorise the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for children aged five to 11 years on Friday. The imminent announcement was reported by the New York Times, citing people familiar with the agency’s planning.
- Sweden’s response to the spread of coronavirus was too slow and preparations to handle a pandemic were insufficient, a commission investigating the country’s response to Covid has said.
- At least 44,265 people died in Russia in September due to the coronavirus and related causes, taking the toll to about 462,000 since the pandemic began, state statistics service Rosstat said today.
- Ukraine’s president has pleaded with citizens to get vaccinated quickly as daily infections soared to another all-time high. The health ministry reported 26,870 new confirmed infections in 24 hours – the highest level since the start of the pandemic. It recorded 648 daily deaths to bring the pandemic death toll to 66,852.
- In the UK, students are being urged to get tested for coronavirus before returning to school to minimise disruption to lessons and to ensure families can “enjoy the best” of the festive season.
- More than 2,000 tourists visiting China’s Inner Mongolia region have been sent to hotels to begin two weeks of quarantine.
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Italy reported 33 coronavirus-related deaths on Friday compared with 50 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections rose to 5,335 from 4,866.
- More people have received a Covid booster vaccination in the UK per head of population than are reported to have had their first shot in Africa, according to the latest available data.
- Poland’s total number of Covid cases since the start of the pandemic passed three million today. It comes with daily cases hitting their highest in the fourth wave as a spike in infections gathers pace, health ministry data showed.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for today. My colleague Nadeem Badshah will be with you shortly to continue bringing you all the latest coronavirus news as it happens. Bye for now.
Care home residents and some vulnerable people will be able to get their Covid booster vaccine a month early, ministers have announced, in an effort to boost immunity during the winter.
Currently the wait between second and third doses is six months, but medics will be able to decide to reduce it to five for care home residents and people who are housebound who are offered their flu jab at that point, so they can receive both vaccines together.
For people who are about to receive immunosuppressive treatment that would hinder their immune system, the wait for a booster will be cut even further, to four months.
The health secretary, Sajid Javid, said the move – after an update to clinical guidance made by the UK Health Security Agency – would give medics “the necessary flexibility in the booster programme, allowing more vulnerable people to be vaccinated where it makes operational sense to do so”.
he Department of Health and Social Care stressed that vaccines give high levels of protection but that immunity reduces over time, particularly for older adults and at-risk groups, meaning it is vital people get their booster to “top up their defences and protect themselves this winter”.
Protection against symptomatic illness falls from 65% up to three months after the second dose to 45% six months after the second dose for the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and from 90% to 65% for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, the latest evidence from the government’s scientific advisers suggests. Protection against hospitalisation is expected to fall from 95% to 75% for Oxford/AstraZeneca and 99% to 90% for Pfizer/BioNTech.
Boosters to be offered earlier in the UK
Covid booster jabs in the UK can now be given to certain vulnerable people sooner than six months after a second dose.
Clinical guidance from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has been updated to allow booster jabs to be given earlier to those at highest risk, but only where it makes “operational sense”.
PA Media reported:
The recommendation will, for example, allow care home residents who may have received their second doses at different times to be vaccinated in the same session, as long as it has been five months since their second dose.
It may also help with other vulnerable groups, such as housebound patients, so that they can have their flu and Covid boosters at the same time, the UKHSA said.
People who are eligible for a booster and are about to receive immunosuppressive treatment, which would hinder their immune system, will be able to get their booster from a minimum of four months after their second dose, under the updated guidance.
The UKHSA said the new flexibility will protect the most vulnerable more quickly.
The health secretary, Sajid Javid, said:
This updated guidance will ensure healthcare professionals have the necessary flexibility in the booster programme, allowing more vulnerable people to be vaccinated where it makes operational sense to do so – including our loved ones in care homes.”
The update comes as the UK recorded more than seven million booster jabs, after a record breaking week of more than two million being administered in the last seven days alone.
Updated
US expected to authorise first Covid vaccine for young children
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to authorise the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for children aged five to 11 years on Friday.
The imminent announcement was reported by the New York Times, citing people familiar with the agency’s planning.
The agency’s decision will make it the first Covid jab for young children in the US.
The decision is expected to make the vaccine available to 28 million children – many of whom are back in school for in-person classes – in the coming days.
It comes after a panel of advisers to the FDA voted overwhelmingly to recommend the authorisation on Tuesday.
Updated
Medical workers at Bulgaria’s main emergency hospital are waging an uphill battle as a surge in coronavirus cases has overwhelmed the country’s ailing health care system.
Following a relatively quiet summer, the Balkan country has been hit hard by another wave of the pandemic as it failed to take tighter containment measures, Reuters reported.
Bulgarian health officials blame public mistrust in vaccines and the government – just one in four adults are fully vaccinated – for the country’s current virus predicament.
On Friday, more than 7,553 people were in Bulgarian Covid wards, including 656 in intensive care. More than 90% of the patients were not vaccinated, data showed.
