Covid live: UK records 40,954 new cases; Belgium brings back restrictions weeks after ending curbs

That’s it from me, Samantha Lock, for today.

Please join us later today when we launch our next Covid blog.

In the meantime you can follow along for all the coronavirus coverage here.

Thanks for joining us today. Before we close the blog here’s a quick run-down of the latest developments.

• The Covid-19 crisis is far “far from finished”, the World Health Organization’s emergency committee has said. The 19-member committee, which meets every three months to discuss the pandemic and make recommendations, also called for research into next-generation vaccines and long-term action to control the virus.
• In Thailand, businesses are pleading with the government to drop the nation’s current alcohol ban when the country reopens, saying it will deter tourists.
• China has locked down a city of 4mil over 6 Covid cases. Residents in Lanzhou, Gansu, have been told to stay at home as buses, taxis and key rail routes are suspended.
• FDA advisers recommend approval of Pfizer’s Covid vaccine for children aged 5-11. it will be the first vaccine available for younger children in the US. The nearly unanimous vote clears the way for possible approval for emergency use next month, making nearly 30m children eligible.
• The NHS Test and Trace has been criticised as an “eye-watering” waste of taxpayers’ money which did not achieve its objectives, despite £37 billion of funding, a damning report has warned. The funding - equal to almost a fifth of the entire health service budget - was used to hire more than 2,000 consultants who were employed on rates of more than £1,000 a day, the report by the public accounts committee (PAC) found.
  
• Pregnant women are being turned away from Covid vaccine clinics despite clinical advice, experts have warned as they urged ministers to ramp up efforts to reach unvaccinated groups.
• The UK recorded 40,954 new Covid cases today and 263 more people have died, official figures show.
  
• Coronavirus restrictions are to return to Belgium on Friday, just weeks after they were relaxed, amid rising cases and hospitalisations. The rules include wearing face masks in public places and mandatory masks for staff at bars, restaurants and fitness clubs. Covid passes will also be required to enter.
• A Brazilian senate committee is to on a report recommending President Jair Bolsonaro face criminal indictments over his handling of Covid-19.

Hi I’m Samantha Lock and I’ll be taking over from Jane Clinton to bring you a summary of all the Covid news making headlines around the world.

Stay tuned and thanks for following along!

The United States has administered 415,012,026 doses of Covid-19 vaccines in the country as of Tuesday morning and distributed 504,584,715 doses, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Reuters reports:

Those figures are up from the 414,302,192 vaccine doses the CDC said had gone into arms by Oct. 25 out of 503,418,475 doses delivered.

The agency said 220,648,845 people had received at least one dose while 190,793,100 people were fully vaccinated as of 6:00 a.m. ET on Tuesday.

The CDC tally includes two-dose vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech , as well as Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot vaccine.

About 13.8 million people have received a booster dose of either Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine. Booster doses from Moderna and Johnson & Johnson were authorized by the U.S. health regulator on Oct. 20.

Australia’s drugs regulator has provisionally approved a booster dose of Pfizer Inc’s Covid-19 vaccine for people above 18 years old, reports Reuters.

First-dose vaccination levels in the country’s adult population are now nearing 90 per cent.

It adds:

The booster dose can be administered at least six months after the second shot, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) said in a statement.

Further advice on the use of booster shots will be provided to the federal government soon by the country’s vaccination technical advisory group, TGA said.

The Associated Press reports on a mask row that has erupted between Florida’s surgeon general Dr Joseph Ladapo and State Senator Tina Polsky.

Florida’s surgeon general said that conversations while wearing masks aren’t productive and that he offered to meet elsewhere when a state senator didn’t let him in her office without a mask, citing a serious health condition.

Dr Joseph Ladapo said in a statement released Tuesday that he offered to meet outside or in a hallway for his scheduled meeting last week with Democratic state Senator Tina Polsky. He said he doesn’t believe he can communicate clearly and effectively while wearing a mask. Polsky was not satisfied, he said.

“I attempted in good faith to find some way for us to communicate that would respect each of our preferences,” Ladapo said in a statement posted on Twitter. “Having a conversation with someone while wearing a mask is not something I find productive, especially when other options exist.”

