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London: Boris Johnson has delayed the final unlocking of England’s economy because of resurgence in coronavirus due to the more transmissible Delta variant.
The British Prime Minister – already under pressure for waiting until April 23 to impose hotel quarantine on arrivals from India, where the Delta variant was originally detected – announced the decision at a press conference at Downing Street.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday postponed the easing of England’s remaining COVID-19 restrictions.Credit:Getty
Johnson said he bitterly regretted the four-week delay to restoring normal life, but that holding off would save lives.
He announced an earlier target for the country’s vaccination rollout saying that every adult would be offered their first dose before July 19. He said by that stage he was determined the country would be fully unlocked, barring unforeseeable new variants.
“I bitterly regret the fact that we must be cautious now,” he said. “We want a road map that is irreversible and to achieve an irreversible road map you have to be cautious.
“And the objective of this short delay is to use these valuable, crucial weeks to save thousands of lives – lives that would otherwise be lost, I’m afraid – by vaccinating millions more people as fast as we can. July 19 will be a terminus date.”
People aged over 40 will have their second dose brought forward, meaning that two-thirds of the British population is set to be fully vaccinated by July 19 – seven months after the first jab was administered.
The Delta variant makes up 96 per cent of the UK’s current infections, which numbered 7742 – up 45 per cent in the last week.
Read more: Johnson sets final deadline for easing England’s COVID-19 restrictions
If you’ve woken up with a bit of a sore throat, runny nose or loss of your sense of taste or smell - even the mildest of cold symptoms - it’s time for a test. Waiting times at testing sites are down today, with Sandringham Hospital the only site listing a wait time longer than 30 minutes.
A number of the pop-up sites that were opened at the start of the latest outbreak have also closed for testing, so - as always - it’s worth checking the Department of Health website for the latest information about where to go.
As for vaccination sites, the big news over the weekend was a pause in walk-ins for Pfizer to prioritise people getting their second dose. For now, Pfizer vaccinations are limited to priority groups. Health authorities informed the coronavirus hotline and mass vaccination hubs to stop taking bookings from 40- to 49-year-olds seeking a first dose due to ongoing supply issues.
People aged 50 and over can still walk in to some sites for AstraZeneca. Here’s a list of those sites: https://www.coronavirus.vic.gov.au/vaccination-centres
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There have been three new tier 2 locations added to the Victorian Health Department’s official list of exposure sites on Monday, including two retail outlets in Docklands and a Coles outlet in Taylors Lakes - taking the total number to 132.
There have been no new sites added yet today, but here’s the complete list if you didn’t get a chance to look over the long weekend.
A reminder: tier 2 means get tested urgently and isolate until you have a negative result.
The good news today is that there were no new locally acquired cases and active cases in the state are falling. But so are testing and vaccination numbers, in news that is far less welcome.
On Saturday, COVID-19 commander Jeroen Weimar spoke at the press conference about how he would like to see testing numbers stay above 20,000 a day to be absolutely certain there is no hidden circulation.
Victoria has recorded no new locally acquired COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, but three were found in hotel quarantine.
There were 15,067 tests received, and 9997 vaccines given.
There are 54 active cases in the state.
Read more: Victoria records no new local cases of coronavirus
In a small flat above his family’s clothing store on Moree’s main shopping strip, Daniel Assef has seen out an unusually dull long weekend.
“It’s normally a really busy weekend for us, because there’s the races at Mallawa,” Mr Assef said.
Four generations of Moree’s Assef family, whose clothing store was visited by a couple who tested positive to COVID-19 last week.Credit:Grace Quast
Instead, Assef’s, a pastel art deco arcade opened by his grandfather in 1940, temporarily closed its doors last week after 10 of its staff were directed to self-isolate by health authorities.
It was one of a number of Moree businesses affected after a Melbourne couple drove up the Newell Highway before testing positive to COVID-19.
NSW recorded no new coronavirus cases on Monday, nearly two weeks after the couple entered the state on Tuesday, June 1, driving north before crossing the border at Goondiwindi on Saturday, June 5, and continuing on to the Sunshine Coast.
Testing has so far not revealed any instance of transmission from the couple to those with whom they came in contact in NSW or Queensland.
Although their stores have been cleaned and are allowed to reopen, affected businesses in Moree said they did not have the staff available to do their usual trade due to the isolation requirements for those working when the couple passed through.
Assef’s will begin trading again on Thursday, when its staff will be released from isolation provided they return negative second tests on Tuesday.
Mr Assef, who said the large store would have to be run by just his mother and two casual employees if it were to reopen before Thursday, has spent his isolation period living by himself above the shop, away from his wife and children.
He was grateful his 91-year-old grandmother Mona, a local bridge champion who moved to Moree from Lebanon in 1950 and has been a fixture at the store for the 71 years since, was not about when the couple visited at 3pm on Thursday, June 3.
“She makes me my lunch every day,” he said.
