Babak Belurs

Minggu, 23 Mei 2021

COVID-19: More than 60 million vaccine doses have been administered in UK, Matt Hancock says - Sky News

More than 60 million coronavirus vaccine doses have now been administered in the UK, Matt Hancock says.

It comes after 762,361 first and second jabs were delivered in total across the country on Saturday - the second highest number since the rollout began late last year. Only 20 March had more vaccines administered - 844,285.

Some 205,410 people in the UK had their first dose of a COVID vaccine on Saturday, taking the total to 37,943,681.

Also, 556,951 people received their second shot on Saturday, meaning 22,643,417 are now fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Health Secretary Mr Hancock described it as a "huge day" for vaccinations.

"This is a fantastic milestone in our fight against this virus," Mr Hancock said on Sunday.

"Thank you to everyone involved in our national effort. When you get the call, get the jab."

In a statement, he also said: "Our trailblazing vaccination programme - the biggest and most successful in NHS history - is another great British success story and a testament to what can be achieved when all four corners of country comes together to defeat this virus.

"Our country has one of the highest uptake rates in the world and I'm delighted that so many have answered our call to arms. If you have not yet come forward, and you are eligible, I urge you to take up the offer - it could save your life and protect your loved ones."

The government has said to ensure people have the strongest possible protection against COVID-19, appointments for second doses have been brought forward from 12 to eight weeks for the remaining people in the top nine priority groups who have yet to receive both doses.

The UK has recorded five more coronavirus-related deaths and 2,235 new cases in the latest 24-hour period, according to government data.

The figures compare with six deaths and 2,694 cases announced on Saturday, while four deaths and 1,926 cases were announced last Sunday.

Mr Hancock says he is "increasingly confident" England is on track for the government's coronavirus roadmap.

His words come after a study by Public Health England (PHE) showed promising results for the two main vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca being used to fight the pandemic in the UK.

Mr Hancock said: "I'm increasingly confident we're on track for the roadmap because this data shows the vaccine after two doses works just as effectively, and we all know that the vaccine is our way out of this."

Under the government's plans, a further easing of social distancing restrictions is due to take place on 21 June at the earliest.

From that date, nightclubs are due to reopen and restrictions on large events such as festivals are to be lifted, as are restrictions on the number of people at weddings.

The PHE study found two weeks after the second dose, the Pfizer vaccine was 88% effective against symptomatic disease from the Indian variant, while the AstraZeneca vaccine was 60% effective.

However, they were only 33% effective three weeks after the first dose, compared with about 50% against the Kent strain.

"What it means for every single person watching is it is even more important than it was before to get the second jab," he said.

Two jabs of the Pfizer vaccine were 93% effective against the Kent variant, while two AstraZeneca jabs had 66% efficacy.

Also, people looking to head from the UK to France could face stronger restrictions due to the prominence of the Indian variant.

Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Britain could be put in a health category of its own, somewhere between EU nations and red list countries like India.

It comes after Germany designated the UK a "virus variant region" on Friday.

Mr Le Drian said, without specifics, that "health measures that are a bit stronger" could be applied for British tourists.

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2021-05-23 15:03:01Z
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Princess Diana was 'scared half to death' by Martin Bashir into doing interview, biographer Andrew Morton says - Sky News

Princess Diana's biographer has said she was scared "half to death" into being interviewed by Martin Bashir due to his lies - but would have spoken her mind in any interview.

Andrew Morton said there was a "mile-long queue outside Kensington Palace" to interview her and there was "no question at all that Diana was going to speak her mind".

He said Bashir would never have got the 1995 interview, but he did as he "scared her half to death".

An inquiry into how Bashir got Diana to speak to him, a relatively junior BBC journalist at the time, found this week he gave Earl Spencer, her brother, fake bank statements showing payments by his former employee to News International and a trust fund.

Lord Dyson, who carried out the independent investigation, also found leading BBC executives covered up Bashir's lies in an inquiry they carried out in 1996.

