Covid news live: Expand symptom list or miss cases, experts warn

Failing to expand the official list of Covid-19 symptoms could hamper efforts to control the virus’ spread in the UK, scientists have warned.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, the experts say unofficial symptoms show earlier than the three that Britain recognises, which are loss of smell or taste, coughing and fever.

The World Health Organisation and EU health body list many more than the UK, the authors note.

They wrote: “The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control described a breadth of symptoms associated with mild-to-moderate covid-19, the most commonly reported being headache (70 per cent), nasal obstruction (68 per cent), weakness or fatigue (63 per cent), myalgia (63 per cent), rhinorrhoea (60 per cent), gustatory dysfunction (54 per cent), and sore throat (53 per cent).

“Many infected people do not present with the symptoms used in the UK case definition: loss of taste or smell, a cough, or fever which, before vaccination rollout were reported by 70 per cent, 63 per cent, and 45 per cent of symptomatic cases, respectively.

“While restricting access to symptomatic testing to those with ‘official’ symptoms may control the volume of testing, this narrow definition is now likely to impede control of transmission.”

The authors include Calum Semple, a member of the government’s Sage advisory committee.

A man filmed apparently accosting Professor Chris Whitty in a park has apologised to the top medic after losing his estate agent job.

Lewis Hughes, from Romford, in Essex, said if he made England’s chief medical officer feel “uncomfortable”, then “I am sorry to him for that”.

Boris Johnson was among those to hit out after a video posted online appeared to show Prof Whitty being harassed in St James’ Park in London.

Joe Biden has come up well short on his goal of delivering 80 million doses of coronavirus vaccine to the rest of the world by the end of June as a host of logistical and regulatory hurdles slowed the pace of US vaccine diplomacy.

Although the Biden administration has announced that about 50 countries and entities will receive a share of the excess Covid-19 vaccine doses, the US has shipped fewer than 24 million doses to 10 recipient countries, according to an Associated Press tally.

The White House said more will be sent in the coming days and stressed that Mr Biden has done everything in his power to meet the commitment.

It is not for lack of doses. All the American shots are ready to ship, the White House said.

Rather, it is taking more time than anticipated to sort through a complex web of legal requirements, health codes, customs clearances, cold-storage chains, language barriers and delivery programmes. Complicating matters even further is that no two shipments are alike.

One country requires an act of its cabinet to approve the vaccine donation, others require inspectors to conduct their own safety checks on the US doses, and still others have yet to develop critical aspects of their vaccine distribution plans to ensure the doses can reach people’s arms before they spoil.

A US official said that as of Wednesday, all intended recipient countries had received formal US offers of a specific number and type of vaccine, and all legal and logistical hurdles on the US side had been cleared.

Professor Adam Finn, from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), has said regular, annual Covid vaccines could happen “but possibly not for everybody”.

He told BBC Breakfast: “Uncertainty will reduce as time goes by and we’ll really see how much of an ongoing problem we have with this virus and how it behaves and evolves.

“But I think it’s highly likely that we’ll go on seeing people getting infection with this virus in the future, and the need to immunise people, particularly people who are vulnerable, to getting seriously ill with that, yes.”

Experts are “very concerned” about the potential for a very large flu epidemic this winter, he added, saying people needed to be able to get their top-up Covid and flu jabs in the same visit, if the extra Covid shot was deemed ultimately necessary.

Significant numbers of new coronavirus infections are being detected in the New South Wales (NSW) community, Australian officials say, as the state reported a rise in new cases for a third straight day.

With state capital Sydney locked down for a fortnight to contain an outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant, authorities said half of Thursday’s total of 24 new cases had spent time in the community when infectious.

“[This] is a cause of concern. That is what we will be looking at in the next few days and beyond as a measure of our success,” NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian said.

Many people with flu-like symptoms were ignoring lockdown orders and “going about their business”, she added.

“We can’t allow that to happen. Assume that you have the virus or that people you come into contact with have the virus and act accordingly,” Ms Berejiklian added.

Nearly half of all Australians are under stay-at-home orders to prevent any major outbreak of the Delta strain.

Sydney, Perth, Brisbane and Darwin imposed lockdowns in the past few days, following months in which Australia had nearly eliminated the virus.

The total number of cases in the latest outbreak in NSW, the worst-affected state, neared 200 since the first case was detected more than two weeks ago in a limousine driver who transported overseas airline crew.

Australia has fared much better than many other developed countries in containing the novel coronavirus through lockdowns, swift contact tracing and strict social distancing, with just over 30,550 cases and 910 deaths.

However, a sluggish vaccination drive has put the federal government on the back foot.

Additional reporting by Reuters

Strict rules forcing pregnant women to give birth and attend scans alone in the pandemic triggered widespread distress and anxiety, a new report has found.

The research, conducted by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), discovered almost a quarter of pregnant women and new mothers felt remote healthcare appointments via phone or video did not meet their requirements at all, writes Maya Oppenheim.

Seven in 10 new mothers on postnatal wards said they felt lonely, while almost half reported being very unhappy and almost six in ten felt they needed their visitors to deliver practical help healthcare staff were not providing.

Northern Ireland ministers will decide later whether to press ahead with further Covid-19 rule relaxations amid a warning the Delta variant now accounts for about three-quarters of infections in the province.

A delayed round of measures originally planned for 21 June is currently earmarked for 5 July, but will go ahead only if the executive approves the step at Thursday’s meeting.

The relaxations include the return of live music across the hospitality sector; the reopening of theatres and indoor seated venues; the resumption of conferences and exhibitions; and increases in the numbers permitted to gather in indoor and outdoor domestic settings.

Ministers will also consider whether to lift a 500-person limit on outdoor non-domestic gatherings, potentially replacing the cap with a risk assessment model.

Allowing walk-in appointments for close contact services and permitting residential stays for youth summer camps are also among measures due to be assessed by the powersharing administration.

Additional reporting by PA

Headteachers in England may be asked to treat coronavirus more like the flu under new government plans, according to a report.

i reported that as part of a scheme for the UK to “learn to live” with the virus, ministers want the self-isolation requirement on pupils to end unless they are feeling unwell.

High levels of vaccination among older members of the population, combined with the low likelihood of serious symptoms in children, might allow this change, according to the report.

Routine asymptomatic testing of pupils would also end under the purported proposals.

On Wednesday Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, said he wanted to end as soon as possible the practice of pupils and teachers attending school in “bubbles” to prevent the spread of infection.

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Dr Randeep Guleria, director of All India Institute Of Medical Sciences, has said that there is not much data on the new Delta plus variant to suggest that it’s more infectious or causing more deaths.

Delta plus is a mutation in the Delta variant of Covid-19 which was first detected in India. The country has so far detected 51 cases of this new variant.

The Indian government had earlier clarified that ‘plus’ means an additional mutation has happened to the Delta variant and it does not mean that the new variant is more severe or highly transmissible than Delta.

The European Union will help supply half a million doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine to Bhutan, which is facing a deadline to administer the second dose to its population, according to The Hindu.

Bhutan had reached out to countries for help and even said it is open to the idea of mixing-and-matching Covid-19 vaccines as the deadline for the second dose for 90 per cent of its population is just days away.

India provided 550,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to Bhutan earlier this year, but focused on domestic needs as a second wave of the virus hit.