Health News at Your Fingertips

Japan will ease border controls for fully vaccinated travellers, excluding tourists, from Monday, responding to lobbying by businesses that followed a rapid decline in infections.

Everyone entering the country must be fully vaccinated with Covid vaccines recognised by Japanese authorities. Those eligible include travellers on short-term business visits of less than three months, as well as longer term visitors including foreign students and workers on so-called technical internship programs, with a 14-day quarantine requirement, according to the Associated Press.

Japan shut its borders to virtually all foreign visitors in January, except for those with special permits and for humanitarian purposes.

Daily cases have sharply fallen since September, in a trend generally attributed to vaccinations and extensive mask-wearing.

About 73% of the population have been fully vaccinated.

About 1.1m people – about one in 50 – in England had the coronavirus in the week to 30 October, according to official estimates published on Friday. The latest figure meant that the prevalence of Covid infections had steadied at its highest level of the year.

The Office for National Statistics said the percentage of people testing positive for coronavirus had increased more slowly over a two-week period, but that the trend was uncertain in that week, the most recent for which figures are available.

The English region with the highest percentage of people testing positive was the South West, where an estimated 2.9 of people had the virus, the statistics agency said. Rates were lowest in London, where an estimated 1.5% were infected.

Breaking the figures down by age, the ONS found that secondary school age children were the most likely to be carrying the virus, with 7.5% of youngsters in years 7 to 11 infected. The percentage was on a downward trend, raising hopes that the pandemic had peaked in that age group.

But, the ONS added: “It is too early to determine the impact of the half-term holiday on the numbers of infections among school-aged children. This is because the tests that were carried out during the week ending 30 October will have identified positive cases from those who became infected before the half term period.”

Authorities in Croatia are to limit gatherings and widen the use of Covid passports after the numbers of infected people hit new records again on Friday. Croatia reported nearly 7,000 new infections on Friday after confirming around 6,300 a day before, according to the Associated Press.

From Saturday, gatherings must not exceed 50 people and they must be over by midnight, the interior minister, Davor Bozinovic, said after a meeting of the country’s crisis team. Covid passes would be introduced for employees in all state institutions, including schools, from mid-November.

The passes, which require either proof of vaccination, a certificate showing the recipient has recovered from Covid-19, or a negative test, were previously introduced for employees of the health and social care systems.

Bozinovic said that depending on the situation, the use could be further extended.

MPs in France have voted to allow the government to continue to enforce the use of the controversial pass sanitaire until next August.

People in France must use the pass, introduced in full in August, to partake in aspects of life as routine as visiting a cafe or museum, or travelling on an intercity train.

It consists of a QR code generated for those who can prove they have had either a full course of Covid vaccinations or a recent negative test, or have recovered from Covid-19. It is one of Europe’s strictest such systems.

The lower house approved the extension of the regime by 118 to 89, with support from the majority centrist bloc controlled by Emmanuel Macron, the president, AFP reports. The vote overrode objections from the rightwing-controlled upper house.

This is Damien Gayle taking the reins of the live blog for the rest of the day.

