Health News at Your Fingertips

Italy reported 57,715 new coronavirus cases on Monday, down from 106,065 on Sunday.

The health authorities recorded 349 deaths, up from 235 on Sunday.

Moderna has received full approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its Covid-19 vaccine for individuals 18 years of age and older.

Police in Canada’s capital are investigating possible criminal charges after anti-vaccine protesters urinated on the National War Memorial, danced on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, harassed volunteers at a soup kitchen and used the statue of Canadian hero Terry Fox to display an anti-vaccine statement.

Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said on Monday he had tested positive for Covid-19 but was feeling fine and would continue to work remotely while following public health guidelines.

Trudeau went into isolation last week after one of his children tested positive but at the time a rapid test for him came back negative, he told the Canadian Press.

The BA.2 subvariant of the Omicron coronavirus variant, which has quickly taken over in Denmark, is more transmissible than the more common BA.1 and more able to infect vaccinated people, a Danish study has found.

Reuters reports:

The study, which analysed coronavirus infections in more than 8,500 Danish households between December and January, found that people infected with the BA.2 subvariant were roughly 33% more likely to infect others, compared to those infected with BA.1.

Worldwide, the “original” BA.1 subvariant accounts for more than 98% of Omicron cases, but its close cousin BA.2 has quickly become the dominant strain in Denmark, dethroning BA.1 in the second week of January.

Here’s a summary from Reuters on all the key coronavirus happenings around the world:

Europe

• The German government has failed to hit its goal of vaccinating 80% of the population against the coronavirus before the end of January, roughly a month before lawmakers are expected to vote on a draft law on mandatory vaccinations.
• Britain, which this week will begin offering vaccinations to children aged 5-11 who are most at risk from coronavirus, is also looking at possibly changing rules on mandatory vaccination for health service staff.
• Thousands of Czechs massed in Prague’s Wenceslas Square on Sunday, waving flags and chanting slogans against Covid-19 restrictions, even as infections surged.

Americas

• Dozens of trucks and other vehicles blocked the downtown area of Ottawa for a second day after thousands descended on Canada’s capital city on Saturday to protest against the prime minister Justin Trudeau and Covid-19 vaccine mandates.
• Thousands of truck drivers from Argentina were stuck at the Chilean border on Saturday due to slow Covid-19 testing, as Chile faced its second transport delay crisis.

Asia-Pacific

• During the past four days China has detected 119 Covid-19 cases among athletes and personnel involved in the Beijing Winter Olympics, with authorities imposing a “closed loop” bubble to keep participants, staff and media separated from the public.
• Australia’s federal government will offer extra payments to aged care staff as more than 1,200 nursing homes deal with Covid-19 outbreaks that have caused hundreds of deaths of elderly residents this year and staff shortages.
• Indonesia’s holiday island of Bali will start welcoming back travellers from all countries later this week, more than three months after announcing it was open to selected nationalities.
• Hong Kong’s home affairs secretary resigned weeks after attending the birthday party of a delegate to China’s legislature, where two of about 200 guests tested positive for Covid-19.

Africa and middle east

• Qatar’s ministry of health said on Sunday it had approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children aged 5-11 years.
• Algeria reported its first case of Covid-19’s fast-spreading BA.2 Omicron subvariant, Ennahar TV cited the general director of the Pasteur Institute as saying on Sunday.

Medical developments

• Merck & Co’s new antiviral pill, once touted as a potential gamechanger for treating Covid-19, is the last choice among four available options for at-risk patients given its relatively low efficacy and potential safety issues, US doctors, healthcare systems and pharmacies told Reuters.
• The Japanese trading and pharmaceutical company Kowa Co’s anti-parasite drug ivermectin showed an “antiviral effect” against Omicron and other variants of coronavirus in joint non-clinical research.

The German government has failed to hit its goal of vaccinating 80% of the population against coronavirus before the end of January, roughly a month before lawmakers are expected to vote on mandatory Covid-19 vaccinations.

Reuters reports:

As of Monday, 75.8% of Germans have received at least one vaccine dose, which places the country behind European peers such as Italy, France and Spain, according to data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

German government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit did not name a new target date for the 80% goal but said the aim was to raise the vaccination rate going ahead.

Last week German lawmakers debated mandatory vaccination, which has faced resistance from politicians and the general public.

Some insight from Reuters into the decisions US doctors and pharmacies are taking around Covid-19 treatments:

Merck & Co’s new antiviral pill, which was once touted as a potential game changer for treating Covid-19, is now the last choice among four available options for at-risk patients, US doctors, healthcare systems and pharmacies told Reuters.

A rival oral treatment from Pfizer, Paxlovid, is in high demand, followed by an intravenous antibody therapy made by GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology.

With supplies of those products tight, doctors facing a surge of cases caused by the Omicron variant are also turning to Gilead Sciences’ remdesivir, an antiviral that needs to be given as three daily infusions to help high-risk Covid patients avoid hospitalisation.

When Merck and its partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics announced initial data late last year showing their drug, molnupiravir, halved the risk of hospitalisation, it was hailed as a potential breakthrough, the first Covid treatment that could be taken at home.

Enthusiasm for the drug waned when full data showed about 30% efficacy. That was further eroded when Paxlovid was shown to cut hospitalisation risk by 90%. GSK’s sotrovimab and Gilead’s remdesivir – sold as Veklury – cut hospitalisation risk by 85% and 87%, respectively.

So far, 265,000 courses of Paxlovid and 1.1m courses of molnupiravir have been distributed, US health department data shows. That early data also shows hundreds of thousands of courses of Merck’s drug sitting on the shelves of pharmacies and hospitals around the country.

The UK government is poised to make a statement on vaccinations as a condition for employment for frontline health and social care professions, after protests against mandatory jabs.

Reuters reports that the chief secretary to the Treasury, Simon Clarke, said Britain was looking at possibly changing rules on mandatory vaccination for health service staff.

The Guardian’s video team have made a package featuring footage of the thousand-strong protest in Canada’s capital, Ottawa, against the prime minister Justin Trudeau’s Covid-19 vaccine mandates.