US Covid deaths reach average of 1,900 a day – as it happened | World news

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Invitations to book a Covid-19 booster jab are being sent to 1.5 million people in England this week.

Those eligible will receive one dose of the Pfizer vaccine or half a dose of the Moderna vaccine.

The latest rollout is targeting:

• Those living in residential care homes for older adults.
• All adults aged 50 years or over.
• Frontline health and social care workers.
• All those aged 16 to 49 years with underlying health conditions that put them at higher risk of severe Covid-19, and adult carers.
• Adult household contacts of immunosuppressed individuals.

NHS England said millions more invites will be issued in the coming days and weeks.

One reader declined the offer, and he is encouraging others to follow suit.

The United States is planning to donate another 500 million Covid-19 vaccines to nations around the world, Reuters reports.

President Biden is likely to announce the new pledge at a virtual summit on Wednesday, according to a source familiar with the plan.

The US previously purchased 500 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine in June, donating them through COVAX, the global vaccine-sharing platform.

It is understood that the additional donation will also be Pfizer.

Covid-19 deaths in the United States have reached an average of more than 1,900 a day for the first time since March.

Nearly 64% of the population has now received at least one vaccine dose, yet average deaths per day have climbed 40% over the past two weeks, from 1,387 to 1,947, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

West Virginia has had more deaths in the first three weeks of September — 340 — than in the previous three months combined, while Georgia is averaging 125 dead per day, more than California or other more populous states.

The number of vaccine-eligible Americans who have yet to get a shot has been put at more than 70 million, Associated Press reports.

Many low-vaccination communities also have high rates of conditions like obesity and diabetes, said Dr. William Moss of Johns Hopkins.

The combination, along with the emergence of the more contagious Delta variant, has proved lethal.

Dr. William Moss added:

I think this is a real failure of society and our most egregious sin to be at this stage where we have hospitals overwhelmed, ICUs overwhelmed and hitting this mark in terms of deaths per day.

New cases of the coronavirus per day in the US have dropped since the start of September and are now running at about 139,000, but deaths typically take longer to fall, as it takes time for patients to succumb.

Delta is by far the dominant strain of Covid-19, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), having overwhelmed the other three variants of concern, which now represent a tiny proportion of cases.

First identified in India, the Delta variant is far more infectious than the previously dominant Alpha variant, initially identified in Kent.

The UN health agency decided to name variants after letters of the Greek alphabet earlier this year to avoid the countries that first detected them being stigmatised.

Speaking at a WHO social media live interaction, Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical lead on Covid-19, said:

Less than one percent each of Alpha, Beta and Gamma are currently circulating.

It’s really predominantly Delta around the world. Delta has become more fit, it is more transmissible and it is out-competing.

It is replacing the other viruses that are circulating.

Delta has been detected in more than 185 countries to date.

In addition to the four variants of concern, there are five variants of interest, but Van Kerkhove said three of them – Eta, Iota and Kappa – were now being downgraded to variants under monitoring.

“This is really due to changes in circulation and that the variants of interest are just out-competed by the variants of concern. They’re just not taking hold,” Maria Van Kerkhove added.

Turkey recorded 29,338 Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, the highest number of daily infections since 30 April, along with 260 new deaths.

The daily death toll since mid-July has been among the sharpest of countries in Europe and the Middle East, Reuters reports.

Turkey reopened schools to in-person education this month and removed most coronavirus measures over the summer.

Earlier this month, Ankara began asking for a negative PCR test or proof of vaccination from teachers and also for certain public events.

Military personnel will be drafted in as ambulance drivers in Scotland to alleviate pressure on the service.

Nicola Sturgeon announced last week she would request help to ease a backlog which was causing long waits for patients.

The military will provide 114 drivers and support staff, along with a further 111 staff to operate mobile testing units.

The Scottish government recently came under fire after a man found collapsed at his home in Glasgow died following a 40-hour wait for an ambulance.

An investigation is under way, after it was reported that the family of 65-year-old Gerard Brown were told the delay cost their father his life, with the man’s GP calling the service “third-world medicine”.

Earlier in the week, the Scottish health secretary, Humza Yousaf, faced criticism for suggesting people should “think twice” before calling an ambulance and should do so only if it was “absolutely critical”, as he said the NHS was in for “an extraordinarily difficult winter”.

Iran is considering the purchase of two million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, according to a senior health official.

The country is battling the Middle East’s worst coronavirus outbreak, having recorded nearly 118,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic.

Mohammad-Reza Shanehsaz, head of Iran’s food and drug administration, said a contract is being drawn up for the import “within one to two months” of two million doses of the Pfizer vaccine produced in Belgium.