Updated
Russia says at least 44,265 people died from Covid in September
At least 44,265 people died in Russia in September due to the coronavirus and related causes, taking the toll to about 462,000 since the pandemic began, state statistics service Rosstat said today.
The Reuters news agency reported:
The figure was down from a peak of 51,044 in July, although infections and fatalities began to surge again in the second half of September and have repeatedly touched record levels this month, leading authorities to reintroduce stricter health restrictions.
The overall Covid-19 death toll reported by Rosstat is almost double the figure of 236,220 published by the Russian coronavirus task force earlier on Friday.
Authorities explain the discrepancy by the fact that the task force reports deaths from Covid-19 on a daily basis that do not need additional confirmation from medical examiners, whereas Rosstat publishes full data on a monthly basis. Some epidemiologists say that measuring excess mortality is the best way to assess the death toll during a pandemic.
Updated
Italy reported 33 coronavirus-related deaths on Friday compared with 50 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections rose to 5,335 from 4,866.
Italy has registered 132,037 deaths linked to Covid since its outbreak emerged in February last year, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the ninth-highest in the world. The country has reported 4.76 million cases to date.
Patients in hospital with Covid – not including those in intensive care – stood at 2,658 on Friday, up from 2,609 a day earlier.
There were 18 new admissions to intensive care units, down from 32 on Thursday. The total number of intensive care patients increased to 349 from a previous 347.
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UK registers 43,467 new Covid cases and 186 more deaths today
The UK recorded 43,467 new Covid cases on Friday and 186 coronavirus-related deaths, data showed.
It marks a slight increase from Thursday, when there were 39,842 cases and 165 deaths.
On a seven-day basis, cases were down 12.7% on the week before, while deaths, which typically lag cases, were up 12.6%.
Updated
Ukraine’s president has pleaded with citizens to get vaccinated quickly as daily infections soared to another all-time high.
The health ministry reported 26,870 new confirmed infections in 24 hours – the highest level since the start of the pandemic. It recorded 648 daily deaths to bring the pandemic death toll to 66,852.
Authorities blamed the surge in infections and deaths on a low level of vaccination. Just 16.4% of people in the nation of 41 million are fully vaccinated – the second-lowest rate in Europe after Armenia’s 7%.
The slow pace of vaccinations in Ukraine and other countries in eastern Europe has been blamed on public distrust of authorities that has contributed to the broad spread of disinformation and conspiracy theories about vaccines, Reuters reported.
“I’m strongly asking you to switch off social networks and switch on your brains,” the president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told Ukrainians. “The only way to prevent a collapse is to increase the share of vaccinated people. I’m asking regional authorities to wake up and go to bed with that thought.”
Updated
Finance and health ministers from the world’s 20 biggest economies (G20) have said they will take steps to ensure 70% of the world’s population are vaccinated against Covid by mid-2022.
“To help advance toward the global goals of vaccinating at least 40% of the population in all countries by the end of 2021 and 70% by mid-2022 … we will take steps to help boost the supply of vaccines and essential medical products and inputs in developing countries and remove relevant supply and financing constraints,” the G20 ministers said in a communique seen by Reuters.
The previous goal had eyed vaccinating 70% of the world’s population by the autumn of 2022.
“We establish a G20 Joint Finance-Health Task Force aimed at enhancing dialogue and global cooperation on issues relating to pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, promoting the exchange of experiences and best practices, developing coordination arrangements between Finance and Health Ministries, promoting collective action, assessing and addressing health emergencies with cross-border impact and encouraging effective stewardship of resources,” the statement said.
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Scotland has recorded 24 coronavirus deaths and 2,732 new cases in the past 24 hours, according to the latest data.
It means the death toll under this daily measure - of people who first tested positive for the virus within the previous 28 days - is 9,143.
The daily test positivity rate was 7.7%, up from 6.3% the previous day, figures published by the Scottish Government show.
There were 926 people in hospital on Thursday with recently confirmed Covid, down six on the day before, with 60 in intensive care, up two.
So far 4,314,144 people have received their first dose of a Covid vaccination and 3,903,299 have received a second dose.
Friday’s statistics may be affected by a data flow issue at the Glasgow Lighthouse laboratory, the Scottish Government said.
More people have received a Covid booster vaccination in the UK per head of population than are reported to have had their first shot in Africa, according to the latest available data.
By 26 October, 9.4% of the UK’s population had received a booster dose, compared with 8.5% of Africa’s population who had received their first dose, according to Our World in Data, with 5.6% fully vaccinated across the continent as of the same date.
The data reveals the state of vaccine inequality between high and low-income countries, particularly in Africa, with the UK among those accused of hoarding vaccines at the expense of more vulnerable populations.
It comes as the British government and other G20 countries were the focus of calls from more than 160 former world leaders and global figures in a letter organised by Gordon Brown to urgently arrange a military airlift of surplus Covid vaccines to poorer countries.
The UK was also accused days ago of lagging behind every other G7 country except Japan in sharing surplus Covid vaccines with poorer countries, according to the advocacy organisation One.
England's R number up to between 1.1 and 1.3
England’s Covid weekly reproduction R number was estimated to have risen to between 1.1 and 1.3, the UK Health Security Agency said on Friday, and the epidemic is estimated to be growing.
An R number between 1.1 and 1.3 means that for every 10 people infected, they will on average infect between 11 and 13 other people. Last week R was estimated between 1.0 and 1.2.
The daily growth of infections was estimated between +1% and +3%, unchanged from the previous week.
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China’s capital has been on high alert after more than two dozen Covid cases were reported this month.
Beijing’s government this week asked residents to minimise travel, and required everyone entering Beijing must present for inspection their “Beijing Health Care” – a mobile phone app that shows an individual’s Covid status.
On Friday, the authorities went a step further after two new additional cases, ordering public venues such as chess and poker rooms and board games halls to be closed. It also advised that weddings be postponed and funeral ceremonies be shortened.
In the meantime, residents in Beijing should cancel banquets, reduce unnecessary gatherings, and refrain from hosting gatherings or participating in gatherings with a large number of people, according to the new rule.
China’s zero-tolerance Covid policy is not set to change, even though more Asian countries are beginning to learn to live with the virus.
On Thursday, a high-speed train from Shanghai to Beijing was ordered to halt service midway after one attendant was identified as a “close contact” of a Covid positive patient. As a result, all other 211 passengers onboard were then immediately quarantined in designated places. They are identified as “sub-close contacts”.
This week, a woman in Yinchuan in the north-central Chinese province of Ningxia was caught escaping quarantine to meet her boyfriend. The police quickly found her on 27 October at her boyfriend’s. Chinese media reports said that the district’s public security bureau quarantined Han and her boyfriend at home straight away after they found them, and she would be “dealt with seriously after the quarantine was lifted”.
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Some businesses flouted new lockdown measures in the Russian capital, Moscow, on Friday saying they needed to make ends meet amid a lack of state support.
It comes as nationwide deaths from Covid hit a new record daily high blamed on slow vaccination take-up.
The restrictions allow only essential shops like pharmacies and supermarkets to remain open, while schools and state kindergartens are shut. Bars, cafes and restaurants are only allowed to operate takeaway and delivery services.
Some entrepreneurs said they were trying to keep their businesses going as they had not been promised state aid.
Elena, an administrator at a Moscow beauty salon, told Reuters she would continue admitting customers by appointment only.
“To hell with them … we’re going to work. We’ll just put up curtains … During the last lockdown we sat there for almost a month and there was almost no help. We have to survive somehow,” she said.
Pub owner Vladimir said bars and clubs on busy streets had to close because of their prominent locations, but his pub, which is tucked away in a courtyard, would stay open.
“I would gladly close down due to the epidemiological situation, but unfortunately, no one is relieving me of my financial obligations – the rent, bills and so on,” he said. “We have got to the point where there is simply no choice.
“We are a local pub … not on a central street. No one is interested in us.”
Updated
Swedish response to Covid was too slow, says commission
Sweden’s response to the spread of coronavirus was too slow and preparations to handle a pandemic were insufficient, a commission investigating the country’s response to Covid has said.
Sweden’s early strategy, shunning lockdowns and measures such as face masks and only gradually tightening curbs, made the country an outlier in the first year of the pandemic when many countries across Europe chose to implement tougher restrictions.
The commission said it would address Sweden’s no-lockdown strategy in its final report, but that its preliminary findings showed that measures were introduced late both in relation to the country’s Nordic neighbours and the spread of the virus in Sweden during the spring of 2020.
“Sweden’s handling of the pandemic has been marked by a slowness of response,” the commission said.
“The initial disease prevention and control measures were insufficient to stop or even substantially limit the spread of the virus in the country.”
Reuters reported:
The commission, appointed by the government amid pressure from parliament, also noted that it had taken “far too long” to build sufficient testing capacity with initially only targeted groups, such as healthcare staff, being tested.
Authorities relied heavily on voluntary recommendations for people to socially distance and wash their hands, and public places such as schools, restaurants and businesses remained largely open, with the government leaving much of the responsibility for fighting the virus with the health agency and its chief epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell.
Sweden has recorded more than 15,000 deaths from coronavirus, many times the per capita level of its Nordic neighbours that implemented tougher restrictions, but still lower than many countries that locked down tightly, such as Britain.
Its pandemic strategy has been controversial at home and abroad. Critics have called it reckless and cruel but the approach has also earned praise for being more sustainable and business-friendly and as a model for living with the virus as it becomes endemic.
The commission investigating the coronavirus response has no legal power beyond making public its findings with the aim of improving Sweden’s ability to handle pandemics and similar situations.
