Health News at Your Fingertips

A little more on Novavax receiving approval for its Covid vaccine in Indonesia. The green light marks the first time a regulator has approved a protein-based vaccine for Covid-19, and the first time a regulator has approved any vaccine produced by Novavax.

It is hoped that the Novavax vaccine will form a critical part of the effort to vaccinate the developing world and the company has signed an agreement to provide 1.1bn doses to Covax, the UN-led initiative to get vaccines to poorer countries.

Speaking to Reuters following the announcement today, Novavax’s chief executive Stanley C. Erck said the World Health Organization is currently reviewing Novavax’s regulatory filing with results expected in the coming weeks.

Approval from the WHO would allow Novavax to begin shopping doses to the Covax programme. “I think we’ll get some doses to Covax this year,” Erck said. “But I think (Novavax is) going to really start being able to ship large quantity to COVAX in the first quarter” of 2022.

People eligible for a booster jab in England are reportedly facing a “postcode lottery” of vaccination centre locations which could be a key reason behind the relatively slow rollout of the booster jab scheme.

The i reports that out of the more than 2,500 vaccination centres offering jabs, many are chemists in cities and larger vaccination centres often found in built-up areas.

In the City of London, there are 53 vaccination centres per hundred thousand people over the age of 50, while in North Kevenston in the East Midlands, there is just one centre per hundred thousand people over 50.

As a result, people living in more rural areas have struggled to reach the nearest vaccination centres where they are eligible for their booster shots.

One 88-year-old woman from Alderley Edge, a village in Cheshire, told the paper that she must wait until mid-November for her booster jab as the local medical centre where she received her first two doses in January and March is no longer administering vaccines.

Greece has recorded 5,449 new coronavirus infections in the latest 24 hour period, the highest single-day figure since the pandemic began.

A further 52 deaths were also reported, taking the total to 15,990, Reuters reports.

Giannis Oikonomou, a spokesman for the government, said it was “pressing” to increase the number of vaccinations. Just 60.5% of Greeks are vaccinated against Covid.

“We’re not done with Covid yet,” he told reporters this afternoon. “As long as there are unvaccinated people, the virus finds a suitable ground to spread.

“We mourn the loss of human lives due to non-vaccination, and this cannot, and should not, continue.”

Schoolchildren returned to classrooms across Iraq today for the first time in a year and a half, marking one of the global pandemic’s longest school closures. Some 11m students were affected.

Associated Press reports that learning levels in Iraq are among the lowest in the Middle East and North Africa, amid warnings from the World Bank that “students in Iraq are facing more than a lost year of learning”.

Iraq’s Ministry of Education did provide online learning throughout the school closures, but pupils have struggled to catch up as they have faced poor internet connection, regular power cuts and many families’ dire economic conditions.

Chronically underfunded and overcrowded, Iraq’s public schools are ill-equipped to properly enforce safety measures. Many parents were still relieved to see their children back in school from Monday.

One parent told AP: “I’m optimistic. I hope to get rid of this damn pandemic.”

Vladimir Putin has said Russia may need the army’s help to build field hospitals for Covid patients as officials battle rampant outbreaks that have led to a nationwide workplace shutdown, Reuters reports.

Speaking to the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, and other top brass, the Russian president said the situation was “very difficult”.

“More than 40,000 cases [a day]. This has never happened,” he said. “I ask you to … continue to provide support to the civil medical service if needed. Maybe use your construction abilities because there is a need to keep building prefabricated medical facilities.”

His remarks came as Russia reported 40,993 new Covid infections, its highest single-day case tally since the start of the pandemic.

The Russian army has announced plans to set up a coronavirus hospital in the Moscow region. The “specialised hospital” would be staffed by “brigades of doctors and nurses”, the Ministry of Defence said in a statement quoted by state media.

On Thursday, authorities in Moscow shut down non-essential services for 11 days, two days before the start of a week-long nationwide paid holiday. Schools and many offices have been closed in the capital, and restaurants told to offer a takeaway service only.

Here’s more on the recent study showing that one in four people in their mid-30s to mid-50s are no longer following the full rules around self-isolation after a positive Covid test.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures, based on a survey of 881 people in England in late September and early October, show that only 75% of respondents aged 35 to 54 complied with the full rules around self-isolation for the 10 days after testing positive for coronavirus.

The number is down substantially from the 86% compliance reported by the ONS in July and suggests that those in that age group are now the least able, or least likely, of any to abide by the full requirements of self-isolation after a positive result.

Hints of lower compliance were also seen in people aged over 55, but evidence for an opposing trend was seen in younger people, with 82% of 18-to-34-year-olds reporting full compliance with self-isolation rules in the latest survey, up from 75% in the summer.

Thousands of New York City municipal workers are expected to be told to stay home from Monday for failing to be vaccinated against Covid.

From today, the city is enforcing its vaccine mandate for all its employees, including sanitation workers and members of the police and fire department. Those who refuse to get vaccinated without a medical or religious exemption will be placed on unpaid leave.

City officials have been scrambling to deal with potential staff shortages as a result of the vaccine mandate, which has faced opposition from unions for both the fire and police department.

The New York police department has estimated that as many as 2,500 employees could be placed on leave while a source told CNN that the fire department was preparing for a 20% reduction in service.

