Health News at Your Fingertips

Strictly Come Dancing contestant Tom Fletcher and his professional partner Amy Dowden have tested positive for Covid 19 and will miss Saturday’s live show, the BBC said.

A BBC statement said: “Tom Fletcher and Amy Dowden have tested positive for Covid-19.

“The pair are now self-isolating separately following the latest Government guidelines.

“While they will both miss Saturday’s live show, Strictly Come Dancing protocols mean that, all being well, they will return the following week.”

Pfizer’s CEO says “it’s a question of days, not weeks” before the company and German partner BioNTech submit data to U.S. regulators for federal authorization of a COVID-19 vaccine for children age 5 to 11.

The Associated Press reports that would be an important step toward starting vaccinations for those youngsters, especially with kids now back in school and the delta variant resulting in a big jump in pediatric infections.

Pfizer said last week that its vaccine works for that age group and that it tested a much lower dose of the vaccine that’s already available for anyone 12 and older. The company said that after children age 5 to 11 got their second dose during testing, they developed coronavirus-fighting antibody levels just as strong as teenagers and young adults getting the regular-strength shots

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said Sunday that if the Food and Drug Administration approves the company’s application, “we will be ready with our manufacturing to provide this new formulation of the vaccine.”

Covid-19 contact tracing is set to stop in childcare and primary schools in Ireland.

Chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan said evidence indicates that schools are a low risk setting for the transmission of the virus among school-going children, PA writes.

He described now as the “right time” to evolve the approach to contact tracing while maintaining infection prevention and control measures in educational settings.

Dr Holohan said the return of children and young people to school earlier this month as association with a “significant increase” in the numbers of children referred for testing.

However he said that despite the increase in testing, there has “only been a relatively modest” increase in the detection of cases in the school going age group.

Welsh first minister Mark Drakeford faced fresh calls to commit to a public inquiry into the Covid-19 pandemic.

PA Media reports that Hannah Brady, from the campaign group Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, raised the issue at a Labour party conference fringe event, saying “shamefully” Welsh families had not been promised an inquiry.

The Welsh government has argued that the UK-wide inquiry promised by the prime minister is the correct process to investigate what happened.

Brady criticised Labour MPs who had failed to support her group, but praised leader Keir Starmer, deputy leader Angela Rayner and the Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham for backing the campaigners’ call for an early UK inquiry.

The UK government said a further 58 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Sunday, bringing the country’s total to 136,168.

Separate figures published by the Office for National Statistics show there have been 160,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, PA Media reports.

As of 9am on Sunday, there had been a further 32,417 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases in the UK, the government said.

Here is a round-up of all the top Covid stories from the UK and around the world so far today:

• Violent clashes and mass brawls have broken out in Norway’s biggest cities after streets, bars, restaurants and nightclubs were filled with people celebrating the end of Covid restrictions.
• In Australia, Victoria state reported 779 new Covid infections and two more deaths.The daily increase was still the state’s second-highest, after the 847 cases recorded on Saturday, as officials battle to contain a Delta variant outbreak.
• In the US, health authorities have said they are confident there will be enough vaccine shots for both qualified older Americans seeking booster jabs, as well as young children.
• The biggest state intervention in the UK’s labour market in peacetime comes to an end this week when the government finally winds up its furlough support. The wage subsidy that has been in place for 18 months and has cost £70bn will no longer be open to struggling firms.
• The Russian president Vladimir Putin has ended his short spell in self-isolation and has spent several days on holiday in Siberia where he was hiking and fishing, the Kremlin said on Sunday.
• In Scotland, the army could drive ambulances for longer than the two months originally planned, according to the Scottish secretary, Alister Jack.
• Also in Scotland, the Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton has urged the Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC) to investigate plans for coronavirus vaccine passports.
• Hollywood studios are planning a £250m-plus UK marketing blitz to promote the return of blockbusters to the big screen over the next 18 months, as the much-delayed premiere of James Bond: No Time to Die gives the industry the confidence to plot a post-pandemic boom in new releases.