• Germany recorded its second consecutive daily record for new coronavirus cases on Friday as infections pick up across Europe, and its disease control centre said unvaccinated people face a “very high” risk of infection.
• German state leaders said that hospitals could soon soon become swamped by Covid-19 patients and a new lockdown might be needed unless urgent action is taken to reverse a surge in cases.
• Europe is once again at centre of the Covid pandemic, the World Health Organization has said. Cases are at near-record levels and 500,000 more deaths are forecast by February. Uneven vaccine coverage and a relaxation of preventive measures have brought Europe to a “critical point” in the pandemic, WHO says.
• Slovakia reported 6,805 new Covid-19 cases for the past day, the Health Ministry said today, a new daily record.
• Russia reported 40,735 new Covid-19 cases and 1,192 deaths related to the virus. That is up from 40,217 cases yesterday.
• Children in the UK ate fewer vegetables, took less exercise and experienced worsening emotional difficulties following the Covid outbreak, according to a research study.
• Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said she expected the border with mainland China to largely reopen in February next year as the two governments stick to their zero Covid-19 policies.
• A citizen journalist jailed for her coverage of China’s initial response to Covid in Wuhan is close to death after going on hunger strike, her family said, prompting renewed calls from rights groups for her immediate release.
• In New Zealand a second person infected with Covid-19 has died while isolating at home alone, as the country recorded 163 new cases in the community – its highest ever daily number.
• The US federal government has canceled a deal worth $628 million with Emergent BioSolutions, a Maryland-based vaccine manufacturer that was a vanguard of the Donald Trump administration’s programme to rapidly produce vaccines. In March the company contaminated 15m doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
• Republican governors are expected to sue today to stop the Biden administration’s requirement that nearly 2 million US employers get workers tested or vaccinated for Covid-19, saying it trampled civil liberties.
• A trial of Pfizer’s experimental antiviral pill was shown to cut by 89% the chances of hospitalisation or death for adults at risk of developing severe disease, the company said this morning.

That is the last you’ll see of me, Martin Belam, live blogging this week. I will be back on Monday. Sarah Marsh has the UK politics live blog today, Chris Michael is live blogging Cop26 for us, and Damien Gayle will be here shortly to continue bringing you the latest developments on the Covid pandemic from the UK and around the world. I will be back bright and early on Monday – have a great weekend, take care and stay safe.

A trial of Pfizer’s experimental antiviral pill for Covid-19 was stopped early after the drug was shown to cut by 89% the chances of hospitalisation or death for adults at risk of developing severe disease, the company said this morning.

The results appear to surpass those seen with the Merck pill molnupiravir, which was shown last month to halve the likelihood of dying or being hospitalized for Covid-19 patients also at high risk of serious illness.

Full trial data is not yet available from either company.

Reuters report that Pfizer said it plans to submit interim trial results for its pill, which is given in combination with an older antiviral called ritonavir, to the US Food and Drug Administration as part of the emergency use application it opened in October.

German state leaders said on Friday that hospitals could soon soon become swamped by Covid-19 patients and a new lockdown might be needed unless urgent action is taken to reverse a surge in cases.

“If we take too much time now, it will end in a lockdown like last year,” the leader of the eastern state of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, told Deutschlandfunk radio.

The premier of Thuringia, Bodo Ramelow, said it was a matter of days until the coronavirus situation would mean that there were not enough intensive care beds at hospitals.

Reuters report that as of Thursday there were 2,503 free beds in German intensive care units, down from about 3,100 at the start of October, according to data from the DIVI association for intensive and emergency medicine.

My colleague Sarah Marsh has launched our UK politics live blog for the day. It will be mostly focused on the government’s woes over sleaze today I should imagine, so I’ll be keeping on with UK Covid lines on this blog, but do feel free to join her if you would rather have a diet of pure politics.

Slovakia reported 6,805 new Covid-19 cases for the past day, the health ministry said today, a daily record.

Reuters reports that the central European country of 5.5 million has one of the lowest vaccinations rates in the European Union. The ministry said 69% of the new cases were in unvaccinated people.

Republican governors are expected to sue today to stop the Biden administration’s requirement that nearly 2 million US employers get workers tested or vaccinated for Covid-19, saying it trampled civil liberties.

Tom Hals sets the scene for Reuters, writing that after President Joe Biden said on Thursday he will enforce the mandate starting 4 January, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he will join the governors of Georgia and Alabama as well as private plaintiffs to file suit.

“The federal government can’t just unilaterally impose medical policy under the guise of workplace regulation,” DeSantis said at a press conference. The Republican governors of Indiana, Iowa and Nebraska also vowed to challenge the move in court.

The regulation was implemented as a rarely used emergency rule from OSHA, or Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal workplace regulator. OSHA said the rule takes precedence over conflicting state laws. It will go into effect on Friday when it is due to be published in the federal register.

At least two lawsuits were already initiated against the mandate yesterday.