All NHS test and trace Covid testing sites in England will reportedly begin scaling back their opening hours from today.

According to the Telegraph, NHS test and trace has ordered all regional and local test sites to stop offering a service after 6pm.

Officials told the paper they had taken the decision because “demand for tests reduces significantly” in the evenings.

At the time of its launch, Boris Johnson claimed the government’s flagship test-and-trace system would be “world-beating”, but a recent report by the Commons spending watchdog found it had failed to achieve “its main objective” to cut infection levels and help Britain return to normal despite being handed an “eye-watering” £37bn in taxpayers’ cash.

Indonesia has given the world’s first emergency use authorisation for the Covid vaccine produced by Novavax, Reuters reports.

The two-dose vaccine is made with lab-grown copies of the spike protein that coats the coronavirus, unlike mRNA vaccines such as Pfizer and Moderna that deliver genetic instructions for the body to make its own spike protein.

The Novavax vaccine is stored at 2C to 8C, which could allow it to play an important role in boosting supplies in hard-to-reach areas and poorer countries around the world.

In a large US-based clinical trial, the Novavax vaccine was shown to be more than 90% effective, including against a variety of concerning variants of the coronavirus at the time.

For Indonesia, the shot will be manufactured by the Serum Institute of India and sold under the Indian company’s brand name, Covovax.

Novavax said it has already filed for authorisation of the vaccine in the UK, EU, Canada, Australia, India and the Philippines.

Nearly 34,000 people were locked into Shanghai’s Disneyland on Sunday without warning and tested for Covid after a single confirmed case was linked to the park.

The mass testing came after one person who visited the theme park on Saturday tested positive after returning to nearby Hangzhou over the weekend.

Visitors to the resort’s Halloween carnival were forced to wait for hours before they were allowed to leave the park. All tested negative. They will be required to get tested again over the course of the next two weeks and monitor themselves for health reasons.

Shanghai Disneyland announced it would be closed on Monday and Tuesday. It comes as China reported 59 locally acquired cases on Monday – a new daily high since the latest outbreak began on 17 October.

One in four people in the UK aged between 35 and 54 who test positive for Covid do not self-isolate for 10 days, a survey suggests.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) study shows that the number of older adults adhering to isolation requirements has fallen since last summer. In comparison, a higher proportion of young adults are now following the rules.

Hello! It’s Léonie Chao-Fong here, taking over the live blog for the next few hours.

The number of new infections has surged in Germany over the past week, surpassing 150 per 100,000 people for the first time since May, Agence France-Presse reports.

The latest figures come as health professionals have reported seeing a new influx of infected people in hospital.

In an interview on Sunday with the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper, the outgoing chancellor Angela Merkel said she was “very saddened” that as many as 3 million Germans aged over 60 have still not had the jab.

About a third of Germans have yet to be vaccinated and a recent survey showed 65% of unvaccinated respondents said there was “no way” they would take a Covid jab.

• The global death toll from Covid-19 has hit five million, 19 months after the pandemic was first declared, according to figures released from the Johns Hopkins University. Some experts, including those from the World Health Organization, believe the true toll may be two to three times higher than official figures suggest.
• The death toll is about equal to the populations of Los Angeles and San Francisco combined. The US, Brazil, India, Mexico and the UK disproportionately account for more than half of all deaths worldwide.
• Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, has said any government plan for mandating vaccinations for NHS workers should be delayed until April next year, to avoid shortages of healthcare workers during the winter.
• Covid booster jabs are being given at walk-in clinics in England as the NHS aims to increase vaccine uptake before what is expected to be a challenging winter.
• New Zealand will extend coronavirus curbs for another week in its largest city of Auckland, but ease some after that, prime minister Jacinda Ardern, after another day of record new infections.
• People protesting against Italy’s health pass sparked controversy after comparing themselves to prisoners of Nazi concentration camps. The protesters wore striped bibs and held placards saying “No dictatorship” as they marched through Novara, in northern Italy, on Saturday.
• Russia has today confirmed another 40,402 Covid-19 infections and 1,155 further deaths.
• US President Joe Biden tested negative for Covid-19 on Sunday as part of the entry requirements to visit Cop26 in Glasgow in Scotland. There had been concern as White House press secretary Jen Psaki had tested positive for Covid-19 on Sunday, raising potential concerns that the US president was a close contact.
• Thailand has reopened to fully vaccinated tourists, with tens of thousands of travellers expected to touch down in Bangkok and Phuket as the country reboots its tourism industry after 18 months of Covid restrictions.
• Singapore could see as many 2,000 Covid-19 deaths annually over time, mainly among the elderly, a government minister has said as the country battles its biggest surge in infections.
• Also worth noting, in today’s episode of our Today in Focus podcast, Michael Safi speaks to Mark Valentine about his efforts to carry out his brother’s dying wish – Phil Valentine was a Tennessee-based conservative talk radio host who was sceptical about the US government’s response to the coronavirus crisis. Before he died from Covid, he asked Mark to tell others to get the vaccine to make amends for the message he had spread on his show. The episode also features reporter Sirin Kale talking about how you should approach conversations about the vaccine with hesitant loved ones.

That it is it from me, Martin Belam, today. I will see you tomorrow. Léonie Chao-Fong will be along shortly to continue our live coverage of coronavirus developments in the UK and around the world.