Health News at Your Fingertips

South Korea has extended its social distancing curbs for two weeks to ward off a surge in coronavirus cases, while allowing vaccinated people some latitude, its prime minister said on Friday.

The country’s fourth Cobid wave has shown few signs of abating six weeks after the toughest Level four distancing rules, which include a ban on gatherings of more than two people after 6pm were imposed in the greater Seoul area.

South Korea reported 2,052 new cases on Thursday, 2,001 of which were locally acquired, Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) data showed.
As part of the extended restrictions, authorities will require restaurants and cafes in the metropolitan area to close an hour earlier at 9pm until 5 September, Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum told a Covid response meeting.

South Korea has given 48.3% of its 52 million population at least one vaccine dose, and 21.6% are fully vaccinated. It aims to fully immunise 70% by October.

US Customs and Border Protection agents in Anchorage seized more than 3,000 counterfeit Covid vaccination cards sent from China, officials said on Thursday.

The cards were of “low-quality printing” but closely resembled authentic Centers for Disease Control and Prevention certificates provided to vaccine recipients, the agency said in a statement.

Reuters: The Alaska shipment follows a similar seizure that Customs and Border Protection reported last week in Memphis, in which counterfeit cards were also sent from China.

“Getting these fraudulent cards off the streets and out of the hands of those who would then sell them is important for the safety of the American public,” Lance Robinson, area port director of the Area Port of Anchorage, said in a statement.

“Looking out for the welfare of our fellow Alaskans is one of the many and varied responsibilities CBP is proud to take on.”

The seized counterfeit cards were headed for destinations around the United States other than Alaska, said Kymberly Fernandez, an assistant area port director in Anchorage.

Israelis aged 40 and over will be able to receive coronavirus vaccine booster shots starting this weekend, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said Thursday, as the country battles a spike in infections.

Israel was one of the first countries to launch a vaccination drive in mid-December via an agreement with Pfizer to obtain millions of paid vaccine doses in exchange for sharing data on their effectiveness.

Horowitz, who is among those who have received a third dose, tweeted Thursday that people aged 40 and over will be able to get a booster shot from Sunday.

“We have vaccines for everyone and now those 40 and older can receive a third dose,” he wrote. “The vaccine is effective. Let’s stop this Delta.”

Cases have been rising due to the spread of the Delta variant among the unvaccinated and waning immunity in others.

To try and contain the spread, authorities last week began administrating a booster shot to those aged 50 and older, after starting a campaign for over-60s late last month.

Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.

Israelis aged 40 and over will be able to receive coronavirus vaccine booster shots starting this weekend, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said Thursday, as the country battles a spike in infections.

Meanwhile US Customs and Border Protection agents in Anchorage seized more than 3,000 counterfeit Covid vaccination cards sent from China, officials said on Thursday.

The cards were of “low-quality printing” but closely resembled authentic Centers for Disease Control and Prevention certificates provided to vaccine recipients, the agency said in a statement.

More on these stories shortly. In the meantime, here are the key developments from the last few hours:

• Israel’s health minister said on Thursday that people over 40 and teachers would be eligible for a third dose of Pfizer/BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine, expanding its booster campaign to fend off the coronavirus Delta variant.
• In the UK, the House of Commons Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, is facing calls to urge MPs to wear masks in the chamber, after cabinet ministers and many Tory backbenchers shunned the advice during a packed eight-hour debate on Afghanistan.
• Brazil has now registered 20,494,212 cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 572,641, according to ministry data, in the world’s third worst outbreak outside the US and India and its second-deadliest after the US.
• Police in Kenya used teargas and fired shots in the air to break up protests in Nairobi after a man was allegedly killed by officers for violating the country’s Covid curfew. Shops were looted as unrest grew after John Kiiru’s death, which came just two days after six police officers appeared in court over the death of two brothers this month after they also allegedly broke the curfew.
• A plan to start offering Covid booster vaccinations in the UK from early September is extremely unlikely to happen, it is understood, given the concerns of the government’s vaccines watchdog about the clinical benefits and potential wider risks to vaccine confidence. Immunologist Prof Peter Openshaw also said that the results of ongoing studies to determine their effectiveness “should not be prejudged”.
• The mass rollout of Covid-19 booster vaccines in Britain to residents over 50 this autumn could be shelved, with government scientists considering limiting third doses only to the most vulnerable, The Telegraph reported on Thursday.
• An online open-source intelligence group last year identified that a virus studied at the Wuhan Institute of Virology taken from an abandoned copper mine in Yunnan province was the closest known relative to Sars-CoV-2, the Economist reports in a piece which also considers the case for a zoonotic origin to Covid.
• A Spanish court has lifted a coronavirus curfew imposed on most of Catalonia, including the capital Barcelona, leaving it in place in just a fraction of the northeastern region. The high court of justice of Catalonia said the measure was “not justified” because infection rates had improved.
• Joe Biden said he and his wife, Jill, would receive a third dose of the Covid-19 vaccine to boost their immunity, as his administration announced booster shots would be offered to Americans in September. He also announced that nursing home staff would need to be vaccinated against Covid-19 as a condition for those facilities to continue receiving federal Medicare and Medicaid funding.
• Hospitalisations of people under the age of 50 with Covid-19 are now at the highest levels seen in the US since the start of the pandemic, the latest government data shows. The largest increases in hospitalisations was among those in their 30s and the under-18s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• The hoarding of Covid jabs by rich countries which are also rolling out booster shots “makes a mockery of vaccine equity” pledges, the Africa director for the World Health Organization said. But she noted that cases across Africa are levelling off and more vaccine doses are finally arriving on the continent
• The French scientist who promoted the discredited hydroxychloroquine treatment for Covid-19 backed by Donald Trump faces being pushed out of the infectious diseases institute he founded amid concerns from key members over its role in feeding conspiracy theories and an investigation by regulators into its clinical studies.