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An interesting read below from my colleague Linda Geddes on how coronavirus-induced parosmia is surprisingly common.
Here is an extract from her piece:
Deirdre likens her body odour to raw onions; Deepak says his favourite aftershave smells foul, and coffee like cleaning products; Julie thinks coffee and chocolate both smell like burnt ashes.
Most people are aware that a cardinal symptom of Covid-19 is loss of smell, or anosmia. It may last for weeks or even months. Increasingly though, those who have recovered subsequently develop another disorienting symptom, parosmia, or a distorted sense of smell. This typically results in things that once smelled pleasant smelling bad or rotten.
Covid-19 isn’t the only cause – head injuries and other types of infection can also trigger it – but Sars-CoV-2 appears particularly adept at setting off this sensory confusion. According to one recent international survey, about 10% of those with Covid-related smell loss experienced parosmia in the immediate aftermath of the disease, and this rose to 47% when the respondents were interviewed again six or seven months later.
For the full story, please click the link below.
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A police force in the north of England is trying to discourage children from trick or treating this Halloween because of Covid-19.
South Yorkshire police have produced a poster residents can print out and put in their windows saying “No trick or treaters”, with a picture of a silhouetted pumpkin crossed out like a no-entry sign.
The force said: “This year our communities will be celebrating Halloween and Bonfire Night differently; organised events have been cancelled due to Covid-19 and trick or treating is being discouraged.”
It added: “Simply put the poster in your window or on your door and those taking part in the festivities will know that you do not want to be disturbed.”
The poster was widely mocked on social media, with users saying anyone putting it up “may as well print off a sign that says ‘Please egg this house’”.
Police forces around the country have come up with various campaigns around Halloween and Bonfire Night this year, which are designed to keep communities safe – even though some may view them as killjoy.
Updated
One in 50 people in England had Covid last week – ONS
The prevalence of Covid infections in England increased to about one in 50 people in the week ending 22 October, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
It means the prevalence of the virus has reached its highest level since the start of the year.
The ONS said that prevalence of infections had risen for its fifth straight week, having been at one in 55 people in the previous week. Prevalence was last at one in 50 people in the week ending January 2.
Our #COVID19 Infection Survey shows in the most recent week, infections
— Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) October 29, 2021
▪️ increased in England, now at a similar level to early 2021
▪️ increased in Northern Ireland.
Trends were uncertain in Wales and there were early signs of an increase in Scotland https://t.co/sqtBXurmuo pic.twitter.com/y5SKYDN6SS
Meanwhile, in Wales, about one in 40 people are estimated to have had Covid in the week to 22 October, up from one in 45 the previous week and the highest since estimates began in July 2020.
In Northern Ireland, the latest estimate is one in 75, up from one in 130 the previous week, but below the record high of one in 40 in mid-August.
For Scotland, the latest estimate is also one in 75, up from one in 90 the previous week but below September’s peak of one in 45.
All figures are for people in private households.
Updated
In the UK, students are being urged to get tested for coronavirus before returning to school to minimise disruption to lessons and to ensure families can “enjoy the best” of the festive season.
Ministers and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) are calling on young people to take a rapid lateral flow test before the end of the October half-term to help prevent Covid cases from entering the classroom. PA Media reports:
The plea comes as figures – which coincide with the start of the October half-term holiday – show that the rates of new cases of Covid-19 among schoolchildren in England have fallen slightly.
Pupils are also being urged to get vaccinated where possible – either at school or at walk-in centres. Secondary school and college students in England have been asked to test twice weekly at home since returning to class in September.
A total of 1,201.2 cases per 100,000 people aged 10 to 19 were recorded in the seven days to October 24, down week on week from 1,388.0, the latest UKHSA figures show.
Dr Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UKHSA, said:
Today I am calling on all children to help themselves and each other by getting tested before going back to the classroom so that we can stop the infection in its tracks and keep as many children in the classroom as possible, continuing their education and developing their futures.
The education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, added:
As we start the countdown to Christmas, testing regularly and getting vaccinated is the best thing we can all do to protect education and make sure we can enjoy the best of the season – whether that’s the school nativity or the family gathering over the holidays.
That’s why I want to encourage every young person in secondary school or college to take a test before you return to the classroom next week. We have come so far in our fight against this virus, and now every single test and every single jab puts another brick in our wall of defence.
Updated
More than 2,000 tourists visiting China’s Inner Mongolia region have been sent to hotels to begin two weeks of quarantine.
The move follows reports of an outbreak of Covid in the vast, lightly populated region that attracts visitors with its mountains, lakes and grasslands.
An announcement from the regional government on Friday said 2,428 visitors had been placed under observation at hotels in the cities of Baotou and Ordos.
That came after successive reports of new cases of local infection in the region, with Inner Mongolia accounting for 19 of the 48 new cases of domestic transmission announced today, the Associated Press reported.
