In England, Middlesbrough council withheld potentially embarrassing details of how – against the advice of its own public health expert – it ordered £24,000 worth of Covid tests that it could not use, emails reveal.
The independent mayor of Middlesbrough, Andy Preston, spent £24,000 on pinprick antibody tests, disregarding concerns voiced by the region’s director of public health, according to documents released under Freedom of Information laws:
The UK’s equality watchdog is facing demands to investigate claims that ministers have sidelined key gender laws in their response to the Covid pandemic.
In the wake of a damning report from MPs that said the UK risked turning back the clock on gender equality, a coalition of organisations including the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Amnesty International, Save the Children and the Fawcett Society have accused the government of taking decisions that are deepening inequalities.
Two dozen signatories, including leading gender equality experts, signed a letter to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) that argues that the government has failed in its duty to consider the impact of key policies on women and other groups protected under the Equality Act:
Here is the full story on Australia’s vaccine rollout:
Australia will begin its Covid-19 vaccine rollout on Monday 22 February after 142,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine arrived on Monday the 15th.
“The eagle has landed,” declared the health minister, Greg Hunt, ending weeks of doubt as to whether supply delays could blow out the government’s timeline to begin vaccinations in late February.
Of the first Pfizer shipment, 62,000 doses will be set aside as second doses in case of supply interruptions.
Of the first 80,000 doses available, 30,000 will be administered by the federal government in aged care, with the remaining 50,000 to be administered by state and territory governments to hotel quarantine and other frontline workers.
The first 1.4 million vaccine recipients will be quarantine and border workers, frontline healthcare workers, aged care and disability staff and residents – who will be given either the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccines.
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at 12.35am EST
African countries may suffer in the global rush for vaccines because they are unable to gather statistics that reveal the true extent of the spread of Covid among their populations, epidemiologists and other experts fear.
According to data from Johns Hopkins university, there have been 3.7m confirmed cases in Africa, and the landmark figure of 100,000 confirmed deaths is likely to be reached within days.
A series of studies has raised fears that the official figures are a significant underestimate, raising the possibility that Africa may not be seen as a priority for scarce global vaccine supplies despite the urgent need.
Many African countries are unable to afford mass testing and lack capacity to collect reliable data on cases and deaths, especially in remote areas. Stigma attached to the disease, a lack of information and victims’ inability to either reach or pay for health facilities may also reduce reporting.
The World Health Organization has said the “unique socio-ecological make-up in a number of African countries means a slower rate of transmission, and fewer severe cases as compared to the hardest hit countries”:
