Coronavirus - 10th November 2021

• China reports a drop in Covid cases with 54 new confirmed cases for 9 November compared with 62 a day earlier, its health authority said today.  The Chinese city of Chengdu said it had tested 30,000 Covid-19 tests on visitors at a big entertainment centre, and rounded up those who tried to flee the site, in the second mass screening in days.
  
  
• France pushes to accelerate update of Covid-19 booster shots for elderly and vulnerable citizens. President Macron said a third injection would be made available to those aged 50-64 from early December. Anyone over 65 who was vaccinated more than six months ago will need to get a booster shot by mid-December for their “health pass” to remain valid, Macron said.
  
  
• Covid cases surge in Greece with a record of 8,613 new cases in the last 24 hours – the highest since the pandemic began. Cases have more than doubled in less than a fortnight.
  
  
• Virus deaths in Russia hit daily record of 1,211 Covid-19 deaths, the highest daily death toll in the pandemic, and 39,160 new cases. Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered many Russians last month to stay off work between 30 October and 7 November.
  
  
• Latvia, one of the least vaccinated countries in the European Union, is facing its most severe outbreak of Covid-19 yet.
  
  
• The World Health Organization has warned there could be shortfall of up to 2bn syringes in 2022, which threatens to hamper vaccine efforts globally is production does not improve, AFP reports.
  
  
• Loved ones reunite at US-Mexico border as Covid travel restrictions lifted.
  
  
• UK health secretary Sajid Javid says staff must be fully jabbed by April 2022 or risk dismissal raising concerns 32,000 care home staff and tens of thousands of NHS workers could quit.
  
  
• Daily Covid-related deaths in the UK rose above 250 again, with 262 reported on Tuesday.
  
  
• Covid-19 patients in Singapore who remain unvaccinated by choice will have to pay for their hospitalisation bills from 8 December, the government has ruled.
  
  
• Pfizer asks FDA to approve Covid booster shots for all US adults. Older Americans and other vulnerable groups have had access to a third dose of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine since September but the Food and Drug Administration has said it would move quickly to expand boosters to younger ages if warranted.
  
  
• Moderna also applied for European authorisation of its Covid-19 vaccine in children aged six to 11, weeks after it delayed a similar filing with US regulators.
  
  
• The European Union drugs regulator is set to authorise the use of two monoclonal antibodies to treat Covid-19 patients in coming days, two EU sources told Reuters, in its first approvals of such therapies.
  
  
• The US will buy another $1bn-worth of the Covid-19 pill made by Merck & Co Inc and partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, the companies said on Tuesday.
  
  
• Canada authorised the use of Pfizer/BioNTech’s vaccine as a booster shot for people 18 and older.
  

Czech Republic records highest number of new Covid cases since March

New Criteria for COVID-19 Assessment

(Originally published in Japanese. Banner photo: Crowds in Ginza, Tokyo, on October 23, 2021, following the lifting of the state of emergency. Jiji.)

Germany reports daily high number of new coronavirus cases

Message from Dr David Nabarro - WHO

Why am I not travelling very much? Because I don’t want to get Covid - I’m in the wrong age group and I’ve got other adverse factors as well.

So, I’m trying to say to everybody travel if you must - and there are often essential emotional reasons as well as essential economic and other reasons - but try not to travel if you don’t have to.

Because travelling does increase your risk, we know that the more contacts you have with other people, the more likely you are to both get the virus and to spread it, so minimise travel please.

I’m asking everybody if they’re organising meetings, make sure they’re either virtual or hybrid, so that if people are unable to travel, they can still participate fully from a distance.

Germany's Robert Koch Institute records highest daily caseload since pandemic began

Today so far

• Germany’s national disease control centre reported a record-high number of new coronavirus cases today, as one of the country’s top virologists warned that another lockdown would be needed if vaccinations do not quickly accelerate.
  
• “We have a real emergency situation right now,” Christian Drosten, the head of virology at Berlin’s Charite hospital, said regarding the situation at many hospital intensive care units across the country. “We have to do something right now.”
  
• Hungary recorded 8,434 new Covid-19 infections today, the highest daily tally since early April, with new cases again doubling from last week.
  
• Slovakia reported 7,055 new cases – the highest level the country has seen since the pandemic began.
  
• The Czech Republic has recorded its highest number of Covid cases since March 2021, with 14,539 new positive tests. Ladislav Dušek, director of the country’s health information and statistics organisation, warned that “high numbers of infections in the most vulnerable part of the population increases the probability of an additional burden on hospitals, in numbers which can potentially double up very quickly.”
  
