Health News at Your Fingertips

In the first year of the pandemic, 25 children and young people in England died as a result of coronavirus infection, according to research published this week.

The study, published on Thursday in Nature Medicine, found that of 12,023,568 people aged under 18 in the country, 3,105 died, including 61 who were positive for Sars-CoV-2.

Of those who died while infected with the virus, 22 died of Covid, while three died as a result of “paediatric inflammatory multi-system syndrome temporally associated with Sars-CoV-2”.

On the back of those figures, the researchers calculated a coronavirus-infection survival rate in under-18s of 99.995%.

The new figures emphasise the extremely low mortality risk from coronavirus infection in young people, and will add fuel to an already heated debate around vaccinating young people against it.

“To distinguish between CYP [children and young people] who died as a result of Sars-CoV-2 infection and those who died of another cause but were coincidentally infected with the virus, we undertook a clinical review of all CYP deaths with a positive Sars-CoV-2 test from March 2020 to February 2021,” the researchers said.

“These results are important for guiding decisions on shielding and vaccinating children. New variants might have different mortality risks and should be evaluated in a similar way.”

Germany is preparing to bring in the army to assist overrun healthcare services, according to reports.

Der Spiegel reports that 12,000 soldiers will be mobilised by Christmas. Among their missions will be providing booster vaccinations and tests in care homes and hospitals.

So far, 630 soldiers have been deployed, according to the paper. The army was not immediately available for comment, Reuters reports.

Thousands gathered in Christchurch to protest against current government and pandemic controls on Saturday.

There have been a number of protests across New Zealand this week including one outside parliament in the capital, Wellington, on Tuesday.

The protests come as New Zealand prepares to implement a vaccine mandate for workers employed in education and the health and disability sectors. The majority of the population supports the public health measure, with a survey by Talbot Mills Research finding that 78% agree with a vaccine mandate for health workers, and 76% with one for teachers, according to the New Zealand Herald.

Greece has once again tightened its restrictions on the number of people that can enter supermarkets, just weeks after it relaxed the measure.

As of Saturday, supermarkets will only be allowed to allow in one person per 9 sq m, after the rule was eased on 25 October. It had been changed to one customer per 2 sq m, according to the Kathimerini newspaper.

The reintroduction comes after it was deemed not feasible to require unvaccinated shoppers to show proof of a negative rapid test, with the minister for development, Adonis Georgiadis, saying on Friday: “There are problems … There are some of our fellow citizens who will not even take a rapid test and we cannot deprive them of access to basic goods.”

Since 6 November, unvaccinated people have been obliged to show a recent negative test to enter most indoor public areas, including banks, most shops, government buildings and hair salons.

Greece registered a record number of cases this week, with its tally of new daily infections rising to 7,335 on Monday.

Four times as many people in Tokyo are likely to have been infected with the coronavirus between September last year and this March than were reported in official figures, new research has claimed.

Based on a survey of more than 23,000 people in the Japanese capital, researchers at the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science estimated that the seroprevalence of Covid antibodies was 3.4% during that period, the Japan Times reports.

That indicates that 470,778 out of Tokyo’s total population of about 14 million had been infected with Covid.

“The estimated number of individuals in Tokyo with a history of Sars-CoV-2 infection was 3.9-fold higher than the number of confirmed cases during the period,” the study said. It has been peer reviewed and was published in the Japan Epidemiological Association’s Journal of Epidemiology.

California has become the latest US state to make Covid vaccine booster doses available for all adults, despite a call from federal health officials to limit their distribution to people most at risk.

It follows similar moves by Colorado and New Mexico, which have among the highest rates of new infections in the US. California, the country’s most populous state, has now joined them in the “high” tier for transmission, according to recent figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In a letter to local health officials and providers, seen by the Associated Press, California’s public health officer, Tomás Aragón, said they should “allow patients to self-determine their risk of exposure” and not turn away anyone over the age of 18 who has gone more than six months since their second dose of vaccine.

Pharmacies should prioritise boosters for people working in skilled nursing or living in care homes, but generally “should not miss any opportunity” to give top-up jabs to anyone visiting a drug store, hospital or medical office, he said.

These were the scenes in The Hague on Friday night as the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, announced new coronavirus restrictions across the Netherlands.

Police fired water cannon against hundreds of firework-throwing protesters gathered outside the justice and security ministry during Rutte’s press conference.

About 200 protesters threw stones and fireworks at riot police and built barricades, according to AFP.

Police used water cannon to disperse them, with loud bangs and chants echoing through the centre of the city as mounted police rounded up the stragglers.

The Dutch restrictions, which include at least three weeks of Covid curbs on restaurants, shops and sporting events, are western Europe’s first partial lockdown of the winter.

From Saturday, bars, restaurants, cafes and supermarkets will have to shut at 8pm for the next three weeks, while shops classified as non-essential must shut at 6pm.

Public events will be scrapped while football matches, including the Netherlands’ home World Cup qualifier with Norway next week, will have to be played behind closed doors.

People will be limited to having four visitors at home and have been advised to work at home unless absolutely necessary. However, schools will remain open, and people will be allowed to leave their homes without restrictions.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has urged unvaccinated people to reconsider their decision, as the seven-day coronavirus incidence rate in Germany rose to the highest level since the pandemic began.

“Difficult weeks lie ahead of us, and you can see that I am very worried,” Merkel said in her weekly video podcast on Saturday. “I urgently ask everyone who has not yet been vaccinated: please reconsider.”

Germany’s seven-day incidence rate – the number of people per 100,000 to be infected over the last week – rose to 277.4 on Saturday, data from the Robert Koch Institute showed, according to Reuters. The record in the third wave of the pandemic, last December, was 197.6.

The federal government is due to meet the leaders of Germany’s 16 states next week to discuss new pandemic restrictions. However, the three parties negotiating to form a new government have agreed to let the expiry of a state of emergency that has been in place since the start of the pandemic go ahead on 25 November as planned.

The UK is in “quite a different situation” from other European nations where curbs on freedoms are being considered, an influential pandemic adviser to the government has said.

Prof Neil Ferguson, from Imperial College London, said high Covid case numbers in the summer had boosted immunity in the UK’s population, compared with Germany, the Netherlands and France.

He said he hoped the UK could avoid returning to social distancing restrictions this winter, adding: “I think it is unlikely we will get anything close to what we had last year, that catastrophic winter wave.”

Asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme what direction he believes the country is going, Ferguson said several weeks of declining Covid cases and hospital admissions had been followed by “a hint of an uptick in the last few days”.

“But we are in quite a different situation from those European countries [the Netherlands and Germany] you are talking about,” he said.

“We’ve had very high case numbers – between 30,000 and 50,000 a day – really for the last four months, since the beginning of July.

“That has obviously had some downsides. It has also paradoxically had an upside of boosting the immunity of the population compared with countries like Germany, the Netherlands and France, which have had much lower case numbers and are only now seeing an uptick.”

About 400 South Korean and Japanese tourists have become the first to visit Vietnam in almost 20 months, after the country closed its borders in an effort to contain the coronavirus.

The passengers, who were required to show proof of vaccination and negative Covid test results before departure, travelled on charter flights from Seoul and Tokyo to Nha Trang, a resort city in the south of Vietnam, according to AFP.

Vietnam, which closed its borders to international visitors in March last year, is desperate to revive its badly hit economy after months of lockdowns. The communist one-party state was widely praised for its handling of the pandemic last year, with only dozens of known coronavirus cases.

However, the highly transmissible Delta variant arrived in the country this April, and Vietnam has since recorded more than a million infections and almost 23,000 deaths.

A new record Covid death toll has been reported in Russia, with 1,241 dying from the disease in the past 24 hours. There were 39,256 new coronavirus cases recorded in the same period, according to Reuters.

At the beginning of the week, most of Russia’s 80-plus regions lifted a weeklong workplace shutdown that was designed to curb a surge in case numbers.

A US court has upheld a decision to halt Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for companies with more than 100 workers, rejecting a legal challenge from his administration.

A three-member panel of the 5th US circuit court of appeals in New Orleans affirmed its ruling despite the Biden administration’s claim that putting the vaccine mandate on hold could lead to dozens or even hundreds of deaths, according to Reuters.

“The mandate is staggeringly overbroad,” the opinion said.

“The mandate is a one-size-fits-all sledgehammer that makes hardly any attempt to account for differences in workplaces (and workers),” circuit court judge Kurt Engelhardt wrote for the panel.

Vaccine mandates are controversial. Supporters say they are needed to put an end to the almost two-year pandemic, while opponents argue they violate the US constitution and curb individual liberty.

In a boost to critics of the mandate, Engelhardt wrote: “The public interest is also served by maintaining our constitutional structure and maintaining the liberty of individuals to make intensely personal decisions according to their own convictions – even, or perhaps particularly, when those decisions frustrate government officials.”

The rule, issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), mandates that businesses with at least 100 employees require staff to get vaccinated or face weekly tests and face mask requirements.

Biden imposed the requirement in September, telling Americans that “our patience is wearing thin” with those refusing to get vaccinated.

Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, has urged elderly and vulnerable people to get their coronavirus vaccine booster jabs to prevent a rise in Covid cases, as he warned of “storm clouds” forming over parts of Europe.

Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Croatia are among the countries that have recently seen a surge in Covid cases, with the former recording its highest coronavirus case numbers since the start of the pandemic.

Speaking in a broadcast clip, Johnson said the situation was of concern. “I’m seeing the storm clouds gathering over parts of the European continent. And I’ve got to be absolutely frank with people: we’ve been here before. We remember what happens when the wave starts rolling in,” he said.

The World Health Organization’s regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, has said a lack of uptake of Covid vaccines is behind the increase.

While Johnson noted that cases in the UK had been “drifting down for a while”, he said it was unclear whether the trend was set to continue. “I’m looking at what’s happening overseas, and I’m simply saying to the British people … this is the moment to get your booster,” he said.

Several thousand people rallied in Melbourne against new vaccination mandates on Saturday, with a few comparing the state government to Nazis and calling for violence against politicians.

In Australia, where 83% of people aged 16 and above have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, nationwide vaccinations are voluntary. But states and territories have mandated vaccinations for many occupations and barred the unvaccinated from activities such as dining out and concerts.

The Melbourne demonstration against the vaccination mandate that came into effect on Saturday – requiring construction workers in Victoria state to be fully vaccinated – was peaceful, with no immediate reports of unruly behaviour or arrests, according to Reuters.

But a reporter at The Age posted video on Twitter of a protester carrying a mock gallows with three nooses hanging from it, and the newspaper showed a protester carrying a poster depicting the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, with a Hitler moustache and the hashtag #DictatorDan.

“We’re being governed by insane medical bureaucrats,” Craig Kelly, a former Liberal party member of parliament and now the leader of the United Australia party, told the rally, media reported.

Good morning from London, and welcome to yet another coronavirus live blog.

I’m Damien Gayle and I’ll be keeping you up to date with all the latest headlines and developments from the coronavirus pandemic around the world.

Got a coronavirus-related story you think we should be covering? Drop me a line at damien.gayle@theguardian.com, or via my Twitter profile @damiengayle.