The incident drew broad attention over the weekend after Polsky revealed that she had breast cancer, though at the time of the meeting last Wednesday she had told Lapado only that she had a serious health condition. Ladapo said in his statement that he’s “saddened” by that news and wished her “blessings and strength.”

Polsky did not comment on the statement, saying she had not read it as she had been in a meeting.

Reuters reports that Brazil has registered 442 new Covid-19 deaths and 13,424 new cases of the virus. This compares to yesterday’s figures of 160 deaths and 5,797 new cases.

The country has now registered a total of 606,246 Covid-19 deaths and 21,748,984 total confirmed cases. The data is from the nation’s Health Ministry.

Brazil has the second highest Covid death toll in after the United States which has registered 738,531 (according to John Hopkins University data).

The PA News Agency reports on booster jabs data:

New figures show that a total of 6,442,000 people in the UK had a booster jab or third dose of a Covid vaccine as of Monday.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said it will publish this data daily, alongside the numbers for first and second jabs.

The figure does not differentiate between the number of people who have been given a third dose due to having a weakened immune system, and those who have had a booster jab.

On Monday, a total of 244,992 people were reported to have had a booster jab or third dose.

Of this number, 188,412 were given in England, 28,618 in Scotland, 22,390 in Wales and 5,572 in Northern Ireland.

Reuters reports that an expert panel has voted overwhelmingly to recommend the US Food and Drug Administration authorize the Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE Covid-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11, saying the benefits of inoculation outweigh the risks.

It continues:

An authorization for that age group would be would be an important regulatory step toward reaching about 28 million children for inoculation, most of them back in school for in-person learning.

The vaccine could be available to the younger age group as soon as next week. The FDA is not obligated to follow the advice of its outside experts, but usually does.

If the FDA authorizes the shots for this age group, an advisory panel to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will meet next week to make a recommendation on the administration of the vaccine. The CDC director will make the final call.

“To me, the question is pretty clear,” said Dr. Amanda Cohn, a pediatric vaccine expert at the CDC and a voting member of the panel. “We don’t want children to be dying of COVID, even if it is far fewer children than adults, and we don’t want them in the ICU.”

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Adrian Horton, writing about US TV, looks at whether audiences want shows to refer to the pandemic.

For most of 2020 and the first half of 2021, some part of me clung to the fantasy, despite diminishing evidence, that there would be a hard end date to the pandemic. That there would be a day, somewhat immediately post-vaccine, when masks (safely) disappeared from restaurants and airports and parties and street corners, that Covid-19 would fade from view, that some type of “return” would snap into place. This mental trick has obviously not come to pass – but it can be seen on TV, as a crop of streaming shows written and produced since 2020 have their timelines proceed beyond 2019, with gazes on the pandemic from direct to oblique to not at all.

In general, shows filmed and released over the past year and a half have revealed how difficult it is to fold a societal rupture as significant, inequitable and diffuse as Covid-19 into television. The pandemic has undoubtedly suffused streaming TV shows – in scheduling delays, in cancellations, in budgets swollen to accommodate testing and other safety protocols for the cast and crew. It remains an open question, however, how much of that reality should enter the frame.

The i’s chief political commentator, Paul Waugh, re-tweets some figures regarding the number of booster Covid doses administered. The original tweet is by Richard Clegg, a retired Office for National Statistics statistician who tweets daily updates on the UK Covid vaccination programme.

The Associated Press reports on the limits on the number of journalists who can sit in on court cases because of Covid restrictions.

Just two reporters were allowed inside a Georgia courtroom to serve as the eyes and ears of the public when jury selection began for the men charged with murdering Ahmaud Arbery.

Pandemic restrictions also kept reporters and the public out of the courtroom during the sex-trafficking trial of music star R Kelly.

[...]

“This is a fundamental constitutional right that the public has — to have open courts and to be able to see what’s happening in real time in a courtroom,” said David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, which has prodded California courts to improve public access during the pandemic.

Covid-19 space constraints have led judges across the US to exclude or limit public and media attendance at trials.

During Kelly’s trial, which concluded last month with his conviction, a federal judge in New York barred the press and public from the courtroom because jurors were sitting six feet apart in the gallery normally used by observers.

