Health News at Your Fingertips

France has reported 6,291 new coronavirus cases, Reuters reports.
The country has had over 7.12 million cases overall.

Britain recorded the highest number of new cases of Covid-19 since July over the past week, government figures showed on Saturday.

Some 333,465 people tested positive over the past seven days, up 15% on the previous week and the highest total since the seven days to July 21.

Deaths have risen by 12% over the past week, and the total since the start of the pandemic now stands at 139,461, the second highest in Europe after Russia, Reuters reports.

Six Romanian Covid-19 patients have been transported to the central Polish city of Lodz for treatment, Polish authorities said.

“They are all in a serious condition on ventilators,” said Dagmara Zalewska, spokesperson for the Lodzkie region.

Romania has reported record numbers of daily coronavirus deaths and infections this month and the hospital system is stretched to breaking point.

The country has the second-lowest coronavirus vaccination rate in the European Union, Reuters reports.

France has reported that 1,007 people are in intensive care units for Covid-19, down by three, Reuters reports.

France has reported 90,560 coronavirus deaths in hospital overall, an increase of 23 today.

People are pretending that dogs they acquired during lockdown are strays so that rescue centres take them in, after failing to sell them online, animal rescue charities and shelters have warned.

Figures from March revealed that more than 3.2m pets were bought by UK households during lockdown.

Since Covid restrictions were lifted and people have started to return to the office, charities have reported a growing trend of people abandoning their pandemic pets as they no longer have as much time for them.

More data from Italy. Patients in hospital with Covid-19 – not including those in intensive care – stood at 2,455 on Saturday, from 2,443 a day earlier.

There were 20 new admissions to intensive care units, down from 22 on Friday. The total number of intensive care patients decreased to 338 from a previous 343.

Some 491,574 tests for Covid were carried out in the past day, compared with a previous 487,218, the health ministry said.

Singapore has reported 3,598 Covid-19 cases, compared with 3,637 the previous day, and a further six deaths, Reuters reports.

Italy reported 39 coronavirus-related deaths on Saturday, the same number as the day before, the health ministry said.

The daily tally of new infections rose to 3,908 from 3,882, Reuters reports.

Italy has registered 131,802 deaths linked to Covid-19 and has reported 4.74 million cases to date.

The UK has recorded 44,985 new coronavirus cases and a further 135 deaths in the last 24-hour period, government figures show.

The total number of cases is now 8,734,934 and the death toll is 139,461.

Here is a round-up of the day’s top Covid stories so far:

• A prominent Covid adviser to the UK government has said he is “very fearful” there will be another Christmas lockdown as he urged the public to do everything possible to reduce transmission of the virus.
• In a wide-ranging interview with The Times newspaper, the UK chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has said shops, pubs and restaurants must not shut again as the vaccine rollout meant there could be “no more lockdowns”.
• Russia reported a further 1,075 Covid deaths on Saturday, its fifth straight daily record, as authorities prepare to shut workplaces across the country and lock down Moscow.
• The whole world must be vaccinated to stop new Covid variants from developing, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.
• Local public health chiefs in England have broken from the government’s official guidance to recommend plan B measures to combat a surge in coronavirus cases.
• Unvaccinated people in Austria could face new lockdown restrictions if coronavirus case numbers continue to rise, the country’s chancellor, Alexander Schallenberg, has said.
• Health officials should have known about major failings at a private UK Covid testing lab within days of the problem arising, rather than taking weeks to shut down operations at the site, senior scientists say.
• The Romanian government is to re-introduce a night curfew and make health passes mandatory for entry to most public venues from Monday.
• The senior official credited with the early success of the Covid vaccine rollout in England is returning to the NHS to resume her role overseeing the programme, months after leaving to become the head of Boris Johnson’s Downing Street delivery unit.
• New Zealand reported 104 new coronavirus infections on Saturday, including the first community case of the virus in the country’s South Island in nearly a year, health officials said.
• Namibia will suspend the use of Russia’s Sputnik V Covid vaccine, its health ministry said on Saturday. The decision comes days after the drugs regulator in neighbouring South Africa raised concerns about its safety for people at risk of HIV.
• Sri Lanka has announced plans to offer booster shots to frontline workers followed by the elderly as it prepares to further ease Covid restrictions.
• Melbourne, Australia’s second-biggest city, began its first weekend out of the world’s longest string of Covid lockdowns with spontaneous street parties, live music and packed pubs, bars and restaurants.
• China reported 50 new confirmed coronavirus cases on Saturday compared with 43 on Friday, according to the country’s health authority.

