Health News at Your Fingertips

That’s all from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, on the global coronavirus blog for today. I’ll be covering the Ukraine blog for the next couple of hours, please do join me there. Here’s a quick recap of all the international Covid developments:

• About 500 cars and campervans have arrived in Brussels, mainly from France, in a convoy to protest against Covid-19 restrictions. The vehicles were barred from the city. Police directed them to a parking place on the outskirts of Brussels, from where protesters continued on foot to a square in the city centre and the area housing European Union institutions.
• The UK recorded 41,648 new Covid cases on Monday, government figures showed, and a further 35 deaths within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test. That is compared to 41,270 infections and 52 fatalities in the 24 hours prior.
• More than 60 charities, campaigners and non-governmental organisations have accused Moderna of attempting to derail World Health Organization (WHO) plans to manufacture more Covid-19 vaccines in Africa. In an open letter, they urged Moderna to “act in the interests of people, not profits” by withdrawing patents and patent applications in South Africa.
• The Duchess of Cornwall, 74, is self-isolating after testing positive for coronavirus. The announcement by Clarence House follows that made on Thursday disclosing Prince Charles, 73, had tested positive for the virus.
• Covid restrictions in Germany are set to end as case numbers have dropped slightly, according to a draft official plan seen by Agence France-Presse. The plan is expected to be approved by the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the heads of the federal states on Wednesday.
• Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, has said an “onslaught” of Covid-19 infections has dealt a heavy blow and overwhelmed capacity to deal with the virus. Daily infections have multiplied by a factor of 13 over the past two weeks, from about 100 cases at the start of February to a record 2,071 on 14 February
• The busiest US-Canada border crossing has reopened after protests against Covid restrictions closed it for almost a week. The Sunday night reopening of the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan came as Canadian officials held back from a crackdown on a larger protest in the capital, Ottawa.A court in Bologna has temporarily stripped the parental rights of a couple after they refused blood from Covid-vaccinated donors for their son in need of an urgent blood transfusion before undergoing delicate heart surgery. The couple had reportedly requested non-vaccinated blood for “religious reasons”.
• Families bereaved by Covid in the UK want Boris Johnson to relinquish control over which issues will be investigated in the pandemic public inquiry, alleging he is compromised by allegations of lockdown-breaking at Downing Street.
• New Zealand’s prime minister has said protesters who oppose coronavirus mandates were using “intimidation and harassment”, as authorities appeared to take a harsher stance toward the convoy of demonstrators that has disrupted the capital of Wellington for nearly a week.
• Taiwan aims to ease its strict Covid quarantine policy from next month as it needs to gradually resume normal life and reopen to the world, the government said on Monday.
• South Korea will begin giving out fourth doses of Covid vaccines this month and supply millions of additional home test kits to ease shortages amid a surge in Omicron infections, authorities confirmed on Monday.

More than 60 charities, campaigners and non-governmental organisations have accused Moderna of attempting to derail World Health Organization (WHO) plans to manufacture more Covid-19 vaccines in Africa.

Moderna has previously said it would not enforce the patents on its vaccine but in an open letter to the company, organisations claimed Moderna has “filed several patents with broad claims in South Africa, prompting fears it will begin enforcing patents while Covid-19 is still endemic in Africa, effectively derailing the WHO’s plans to build African vaccine production”.

The letter, signed by organisations including Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) along with People’s Health Movement (PHM), calls on Moderna to “act in the interests of people, not profits” by withdrawing patents and patent applications in South Africa.

The letter warns that the patents “pose long term barriers to scaling up the supply of messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines and to diversifying local production in the continent … and may potentially undermine the [WHO] Hub’s current and future functioning and research, at the expense of all LMICs [low and middle-income countries].”

The UK recorded 41,648 new Covid cases on Monday, government figures showed, and a further 35 deaths within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test. That is compared to 41,270 infections and 52 fatalities in the 24 hours prior.

Cases over the last seven days are down 30% on the previous week, with weekly deaths down 27.2% compared to the previous seven days.

A leading public health expert who has advised the Scottish government says that a pledge by the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, to scrap legally enforced isolation for people in England with Covid-19 “flies in the face” of basic infectious disease management, which involves avoids infecting other people when one is infectious.

Prof Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, says in a piece she has written for the Guardian:

We all want our pre-Covid-19 lives back: the question is what the cost of this is. That’s the debate we should be having as a society, without avoiding the difficult realities of the situation.

The UK has faced an average of 200 deaths a day now for weeks, while the US is heading towards the million death mark.

The media no longer report these deaths widely, as they did at the start of the pandemic: there seems to be a certain acceptance of this as the cost of somewhat normal life to continue. The morality of that is questionable.

A Turkish man who is still trying to shake off a Covid-19 infection after 14 months and 78 straight positive tests continues to be in high spirits, joking about his predicament.

When Muzaffer Kayasan first caught the virus he thought he was destined to die since he was already suffering from leukemia, but he is still alive despite being in and out of hospital since November 2020

The AFP news agency reports that Kayasan, 56, has Turkey’s longest recorded continuous Covid-19 infection, doctors say, possibly due to a weakened immune system from the cancer.

“I guess this is the female version of Covid – she has been obsessed with me,” Kayasan joked last week as he found out that his latest PCR test was, yet again, positive.

Nine months in hospital and five months mostly alone in his flat have separated him from much of the outside world, including his granddaughter, Azra, who stays in the garden while visiting, talking through the glass back door.

“I will play with you when I get well,” he told her through a mask after giving her a plastic toy telephone.

Coronavirus patients with immunosuppression are at risk of prolonged infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome, according to a study published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine. Another by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society shows one in four blood cancer patients do not produce detectable antibodies even after receiving two vaccine shots.

Activists and others have been assembling in the centre of Brussels as the first vehicles from the European “Freedom Convoy” trickle into the outskirts of the Belgian capital. Riot police are present in considerable numbers, with water cannon in reserve.

About 500 cars and campervans have arrived in Brussels, mainly from France, in a convoy to protest against Covid-19 restrictions.

The vehicles were barred from the city. Police directed them to a parking place on the outskirts of Brussels, from where protesters continued on foot to a square in the city centre and the area housing European Union institutions.

Reuters reporters saw around 150-200 protesters in the city centre and a similar number in the European quarter.

Brussels mayor Philippe Close said.told Belgian LN24 television the protest, inspired by “Freedom Convoy” demonstrators who have gridlocked the Canadian capital with trucks, had no permit from the Brussels authorities, no leader and had made no demands.

Philippe, a French protester from the city of Valenciennes who had earlier protested in Paris, told reporters pandemic restrictions were only part of his problems.

“I came particularly for our children’s future. I don’t see how my children can live in the world as it is now. Freedom is swept aside, there’s more and more poverty. Even when you work, when the 15th of the month comes round, you haven’t got enough to live on,” he said.

He said he was also protesting against the rise in energy prices and the cost of living.

A protest convoy breached police defences and drove into central Paris on Saturday, snarling traffic around the Arc de Triomphe and on the Champs Elysees.

A UK diplomat found dead in a forest vanished from his home after suffering extreme stress while working for the British government’s Covid taskforce at the height the pandemic, an inquest has heard.

The former ambassador to Nepal, Richard Morris, worked long hours under high pressure, helping co-ordinate briefings to ministers at a time when the UK was battling the fierce first wave of coronavirus.

On Monday, his widow fought back tears as she told an inquest he had been “totally unprotected” from the demands of the Covid taskforce.

Alison Morris said her husband feared there was not enough time to process information in the fast-moving period and if any information error got past him the Government “would be torn apart in the press”. The inquest continues

Here’s the full story on the Duchess of Cornwall testing positive for coronavirus by my colleague Caroline Davies.

The announcement by Clarence House follows that made on Thursday disclosing Prince Charles, 73, had tested positive for the virus. The duchess, 74, carried out a string of engagements on the same day.

Concern for the Queen’s health mounted after it emerged the monarch had been in direct contact with Charles two days before he tested positive. Buckingham Palace said on Thursday that the Queen was not displaying any symptoms, but refused to confirm whether she had tested positive or negative, citing medical privacy.

The 95-year-old spent time with Charles last Tuesday, when the prince was carrying out an investiture on her behalf at her Windsor Castle home.

The evening before his positive test result, Charles and Camilla had met the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, and others at a reception at the British Museum.

Our Berlin bureau chief, Philip Oltermann, looks at Germany’s faltering plans to introduce a general vaccination mandate this spring:

Germany’s Bundestag was originally due to debate motions in favour and against mandatory vaccinations this week, after the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, indicated he considers such a step necessary to cope with a possible resurgence of the virus in the next few months.

But the timetable that was meant to see a mandate would be passed in March has already begun to slip, as a Free Democratic party (FDP) politician said his third-way motion proposing mandatory vaccinations for those aged 50 and over would be submitted with a delay.

The three motions may not get their second and third reading until the end of March, when Germany’s high infection rates are forecast to be on a downward curve and the government is preparing to loosen restrictions on social gatherings and access to nonessential shops, according to reports in German media on Monday.

National and state leaders are set to discuss the opening-up plan on Wednesday, as Germany’s disease control agency reported 6,465 new cases in the last 24 hours, the second consecutive day of declining incidence rates.

A low-cost and rapidly scalable ventilator developed by UK scientists has been approved for widescale production, Sky News reports.

The OxVent machine costs £1,850 to produce, compared with an average of £22,000 for a model used in the NHS. It was developed by doctors and engineers at Oxford University and King’s College London and has now been certified as compliant with medical regulations.

The designs and manufacturing systems will be transferred to low and middle-income countries that cannot afford current ventilators.

Prof Sebastien Ourselin, head of school of biomedical engineering and imaging sciences at King’s College London and non-executive director at OxVent Ltd, said:

The OxVent ventilator is now a highly evolved medical device which has the technical capability to provide much-needed support in areas of the world where access to life-saving medical technologies is limited.

By design the ventilator allows for simple set-up, overcoming challenges posed by a lack of resources.

Our Paris correspondent, Kim Willsher, reports on the so-called freedom convoy headed to the symbolic heart of the EU:

Hundreds of vehicles taking part in France’s so-called freedom convoy were heading for Brussels on Monday, despite warnings they would be prevented from entering the Belgian capital.

The protest against Covid restrictions and high energy prices shifted its focus to the symbolic heart of the EU after police prevented most of the estimated 3,000 vehicles from entering Paris at the weekend.

About 100 managed to get past the police and converged on the Champs Élysées, where they were eventually dispersed with teargas on Saturday evening.

Belgian police said they had deployed forces along several motorways and stopped about 30 vehicles heading for the capital.

The mayor of the city of Brussels, Philippe Close, said police were directing vehicles to a parking and rest area just outside the city, capable of accepting up to 10,000 vehicles, and warned demonstrators this was the only place they would be allowed to converge and protest.

He said protesters might be allowed to enter Brussels on foot, but they would not be allowed to “take the capital hostage”. The Brussels authorities have banned any demonstrations in the city on Monday.

Factories in Vietnam are expected to continue production despite record Covid infections, marking a change in the government’s earlier policies of sweeping lockdowns.

One of the world’s major garment makers, Vietnam reported more than 26,000 infections on Sunday – about double the peak last year, when factories supplying brands such as Nike, Zara, Apple and Samsung were closed for months.

This time, however, millions of factory workers have been vaccinated against the virus. More than 76% of Vietnam’s population has received at least two vaccine doses, up from 3.3% early in September last year, according to figures by the health ministry.

“The risk of widespread lockdowns is very low this year as Vietnam has successfully carried out its Covid-19 vaccination campaign,” Dang Duc Anh, director of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, told Reuters.

On Sunday, the government announced it will remove its Covid-19 restrictions on international passenger flights from 15 February with no limitation on the number of flights.

The UK’s prime minister has said it is “clear” that Omicron is less dangerous than previous Covid-19 variants. On a visit to Scotland today, Boris Johnson was asked if there was evidence to back up plans to relax all Covid restrictions in England.

Johnson told reporters:

I think the situation with Covid is that numbers remain high, but it’s clear that Omicron is much less dangerous than the Delta.

You can see the numbers going down in hospitals, numbers in ICU have been nothing like what we saw with Delta.

I think we’re on the right lines and together we’ve been taking roughly the same strategy.

I know people make a lot of small differences. I understand that completely. But, overall, the UK has really been working very, very effectively together on testing, which is important.

Here’s more on the Duchess of Cornwall testing positive for Covid-19 just days after her husband Prince Charles. Charles tested positive last Thursday as part of a routine test, having experienced no symptoms previously.

Camilla had continued with her programme of engagements at the end of the week as she continued to test negative for the virus. She described herself as “luckily” negative on Thursday and said she had been tested “so many times”.

It is the first time the duchess has caught Covid-19, while Prince Charles has the virus for a second time.