Mr Morton told Sky News' Trevor Phillips on Sunday: "He had her thinking that he had contacts inside MI5, he was very plausible, he arranged meetings in underground car parks - they're scary at the best of times - but when you think your life is in danger it was very potent.

"She was put in a state of fear and trepidation and that encouraged her to speak out.

"When she gave the interview, it wasn't a case of self-indulgence, as many people thought, but it was a question of self-preservation, she thought she was a target, she thought from what Bashir said she was under the gun, in the sights of the establishment.

"Remember, she lived like this for most of her adult life."

The author and journalist said he disagrees with Prince William and Prince Harry that what she said in the interview was influenced by Bashir.

"Diana wanted to speak her truth and she'd been stifled for a long time," Mr Morton said.

"Yes, she was terrified into doing the interview by Bashir but no, what she had to say was reflective of what she truly felt, 'three of us in the marriage, Queen of people's hearts' - all these things she would have probably said to somebody else, [BBC journalist] Nicholas Witchell or some other journalist.

"It so happened Bashir beat the pack by lying to her and that's how he did it."

Home Secretary Priti Patel has refused to rule out criminal prosecutions following the publication of the Dyson report.

She told Sky News: "If there is subsequent action that needs to be taken, then clearly - alongside the publication of this report and lessons being learned and changes, changes to the institution, structure, governance, accountability - then that will follow."

Scotland Yard has said it will study the report's findings to assess whether it contains any "significant new evidence".

Ms Patel said the planned midterm review of the BBC Charter next year is an opportunity "to look at new ways of governance" of the BBC and will be an opportunity to enhance BBC accountability structures.

She added: "The BBC, one of our greatest institutions, has been compromised, it's being questioned right now and they themselves will have to reflect on the report and spend a great deal of time, I think, looking at how they can regain the trust and confidence of the British public."

Dorothy Byrne, former head of news at Channel 4, said Lord Dyson's findings, including the fact the BBC failed to admit they knew Bashir had faked the documents, are "extremely serious and scandalous".

She told Sky News: "It's also scandalous that Martin Bashir was employed just a few years ago, ironically as head of religion, so it's extremely serious.

"We, as other television journalists, are outraged because it has led some people to smear the whole of our profession when in fact television journalism overwhelmingly is very tightly regulated and not at all like the way tabloid journalists behaves."

She called on the BBC, ITV and US networks Bashir worked for to look at all the other stories he did and said: "I would never have employed Martin Bashir at Channel 4.

"He wouldn't even have got to the door, he's one of the most notorious journalists in Britain and has been for a quarter of a century.

"Other people who've been interviewed by Martin Bashir have complained that he lied to him and we know the BBC wrote a formal letter to ITV about Martin Bashir's conduct on several stories so I think both BBC and ITV need to look at all his scoops."

Ms Byrne added she has never wanted to work for the BBC.

"I've always regarded it as an arrogant organisation of posh white blokes and that's what we saw happen in the scandal," she said.

"But, it is a very good organisation and the journalists are good."

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2021-05-23 09:21:13Z
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Covid: Pfizer and AstraZeneca jabs effective against Indian variant - study - BBC News

A person getting the Pfizer vaccine in Blackburn, UK

The Pfizer and AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccines are highly effective against the variant identified in India after two doses, a study has found.

Two jabs of either vaccine give a similar level of protection against symptomatic disease from the Indian variant as they do for the Kent one.

However, both vaccines were only 33% effective against the Indian variant three weeks after the first dose.

This compared with 50% effectiveness against the Kent variant.

Public Health England, which ran the study, said the vaccines are likely to be even more effective at preventing hospital admission and deaths.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the findings made him "increasingly confident" that the government was on track for the final stage of easing restrictions in England on 21 June.

The data showed that getting both doses of the vaccine was "absolutely vital", he added.

