Health News at Your Fingertips

In a reversal of its previous policy, the Coachella music festival in the U.S. will not require Covid-19 vaccination, testing or masking when it resumes this April in southern California, the organisers said.

The hugely popular festival saw up to 125,000 attendees leading up to the start of pandemic, during which it was cancelled three times.

New Covid-19 infections across the Americas region fell by 31% in the last week, marking a sixth successive week of declines, but deaths are still on the rise, up 5.6%, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said.

Half of the region’s 34,000 deaths were reported in the United States, as countries across the region saw deaths surge after a rise in hospitalisations and intensive care admissions driven by the easily spread Omicron variant of the virus.

Covid deaths tend to lag new infections and hospitalisations by a few weeks, which is why they continue to rise as cases fall, Reuters reports.

In South America, Brazil registered the highest numbers of deaths, setting a record for the current wave.

“Undoubtedly, Omicron overtook us,” PAHO director Carissa Etienne said in a briefing, noting that the tools developed to fight the pandemic are not working as well to stop transmission of the more contagious variant.

A drop in Covid-19 testing rates is likely contributing to a decline in reported cases even as deaths are rising, the World Health Organization said.

“The bigger concern right now, I think, is the still increasing number of deaths,” technical lead on COVID-19 Maria Van Kerkhove said.

“In the last week alone, almost 75,000 people died reported to us and we know that that is an underestimate,” she said.

The countries claiming that their transmission has dropped from two to six weeks ago have likely seen a drop in testing rates, according to the WHO’s emergencies chief Mike Ryan, Reuters reports.

Children aged between five and 11 in England will be offered a Covid vaccine, the UK government has confirmed, after similar announcements from Wales and Scotland this week.

The move was recommended by the Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which decided that the vaccination programme should be extended to younger children after lengthy discussions on the benefits and risks.

The “non-urgent” vaccinations, which will primarily be given through school vaccination services, will be a Pfizer/BioNTech jab. Stormont’s health minister, Robin Swann, also confirmed that Northern Ireland will mirror the move.

U.S. health officials said they are preparing for the next phase of the Covid-19 pandemic as Omicron-related cases decline, including updating CDC guidance on mask-wearing and shoring up U.S. testing capacity.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is weighing new guidance, including on when to wear face masks, the agency’s chief told reporters, adding that hospital capacity will be a key metric.

Tom Inglesby, the White House’s adviser for Covid-19 testing, also said the administration had issued a formal request for information to related companies about how to bolster the nation’s testing capacity, including details about supply-chain challenges and market volatility, Reuters reports.

The UK has reported 54,218 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, and a further 199 people have died within 28 days of a positive Covid test.

That is an increase on the 46,186 cases reported on Tuesday but down on the 68,214 cases reported on Wednesday last week. The UK reported 276 Covid-linked deaths last Wednesday.

From Prof Gabriel Leung, dean of the University of Hong Kong’s faculty of medicine on the worsening situation in the city that has been overwhelmed by cases in recent days:

Hong Kong reported 4,285 coronavirus infections today, with more than 7,000 preliminary positive cases pending confirmation by health officials.

More than 220 people have died in the city, with a three-year-old girl becoming the youngest fatality on Tuesday.

Here are the key events from today so far:

• The number of new coronavirus cases globally fell by 19% in the last week while the number of deaths remained stable, according to the World Health Organization. The Western Pacific was the only region to report a rise in new weekly cases, an increase of about 19%. The biggest drop was in south-east Asia, where new weekly cases fell by 37%.

• Switzerland will lift almost all its coronavirus pandemic restrictions from Thursday, the government confirmed today. Access to shops, restaurants and cultural institutions will no longer require a Covid certificate. Masks will no longer be required in shops, supermarkets and the workplace. Restrictions on private events will also be relaxed.

• Austria also announced that nearly all remaining Covid restrictions will be lifted on 5 March, including scrapping an earlier closing time of midnight for bars and restaurants and allowing nightclubs to reopen. Unvaccinated people will be able to enter restaurants and non-essential shops if they have been tested.

• The Scottish government has confirmed it will offer Covid vaccinations to all children aged five to 11 years, adding to the pressure on UK ministers to do so in England. The Scottish decision follows an announcement on Tuesday from the devolved government in Wales that it would follow unpublished advice from the Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) that all children in that age group should be jabbed.

• Covid-19 infection levels have fallen slightly in England and Wales, but the trend is uncertain in Scotland and Northern Ireland, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

• China’s president, Xi Jinping, has told Hong Kong’s leaders that their “overriding mission” was to stabilise and control a worsening Covid outbreak, pro-Beijing media reported, as infected patients lay in beds outside overwhelmed hospitals.

• South Korea has once again reported a daily record of 90,443 new coronavirus cases for Wednesday, as numbers nearly doubled within a week amid the spread of the highly infectious Omicron variant.