In the city of Lanzhou, in Gansu province bordering Inner Mongolia, millions of people have been largely confined to their homes over the past week after cases were detected there. Ten new cases were reported in the city on Friday.
Good morning. I’m Tom Ambrose and will be bringing you all of today’s top Covid headlines from the UK and around the world.
First up is the news that Poland’s total number of Covid cases since the start of the pandemic passed three million today.
It comes with daily cases hitting their highest in the fourth wave as a spike in infections gathers pace, health ministry data showed.
The Reuters news agency reported:
Amid wide disregard for rules on wearing masks, infections in Poland are surging ahead of All Saints’ Day, when crowds of people visit cemetries to pay their respects to the dead in a tradition that could contribute to the spread of the virus.
Friday’s 9,387 new cases were Poland’s highest since April, with 102 deaths. In total, the country of about 38 million people has reported 3,008,294 cases and 76,875 Covid related deaths.
The Polish government will have to consider tighter restrictions if average daily cases exceed 7,000 by the end of the month, health minister Adam Niedzielski was quoted as saying on Monday.
Today so far
- Wales is set to announce changes in its Covid restrictions as a result of the rising case numbers across the UK. The Welsh government will be encouraging people to work from home if possible, and also insisting that anybody in a household with somebody who has tested positive also isolates until they have a negative PCR test.
- First minister of Wales Mark Drakeford was critical of the UK government, saying “the numbers at this level are causing harm in the community ,are driving more people into hospital. And we have to make a concerted effort over the next three weeks to bring those numbers down. I have for a number of weeks been urging [the UK government] to move to Plan B. It would certainly help us here in Wales to have a single communication that says across England and Wales we are all taking this virus as seriously as we need to take it as we go into the autumn and the winter.
- London mayor Sadiq Khan has urged the Government to make face coverings mandatory on public transport. He said “The worst thing we can do is to lower our guard, be complacent and underestimate the risk these viruses pose to all of us.”
- The Northern Ireland government has handed out £100 vouchers to almost 700,000 individuals to boost the local economy post Covid lockdowns.
- Russia reported 1,163 new Covid-19 deaths, its highest one-day toll of the pandemic, amid a surge in cases that has forced officials to reimpose partial lockdown measures. Deaths have set new records in the country on nine of the past 11 days.
- Bulgaria has recorded another 5,178 new Covid cases in the last 24 hours. Official data shows that there are 7,553 patients in hospital, 656 of them being in intensive care.
- Ukraine set a record caseload for the second consecutive day, with 26,870 new coronavirus infections. There were 648 official deaths. The health ministry also said there were 5,463 hospital admissions in the last day.
- G20 leaders are set to commit to supporting efforts to shorten to 100 days the period needed to develop new vaccines, drugs and tests in a pandemic, according to a draft joint document.
- Former UK prime minister Gordon Brown has said wealthier countries are being “too slow” in moving unused vaccine doses to poorer countries. The ex-Labour leader said it is “only the leaders of the G20” who can decide their unused vaccines should be “moved out as quickly as possible to save lives and to avoid waste”.
- A syringe shortfall threatens Africa Covid vaccine drive as the continent struggles to inoculate people against the virus. The United Nation’s fund for children (UNICEF) is predicting an “imminent shortfall” of up to 2.2 billion of the single-use syringes for Covid vaccination.
- New Zealand recorded another 125 Covid cases, pushing the country’s Delta outbreak past 3,000.
- Australia’s vaccination campaign has taken an icy trip to the shores of the Antarctic. An Airbus A319 arrived in Wilkins Aerodrome on Thursday evening with a cargo of Pfizer vaccines for 27 expeditioners at the Casey research station.
That is it from me Martin Belam for this week. I will be back with you on Monday. Kevin Rawlinson has our UK politics live blog today, and Tom Ambrose will be along presently to take you through the rest of the day’s Covid news. Have a good weekend, take care and stay safe.
Updated
G20 leaders set to commit to efforts to shorten development times for vaccines
G20 leaders are set to commit to supporting efforts to shorten to 100 days the period needed to develop new vaccines, drugs and tests in a pandemic, according to a draft joint document.
Under previous funding levels, developing vaccines has sometimes taken more than a decade, but the Covid-19 pandemic spurred an unprecedented rush in research, trials and regulatory procedures that made it possible to have vaccines ready in less than a year.
Now G20 leaders want that period to be cut further.
In health emergencies caused by pandemics “we will support science to shorten the cycle for the development of safe and effective vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics from 300 to 100 days,” says a draft statement seen by Reuters that G20 leaders are set to adopt over the weekend at a summit in Rome.
The draft is still subject to last-minute changes, but officials said that this commitment is expected to remain unchanged.
Former UK prime minister Gordon Brown is also calling on the G20 to take action over vaccine equity, and prevent the richest nations stockpiling and wasting vaccines that could be delivered around the globe.