Read more: ‘It’s normally a really busy weekend’: A town waits nervously for COVID clearance
More than 4400 general practices will be able to administer the Pfizer vaccine while another 850 rural and regional clinics and 1000 pharmacies will deliver Moderna injections from October as the vaccine rollout sprints to the end of the year.
Doctors will also be paid to make home visits to vaccinate the frail and elderly who cannot visit clinics to get immunised and ensure people moving into aged care facilities do not miss out.
From October more than 4400 GPs will be able to deliver Pfizer while another 850 GPs and 1000 pharmacies will deliver Moderna injections.Credit:Fairfax Media
The Commonwealth has also started writing to all Australians over the age of 70, thanking those who have already been vaccinated and urging the rest to book in for their shots.
So far, more than 5 million people have now had at least one dose of a vaccine, including 61 per cent of Australians aged over 70.
Health Minister Greg Hunt said the vaccination rate was good but could be better.
“We want to continue to encourage more people of every age group, but particularly the over 70s to come forward,” he said on Monday. “The older you are, the higher the risk, it’s as simple as that with COVID.”
All Australians over the age of 40 are now eligible for vaccination, and already a number of Commonwealth-run vaccination clinics have started administering Pfizer.
From July, 300 general practices will begin to deliver Pfizer alongside AstraZeneca. That will increase to 650 clinics by the end of the month and then ramp up as supplies increase through August and September, Mr Hunt said.
“As we go into the last quarter we’ll have over 27 million Pfizer doses, and that will be all hands on deck,” he said.
A small number of general practices have withdrawn from the COVID-19 vaccination program, a Department of Health spokeswoman said, due to reasons such as workforce shortages or a lack of infrastructure such as the fridges required to keep the vaccines cold.
But from the middle of June, more than 850 GPs will join the rollout to increase vaccine coverage in rural and regional areas.
Subject to supply and approval, about 1000 pharmacies will start putting Moderna vaccines into arms from October.
Read more: Pfizer for GPs, Moderna for rural clinics and pharmacies in plan for vaccine ramp-up
Vaccine maker Novavax has said that its shot demonstrates high efficacy against COVID-19 and also protects against variants in a large, late-stage study in the US and Mexico.
The study showed about 90 per cent efficacy overall, with preliminary data showing it was safe, the company said on Monday.
A large Novavax study shows the COVID-19 vaccine has high overall efficacy.Credit:Andrew Caballero - Getty
While demand for COVID-19 shots in the US has dropped off dramatically, the need for more vaccines around the world remains critical. The Novavax vaccine, which is easy to store and transport, is expected to play an important role in boosting vaccine supplies in the developing world.
That help is still months away, however. The company says it plans to seek authorisation for the shots in the US, Europe and elsewhere, including Australia, by the end of September and be able to produce up to 100 million doses a month by then.
The Australian government has ordered 51 million doses of Novavax’s product. In May, the company outlined plans to make doses of its coronavirus vaccine in Australia after revealing it is searching for a manufacturing partner to produce its protein-based jab onshore.
The US company’s plans to explore setting up shop in Australia come one week after fellow US biotech Moderna said it was in talks with the federal government about local manufacturing opportunities.
“Many of our first doses will go to … low- and middle-income countries, and that was the goal to begin with,” Novavax chief executive Stanley Erck said.
While more than half of the US population has had at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, less than 1 per cent of people in the developing world have had one shot, Our World In Data has said.
Novavax’s study involved nearly 30,000 people aged 18 and over in the US and Mexico. Two-thirds received two doses of the vaccine, three weeks apart, and the rest got dummy shots.
Read more: Novavax COVID-19 shot shows 90 per cent efficacy, large study finds
Victoria’s Deputy Chief Health Officer Allen Cheng says it is unlikely to ever be known how the highly infectious Delta variant of coronavirus leaked out of Victoria’s quarantine system and seeded an outbreak in Melbourne.
Professor Cheng told The Age on Monday the state’s health officials had exhausted every avenue in their four working theories probing how the Delta variant crept into Melbourne unchecked, sparking a cluster that has so far infected at least 15 people, including several children.
The Holiday Inn on Flinders Lane.Credit:Luis Ascui
They found no evidence the contagious variant, which first emerged in Melbourne on June 4, had spread among quarantine workers, hotel staff or guests. There was also no indication there had been any breach of infection control measures in Victoria’s hotel quarantine system.
“We have been through everyone and we can’t identify anyone else who has been infected or determine what exactly occurred,” Professor Cheng said. “Obviously, now it is getting to be many weeks after it might have happened, so I don’t think it is likely we are ever going to be able to find out how it happened now.”
Last week, genomic sequencing identified a link between a returned traveller who entered Victoria’s hotel quarantine on May 8 and one of the families infected in what has now been dubbed the West Melbourne cluster, where the Delta variant of the virus sent at least 300 people linked to the North Melbourne Primary School into isolation.
But how the virus was linked between the two cases remains a mystery.
Read more: Source of Melbourne’s highly infectious Delta outbreak set to remain mystery
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2021-06-15 00:09:32Z
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