Coronavirus live: Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak will now isolate after anger following health secretary’s diagnosis
Sunak #Sunak
7.45am EDT 07:45
Deaths of doctors from Covid-19 in Indonesia rose sharply in the first half of July, according to the profession’s association, as the Delta variant of the coronavirus fuelled a surge in infections across the country, Reuters reports.
A total of 114 doctors died from 1-17 July, the highest number reported for any period of similar length and more than 20% of the 545 total doctor deaths from Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, officials from Indonesia’s doctors association (IDI) said during a virtual news conference.
Mahesa Paranadipa, a senior IDI official, said the association was concerned the health system may not be able to cope, according to a recording of the event.
Paranadipa said:
We are worried about the potential of a functional collapse. This is the reported data, not yet data that may not have been reported to us.
Doctors’ deaths have increased in Indonesia, the world’s fourth most-populous nation, despite a 95% vaccination rate among health workers. This has prompted the government to use a batch of Moderna vaccines as booster shots to China’s Sinovac for healthcare workers.
Fuelled by the spread of the more virulent Delta variant, Indonesia has reported more new coronavirus cases than any country in the world in recent days, data from the latest seven-day average from a Reuters tracker showed. It was second only to Brazil in terms of the number of deaths.
Updated at 7.52am EDT
7.43am EDT 07:43
Vietnam’s capital city, Hanoi, will implement stricter social distancing measures from Monday as the city experiences a rise in coronavirus cases, the authorities said in a statement on Sunday.
All non-essential services will be halted until further notice, public passenger transport services to and from affected provinces will also be suspended, the statement said.
Citizens are urged to stay at home and leave only when necessary, it added.
Updated at 7.52am EDT
7.22am EDT 07:22
Scientists in the UK have strongly endorsed the continued wearing of masks in enclosed public spaces over summer. As Covid-19 cases continue to spiral, face coverings offer people the most robust way of limiting the spread of the disease in cafes, theatres and restaurants, they said last week.
Rates of new Covid-19 cases in the UK topped 50,000 a day last week, leading scientists and health experts to warn that the country could be forced into a lockdown later this year as rising numbers of infections look likely to continue until autumn. In these circumstances, they said, wearing of masks should be continued despite the government’s refusal to make such a move official.
“If you don’t wear masks, the virus will spread further. It is as simple as that,” said Julian Tang, a clinical virologist at Leicester University.
Tang said masks clearly limit the spread of viral particles from an infected person and also cut a wearer’s chance of picking up an infection from someone else. “Masks work both ways,” he told the Observer.
He said:
If you assume that a mask at least halves transmission, that means that for every 1,000 virus particles an infected person breathes out, only 500 will leave your mask. Then, when those particles reach someone else, similarly their masks will ensure at least a twofold reduction in the number of viruses reaching their mouths or noses. In other words, of the 1,000 virus particles an infected person has breathed out, only 250 or so will reach another person. That should reduce infection rates, and that is why masks are important.
This point was backed by Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia.
He told the Observer:
Most studies are observational and prone to all sorts of biases, but taken together there is a consistent finding towards face coverings having benefit both in protecting others if the wearer is infected and also to protect the wearer from others.
Estimates vary but they probably reduce transmission somewhere between 10 and 25%.
Read the full story here:
Updated at 7.53am EDT
6.55am EDT 06:55
Commenting on news that the prime minister and chancellor planned not to self-isolate after being pinged by NHS test and trace, Lobby Akinnola of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice said:
It’s like this government has learned nothing since the Barnard Castle debacle.
People all over the country are making huge sacrifices. They’re isolating when pinged because they know how important it is to protect people. But apparently Mr Johnson and Mr Sunak think the rules don’t apply to them.
The group added that Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak were supposed to be “leading by example”.
6.25am EDT 06:25
Keir Starmer, the Labour party leader, said the British government was in “chaos”.
He said:
Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have been busted yet again for thinking the rules that we are all following don’t apply to them.
6.22am EDT 06:22
Here’s some reaction from politicians and political commentators to the -turn from Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak.
