Health News at Your Fingertips

About 4,000 additional positive tests for Covid-19 in the last two to three days in Ireland have yet to be formally confirmed, meaning the situation is worse than recent record daily figures suggest, a senior health official said.

Ireland reported more than 1,500 cases for the third day in a row on Thursday. To relieve extreme pressure on the testing system, asymptomatic close contacts of confirmed cases will no longer be advised to get tested and will instead be asked to restrict their movements for 14 days.

The head of Ireland’s Covid-19 modelling group, Philip Nolan, said the total number of people in hospital with Covid-19 will likely double to between 700 and 1,000 people by early January, potentially surpassing the first wave peak.

That could reach an “intolerable” 1,500 to 2,000 patients if the virus is not suppressed, he said.

More than 940,000 people in the UK have received a Covid-19 vaccine as of December 27, the Department of Health said.

A total of 944,539 people were given a first dose between December 9 and 27, including 786,000 in England, 92,188 in Scotland, 35,335 in Wales and 31,016 in Northern Ireland.

Further results of clinical trials of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine have been released, with the US firm saying it “exhibited a favourable tolerability and safety profile”.

The phase three trial results showed the vaccine to have 94.1% efficacy at preventing Covid-19 illness, including severe disease, as previously reported.

The results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed no serious safety concerns were identified.

The UK government signed a deal for seven million doses of the vaccine, much fewer than numbers for the Oxford/AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech jabs.

The Moderna deal is enough for around 3.5 million people, who would each receive two doses.

More than 30,000 volunteers were randomly assigned to receive either the vaccine – known as mRNA-1273 – or a placebo.

The journal paper said symptomatic Covid-19 illness was confirmed in 185 participants in the placebo group and 11 in the vaccine group.

Severe Covid-19 happened in 30 participants, with one fatality – all of whom were in the placebo group, the paper said.

Moderna said “solicited systemic adverse events” occurred more often in the vaccine group than the placebo group and were most commonly headache, fatigue and muscle pain.

The firm said the majority of adverse events happened within the first one to two days after injection and generally persisted for around one or two days.

They said safety data will continue to be collected and all participants will be monitored for two years after their second dose to assess long-term protection and safety.

Children in Wales are to return to school on a staggered basis from next week as planned, the Welsh Government said.

The new term is set to begin on Monday January 4.

Many schools across Wales will only be open to vulnerable learners and the children of key workers in the first week of term.

Schools are expected to provide face-to-face learning for the majority of their pupils by January 11, with a full return in the days before January 18, officials said.

A Welsh Government spokesman said pupils were expected to receive “remote learning” when they were not physically in school.

Any changes to plans for in-person teaching will be based “on the latest scientific advice”, the spokesman added.

Turkey’s coronavirus death toll rose by 239 in the last 24 hours, health ministry data showed on Thursday, bringing the total number of deaths to 20,881.

The number of new cases stood at 14,380 over the same period, bringing total cases since the beginning of the pandemic to 2,208,652.

Ankara has imposed full weekend lockdowns and weekday curfews to try to curb infections.

Turkey will also be on lockdown from 9pm on 31 December to 5am on 4 January as part of the measures.

The UK government said a further 964 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Thursday, bringing the UK total to 73,512.

Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies for deaths where Covid-19 has been mentioned on the death certificate, together with additional data on deaths that have occurred in recent days, show there have now been 89,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK.

The government said that, as of 9am on Thursday, there had been a further 55,892 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK.

It brings the total number of cases in the UK to 2,488,780.

The UK has registered 964 Covid-related deaths in the last 24 hours – another rise from yesterday.

New cases are also continuing to go up, with 55,892 people testing positive since yesterday.

France has detected its first case of the South African variant of coronavirus, the health ministry said.

The 501.V2 variant was detected by South African authorities in mid-December.

Cases have since been found in Japan and Britain among others.

The variant, believed to be more easily transmitted, like another version found in Britain, was discovered in France in a man who had returned from South Africa to his home in the Haut-Rhin region, which borders Switzerland.

Italy reported 555 coronavirus-related deaths on Thursday, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections rose to 23,477 from 16,202.

There were 186,004 swab tests carried out in the past day, the ministry said, up from a previous 169,045.

Italy has recorded a total of 74,159 Covid-19 deaths since its outbreak came to light on 21 Febuary, giving it the highest toll in Europe and the fifth highest in the world.

Italy has also reported 2.107m cases to date, the health ministry said.

The number of patients in hospital with Covid stood at 23,151 on Thursday, down by 415 from the day before. There were 202 new admissions to intensive care units, compared with 175 on Wednesday.

The current number of intensive care patients rose by 27 – the first increase for at least a month – to 2,555, reflecting those who died or were discharged after recovery.

The ambulance service is braced for delays, and hospitals have reached full capacity in Northern Ireland.

Overall bed occupancy is at 100%, with only six beds still empty, latest official figures show.

Paramedic chiefs have warned that Covid-19 staff sickness absences could delay answers to 999 calls at one of the busiest times of year.

Around 160 employees were off work for pandemic-related reasons.

Response times for less urgent cases were expected to increase and people could wait longer before their emergency calls were answered.

Meanwhile, schools will deliver remote learning in the first week of the new term after a return to classrooms was delayed due to spiralling infection rates.

A Northern Ireland ambulance service (NIAS) statement said: “Unfortunately, the NIAS emergency ambulance control room is currently experiencing absences due to Covid-19, and contingency planning to mitigate the potential risk to service disruption is ongoing.

This has put our service under even more pressure and we anticipate that callers to 999 may, at times, experience a delay in having their calls answered.

A further 11 people have died with Covid-19, Stormont’s Department of Health said. Another 1,929 individuals had tested positive.