• The World Health Organization’s Covid envoy Dr David Nabarro has warned to minimise international travel even as borders open up, saying: “I’m trying to say to everybody travel if you must – and there are often essential emotional reasons as well as essential economic and another reasons – but try not to travel if you don’t have to. Because travelling does increase your risk, we know that the more contacts you have with other people, the more likely you are to both get the virus and to spread it, so minimise travel please.”
  
• Nabarro has also criticised UK prime minister Boris Johnson for appearing in a hospital without wearing a face mask this week, urging all world leaders to wear masks when in indoor settings.
  
• The UK’s health secretary Sajid Javid said this morning he does “not want to see anyone have to walk away from their job” as he urged health and social care staff to get a Covid-19 vaccine ahead of making it compulsory for NHS England staff from 1 April.
  
• Dr Maggie Wearmouth, who sits on the Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) in the UK, said that legislating mandatory vaccines for frontline health and care workers in England was a “blunt instrument” but she was “supportive” of the move.
  
• Indonesia and Malaysia have agreed to introduce a travel corridor between them on a gradual basis, starting with key areas like capital cities and the holiday island of Bali.
  
• Vietnam has said it will by the end of this month have sufficient vaccines to cover its population against Covid-19.
  
• Four lions at a Singapore wildlife park have tested positive for coronavirus after coming into contact with infected zookeepers, and have symptoms including coughing and sneezing, officials have said.
  
• The European Union’s drug regulator expects to decide in about two months on whether to allow the use of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine in children aged six to 11 after the US pharmaceutical company sought approval. However, several European countries including Sweden, Germany and France have paused or recommended pausing its use for people 30 or younger due to rare heart-related side-effects.
  
• People who trust Fox News Channel and other media outlets that appeal to Republicans and conservatives are more likely to believe falsehoods about Covid-19 and vaccines than those who primarily go elsewhere for news, a study in the US has found. The most widely believed falsehood is about the government exaggerating Covid deaths. 60% of Americans either believe that or said they didn’t know whether or not it was true.
  

We all need to be able to do what we’ve got to do, regardless of what politics we adopt.

I’m not sitting on the fence on this one – where you’ve got large amounts of virus being transmitted, everybody should do everything to avoid either getting the virus or inadvertently passing it on.
We know that wearing a face mask reduces the risk, we know that maintaining physical distance reduces the risk, we know that hygiene by regular hand-washing and coughing into your elbow reduces the risk.
We should do it all and we should not rely on any one intervention like vaccination on its own.
So, please, would every leader be wearing face masks, particularly when in indoor settings.
This virus is unforgiving and we need to do everything possible to prevent it getting in between us and infecting us.

Perhaps that’s the toughest thing about Covid, is that the responses get politicised – in some places if you wear a mask, you’re taught to belong to a particular political party.
That’s the most regretful thing about the present situation; we all need to be able to do what we’ve got to do, regardless of what politics we adopt.

The prime minister followed the Covid measures that were in place throughout his visit, including wearing a mask in all clinical areas. He also took a PCR test before the visit. The hospital trust has issued a statement making clear the PM followed its guidelines.

Thailand offers Covid vaccines to migrant workers to ease labour shortage

One of UK's longest-suffering coronavirus patients confronted by conspiracy theorist in hospital

I just thought: ‘Whatever’, and put my headphones back in. I don’t want to get involved in conversations like that. I didn’t want to get into an argument. It’s up to them what they want to believe. In the end, I just thought: ‘Here’s the proof - if you don’t want to believe it, what can I do?’

The last two years have made me appreciate life a lot more. You never know what’s round the corner. Don’t take things for granted. Every day is special.

The sad thing is none of them wanted to leave. And reading their resignation letters was heartbreaking.
They’re so grateful for the opportunities and the first one that left, we gave gifts.
It was such an emotional afternoon and for days afterwards my residents were heartbroken because they saw this person as one of them, and even a resident, they have said ‘I wish she could come back, I don’t care that she’s not vaccinated’.

In some ways, it is remarkable that requiring NHS staff who have face-to-face contact with patients to be vaccinated is even controversial. Healthcare workers have a professional duty of care not to harm patients, which is why the majority have already taken the vaccine, and few could expect to remain unvaccinated in a pandemic and to keep working with vulnerable people. However, mandating health measures is not something to be done lightly.

As I’ve written before, workers – especially pregnant women and people from minority ethnic groups – must be given time to overcome fears, as well as paid time off to get the jab and sick leave for any mild side effects. That’s why staff will be offered one-to-one meetings with clinicians if they want to discuss their concerns as they make their choice.
But “persuasion” cannot go on for ever. It has been almost a year since health and care workers were first given priority access to the jab. There surely comes a point when we must acknowledge that some staff will never take the vaccine without it being mandatory, and be honest about what we are asking the public to face in the meantime. Medics are not immune to doubting science or guaranteed to put their patients’ wellbeing first. Every request to give staff more time to feel comfortable with being vaccinated is another day that clinically vulnerable people’s lives are put at risk.
It’s important to be clear about what [Sajid] Javid has mandated. No one will be forced to have the vaccine. It is simply that those staff who choose to remain unvaccinated will not have the right to a job on the frontline of the NHS.
This is not unprecedented. Staff in some areas of the NHS, such as surgery, are already obliged to get vaccinated against hepatitis B. That’s because it’s widely understood that not taking sensible precautions to prevent passing on a disease to patients would be a form of neglect.
The myth that “patients are jabbed so no one else needs to be” is another straw man. Some clinically vulnerable people can’t have the vaccine because of their illness, while others will receive insufficient protection from the jab because they’re taking certain medications or because they have weak immune systems.
That’s why it’s so important for frontline health workers to be vaccinated; multiple studies show it significantly reduces the risk of transmission. We don’t stop making seatbelts compulsory in cars because some people still die in accidents. Many lives are saved by them, and that’s enough reason for us all to wear them

UK records another 214 deaths and 39,329 infections

• People testing negative for Covid-19 despite exposure may have ‘immune memory’, a study has found. Scientists found that a proportion of people experience “abortive infection” in which the virus enters the body but is cleared by the immune system’s T-cells at the earliest stage meaning that PCR and antibody tests record a negative result. The discovery could pave the way for a new generation of vaccines targeting the T-cell response, which could produce much longer lasting immunity, they said. Story here.
  
• The United States has brokered a deal between Johnson & Johnson and the Covax vaccine-sharing program for the delivery of the company’s Covid vaccine to people living in conflict zones. The US secretary of state Antony Blinken announced the agreement at the opening of a meeting of global foreign ministers convened by Washington on the pandemic, but provided no details on how many doses would be delivered, when or to which countries.
  
• The UK reported another 39,329 Covid cases and a further 214 deaths within 28 days of a positive test, official data showed.
  
• Tens of thousands of care home residents in England face losing vital support as unvaccinated carers clock off for the last time before double jabs become mandatory. About 50,000 care home staff who have not had two doses will not be allowed to work from Thursday. Analysis by the Guardian suggests that on current staff/resident ratios without other measures to tackle the problem, the care of about 30,000 people could be affected. Story here and the view from one home here.
  
• The UK recorded its first case of a pet dog catching coronavirus, apparently from its owners. The dog’s infection was confirmed after testing on 3 November. It’s not the first time that pets have tested positive for the virus; the same laboratory detected coronavirus in a cat last year, while research from the Netherlands has previously suggested that the virus is common in cats and dogs owned by people who have Covid. Story here.
  
• Russia’s coronavirus death toll surpassed 250,000. The country reported a record 1,239 Covid-related fatalities in the previous 24 hours, taking the official death toll to 250,454. It came two days after most of Russia’s regions emerged from a week-long workplace shutdown designed to curb the spread of the virus. Only four other countries have surpassed the grim quarter-million milestone. Officially, the US has reported 757,309 fatalities, Brazil 609,756, India 461,849, and Mexico 290,110, according to data from John Hopkins University.
  
• Demand for Covid booster jabs jumped in France after Emmanuel Macron said a top-up dose would be necessary for people to retain their vaccine passes, the country’s main appointment booking site said. “The Macron effect” prompted 149,000 requests for shots, most during and immediately after the president’s televised address on Tuesday evening, in which he warned that coronavirus cases were again on the rise.
  
• The EU signed its eighth Covid vaccine deal, approving French company Valneva’s jab. The European Commission said the contract with Valneva provides the possibility for EU member states to purchase nearly 27m doses in 2022. Valneva is hoping its candidate, which uses more traditional technology than the mRNA vaccines, could be a more reassuring option for Europeans still reluctant to be immunised. It said last month that it demonstrated efficacy “at least as good, if not better” than AstraZeneca’s vaccine in a late-stage trial comparing the two, with significantly fewer adverse side effects.
  
• Thailand plans to set aside up to 500,000 doses of Covid vaccines for foreign workers as it prepares to welcome them back to the country to help ease a labour shortage. The government plans to allow workers from neighbouring Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos to re-enter the country beginning next month and fill up shortages in big exporting industries such as food and rubber production, the labour minister Suchart Chomklin said.
  
• Boris Johnson came under fire from the World Health Organization’s special envoy for Covid-19 after being photographed without a face covering during a hospital visit. Asked about pictures of the British prime minister walking through Hexham General without a mask, Dr David Nabarro said: “I’m not sitting on the fence on this one – where you’ve got large amounts of virus being transmitted, everybody should do everything to avoid either getting the virus or inadvertently passing it on.”