A bit of vaccine production news from Reuters here: Takeda Pharmaceutical, the Japanese partner for Novavax’s Covid vaccine, is preparing to seek regulatory approval for a roll out in Japan early next year
Novavax delayed filing for US approval to the end of this year, amid reports that the Maryland-based company faced production and quality problems. The drugmaker filed to British regulators on Wednesday.
“We will need to assess whether the package that has been filed in the UK, for example, will satisfy the Japanese authorities,” Takeda CEO Christophe Weber said in an interview.
“I think this is what will happen in the coming weeks and months,” he said, adding he believed it would be ready in time to help with Japan’s booster shot programme, which is set to start by the end of this year.
Takeda is setting up to make the vaccines “as soon as the product is approved,” he said.
Russia sets new official Covid daily deaths record for ninth time in last eleven days
Russia on Friday reported 1,163 new Covid-19 deaths, its highest one-day toll of the pandemic, amid a surge in cases that has forced officials to reimpose partial lockdown measures.
Reuters remind us that deaths have set new records in nine of the past 11 days. The coronavirus task force also said it had recorded 39,849 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, including 7,511 in Moscow.
Russia will go into a nationwide workplace shutdown in the first week of November, and the capital Moscow reintroduced partial lockdown measures on Thursday, with only essential shops like pharmacies and supermarkets allowed to remain open.
Laura Spinney is a science journalist and the author of Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World, and she writes for us today:
The endgame has been obvious for a while: rather than getting rid of Covid-19 entirely, countries will get used to it. The technical word for a disease that we’re obliged to host indefinitely is “endemic”. It means that the disease-causing agent – the Sars-CoV-2 virus in this case – is always circulating in the population, causing periodic but more-or-less predictable disease outbreaks. No country has entered the calmer waters of endemicity yet; we’re all still on the white-knuckle ride of the pandemic phase.
One thing is clear: the transition to endemicity will happen at different times in different countries and regions. It’s not unreasonable to think that the UK, with its high case numbers and vaccination rates, might be among those closest to the tipping point – which is why other countries are watching it closely.
Delta, which is around three times as transmissible as the original Wuhan variant of Sars-CoV-2, has yet to reach many countries, but since May it has been dominant in the UK, where it has spread like wildfire since “freedom day” on 19 July. That’s why some scientists think the UK is entering its final pandemic wave, from which it will exit into the endemic phase next spring.
Read more here: Laura Spinney – How does Covid end? The world is watching the UK to find out
London mayor Sadiq Khan: government should introduce 'mandatory face coverings on public transport'
London mayor Sadiq Khan has urged the Government to make face coverings mandatory on public transport as the UK continues to average more than 40,000 confirmed coronavirus cases a day for over a week.
The UK government has so far been totally resistant to bringing in so-called Plan B measures, which would see the reintroduction of mandatory face masks indoors along with guidance to work from home and the use of Covid passports.
Khan called for Londoners to get vaccinated against Covid-19 and the flu to protect the NHS this winter. He said in a statement the the “deadly virus has not gone away and this winter we’re facing both flu and Covid”. PA Media quotehim saying:
The worst thing we can do is to lower our guard, be complacent and underestimate the risk these viruses pose to all of us
The situation with Covid-19 in the capital is so finely balanced that it needs all of us to act together to protect ourselves, our loved ones, the things we enjoy and our NHS this winter.
That’s why I’m urging all eligible Londoners to have the booster vaccine and flu jab as soon as you are offered it, continue to wear a mask where you can and am calling on the Government to put simple and effective steps, such as mandatory face coverings on public transport, in place to halt the spread of the virus now.
Northern Ireland issues 700,000 vouchers to boost post-Covid economy
The Northern Ireland government has handed out £100 vouchers to almost 700,000 individuals to boost the local economy post Covid lockdowns.
More than 1.4m people over the age of 18 applied for the hand outs by Monday’s deadline, the department of local economy has said with 667,000 already issued with £13m already “poured back into the economy”.
The government budgeted £145m for the scheme, which is aimed at supporting businesses devastated by the pandemic, with punters required to spend their money on local businesses only before 30 November.
Bulgaria has recorded another 5,178 new Covid cases in the last 24 hours. Official data shows that there are 7,553 patients in hospital, 656 of them being in intensive care.
Yesterday a meeting of health authorities agreed to transform Lozenets Hospital in Sofia into an intensive care centre for Covid-19 treatment. Deputy health minister Dimitar Petrov said the government’s intention was to open 30 new beds every 3-4 days in the next two weeks. In addition, students will not be returning to in-person classes next week, with primary school pupils expected to be back at school on 8 November.
