British lorry drivers now need negative Covid test to enter Denmark and Netherlands January 19, 2021 Hauliers will now need to provide a negative coronavirus test before entering Denmark and the Netherlands, the government has announced. All drivers of heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) have been told they will be eligible for free Covid tests at specialist sites across the country. However, just four out of 35 of the sites will run [...]
Patient admitted to hospital ‘every 30 seconds’ as Covid hospitalisations hit record January 18, 2021 “Someone is admitted to hospital with coronavirus every 30 seconds,” the health secretary has said, as hospitalisations continue to hit fresh heights amid the rapid spread of new Covid mutations. There are currently 37,475 people in UK hospitals with coronavirus, with more than a tenth on ventilators. “That is the highest that it’s been throughout [...]
London ‘past the peak’ of coronavirus as infections fall January 18, 2021 Coronavirus infections appear “to have peaked in London”, a leading scientist has said, as the number of new cases has seen a dramatic drop across the capital. Dr Rupert Pearse, from the Intensive Care Society, told the BBC: “[Rates vary] a lot around the country and it varies a lot between hospitals, and that’s quite [...]
Exclusive: Government scraps ‘game-changing’ antibody tests at NHS sites January 17, 2021 The government has quietly scrapped antibody tests at NHS sites, City A.M. can reveal, despite calls to increase testing of immunity levels alongside the vaccine rollout. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) yesterday deleted a section from its website advising people on how to get free antibody tests at community clinics, mobile testing [...]
Pfizer to temporarily reduce vaccine deliveries to UK and EU January 15, 2021 Pfizer will temporarily reduce deliveries of its Covid vaccine to the UK and across Europe from next week, according to the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH). The move will mean countries will receive fewer vaccines than expected while the pharmaceutical giant upgrades its production capacity. Pfizer told Norway this morning it would receive 18 [...]
London has lowest R rate in the UK January 15, 2021 London’s R rate has dropped to the lowest in the UK, according to the latest official figures. The rate of reproduction of the virus has dropped to a best estimate of 0.9 to 1.2, down from a range of 1.1 to 1.4 last week. The figure means London currently has the lowest R rate in [...]
Covid mutations: what we know so far January 15, 2021 A Brazilian variant of coronavirus has arrived in Britain, one of the UK’s leading scientists announced this morning. Speaking during a Science and Media Centre briefing, Professor Wendy Barclay said: “There are two different types of Brazilian variant and one of them has been detected in the UK.” Transport secretary Grant Shapps this morning insisted [...]
London missing out on ‘fair share’ of vaccine January 14, 2021 London is missing out on its “fair share” of the vaccine, Sadiq Khan has said, as he urged ministers to reassess the formula for distributing doses across the UK. The mayor of London has written an urgent letter to vaccines tsar Nadhim Zahawi calling on him to scale up vaccine supply to meet different population [...]
Boots and Superdrug pharmacies start rolling out vaccine January 14, 2021 High street pharmacies including Boots and Superdrug will start rolling out coronavirus vaccines from today as the UK ramps up plans to vaccinate 2m people a week by the end of the month. Six stores around the country, including a Boots store in Halifax and a Superdrug chemist in Guildford, were the first to start [...]
Covid immunity ‘lasts five months’ but may not prevent transmission January 14, 2021 People infected with Covid-19 are likely to be naturally protected against reinfection for around five months, according to the first government-funded study on the issue. The first report from Public Health England’s (PHE) Siren study found that antibodies from past coronavirus infection lasted an average of at least five months. However, scientists warned that those [...]