That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for today. I leave you in the hands of my colleague Charlie Moloney, who will continue to bring your breaking coronavirus news throughout the afternoon.

A decline in public services in the UK could be hidden behind a “Covid crisis smokescreen”, unions have warned.

It comes amid calls from union chiefs for rail and bus services to be renationalised to avert “disastrous” cuts to services and jobs and increases in fares.

Mick Lynch, the general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, said there was a danger that the Covid crisis would be a “smokescreen” for a decline in services.

Speaking at a fringe meeting at the Labour party conference in Brighton, he added:

People just will not travel on trains if fares go up, and coupled with the new ways of working, there is a real danger that the railways will be hollowed out.

In the US, health authorities have said they are confident there will be enough vaccine shots for both qualified older Americans seeking booster jabs, as well as young children.

More than 70 million Americans remain unvaccinated despite the enticement of lottery prizes, free food or gifts and pleas from exhausted health care workers as the average number of deaths per day climbed to more than 1,900 in recent weeks, reports the Associated Press.

Federal and state health authorities said current supply and steady production of more doses can easily accommodate those seeking boosters or initial vaccination, avoiding a repeat of the frustratingly slow rollout of Covid vaccines across the country early this year.

“I hope that we have the level of interest in the booster … that we need more vaccines,” Colorado governor Jared Polis said on Tuesday. “That’s simply not where we are today. We have plenty of vaccines.”

The Associated Press reports:

Robust supply in the US enabled President Joe Biden this week to promise an additional 500m of Pfizer’s Covid shots to share with the world, doubling the United States’ global contribution. Aid groups and health organisations have pushed the US and other countries to improve vaccine access in countries where even the most vulnerable people haven’t had a shot.

Among the challenges states face is not ordering too many doses and letting them go to waste. Several states with low vaccination rates, including Idaho and Kansas, have reported throwing away thousands of expired doses or are struggling to use vaccines nearing expiration this fall.

Scotland has recorded a further 2,556 new cases of coronavirus and two more deaths.

The most recent daily figures showed that 8.9% of people tested were confirmed as having Covid, reports the Press Association.

The latest figures take the number who have died within 28 days of testing positive to 8,534, although register offices are generally closed at the weekend.

There were 1,004 people in hospital on Saturday with recently confirmed Covid, one fewer than the previous day.

This includes 78 people in intensive care, also down by one in the past 24 hours.

Violent clashes and mass brawls have broken out in Norway’s biggest cities after streets, bars, restaurants and nightclubs were filled with people celebrating the end of Covid restrictions.

Most remaining coronavirus restrictions were scrapped in the Nordic country on Saturday following an unexpected announcement by prime minister Erna Solberg late on Friday afternoon.

Rowdy celebrations in the capital, Oslo, and other major cities and towns lasted until the early hours of Sunday, with police reporting unrest in several places, including in the southern city of Bergen and the central city of Trondheim, while the situation was the worst in Oslo.

Long lines were seen outside Oslo’s nightclubs, bars and restaurants late on Saturday and police reported at least 50 fights and disturbances during the course of the night, according to the Associated Press.

Neither vaccination status certificates nor negative test results are required to enter venues in Norway.

Nightclub manager Johan Hoeeg Haanes, from Oslo, told Norwegian newspaper:

“That’s exactly what I predicted would happen. It was a life-threatening situation in the city because they didn’t give us at least a few days’ advance notice. This was a dangerous situation as police said all places were packed.

Among other incidents, Norwegian media reported that police received an alert about a man carrying a machete on a bus in Oslo and people fainted while waiting to get into pubs in Trondheim.

Oslo police spokesman Rune Hekkelstrand told the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK:

There was a significantly greater workload than during the summer. There were a lot of people out already in the afternoon and it continued during the night.