Health News at Your Fingertips

The US administered 399,552,444 doses of Covid-19 vaccines in the country as of Thursday morning and distributed 482,326,275 doses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Those figures are up from the 398,675,414 vaccine doses the CDC said had gone into arms by Wednesday, out of 480,427,985 doses delivered.

The agency said 216,268,034 people had received at least one dose, while 186,618,184 people were fully vaccinated as of 6:00 a.m. ET on Thursday, Reuters reports.

Italy increased the maximum attendance capacity allowed at cultural and sporting venues on Thursday, continuing its progressive easing of Covid-19 curbs for those who can show documents of immunity from the disease.

As of October 11th, cinemas, theatres and concert venues will be able to fill all their seats, scrapping the current limit of 50%, the government said, following advice from its panel of public health advisors, Reuters reports.

The maximum capacity of sports stadiums will be raised to 60% from 35% for indoor venues and to 75% from 50% outdoors.

Limits will be slightly stricter on discos and nightclubs, at 50% indoors and 75% outdoors.

There will be no restrictions on museums, where only social distancing rules will remain in place.

However, only those carrying the so-called Green Pass – a certificate that shows if someone has received at least one jab, has tested negative or has recently recovered from coronavirus- will be allowed entry, and masks will remain obligatory.

More than 100 military personnel will be supporting the Welsh Ambulance Service as it faces unprecedented demand.

The Ministry of Defence said 110 staff would be working as non-emergency drivers from October 14 until the end of November, PA reports.

It is the third time since the start of the coronavirus pandemic that military personnel have supported the Welsh Ambulance Service.

They will not operate under blue light conditions and will attend lower priority calls to allow ambulance staff to deal with life-threatening emergencies.

On the subject of booster jabs, Dr Bruce Aylward, senior adviser to the director-general at the WHO, said: “Every single dose makes a difference, we need to make sure every dose right now is going into people who haven’t received any doses, not additional doses going into those who already have.”

The WHO previously called for a moratorium on booster doses until the end of 2021 so vaccines could be shipped to parts of the world where many at-risk people remain unvaccinated.

It said that while third doses may be necessary for immunocompromised people, widespread booster jabs could be put to better use elsewhere, PA reports.

Here is a round-up of all today’s main Covid news stories:

• England will scrap coronavirus quarantine travel rules for 47 destinations including South Africa on Monday. The government also said it would recognise the vaccine status of arrivals from more countries in the latest easing of restrictions.
• Pfizer’s new vaccine for children aged five to 11 could be ready as early as November pending approval from federal regulatory health agencies, White House Covid response coordinator Jeffrey Zients said on Thursday.
• US president Joe Biden will visit Chicago today to meet with the United Airlines chief executive and local Democratic leaders, as he touts his decision to impose Covid vaccine mandates on employees of large firms, the White House said.
• Germany has vaccinated millions more people against coronavirus than previously thought, the country’s health minister announced. Almost 80% of adults in Germany are fully vaccinated and about 84% have received at least one shot, according to the country’s disease control centre, the Robert Koch Institute.
• In the UK, a further 40,701 Covid infections were reported in the past 24 hours – the highest daily figure since 6 September. This is a slight increase on yesterday’s figure of 39,851 cases, according to official government statistics.
• Coronavirus aid supplies that have arrived in North Korea are being held in quarantine in its seaport of Nampho, the WHO confirmed. North Korea sealed its borders when the coronavirus pandemic began last year, though officials in neighbouring South Korea and the United States have cast doubts on its claim to have never had a case, despite a lack of signs of major outbreaks.
• UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres has appealed for $8 billion to help vaccinate 40% of people in all countries by the end of the year.
• Italy reported 41 coronavirus-related deaths on Thursday compared to 39 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections fell to 2,938 from 3,235.
• In Northern Ireland, Stormont ministers have agreed to remove a legal requirement for social distancing in bars and restaurants, the PA news agency has reported.
• The Italian government could approve the reopening of nightclubs, closed since August 2020 due to Covid-19 outbreaks linked to nightlife venues, later on Thursday.
• Children could be forced to wear masks in schools across England again as part of the government’s back-up plan if the country’s Covid situation deteriorates significantly, the education secretary has admitted.
• Finland has announced that it will pause the use of Moderna’s vaccine for men under-30 due to reports of a rare cardiovascular side effect. It follows similar moves by Swedish and Danish health officials after a pan-Nordic study.

That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for today. I’ll be back tomorrow but am now handing over to my colleague Nadeem Badshah, who will see you through the rest of the evening. Goodnight.