That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose. I’ll be back next week. but for now my colleague Nadeem Badshah will continue to bring you all the latest Covid news from the UK and around the world as it happens. Goodbye.

Namibia will suspend the use of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, its health ministry said on Saturday.

It comes days after the drugs regulator in neighbouring South Africa raised concerns about its safety for people at risk of HIV.

Namibia’s regulator, SAHPRA, decided not to approve an emergency use application for Sputnik V because some studies suggested vaccines using the Adenovirus Type 5 vector, as Sputnik V does, can lead to higher likelihood to HIV in men.

South Africa and Namibia have high HIV prevalence rates, Reuters reported.

Namibia’s health ministry said in a statement that the decision to discontinue use of the Russian vaccine was out of an “abundance of caution that men who received Sputnik V may be at higher risk of contracting HIV,” adding that it had taken SAHPRA’s decision into account.

The Gamaleya Research Institute, which developed Sputnik V, said Namibia’s decision was not based on scientific evidence or research.

“Sputnik V remains one of the safest and most efficient vaccines against Covid-19 in use globally,” the institute told Reuters. More than 250 clinical trials and 75 international publications confirmed the safety of vaccines and medicines based on human adenovirus vectors, it said.

Namibia said the suspension would take effect immediately and last until Sputnik V receives a World Health Organization emergency use listing. It received 30,000 doses of Sputnik V as a donation from the Serbian government, but only 115 had been administered as of 20 October.

Hello, Tom Ambrose back here to bring you the latest Covid news from the UK and abroad for the next couple of hours.

A bit of breaking news for you from the past couple of minutes. Scotland has recorded 2,403 cases in the past 24 hours, latest Scottish government figures show.

A “data issue” means the it is unable to report the number of deaths on Friday. The daily test positivity rate was 8.7%, down from 8.8% on Thursday, according to PA Media.

There were 896 people in hospital with recently confirmed Covid, up two on the previous day, and 61 in intensive care, up one.

So far, 4,302,382 people have received their first dose of a Covid vaccination and 3,890,477 have received a second dose.

As Covid cases in Russia continue to soar, today hitting a fifth consecutive daily record (see also 09:45), a hospital in Siberia is seeing an unprecedented surge in patients – many of whom are unvaccinated.

Doctors at Hospital No 2, in Biysk, work up to three 24-hour shifts in a row, reports Reuters.

“Last year we kept the numbers at 23-24 people. Today we have 65 people in intensive care,” deputy chief doctor Olga Kaurova told Tolk Channel. “Most of our patients in the ICU are not vaccinated.”

She said they are also seeing more younger patients.

Biysk, which has a population of around 200,000, has become a coronavirus hotspot in the Altai Krai region.

The impact of the pandemic on schoolchildren in the US is falling hardest on the poorest and those least equipped to handle it.

When Covid breaks out in schools, for many families it is “gamble” as to whether they will be able to attend and many families do not know where to go for information, reports the Associated Press.

Driver shortages have also led to school buses not turning up when they’re supposed to.

AP reports:

Keiona Morris, who lives without a car in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, outside Pittsburgh, has had no choice but to keep her boys at home on days when the bus didn’t arrive. Her two sons have missed about two weeks’ worth of classes because of such disruptions, she said.

Taking her older son to school on the civic bus system those days would mean not making it home in time to get her youngest to elementary school, she said.

“I feel like they’re leaving my kid behind,” Morris said. “Sometimes, he feels like he’s not important enough to get picked up.”

The leader of the World Health Organization has urged G20 countries to follow the lead of the US by sharing vaccine doses.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he had met with ambassador Erica Barks-Ruggles, a US department of state official, and thanked America for its “leadership in sharing vaccine doses”.

He tweeted: “We hope other G20 leaders will build on this and ensure all countries have enough supply to reach 40% coverage by the end of 2021.”

Hi, I’m covering for Tom on the global Covid blog for a while. Please get in touch with any tips or suggestions: miranda.bryant@guardian.co.uk