More than 30 million people have received a first vaccine dose and 14.1 million people have been fully inoculated in Iran, a country of about 83 million.

On Sunday, the authorities announced the reopening of museums in Tehran and the country’s main cities, after being largely closed for more than a year.

Germany is reeling after a petrol station worker was shot dead by a 49-year-old customer who refused to wear a face mask.

Authorities in the western town of Trier said the unnamed suspect, a German citizen, told officers he acted “out of anger” after the 20-year-old cashier in the town of Idar-Oberstein, in Rhineland-Palatinate, asked him to put on a mask.

With the country five days away from a general election, politicians from across the spectrum condemned the killing and voiced concern about the radicalisation of the anti-mask movement.

Finance Minister Olaf Scholz from the centre-left Social Democrats, the frontrunner to succeed outgoing Chancellor Angel Merkel, said he was “shocked” by the murder of someone who only wanted “to protect himself and others”.

“As a society, we must resolutely stand up to hatred,” he tweeted.

Good evening, Euan O’Byrne Mulligan here. I’m taking over the blog for the next few hours.

Hi, I’m handing over the live blog to my colleague now for the evening. Here’s a summary of today’s Covid news

Summary

• Finland’s government has approved plans for a national “corona pass”.
• Cambridge University in England has reported that 96 per cent of 12,000 students said that they had received a Covid-19 vaccination, or intended to get one, before arriving in the city for the new academic year.
• Around 20% of workers in Nigeria have lost their jobs as a result of Covid-19.
• The president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro has been defending his government’s handling of the Covid pandemic at the U.N. General Assembly in New York.
• Several parts of Wales saw the highest rise in Covid cases across the UK last week.
• In the UK, another 31,564 people tested positive for Covid in the last 24 hours – an increase of almost 5,000 on last Tuesday.
• President Joe Biden is betting on millions more rapid, at-home tests to help curb the latest deadly wave of the Covid-19 pandemic
• The United Nations secretary- general, António Guterres, described the world as getting an “F in ethics” over global vaccine distribution as he spoke at the U.N. General Assembly today.
• He said the inequitable distribution of Covid-19 vaccines is an “obscenity”.
• The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has warned that uneven vaccine distribution globally is affecting economic recovery from the pandemic.
• The Covid pandemic has driven an ongoing shift away from cash to card payments in the UK – with £4 in every £5 pounds spent last year being on a debit or credit card.
• The mass take-up of the UK’s NHS app in order to use the Covid Pass feature has led to a surge in people registering their organ donation preference.
• Long Covid patients have been telling a UK parliamentary committee that they are ‘ “struggling’” to get help on the NHS
• The EU is expected to accept the NHS Covid pass as proof of vaccination across the union within days
• One of England’s most well known tourist destinations, the Eden Project in Cornwall, will be closed to visitors for a week in November so staff can have a paid break to recover from the pandemic
• British Pprime M minister Boris Johnson has been telling US media that ‘ “sweet reasoning’” and ‘ “persuasion’” were behind the high take up of the Covid vaccination in the UK.
• The British Medical Association has written to the health secretary urging him to step in and tackle “the wave of growing abuse” against GPs.
• Michelle O’Neill, Northern Ireland’s deputy first minister, has disclosed suffering a severe bout of Covid-19 that was probably her “worst experience” of illness.
• The NHS in England has missed its target to diagnose and treat 85% of cancer patients within two months of urgent referral for almost six years running, according to a new analysis.
• The reopening of schools in England has sparked a huge surge in Covid cases among students and pupils in England, with official figures showing that more than 100,000 children were absent with confirmed or suspected coronavirus infections last week.
• The virus has killed at least 4,696,559 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources released this morning
• The Indian government has asked Britain to end what it says is a discriminatory approach to vaccines made in India
• New data from J&J shows that although a single jab is effective, a second jab given around two months later increases effectiveness to 94 % against moderate to severe disease.
• The head of the Royal College of GPs has warned MPs that ‘the pandemic isn’t over’
• A year of working from home for millions in the UK led to a ‘ “sharp reduction’” in personal travel that drove household greenhouse gas emissions down by 15 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent last year.

Finland’s government has approved plans for a national “corona pass”. Infection rates are falling in the country and the scheme may never be put into use.

Vaccine passports that control access to public spaces – from restaurants to shops – are already in place in countries such as France, Italy and the Netherlands and have been the subject of intense debate as well as protests. The passports, or apps, can require people to show proof of Covid vaccination, negative testing or a previous infection.

“The premise is… that there will be no need for the corona pass,” Health Minister Krista Kiuru told journalists, citing the government’s plan to remove all Covid restrictions once 80 percent of all over-12s are vaccinated.

But the pass could be required in certain areas “if a significant outbreak occurs”, she added.

The scheme “is not a restriction, it is a freedom from restrictions”, Kiuru said.

Finland has maintained some of the EU’s lowest incidence rates throughout the pandemic and has good vaccination rates.

Over 66.6 percent of over-12s have had both jabs, and the 80 percent target is expected to be reached in mid-October, the government has said.

Debate is still raging across Europe over the necessity of Covid passports. Earlier today British prime minister Boris Johnson told US journalists that the UK approach was about persuasion not mandatory jabs.

Cambridge University in England has reported that 96 per cent of 12,000 students said that they had received a Covid-19 vaccination, or intended to get one, before arriving in the city for the new academic year.

Universities across the UK are getting ready to welcome back students, many for in person learning again and the research will be used to reassure staff and locals that the students are mostly vaccinated.

Just over half of the student body in Cambridge completed the survey and 96% of the respondents indicated that they were already vaccinated or intended to be before returning for the new term, which starts in October.

A further 2.4% indicated they would need either one dose or two of a vaccination on their return to Cambridge.

Just 0.5% said they were not planning to be vaccinated at all.

Professor Graham Virgo, senior pro-vice-chancellor for education, said: “We’ve been hearing in the media for some time about concerns about the university age group being vaccinated, so we were really pleased with that level of return, 96%.

Around 20% of workers in Nigeria have lost their jobs as a result of COVID-19.

Reuters reports that the National Bureau of Statistics in Nigeria worked with the UN to survey 3,000 businesses.

“While there have been promising signs of recovery this year, COVID-19 has had an outsized socio-economic impact on Nigeria,” the two organisations said in a statement.

Businesses complained about revenue declines, higher costs and an inadequate safety net for those in the informal sector, they said, adding that the disruption could leave a lasting impact on enterprises.

The West African nation’s economy, the biggest on the continent, was hammered by the fall in oil prices following disruptions caused by the pandemic. The country relies on crude exports for around 70% of government revenues.

The bank has said that the COVID-induced crisis was expected to push over 11 million Nigerians into poverty by 2022, taking the total number of people classified as poor in the country to over half the entire 200 million population.

The president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro has been defending his government’s handling of the Covid pandemic at the U.N. General Assembly in New York. In his speech to world leaders and UN grandees he said that everyone in his country who wants a vaccine would have one this year.

“By November, everyone who chooses to be vaccinated in Brazil will be attended to,” Bolsonaro said. “We support vaccination. However, our government has opposed vaccine passports or any obligation to get a vaccine.”

He has openly ignored the requirement for all attendees at the UN to be vaccinated against COVID-19. He is unvaccinated – although he had Covid last year – and has repeatedly insisted that getting a shot is a personal, medical decision.

He also doubled-down on “early treatment” drugs such as hydroxychloroquine, without naming the drug. The anti-malarial offered initial promise but scientists have roundly dismissed as ineffective against COVID-19. Hydroxychloroquine was central to the chaos of pandemic response in Brazil, presided over by four different health ministers, two of whom opposed Bolsonaro’s insistence to recommend it.

Several parts of Wales saw the highest rise in Covid cases across the UK last week.

Neath Port Talbot has the highest rate in the UK, with 1,235 new cases in the seven days to September 17 – the equivalent of 855.3 per 100,000 people. This is up from 699.5 in the seven days to September 10.

The five UK areas with the biggest week-on-week rises are:

Neath Port Talbot, Rhondda Cynon Taf (557.7 per hundred thousand up to 701.2), Vale of Glamorgan (502.6 to 631.2), Blaenau Gwent (522.7 to 645.5) and Stafford (306.1 to 425.8)

In the UK, another 31,564 people tested positive for Covid in the last 24 hours – an increase of almost 5,000 on last Tuesday.

The government’s dashboard shows 861 people were admitted to hospital and 203 people have died within 28 days of a positive Covid test.

President Joe Biden is betting on millions more rapid, at-home tests to help curb the latest deadly wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, Associated Press reports.

But the tests have already disappeared from pharmacy shelves in many parts of the US, and manufacturers warn it will take them weeks to ramp up production, after scaling it back amid plummeting demand over the summer.

Experts say encouraging signs last spring led to false confidence about the shrinking role for tests: falling case numbers, rising vaccination rates and guidance from health officials that vaccinated people could largely skip testing. Officials recently reversed that advice as cases and deaths driven by the delta variant surged anew.