by Summary for Friday, 28th May
Welcome to our live page, where we’ll bring you the latest coronavirus updates. Here are your main headlines this morning:
- The National Care Association boss says a government claim it placed a "shield" around care homes early in the pandemic is "absolute rubbish"
- Matt Hancock has denied lying about protecting care homes from Covid after claims made by the PM's ex-chief aide
- Surgeons in England say there is a "colossal backlog" of non-urgent operations because of Covid-19
- Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng says he can see "nothing in the data that will delay" the 21 June lifting of restrictions in England
- But Prof Christina Pagel of Sage says it should be delayed "until we have a much higher proportion of people vaccinated with two doses"
- Up to three quarters of new UK Covid cases could be of the Indian variant, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said
- Glasgow residents are due to find out whether it will remain in level three of Scotland's Covid-19 restrictions
Welcome to our live page, where we’ll bring you the latest coronavirus updates. Here are your main headlines this morning:
- The head of the National Care Association Nadra Ahmed has rejected a claim by the government last year that it had placed a "protective shield" around care homes early in the pandemic
- Surgeons are calling for specialist hubs in England to help tackle what they call a "colossal backlog" of non-urgent operations because of Covid-19
- Up to three quarters of new UK Covid cases could be of the Indian variant, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said
- People and businesses in Glasgow are expected to find out later whether the city will remain in level three of Scotland's Covid-19 restrictions
- High Street banks say they are back to opening accounts for small businesses as normal after pressures amid the pandemic caused problems
- After previously successfully keeping coronavirus at bay, Taiwan is currently in the grip of its first serious outbreak.
What's the latest around Europe?
- Germany will start giving Covid jabs to over-12s from 7 June, federal and state leaders have agreed. However, Chancellor Angela Merkel says they won’t be compulsory and one survey suggests only 51% of parents want to give their children a Covid jab. The head of Germany’s Association for Intensive and Emergency Medicine, Florian Hoffmann, says adults should be prioritised as children often get the virus harmlessly and without symptoms. Germany’s seven-day incidence rate of infections has declined further to 39.8 per 100,000 people.
- The EU’s medicines agency EMA is expected to approve the Pfizer-Biontech vaccine for 12-15 year-olds later today.
- France has clarified that non-essential travel from the UK will be banned from Monday, due to the spread of the Indian coronavirus variant. France is already on England's "amber" list, meaning the UK government advises against travel there and passengers must quarantine upon return. But now France says travel should only be allowed, for example, for bereavement or childcare, and that includes seven days of self-isolation.
- Meanwhile, France has now opened its vaccination appointment system to everyone over 18. Until now it’s adults of 50 and over who have been eligible.
- The Dutch cabinet decides today whether to move to the next phase of Covid easing. The original plan is to allow people to have four visitors at home from 5 June and reopen museums and theatres with limited numbers of customers inside cafes and restaurants.
- A Spanish indoor test concert for almost 500 people wearing masks in Barcelona last December has reported no cases of virus transmission. Everyone who attended the gig was given a lateral flow test before and afterwards and had to wear an N95 (FFP2 mask) and ventilation was enhanced. The same team held another test event in March with 5,000 and came to the same conclusion.
Around the world so far today
- India reported on Friday 186,364 new coronavirus infections during the previous 24 hours, for its lowest daily rise since April 14, while deaths rose by 3,660. The South Asian nation’s tally of infections now stands at 27.56 million, with the death toll at 318,895, health ministry data show.
- Meanwhile Japan is expected to extend emergency coronavirus measures in Tokyo and several other regions by about three weeks, according to officials, as the country struggles to rein in a fourth wave of infections less than two months before the Olympics.
- Argentina reported a record one-day number of new Covid-19 cases of 41,080 on Thursday, amid a second wave of infections that has made the country one of the hardest hit in the world, pushing the local health care system to its limit.
- Africa needs at least 20m doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine within six weeks if those who have had their first shot are to get the second in time, the WHO said on Thursday.
- Up to three-quarters of new UK Covid cases are thought to be caused by the variant first detected in India, as the reported number more than doubled to almost 7,000, Matt Hancock said on Thursday.
- The United States called on Thursday for the World Health Organization to carry out a second phase of its investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, with independent experts given full access to original data and samples in China.
- The US intelligence community acknowledged its agencies had two theories on where Covid-19 originated, with an element embracing a possible laboratory accident as the source of the pandemic.
- US President Joe Biden said he is likely to release a report detailing the US intelligence community’s findings on the origins of Covid-19 in full.
- Sweden will go forward with its plan to ease some of its Covid curbs from June 1, prime minister Stefan Lofven said.
- Germany plans to make enough Covid vaccine doses available to offer a first shot to all children aged 12 and over by the end of August, a draft health ministry document showed.
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