Dominic Cummings has offered his thoughts on the reversal of plans for the prime minister and chancellor to skip quarantine after being potentially exposed to coronavirus.
In a tweet (which resembles a word salad), he said being forced to U-turn “by your [chancellor] is what happens when this PM tries to be ‘my own chief of staff’.”
David Gauke, the former lord chancellor, posted a series of tweets predicting the U-turn and saying he sympathised with Robert Jenrick, who was doing the rounds on TV defending Johnson and Sunak earlier on Sunday.
Labour MP David Lammy said it shouldn’t have taken public pressure for the government to do the right thing.
Meanwhile, Mikey Smith of the Mirror had this take:
Updated at 6.28am EDT
6.10am EDT 06:10
Boris Johnson was at Chequers when he was contacted by NHS test and trace which is why he will self-isolate there, Downing Street have confirmed.
In a dramatic turnaround Downing Street said the prime minister and chancellor Rishi Sunak would be self-isolating rather than taking part in a daily contact testing pilot as had previously been announced.
A spokesman said:
The prime minister has been contacted by NHS Test and Trace to say he is a contact of someone with Covid.
He was at Chequers when contacted by Test and Trace and will remain there to isolate. He will not be taking part in the testing pilot.
He will continue to conduct meetings with ministers remotely.
The Chancellor has also been contacted and will also isolate as required and will not be taking part in the pilot.
Updated at 6.11am EDT
5.47am EDT 05:47
Boris Johnson is to isolate at Chequers and will not take part in the pilot daily testing programme, a Downing Street spokesman said.
Rishi Sunak, who was also pinged by NHS test and trace, will self-isolate rather than taking part in the daily testing pilot, contrary to a statement released by Downing Street earlier on Sunday.
The announcement that the pair were abandoning their heavily criticised plans came less than three hours after the initial statement was released.
The chancellor said on Twitter:
I recognise that even the sense that the rules aren’t the same for everyone is wrong.
Updated at 6.04am EDT
5.43am EDT 05:43
If coronavirus cases continue to rise in the UK, they could still yet place a “significant burden” on the health system, Prof Neil Ferguson warned.
The government scientific adviser told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show that a level of 2,000 hospital admissions a day was “roughly half what we got to before Christmas with the second wave”.
He said:
There you are talking about major disruption of services and cancellation of elective surgery and the backlog in the NHS getting longer and longer.
Ferguson said it looked like people currently being admitted to hospital were not as severely ill as those in December and January, with the mortality rate “much, much lower”.
He said:
Still, if you have enough cases you can still have quite significant burden on the healthcare system.
Asked what success at this stage of the pandemic looked like, Ferguson said:
Success would be keeping hospitalisations at around 1,000 a day level and then declining.
Case numbers maybe peaking a little over 100,000 a day and then slowly declining. It is likely to be a slow decline.
Updated at 6.26am EDT
5.25am EDT 05:25
South Africa have confirmed three positive Covid-19 cases in their soccer squad for the Olympic Games in Tokyo, including players Thabiso Monyane and Kamohelo Mahlatsi.
Video Analyst Mario Masha also tested positive on arrival in Tokyo as the team prepares to face hosts Japan on Thursday, Reuters reports.
Team manager Mxolisi Sibam said in a media release from the South African Football Association on Sunday.
We have three positive cases of Covid-19 in the camp here, two players and an official.
There is daily screening … Masha and Monyane reported high temperatures and positive saliva tests, and were then taken to do the nasal test … and they unfortunately tested positive for Covid-19. Mahlatsi is the latest player to go through the same process.
He said as a result, the team has been quarantined until cleared to train, waiting for results from tests earlier on Sunday.
He said:
This unfortunate situation has made us miss our first intensive training session last night.
Mexico and France are also in South Africa’s first round group.
Updated at 6.26am EDT
5.13am EDT 05:13
It is “almost inevitable” that coronavirus infections in the UK will reach 100,000 daily cases alongside 1,000 people admitted to hospital a day, a government scientific adviser has said on the eve of restrictions being lifted in England.
Prof Neil Ferguson, from Imperial College London and a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show that these these figures could double, but this was “much less certain”.