Onlookers could watch a live video feed in an overflow courtroom, but it offered no view of the jury and only limited images of the defendant, witnesses and exhibits. At one point, prosecutors played a recording that jurors listened to with headphones, with no audio available for the press and public.

The judge rejected a request by media groups, including The Associated Press, to allow pool reporters in the courtroom for much of the trial, letting six reporters in only when the verdict was announced.

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Pregnant women are being turned away from Covid vaccine clinics despite clinical advice, experts have warned as they urged ministers to ramp up efforts to reach unvaccinated groups.

Members of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) told the Guardian that efforts to increase booster jab uptake will not be sufficient to prevent more deaths and hospitalisations, and that ministers must prioritise reaching those who have had no jabs. In particular they urged a focus on pregnant women as only about 15% in the UK have been fully vaccinated. Among all over-12s, the figure is 79%

More detail here on the House of Commons revised guidance to make face masks mandatory for all parliamentary staff - except MPs. (See 18.40).

Aubrey Allegretti writes:

Masks are being made mandatory again for all parliamentary staffers – but not MPs – amid concern over the recent rise in Covid cases and the safety of workers in the Palace of Westminster.

It is the first reintroduction of measures by the parliamentary authorities since restrictions were relaxed over the summer. Those who refuse to wear a face covering will be told they must leave the estate.

New guidance was issued on Tuesday in advance of Rishi Sunak’s budget speech on Wednesday. It said that “all face-to-face meetings with colleagues should be avoided, unless there is a business need” and people should “space out and avoid sitting directly opposite each other in working areas [to] avoid close contact at all times”.

26 Oct 202114.45 EDT

Sarah Marsh

Sarah Marsh reports on the need for clearer messaging on Covid vaccine safety for pregnant women.

She writes that:

As awareness about the illness and vaccine safety has grown, one group in particular remains confused and torn about the risk of immunisation: expectant mothers.

Latest figures from Public Health England show the numbers getting fully vaccinated within this group are still worryingly low: more than 84,000 have received their first dose, with about 67,000 receiving both doses.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) says just 15% of pregnant women have had two doses of the vaccine so far.

• In the UK, the House of Commons has updated its guidance to make face masks mandatory for everybody - except for MPs. Staff, contractors, visitors and press must all now cover their faces, but it is up to individual MPs to decide whether or not they want to, reports the BBC.
• The Covid-19 crisis is far “far from finished”, the World Health Organization’s emergency committee said today. The 19-member committee, which meets every three months to discuss the pandemic and make recommendations, also called for research into next-generation vaccines and long-term action to control the virus.
• Coronavirus restrictions are to return to Belgium on Friday, just weeks after they were relaxed, amid rising cases and hospitalisations. The rules include wearing face masks in public places and mandatory masks for staff at bars, restaurants and fitness clubs. Covid passes will also be required to enter.
• In the UK, the number of patients in hospital with Covid-19 has climbed to its highest level since early March. Government figures show that 8,693 patients were in hospital yesterday – an 11% rise on last week and the highest since 9 March, when 9,009 were recorded.
• A Brazilian senate committee is to vote today on a report recommending President Jair Bolsonaro face criminal indictments over his handling of Covid-19.
• The UK recorded 40,954 new Covid cases today and 263 more people have died, official figures show. Yesterday there were 8,693 patients in hospital with coronavirus – 913 of whom were on beds with mechanical ventilators.
• Scotland’s health service faces the toughest winter in its history because of the twin pressures of Covid and fears over an additional crisis with winter flu cases, ministers have warned.
• Ukraine’s health minister has urged more citizens to get vaccinated after coronavirus deaths hit a daily record today. The country recorded an additional 734 deaths today and hospital admissions are up by more than a fifth on last week.
  
• Human rights experts have raised concerns over vaccine mandates imposed in Cambodia, where authorities say proof of vaccination will be required to obtain a social security card and to enter many public and private spaces in the capital.
• The director of the Oxford Vaccine Group has claimed it is unfair to “bash the UK” over high Covid case numbers and compare it with the rest of Europe because of high levels of testing. Prof Sir Andrew Pollard, who helped create the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, told MPs it was true the UK had high case rates but this was “very much related to the amount of testing”.

That’s it from me for today. Handing over now to my colleague Jane Clinton. Thanks for reading.