Drakeford: Wales wishes UK government would take 'more precautionary approach to international travel'
During the course of his interview on Sky News, the first minister of Wales Mark Drakeford expressed some frustration with the UK government and the rules it has in place in England. On international travel, he said:
The truth of the matter is we wish the UK Government took a more precautionary approach to international travel. But when they choose to change the rules in England, in any practical sense it’s impossible for us to do anything different in Wales, because almost everybody from Wales who travels abroad or who returns to this country from abroad comes in through English ports and airports, and then travels on to Wales. So in a practical sense, we can’t make anything different happen there, although we wish the UK Government took a different approach. What we can do, when we can do things differently, when we have decisions that we can make effectively in Wales, then we take them.
Drakeford also said:
We do have opportunities to discuss this with the UK Government. I have for a number of weeks been urging them to move to Plan B. It would certainly help us here in Wales to have a single communication that says across England and Wales we are all taking this virus as seriously as we need to take it as we go into the autumn and the winter.
Drakeford: Wales needs 'concerted effort over the next three weeks' to bring Covid numbers down
One of the questions for Wales’ first minister Mark Drakeford on Sky News was why Wales was seeing rising numbers when it had consistently applied tougher Covid restrictions that England. Drakeford suggested that the country may be a victim of its own earlier vaccine success. He said:
Wales had a very successful vaccination programme. And it may be that we are seeing the waning impact of that initial vaccination earlier here in Wales because of our initial success.
It’s also the case that earlier in the summer for weeks and weeks, Wales have the lowest level of Coronavirus anywhere in the UK and it may be that there’s just a greater reservoir of people here in Wales waiting to be infected by the Delta variant, and that’s driving the numbers that we see today.
What is certainly true is the numbers at this level are causing harm in the community are driving more people into hospital. And we have to make a concerted effort over the next three weeks to bring those numbers down.
Wales set to tighten rules on self-isolation for close contacts amid rising case numbers
Wales is set to announce changes in its Covid restrictions as a result of the rising case numbers across the UK. The Welsh government will be encouraging people to work from home if possible, and also insisting that anybody in a household with somebody who has tested positive also isolates until they have a negative PCR test. On Sky News just now, first minister Mark Drakford said:
We have to do more here in Wales to bring those numbers down. We want more people to work from home. We want to make sure that people do the simple things of mask wearing in crowded public places. We’ll be changing some of the arrangements in our schools to try to stem the flow of young people falling ill with the virus, and we will be asking people who are household contacts of someone who has tested positive to stay at home until they themselves have taken a PCR test. If it’s negative, they will be able to go back to school and to work. If it’s positive, then they won’t have been out and about spreading the virus to other people.
Gordon Brown: UK government hasn't realised 'urgency' of getting unused vaccines to poorer countries
Former UK prime minister Gordon Brown has said wealthier countries are being “too slow” in moving unused vaccine doses to poorer countries.
The ex-Labour leader said it is “only the leaders of the G20” who can decide their unused vaccines should be “moved out as quickly as possible to save lives and to avoid waste”.
PA Media quote his appearance on the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, where he said:
The problem is we’re being too slow and we’re holding back when we know we’ve got these unused vaccines. We should be getting them out as quickly as possible.
There’s an urgency about saving lives and there’s also an urgency about preventing these vaccines passing their use-by date and I don’t think the British government has yet realised the urgency of the problem and of the need in the poorest countries.
There have been 245 million cases of Covid, there are going to be 200 million more if we don’t get the vaccines out there as quickly as possible.
In a subsequent appearance on LBC radio he said:
Britain controls its supply of vaccines, America controls its own supply of vaccines, Canada does, the EU does, you’ve to get together and say how can we timetable the delivery of these surplus vaccines.
So I’ll be looking for an agreement [at the G20 summit] to co-ordinate activities, maybe a task force that someone heads just to bring everybody together so that we get these vaccines out, and I’ll be looking for a statement that we’ve got to prepare for pandemics better in the future.
Updated
Ukraine sets record caseload for second consecutive day
The Ukrainian health ministry has issued its latest coronavirus numbers, and the country has recorded another record daily high of 26,870 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, exceeding the previous high of 26,071 a day earlier. There were 648 official deaths. The ministry also said there 5,463 hospital admissions in the last day.
Yesterday the mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko announced that the country’s capital would be imposing new restrictions from 1 November up to the limits of his powers, and called on the national government to take further measures. The Ukrinform news agency reports him saying:
The situation with the spread of coronavirus in the capital is rapidly deteriorating. The number of hospitalisations and patients in need of oxygen support is increasing.
The new measures mean people will have to present a Covid vaccination certificate or a negative PCR test before they can access indoor activities in the capital.
Malaysia has said it will proceed with the procurement of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for children, following a US panel’s recommendation for the shot to be authorised for those aged 5 to 11.
The US Food and Drug Administration voted on Tuesday to recommend the authorisation, saying the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks.
Malaysia’s Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said on Twitter other options, such as the vaccine made by China’s Sinovac BioTech, would also be considered to ensure schools can reopen safely.