Asked where the country was heading amid the lifting of restrictions, Ferguson said:
It’s very difficult to say for certain, but I think 100,000 cases a day is almost inevitable.
He highlighted that the relaxation of measures coincided with the start of school holidays, which will probably see contact rates among teenagers “tick down”.
While emphasising it was “very difficult to make precise predictions”, Ferguson said:
I think it’s almost certain we’ll get to 1,000 hospitalisations per day. It’ll almost certainly get to 100,000 cases a day. The real question is, do we get to double that or even higher? And that’s where the crystal ball starts to fail. We could get to 2,000 hospitalisations a day, 200,000 cases a day, but it’s much less certain.
Updated at 5.24am EDT
5.05am EDT 05:05
The shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, said Boris Johnson still retained the ability to “join a Zoom call” and could work from home, following news that the prime minister has avoided a period of self-isolation.
He told Sky News:
I’m not sure how the prime minister joining Zoom calls in the flat above Downing Street inhibits him doing his job, to be frank.
He’ll still be able to use the telephone, he’ll still be able to use a computer and he’s still able to join a Zoom call, as lots of us have had to do in these past 16 months throughout the crisis.
Meanwhile, Damian Green, the Conservative MP for Ashford, has supported the prime minister’s decision to take part in a pilot scheme allowing him to work from No 10 rather than self-isolating.
Speaking to Trevor Phillips on Sky News, Green said:
It’s not clear who has got access to it but I think in practical terms allowing the prime minister and chancellor of the exchequer to work as normally as possible is actually quite sensible.
I hope one of the effects of this is to accelerate the pilot scheme, and indeed the analysis of the pilot scheme, because this might be a way out of the current problems of people not being able to go to work.
Updated at 5.25am EDT
5.02am EDT 05:02
Nigeria has put six states on red alert after recording a “worrisome” rise in Covid-19 infections, a government official said, urging people to curb gatherings and hold prayers outside mosques during this week’s Muslim festival of Eid-el-Kabir.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, is like most parts of the continent facing a third wave of the virus after detecting the more transmissible Delta variant, Reuters reports.
The head of the presidential steering committee on Covid-19, Boss Mustapha, said Lagos, Oyo, Rivers, Kaduna, Kano, Plateau and the Federal Capital Territory had been placed on red alert as part of preventive measures against the pandemic.
A red alert allows authorities in the states to restrict celebrations and gatherings to a minimum.
Mustapha said in a statement:
These steps are critical as we begin to see worrisome early signs of increasing cases in Nigeria.
Mustapha said there was potential for wider spread of the virus during the Eid-el-Kabir gatherings and said Friday prayers should be held outside local mosques.
He also suspended Durbar, an annual Muslim festival in northern Nigeria, which is marked by colourful horse riding events watched by large gatherings.
Last week, Nigeria, which has recorded 169,329 cases and 2,126 deaths said it expected to receive nearly 8m additional doses of vaccines by the end of August, including from a US government donation.
Updated at 5.26am EDT
4.56am EDT 04:56
The vast majority of Covid-19 anti-vaccine misinformation and conspiracy theories originated from just 12 people, a report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) cited by the White House this week found.
CCDH, a UK/US non-profit and non-governmental organization, found in March that these 12 online personalities they dubbed the “disinformation dozen” have a combined following of 59 million people across multiple social media platforms, with Facebook having the largest impact. CCDH analyzed 812,000 Facebook posts and tweets and found 65% came from the disinformation dozen. Vivek Murthy, US surgeon general, and Joe Biden focused on misinformation around vaccines this week as a driving force of the virus spreading.
On Facebook alone, the dozen are responsible for 73% of all anti-vaccine content, though the vaccines have been deemed safe and effective by the US government and its regulatory agencies. And 95% of the Covid misinformation reported on these platforms were not removed.
Among the dozen are physicians that have embraced pseudoscience, a bodybuilder, a wellness blogger, a religious zealot, and, most notably Robert F Kennedy Jr, the nephew of John F Kennedy who has also linked vaccines to autism and 5G broadband cellular networks to the coronavirus pandemic.
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