Health News at Your Fingertips

The Philippines’ health ministry on Saturday reported 4,226 new coronavirus infections and 41 additional deaths, according to Reuters.

In a bulletin, the ministry said total confirmed infections have risen to 126,885 while deaths have reached 2,209, with bulk of cases and casualties reported in the capital.

The Philippines, with a population of 107 million, leads Southeast Asian nations in the most number of cases and is second to Indonesia in deaths.

Preston, the latest UK city to have coronavirus restrictions reimposed, is deploying a “don’t kill granny” message to urge young people to abide by health rules.

Adrian Phillips, chief executive of Preston city council, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:

I know our director of public health has said ‘don’t kill granny’ to young people to try and focus the message.

Young people are inevitably among the brave and the bold, they want to be adventurous and out and about but we know that they have the virus, are more likely to at the moment, they often have less symptoms but they do take it back to their household and the community spread we are seeing we believe in many cases are young people taking it home and catching the virus.

We’re going to have to repeat it and whether Radio 4 is the correct channel for that I’m not quite sure but we’re using multiple channels and we’re working with community groups who are doing peer to peer comms around. It’s just trying so many different ways to get the message to all communities, to all areas of our city that the virus is still something to be really wary of.

He also backed the Local Government Association’s call for councils to have greater powers to close pubs to slow the spread of the pandemic.

“You need responsive powers,” he said. “It is useful to have something that can move quickly and we can make it entirely clear to the licensee or the operator what the consequences are.”

Health authorities in Russia have reported 5,212 new cases coronavirus, pushing its national tally to 882,347, the fourth largest in the world, according to Reuters.

The official death toll rose to 14,854 after officials said 129 people had died across the country in the last 24 hours.

Russia’s own Tass news agency reports that more than 242,000 people in Russia remain under medical supervision for suspected or confirmed Covid-19. Health workers have so far conducted 30.3 million coronavirus tests, with 303,000 tests conducted in the past 24 hours, according to Tass.

This rather amusing video shows which countries US passport holders can currently visit, in light of coronavirus restrictions. Most countries are not keen to receive visitors from the US – at least while it is in the grip of the world’s most widespread coronavirus outbreak.

Following the news that up to 40% of teacher-awarded grades may be downgraded, UK private schools are reportedly seeking legal advice as they prepare for a flood of appeals from parents ahead of A-level results day, according to the PA news agency.

Newspaper reports also say exam boards are under pressure to make appeals free so poorer pupils do not miss out, and that 40% of teacher predictions for A-level results will be lowered.

The Times reports that education lawyers are working with schools which could be hit with group appeals over results that have not been decided in the classroom this year due to Covid-19.

With exams cancelled, teachers had to decide grades for each student and rank them in order within their class. Those grades are still likely to be changed by exam boards based on schools’ previous results.

While appeals were allowed only on technical grounds in the past, exams regulator Ofqual on Friday told the Times it would provide greater scope this year, with schools able to challenge results if they had made rapid improvements or had outstanding year groups.

While individual families will still have virtually no grounds for appeal, Neil Roskilly, chief executive of the Independent Schools Association, said he is expecting a “flood of appeals” from schools.

“Parents will immediately be putting pressure on schools to make blanket appeals – schools are going to be inundated with requests from parents,” he told the paper.

The Daily Telegraph reported that English exam boards are coming under pressure to follow their Scottish counterparts and waive appeal fees this year to ensure fairness across socio-economic backgrounds. Schools usually have to pay between 8 and 70 per query for GCSE and A-level re-markings.

The reports come after some 100 school students protested against their exam results in Glasgow on Friday amid continued criticism of Scotland’s marking system, with many fearing being marked harshly due to past results from their schools.

The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) downgraded 124,564 results for exams cancelled due to the pandemic.

The Guardian’s print edition is leading this morning on the news that two-fifths of predicted grades given by teachers to students unable to take their exams this summer due to the outbreak of coronavirus are to be lowered.

Richard Adams, the Guardian’s education editor, writes:

Analysis of the algorithm and data used by the exam regulator Ofqual to distribute grades after the cancellation of exams amid the coronavirus pandemic found that a net 39% of assessments of A-level grades by teachers are likely to be adjusted down before students receive their results.

That would mean nearly 300,000 A-levels issued are lower than the teacher assessment of the more than 730,000 A-level entries in England this summer.

Including GCSEs, which are expected to have a similar downgrade rate, close to a net 2m teacher assessments will be adjusted downwards and in many cases ignored completely.

Hello, this Damien Gayle picking up the blog in London, at the start of what promises to be a very hot and potentially quite eventful day.

If you have any comments, or tips or suggestions for coverage, you can reach me at damien.gayle@theguardian.com, or via Twitter direct message to @damiengayle.

For more information on the how the Australian state of Victoria is scrambling to contain its outbreak, here is a piece from my colleague Luke Henriques-Gomes about the issues plaguing aged care facilities.

In particular, one private sector operator, Estia, battling its third outbreak.

And for an insight into what Melbourne looks like under the tightened lockdown and curfew introduced last week, my colleague Josh Taylor has written this article with accompanying photographs from Christopher Hopkins of the army patrolling the streets.

Some further information released by health authorities in the Australian state of Victoria – the country’s largest current outbreak – shows a child under 10 years old is in intensive care.

Earlier on Saturday, Victorian authorities announced the death of a man in 30s – the second death in that age bracket in the state in a week.

This is where I leave you for the day. I’m handing over to Elias Visontay, in Sydney, to enjoy my government-allocated one hour of outdoor exercise here in Melbourne before the 8pm curfew.

Take care.

Coatsworth said he had been in “personal communication” with Victoria’s chief health officer, Prof Brett Sutton, about expanding the availability and use of P2 and N95 masks by healthcare workers in Victoria.

An expect expansion, recommended as of yesterday, came through direct discussions between senior control practitioners in Victoria, on the ground infectious disease physicians who had investigated certain healthcare worker cases where standard guidelines and surgical masks and PPE was used.

So this has been a direct result of on the ground frontline communication to [Infection Control Expert Group] and that’s why the adjustment has occurred.

Previously, the national guidance from the ICEG was that the use of P2 and N95 masks was not practicable in all situations, particularly in emergency departments, but that has now been expanded.

Coatsworth said that people living in other Australian states and territories should be on alert for a second-wave outbreak similar to that experienced in Victoria. He said the nine cases of coronavirus that were still under investigation in New South Wales were a concern, because “there must by definition be something going on in the communities that the public health authorities aren’t aware of”.

We as Australians have to have an eye down to Victoria, both in terms of support but also what could happen in our own backyards. So while it’s important for people to feel that their lives are back to the new normal, it’s critically important that we are not going back to the old normal, which means that we have to maintain social distancing, we have to maintain excellent hygiene, we have to get tested whenever we are unwell with any of those symptoms, all those things have to be in place.

And to be honest, in this day and age, the actual idea of attending multiple venues on one night, people need to reflect on whether that is the right thing to do. We were all 20 once, and there will be people who remain in their 20s after the pandemic when this is all over who can go back to the old eight-pub pub crawl, but, for the moment, I think we need to kind of pull back a little bit on our socialising.