1.08pm EDT13:08
Thousands of restaurant owners, chefs, waiters and bartenders took to the streets in cities across Bulgaria today to protest the government’s decision to impose a mandatory Covid health pass.
Restaurant and hospitality associations organised the protest, calling the health certificates “inadequate” and “discriminatory”.
Restaurant associations claimed that in the first two days of the new requirement, restaurant attendance dropped 80% nationwide.
Critics say the government introduced the requirement too quickly for people to prepare for it.
Bulgaria is facing a surge in Covid infections and deaths amid one of the lowest vaccination rates in the 27-nation European Union.
It has had the highest Covid mortality rate in the bloc in the past two weeks and 94% of those deaths were unvaccinated people.
12.59pm EDT12:59
Airlines cast doubt on flying unvaccinated passengers to Australia
Most international airlines who fly into Australia are likely to accept only vaccinated passengers, with larger carriers now considering whether it is logistically and commercially viable to sell tickets to unvaccinated travellers.
Some carriers have had their allocation of unvaccinated passengers capped at zero.
From Monday, when New South Wales and Victoria reopen for international travel and quarantine-free arrival for fully vaccinated Australians, the states will drastically scale back their hotel quarantine capacities for unvaccinated passengers.
NSW will accept 210 unvaccinated passengers a week, and Victoria 250.
Airlines have announced tens of thousands of extra seats on new services into Australia since the states announced an end to quarantine, but many carriers are yet to decide how or if they will comply with the new rules for unvaccinated passengers.
It is understood that the new unvaccinated passenger caps will be managed in a similar way to the broader passenger cap system that has been in place since July 2020, in which states set their own hotel quarantine limits, and the commonwealth – which is responsible for international border management – communicates passenger allowances to individual airlines for each service.
Some airlines have been given unvaccinated passenger caps of zero.
12.30pm EDT12:30
The Irish government is considering rolling out rapid antigen test kits more generally, the Taoiseach has said.
Micheal Martin said he wants to develop a culture of self-testing.
The Irish government is to launch a communications campaign around the proper use of antigen tests and when they should be used, PA Media reported.
It comes as close contacts of a confirmed Covid case who are fully vaccinated and asymptomatic will receive a box of antigen tests.
Health minister Stephen Donnelly confirmed that the new initiative has begun and that close contacts who are vaccinated and do not have symptoms of the virus will now be able to test themselves at home using the free tests.
Speaking on Thursday, Mr Martin said:
We are now dealing close contacts as of today. We should develop a culture of self-testing and that would be regular and that would be something that people would do in the right circumstances, with the right advice.
There will be a communications campaign around the proper use of antigen tests because the expert review group did ascertain there is a need for proper advice for the utilisation of such tests as a supplement to PCR.
12.24pm EDT12:24
Vaccinated as likely as unjabbed to infect cohabiters, study suggests
People who are fully vaccinated against Covid yet catch the virus are just as infectious to others in their household as infected unvaccinated people, research suggests.
Households are a key setting for the transmission of Covid infections, with frequent prolonged daily contact with an infected person linked to an increased risk of catching the virus.
However, questions have remained including the true proportion of household contacts who become infected from an initial case, the duration of their infection, and the impact of vaccination on the risk of transmitting the virus and the chance of catching it.
Now a study has revealed that while vaccination against Covid is crucial to preventing severe disease and death, even fully jabbed individuals catch the virus – and pass it on.
Writing in the journal the Lancet, researchers from a number of institutions including Imperial College London and the UK Health Security Agency (HSA) report how they analysed data from 204 household contacts of 138 people infected with the Delta variant.
Of these contacts, who were recruited within five days of their household member showing symptoms and were tested daily for 14 days, 53 went on to become infected, 31 of whom were fully vaccinated and 15 were unvaccinated.