Travel industry insiders predicted a surge in bookings for October half-term as ministers cut England’s travel red list to just seven countries, all in Latin America: Peru, Columbia, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Venezuela.

Travellers from other destinations will no longer have to quarantine in a hotel on their return to the country.

For more details on this evening’s announcement that England’s travel red list has been cut to just seven countries, here is the full story from my colleagues, Nazia Parveen and Rachel Dixon.

England will scrap coronavirus quarantine travel rules for 47 destinations including South Africa on Monday.

Its government also said it would recognise the vaccine status of arrivals from more countries in the latest easing of restrictions.

Transport minister Grant Shapps announced that travellers arriving in England from 37 countries and territories would also face fewer entry requirements as their vaccine status will be recognised, including arrivals from India, Turkey and Ghana.

“The measures announced today mark the next step as we continue to open up travel and provide stability for passengers and industry while remaining on track to keep travel open for good,” he said on Twitter.

Travel rules changed earlier this week to scrap the traffic-light system that graded countries red, amber or green. Now there are just two lists: “red” and “rest of the world”.

England’s travel red list has been reduced to just seven countries, all in Latin America: Peru, Columbia, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Venezuela.

US president Joe Biden will visit Chicago today to meet with the United Airlines chief executive and local Democratic leaders, as he touts his decision to impose Covid vaccine mandates on employees of large firms, the White House said.

Biden last month ordered all federal workers and contractors to be vaccinated, with few exceptions, and for private employers with 100 or more workers to require employees to be vaccinated or get tested for the coronavirus weekly.

The order spurred pushback from high profile Republican governors including Florida’s Ron DeSantis and South Carolina’s Henry McMaster, who vowed to fight the administration’s move “to the gates of hell”, Reuters reported.

“The President’s message will be clear: Vaccination requirements work,” the White House said in an emailed statement, previewing the visit. Such mandates “get more people vaccinated, helping to end the pandemic and strengthen the economy,” the statement added.

It came as IBM said on Thursday it required all US employees to be fully vaccinated against Covid by 8 December or face unpaid suspension.

Spain’s coronavirus rate dropped below 50 cases per 100,000 people on Thursday, reaching the threshold considered “low risk” by the country’s health ministry for the first time in over a year.

Spain recorded 1,807 new cases on Thursday, bringing the total up to 4.97 million since the pandemic began. The death toll rose by 23 to 86,701.

The infection rate, as measured over the past 14 days, fell to 49 cases per 100,000 people, the data showed, slipping below 50 for the first time since 27 July, 2020.

At that time Spain had just emerged from one of Europe’s strictest lockdowns, which reduced new cases to a trickle.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres has appealed for $8 billion to help vaccinate 40% of people in all countries by the end of the year.

It comes as the World Health Organization (WHO) launched a plan that aims to inoculate 70% of the world by mid-2022, reports Reuters.

Guterres urged the Group of 20 rich countries to deliver on their “desire to get the world vaccinated” at a summit in Rome later this month.

“Not to have equitable distribution of vaccines is not only a question of being immoral, it is also a question of being stupid,” he said at a joint news conference with WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

So far, more than 6.3 billion doses of coronavirus vaccines have been administered globally. But more than half of the world has yet to receive at least one dose of a Covid vaccine, according to Our World in Data, and less than 5% of Africans have been fully vaccinated, according to the continent’s top public health official.

Venezuela’s vice-president Delcy Rodriguez has said that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has not yet delivered funds under a program to help countries battle the Covid pandemic, amid a dispute over the government’s legitimacy.

In August, the IMF authorised Venezuela to receive around $5 billion in Special Drawing Rights (SDR) as part of a $650 billion global effort to boost liquidity for the world’s most vulnerable countries, but said it could not use them because of questions about whether President Nicolas Maduro or opposition leader Juan Guaido was the rightful leader.

Guaido, recognized by the United States as Venezuela’s legitimate president, said the two sides would discuss access to the SDRs at an internationally-mediated negotiation process in Mexico City to resolve the South American country’s protracted political crisis, Reuters reported.

Rodriguez said at the UN Conference on Trade and Development that the country had not yet received the funds, blaming a US “veto.”

The United States, the IMF’s largest shareholder, has sanctioned Venezuelan state institutions in a push to oust Maduro, a socialist who it accuses of election-rigging and rights violations. Maduro denies the accusations.

“Venezuela reiterates its denunciation that the IMF refuses to deliver our people the $5 billion our country is owed to fight the pandemic,” Rodriguez said.