• Malaysia also reported a record 27,831 new infections today, the highest daily rise since the pandemic began, the health ministry said. The previous record was on 26 August last year, when daily cases hit 24,599.

• The Dutch government was inadequately prepared for the Covid pandemic and paid insufficient attention to the threat to people in care homes, an independent inquiry has found. The Dutch Safety Board said authorities in the Netherlands failed to protect the economy, education and culture in the early days of the pandemic, and in particular nursing homes where a “silent disaster” was allowed to unfold.

• About 3,000 British volunteers are being sought to take part in a study for Moderna’s Omicron booster vaccine.

• Two men have appeared in court in the UK accused of selling fake coronavirus test kits. The pair are accused of importing illegal Covid testing kits from China to sell in the UK during the early days of the pandemic when PPE and Covid testing was in short supply.

• The relatively short shelf life of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine is complicating the rollout to the world’s poorest nations, according to officials and internal World Health Organization (WHO) documents seen by Reuters. Some countries, particularly in Africa, are struggling to administer the excess doses donated by richer states that arrive with only a few months, and sometimes weeks, before their use-by date.

Covid-19 infection levels have fallen slightly in England and Wales, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

In England, around one in 20 people are estimated to have had the virus in the week to 12 February, or 2.4 million people. That is slightly down from one in 19, or 2.8 million people, in the week to 5 February.

In Wales, around 112,600 people are estimated to have had the virus in the week to 12 February, compared to 121,200 in the week prior. The proportion remained unchanged at one in 25.

Northern Ireland saw infections remain broadly level last week, at an estimated 146,600 people or one in 13, compared with 145,600 people – also one in 13 – the previous week.

In Scotland, around 219,300 are estimated to have had the virus in the week to 12 February, up from 211,300 people – both the equivalent of around one in 25.

Two men have appeared in court in the UK accused of selling fake coronavirus test kits.

Ron Huss-Smickler, 40, of Branston Street and Steven Beckford, 38, entered not guilty pleas to fraud at Birmingham Crown Court and will be tried on 20 March.

The pair are accused of importing illegal Covid testing kits from China to sell in the UK during the early days of the pandemic when PPE and Covid testing was in short supply.

Both have been charged with one count of fraud by dishonestly gaining from the selling of the unregulated Covid tests and making profit from the sales.

Switzerland will lift almost all its coronavirus pandemic restrictions from Thursday, the government confirmed today.

Shops, restaurants and cultural institutions will be freely accessible to people, with no requirement to show a Covid certificate. Masks will no longer be required in shops, supermarkets and the workplace. Restrictions on private events will also be relaxed.

People will still be required to wear masks on public transport and at healthcare facilities, and mandatory five-day isolation of people who have tested positive for coronavirus will also remain in effect until the end of March.

The Swiss government first announced the easing of restrictions two weeks ago, after it ended quarantine for people who come into contact with an infected person and turned a work-from-home order into a recommendation.

In a statement, the government said:

The epidemiological situation continues to develop positively. Thanks to the high level of immunity in the population, it is unlikely that the healthcare system will be overloaded despite the continued high level of virus circulation.

Thus, the conditions are in place for a rapid normalisation of social and economic life.

The relatively short shelf life of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine is complicating the rollout to the world’s poorest nations, according to officials and internal World Health Organization (WHO) documents seen by Reuters.

Some countries, particularly in Africa, are receiving vaccines with short shelf lives from the Covax vaccine-sharing project and are struggling to administer the excess doses donated by richer states.

Two and a half months of shelf life is the minimum duration African countries estimate they need to administer the shots. But many vaccines are arriving with only a few months, and sometimes weeks, before their use-by date, meaning some countries have had to destroy expired doses.

The problem with a short shelf life largely concerns AstraZeneca, Covax’s second-biggest supplier after Pfizer, according to Covax data and officials. In an internal WHO document detailing vaccine stocks in several central and west African countries for the week ending 6 February, of the total expired doses declared by 19 listed African nations, about 1.3m were AstraZeneca, 280,000 Johnson & Johnson, 15,000 Moderna and 13,000 Russia’s Sputnik.

Asked about the internal document, Dr Phiona Atuhebwe, a vaccine expert at WHO Africa, said:

WHO is fully cognisant of the pressure that short shelf life doses put on delivery strategies and systems amid weak infrastructure and low demand.

Taking into account only donated doses, which represent nearly half the billion vaccines distributed by Covax, about 30m AstraZeneca shots were rejected or deferred last year by poor nations, said Gavi, the nonprofit that co-runs Covax alongside the WHO.

Malaysia reported a record 27,831 new infections today, the highest daily rise since the pandemic began, the health ministry said. The previous record was on 26 August last year, when daily cases hit 24,599.

The new cases bring the total number of infections since the start of the pandemic to more than 3.1m, including more than 32,000 deaths.

From Malaysia’s Health-Director General Noor: