Babak Belurs

Jumat, 22 Januari 2021

Covid vaccine: 'No impact' on delivery after Storm Christoph floods - BBC News

There have been "no adverse effects" on the coronavirus vaccine roll-out caused by recent flooding, the Welsh Government has said.

Homes were evacuated in Skewen, Neath Port Talbot, on Thursday as heavy rain caused issues across the country.

Swansea Bay health board said none of its mass vaccination centres or GP surgeries had been affected by floods.

It added anyone struggling to get to a vaccination appointment because of the flooding would be able to rearrange.

Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board also said it was not aware of flooding in north Wales causing any issues for the vaccine roll-out.

Wrexham council leader Mark Pritchard said on Thursday that teams worked to ensure the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, made on Wrexham Industrial Estate, was not lost in the floods.

The latest figures released on Friday showed 212,317 people in Wales had received their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, with a further 415 receiving a second dose.

About 80 people in Skewen had to be evacuated from their homes after streets were left under water.

Fire crews returned to the scene on Friday to continue to pump floodwater away from houses.

Meanwhile, a family in Rossett, Wrexham county, had to be rescued by helicopter after their home became surrounded by floodwater on Thursday night.

On Friday, Health Minister Vaughan Gething told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast that efforts to rehouse those affected by the floods were being done in "as Covid-secure a way as possible".

Dorothy Edwards, Covid-19 vaccination programme director for Swansea Bay health board, said: "None of our mass vaccination centres have been impacted by flooding and we're not aware of any particular issues in primary care.

"Of course we will be sympathetic if there are people struggling to get to their appointment and if they are booked in at an mass vaccination centres they need to ring the booking line and the appointment will be rearranged."

The Welsh Government said: "There have been no adverse effects on the vaccine roll-out due to flooding."

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2021-01-22 22:53:00Z
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New coronavirus strain “may be more deadly” says Boris Johnson - BBC News - BBC News

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2021-01-22 22:23:51Z
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Coronavirus: UK variant 'may be more deadly' - BBC News

Nurses monitor patients on a COVID-19 ward at Milton Keynes University Hospital

Early evidence suggests the variant of coronavirus that emerged in the UK may be more deadly, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.

However, there remains huge uncertainty around the numbers - and vaccines are still expected to work.

The data comes from mathematicians comparing death rates in people infected with either the new or the old versions of the virus.

The new more infectious variant has already spread widely across the UK.

Mr Johnson told a Downing Street briefing: "In addition to spreading more quickly, it also now appears that there is some evidence that the new variant - the variant that was first identified in London and the south east - may be associated with a higher degree of mortality.

"It's largely the impact of this new variant that means the NHS is under such intense pressure."

UK R number 'between 0.8 and 1'

Public Health England, Imperial College London, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University of Exeter have each been trying to assess how deadly the new variant is.

Their evidence has been assessed by scientists on the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag).

The group concluded there was a "realistic possibility" that the virus had become more deadly, but this is far from certain.

Sir Patrick Vallance, the government's chief scientific adviser, described the data so far as "not yet strong".

He said: "I want to stress that there's a lot of uncertainty around these numbers and we need more work to get a precise handle on it, but it obviously is a concern that this has an increase in mortality as well as an increase in transmissibility."

Previous work suggests the new variant spreads between 30% and 70% faster than others, and there are hints it is about 30% more deadly.

For example, with 1,000 60-year-olds infected with the old variant, 10 of them might be expected to die. But this rises to about 13 with the new variant.

This difference is found when looking at everyone testing positive for Covid, but analysing only hospital data has found no increase in the death rate. Hospital care has improved over the course of the pandemic as doctors get better at treating the disease.

How a £20 gadget could save lives

The new variant was first detected in Kent in September. It is now the most common form of the virus in England and Northern Ireland, and has spread to more than 50 other countries.

The Pfizer and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine are both expected to work against the variant that emerged in the UK.

However, Sir Patrick said there was more concern about two other variants that had emerged in South Africa and Brazil.

He said: "They have certain features which means they might be less susceptible to vaccines.

"They are definitely of more concern than the one in the UK at the moment and we need to keep looking at it and studying this very carefully."

The prime minister said the government was prepared to take further action to protect the country's borders to prevent new variants from entering.

"I really don't rule it out, we may need to take further measures still," he said.

Last week the government extended a travel ban to South America, Portugal and many African countries amid concerns about new variants, while all international travellers must now test negative ahead of departure to the UK and go into quarantine on arrival.

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2021-01-22 20:00:00Z
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Coronavirus: UK R number 'between 0.8 and 1' - BBC News

The UK is at an "extremely precarious" point, according to the chief medical adviser, despite signs Covid infections are beginning to fall.

The virus's reproduction rate is estimated to be at or below one for the first time since early December.

Anything below one means the epidemic is shrinking.

But cases are falling from a "very, very high level", Prof Chris Whitty said - and may still be increasing in some areas.

"A very small change and it could start taking off again from an extremely high base," he warned.

Speaking at a Number 10 press conference on Friday evening, the UK's chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, said the "awful" death rate would stay high "for a little while before it starts coming down".

"That was always what was predicted...and I think the information about the new variant doesn't change that".

Early evidence suggests the variant of coronavirus that emerged in the UK may be more deadly, although findings are preliminary and there is a high level of uncertainty.

Dr Susan Hopkins at Public Health England said there was "evidence from some but not all data sources which suggests that the variant of concern which was first detected in the UK may lead to a higher risk of death than the non-variant.

"Evidence on this variant is still emerging and more work is under way to fully understand how it behaves."

The Department of Health and Social Care said while the UK's R or reproduction number, might be below one - meaning a shrinking epidemic - overall, "cases remain dangerously high and...it is essential that everyone continues to stay at home, whether they have had the vaccine or not."

Meanwhile, Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures suggested cases were decreasing slightly or levelling off across Britain.

But infections are falling more slowly than they did during the first lockdown - by somewhere around a quarter every fortnight compared with a halving back in April.

A further 40,261 cases, and 1,401 deaths were recorded on Friday in the UK.

More than five million people had been given a first dose of the vaccine by 21 January, and about half a million had received their second dose.

'Rates remain high'

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has previously said it is "too early" to say whether England's Covid restrictions will be able to end in the spring.

While cases are falling or stable across the rest of the UK, in Northern Ireland cases have continued to rise and the new, more infectious strain has overtaken the older variant of the virus as of the start of January.

During the week ending 16 January, about one in 55 people in England had the virus, the ONS estimated, with one in 35 in London testing positive.

One in 100 people had the virus in Scotland and one in 70 in Wales.

But in Northern Ireland infections have shot up from an an estimated one in 200 people testing positive in the week to 2 January, to one in 60 last week.

ONS statistician Sarah Crofts said while fewer people were testing positive in England, "rates remain high and we estimate the level of infection is still over one million people".

And, she pointed out, "the picture across the UK is mixed".

A survey by tech company ZOE and King's College London, based on swabs of people with and without symptoms, also suggested the R number could be at 0.8.

And it estimated symptomatic cases had fallen by a quarter since last week.

Meanwhile, the proportion of people testing positive for the new Covid variant has risen considerably in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, ONS data suggest.

But the new strain, which remains by far the main source of infections in England, has yet to overtake the old strain in Scotland and Wales.

Within England, the proportion of infections that appear to be due to the new variant remained stable, but the gap between the regions is narrowing.

In the figures covering 2 January, 80% of infections looked like the new variant in London compared to 30% in the North East.

Two weeks later, that gap had narrowed to 70% in London versus 50% in the North East.

It is not clear what is behind the small fall in London, but it may be down to behaviour change, or other variants like the South Africa strain now in circulation and diluting the numbers.

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2021-01-22 18:51:00Z
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Covid variant found in UK may be more deadly than others, says Boris Johnson - CNN

"We've been informed that in addition to spreading more quickly... there is some evidence that the new variant... may be more associated with a higher degree of mortality," Johnson said at a news conference on Friday.

"Both the vaccines we're currently using remain effective both against the old variant and this new variant," he added.

The UK's chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, elaborated on the evidence.

Vallance said patients who were hospitalized with the new variant did not appear to have a higher risk of dying compared to those hospitalized with the original form of the virus.

"However, when data are looked at in terms of... anyone who has tested positive there is evidence that there is an increased risk for those who have the new variant compared to the old [one.]"

Vallance added that the evidence was not yet strong and that the data remained uncertain.

"If you took... a man in their 60s, the average risk is that for 1,000 people who got infected, roughly 10 would be expected to unfortunately die with the virus. With the new variant, for 1,000 people infected, roughly 13 or 14 people might be expected to die," he said Friday.

Vallance added: "That's the sort of change for that sort of age group, an increase from 10 to 13 or 14 out of 1,000 and you will see that across the different age groups as well, a similar sort of relative increase in the risk."

The new variant was first detected in southeast England and is believed to be between 30 to 70% more transmissible than the previous ones, Vallance said.

The UK recorded a further 1,401 coronavirus-related deaths over the past 24 hours, government data showed Friday -- up from Thursday's daily increase of 1,290 deaths.

The total number of people in the country who have died within 28 days of a positive test now stands at 95,981.

Vallance said Friday that there was "increasing evidence" that the existing Covid-19 vaccines would work against the UK strain but sounded a note of caution about the variants detected in Brazil and South Africa.

"We are more concerned that they have certain features which means they might be less susceptible to vaccines," he said, though he added that researchers needed "more clinical information" about the variants.

Chief Medical Officer for England Chris Whitty said Friday that there were "definite signs of improvement" in both the number of people infected with coronavirus in England and in hospital admission data.

The number of new Covid-19 infections registered in the UK over the last 24 hours is also up on Thursday's figure. A total of 40,261 additional cases have been confirmed, bringing the total number of cases recorded in the UK since the pandemic began to 3,583,907.

Public Health England has continued to call for citizens to adhere to government guidance, warning once again on Friday that "not everyone with coronavirus shows symptoms" and urging for people to stay at home.

The UK remains under a strict lockdown.

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2021-01-22 17:56:00Z
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