Health News at Your Fingertips

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Here is a round-up of today’s coverage of Covid-19 in the UK and around the world.

• The UK government has announced additional funding for adult social care infection control which it says will help prevent infections and support testing in adult social care throughout the winter.
• Flu jabs are safe to give at the same time as the Pfizer or AstraZeneca Covid vaccines, according to the first clinical trial to investigate co-administering the shots in a single appointment.
• South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa has spoken to Boris Johnson regarding the “red list” status imposed by the UK on his country.
• United Airlines has reduced the number of employees who face losing their job for defying the company’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate. The carrier said 320 US-based staff rather than an earlier figure of 600 are now not in compliance with its Covid-19 vaccination policy.
• A 20-day-old baby and a pregnant teen have died from Covid-19 in Syria, during a serious spike in cases over the past month, the charity Save the Children said. The charity said there were 1,151 deaths in north west Syria over the past month and cases rose 144%.
• Singapore recorded its highest-ever number of cases, with a rise of more than 200 to 2,478 in a week when it has tightened restrictions on social interactions.
• Only 15 countries in Africa have been able to meet the goal of vaccinating 10% of their populations – a target set earlier this year by the World Health Assembly for all countries to meet as a minimum by the end of this month.
• Medical charity MSF called for French pharmaceutical Sanofi to transfer knowledge and technology for its mRNA vaccine candidate to the WHO’s vaccine development hub in South Africa. Sanofi announced that it would be shelving the vaccine, despite promising results from early trials.
• The Philippines will need a decade for its economy to recover from the pandemic, a senior economy official announced, saying the damage from lockdowns will be felt by two generations.
• In Australia, Victorian authorities said Thursday’s spike in Covid-19 cases was “completely avoidable”. It is the highest one-day total for the state during the pandemic so far.
• India recorded a further 311 Covid deaths today, according to its latest government figures.
• Charity food banks in Britain are “preparing for the worst” as the government starts winding up emergency aid measures put in place to cushion the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on millions of workers and low-income households, Reuters reports.
• Malaysia has announced it is now mandatory for all federal government employees to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, with exceptions only to be allowed on health grounds.
• The lockdown in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, will end tomorrow, ending almost three months of restrictions on movement to curb the Covid surge.
• The UK government needs to speed up Covid vaccine donations to developing countries or risk causing “irreparable damage” to both global health security and Britain’s reputation, a committee of MPs has warned.

I have finished for the day, but my colleague Helen Sullivan will be continuing the coverage.

A US judge upheld the University of California’s Covid-19 vaccine requirement against a challenge by a professor who alleged he had immunity because of a prior coronavirus infection, in what appears to be the first ruling on the issue.

Reuters reports that US district court judge James Selna in Santa Ana, California, said the university system acted rationally to protect public health by mandating the vaccine and not exempting individuals with some level of immunity from an infection.

More than 43 million Americans have had confirmed cases of Covid-19 and some opponents of vaccinations have argued that immunity from an infection negates the need for inoculation.

In August the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said a study showed vaccines offer better protection than natural immunity gained from prior infection, which wanes over time.

Selna’s ruling denied a motion for a preliminary injunction by Aaron Kheriaty, who is professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine. However, Dr Kheriaty said he plans to continue the litigation.

The university did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The United States has administered 392,909,995 doses of Covid-19 vaccines in the country and distributed 474,245,945 doses, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.

Those figures are up from the 391,992,662 vaccine doses the CDC said had been given by Wednesday out of 473,954,085 doses delivered, Reuters reports.

The agency said 214,332,261 people had received at least one dose while 184,601,450 people had been fully vaccinated as of 6am ET on Thursday.

About 4 million people have received an additional dose of either Pfizer or Moderna’s vaccine since 13 August, when the US authorised a third dose for people with compromised immune systems.

Accounting and consulting firm PwC told Reuters it will allow all of its 40,000 US client services employees to work virtually and live anywhere they want in perpetuity, making it one of the biggest employers to embrace permanent remote working.

Other major accounting firms, such as Deloitte and KPMG, have also been giving employees more choice to work remotely in the wake of the pandemic.

PwC’s deputy people leader, Yolanda Seals-Coffield, said the firm was the first in its industry to make full-time virtual work available to client services employees.

She said:

We have learned a ton through the pandemic and working virtually, as we think about the evolution of flexibility, is a natural next step.

If you are an employee in good standing, are in client services, and want to work virtually, you can, full stop.

Location will affect PwC employees’ pay, however.

Employees who opt to work virtually full-time from a lower-cost location would see their pay decrease, Seals-Coffield added.

Beaches and recreation centres reopened in Havana, Cuba’s capital, after authorities announced it was time to resume outdoor activities.

Officials said the reopening had been decided because 90% of the city’s residents are vaccinated against coronavirus and the number of new cases has been declining.

Gladys Gonzalez was keen to take advantage of the reopenings. She told the Associated Press:

Psychologically this benefits youth and children. Already more than half of the country is vaccinated. You have to trust.

Roberto García, a kitchen assistant and his wife, Laura, took their children to the city’s Eastern Beaches.

He said:

When we saw the news, we decided to come to the beach because we have children and we have not enjoyed the summer for two years.

On Tuesday, the governor of Havana, Reinaldo García Zapata, announced the reopening of beaches, swimming pools, gyms and other spots.

This was in addition to recent relaxations of pandemic restrictions including shortening the hours of the nighttime curfew and allowing restaurants, cafes and bars to admit customers again.

However, mask wearing in the pools and in the beach areas is mandatory except when bathers enter the sea, reported the official newspaper Tribuna de La Habana. Swimming pools are also limited to 50% capacity.

The government has announced additional funding which it says will help prevent infections and support testing in adult social care through the winter, the Press Association reports.

It comes after the National Care Forum warned that the last remaining dedicated funding for social care to deal with Covid-19 was due to end on Thursday.

The Department of Health and Social Care said it will provide an additional £388m to be delivered through the existing infection control and testing fund, which was first introduced in May 2020 with an investment of £600m.

It added that the funding will help prevent the spread of infection in social care settings, support care workers to access Covid-19 and flu vaccines, and allow testing to continue for staff, residents and visitors.

South African president Cyril Ramaphosa has eased restrictions aimed at combating the coronavirus pandemic to the country’s lowest alert, level 1, the second such loosening this month, reports Reuters.

In a televised address, Ramaphosa announced the country would move down one level in a five-tier system of restrictions, where five is the highest, to an “adjusted level 1” as South Africa emerges from its third wave dominated by the Delta variant.

He said that more than 17m vaccine doses had been introduced and more than 8.6 million people are fully vaccinated. This is more than one-fifth of the adult population, he added.

Ramaphosa also said he had pressed Britain to relax its travel limits on his country.

Britain has placed South Africa on its coronavirus “red list”, forcing travellers from the country into often expensive hotel quarantine on arrival.

The president said he had discussed the issue with Boris Johnson, adding:

We both agreed that decisions of this nature should be informed by science, and we are both hopeful of a positive outcome when the issue comes up for review in the coming days by their scientists.

A Downing Street spokesperson said:

The prime minister agreed to continue working closely with President Ramaphosa on this issue, to ensure that safe travel, trade and tourism between our countries can recover as soon as possible.