About 62% of teenagers aged between 12 and 17 in the Southeast Asian country are fully vaccinated, government statistics show.
Icy double vax for Antarctic expeditioners
Australia’s vaccination campaign has taken an icy trip to the shores of the Antarctic.
An Airbus A319 arrived in Wilkins Aerodrome on Thursday evening with a cargo of Pfizer vaccines for 27 expeditioners at the Casey research station, minister for the environment Sussan Ley said in a press release on Friday.
“The exercise was a reminder of the isolation Australia’s Antarctic Expeditioners face each year and the detailed planning that is in place to support their well-being,” Ley said.
“As the Antarctic season looms and as expeditioners prepare to head home, it is important that they can join the national surge in Covid-19 vaccinations.”
Ley said the delivery required “months of careful planning” and the vaccines had to be stored at the right temperature from their arrival in Hobart, their delivery to the plane, the flight to Antarctica and then the four-hour journey across the ice to the station in a frozen container.
Vaccines to reach Africa amid syringe shortage
A syringe shortfall threatens Africa Covid vaccine drive as the continent struggles to inoculate people against the virus.
The United Nation’s fund for children (UNICEF) is predicting an “imminent shortfall” of up to 2.2 billion of the single-use syringes for Covid vaccination.
“Limited access to crucial commodities such as syringes may slow the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines in Africa,” WHO Africa said, referencing UNICEF’s dire prediction.
“Early next year, Covid-19 vaccines will start pouring into Africa, but a scarcity of syringes could paralyse progress,” Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, said.
“Drastic measures must be taken to boost syringe production, fast.”
Unless there is a significant acceleration, only five African countries, or below 10 percent, will reach the target of 40 percent of populations vaccinated by the end of the year, the WHO said.
These countries - Seychelles, Mauritius, Morocco, which have already reached this target, as well as Tunisia and Cape Verde - together account for just 51 million of the continent’s 1.2 billion population.
Limited access to crucial commodities such as syringes may slow the rollout of #COVID19 vaccines in #Africa. @UNICEF has reported an imminent shortfall of up to 2.2 billion auto-disable syringes for COVID-19 vaccination and routine immunization in 2022. pic.twitter.com/UEg6ex5lLd
— WHO African Region (@WHOAFRO) October 28, 2021
Summary
Hi and welcome back to our daily Covid blog.
I’m Samantha Lock and I’ll be bringing you the top headlines from across the world.
First up, it’s good news for a group of researchers working from Australia’s Casey Station in Antarctica today.
Pfizer vaccines have finally arrived for 27 staff, federal environment minister Sussan Ley announced on Friday. Vaccines will also be delivered to its Davis and Mawson research stations.
Officials in South Korea have also announced restrictions will begin to ease from next week.
“Beginning November 1, our community will take the first step of resuming our normal life,” Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said. “However, we must be aware that this doesn’t mean the fight against coronavirus is over, but a new beginning.”
Here’s a rundown of what else you might have missed.
- A syringe shortfall threatens Africa’s Covid vaccine drive. As vaccines arrive to the continent, a scarcity of syringes could “paralyse progress”, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday. UNICEF, the United Nation’s fund for children, is predicting an “imminent shortfall” of up to 2.2 billion of the single-use syringes used to give jabs.
- New Zealand records another 125 Covid cases, pushing the country’s Delta outbreak past 3,000.
- The US economy grew at its slowest pace in more than a year in the third quarter as a resurgence in Covid cases further stretched global supply chains, leading to shortages and decreased consumer spending, Reuters reports.
- Russia sets more Covid restrictions amid record deaths and vaccine hesitancy. Recent rampant outbreaks in the countries have been driven by low vaccination rates.
- Britain has reported 39,842 new cases of Covid, government data showed on Thursday. A further 165 people were reported as having died within 28 days of a positive test for Covid, meaning the seven-day total was up 16.2% from the previous week.
- More than 100 million Indians have not turned up for their second coronavirus vaccine dose, official data showed, raising concerns of a resurgence in the disease despite a relatively low infection rate.
- Only five African countries will meet the target of fully vaccinating 40% of their populations against Covid unless the pace of inoculations increases, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday.
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Singapore reported 3,432 new cases of Covid on Thursday, a day after recording its highest single-day rise in cases which the city-state’s healthy ministry described as an “unusual surge”.
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Pfizer and BioNTech have announced that they expect to deliver 50m more doses of their Covid vaccine to the United States by the end of April.
- Airlines cast doubt on flying unvaccinated passengers to Australia.
- England set to remove final countries from Covid travel ‘red list’. At least 12 more countries’ vaccines also expected to be recognised in significant opening up of borders.
- Face mask row in Japan over cost of 80m left in storage unused. Wearing masks may be near-ubiquitous in Japan, but the government has come under fire after it was revealed that more than 80m face coverings it procured at the start of the coronavirus pandemic are still in storage, at a huge cost to taxpayers.
Updated