Home Secretary Priti Patel, speaking on Sky News, agreed the success of the vaccine programme is "enabling us all to live our lives".

In terms of the further unlocking planned for next month, she said Boris Johnson had been clear that there are "key tests and key stages" in the run-up to 21 June.

"We will always continue to look at the data when it comes to the next stage of the roadmap," she told Trevor Phillips on Sunday. "That is sensible and responsible."

The Pfizer vaccine was found to be 88% effective at stopping symptomatic disease from the Indian variant two weeks after the second dose, compared with 93% effectiveness against the Kent variant.

The AstraZeneca jab was 60% effective against the Indian variant, compared with 66% against the Kent variant.

Public Health England (PHE) said the difference in effectiveness between the vaccines after two doses might be explained by the fact that rollout of second doses of AstraZeneca was later than for the Pfizer vaccine, which was approved first.

Other data shows it takes longer to reach maximum effectiveness with the AstraZeneca vaccine, PHE said.

Some 12,675 genome-sequenced cases were included in the study, which took place between 5 April and 16 May. Only 1,054 of those cases were of the Indian variant, known as B.1.617.2.

'Get your second dose'

Dr Jenny Harries told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show the study was "very good news".

The chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency said the study is the "first real-world evidence of vaccine effectiveness" against the variant, showing the vaccine is just as effective after two doses as it has been against the Kent variant.

"The straightforward message is 'get your second dose'," she added.

Asked about the discrepancy between the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccine results, she said a key factor to consider was that the "different vaccines were given to slightly different groups of people".

"The Pfizer vaccine was rolled out initially, because it had to be kept at ultra-low temperatures, to - for example - healthcare workers, who tended to be younger," she said.

"This is an all-age study. Whereas AstraZeneca went out to older groups of individuals who were unable to come into main centres."

She stressed that "both of these vaccines are really good" and there will be more refinement of the data.

'Very reassuring'

Analysis box by Nick Triggle, health correspondent

As the virus changes, protection against infection was always going to be the first thing that slips.

So the fact that the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines offer such a high degree of protection against the Indian variant after the second dose is very reassuring given experts expect it to become dominant.

But what are the implications of the drop in effectiveness of the first dose where the Indian variant is concerned?

Given it's expected to become the dominant variant in the UK, it's now even more important people get their second jab.

The more difficult question to answer is what this means for the speed of the route back to normality.

Its ability to evade the vaccines even by a small degree will be a factor in how more transmissible this variant is here.

There are also other biological reasons why it might find it easier to spread.

But this does not necessarily mean we will see a surge in cases and, crucially, hospital admissions - the protection vaccines give us against serious illness will be much much higher than their ability to block mild infections.

The Indian variant certainly gives the virus a bit more of an advantage, but it doesn't mean the vaccines won't win out.

The study looked at data from all age groups from 5 April, to cover the period since the Indian variant emerged.

There is not enough data to estimate how effective the vaccine is against severe outcomes for the Indian variant, PHE said.

Dr Jamie Lopez Bernal, consultant medical epidemiologist at PHE and the study's lead author, said there was higher confidence in the data from the first vaccine dose than that from the second.

He said: "There are bigger numbers that have been vaccinated with one dose. So I think we classify that as moderate certainty around the first dose, but low levels of confidence around the second dose."

However, Prof Susan Hopkins, PHE's Covid-19 strategic response director, said the data trend was "quite clear" and was heading in the "right direction".

Meanwhile, Gordon Brown has urged Prime Minister Boris Johnson to use next month's G7 summit in Cornwall to step up funding of the global Covid vaccine rollout.

In an interview for BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend, the former prime minister said what rich countries had given so far would not meet the needs of this year and next year.

He said: "If we allow this vaccine inequality to continue then we will have half the world vaccinated and protected, the other half unvaccinated and liable to be at greatest risk of dying.

"The disease will continue to spread and it will mutate and it will come back to haunt even the vaccinated in our own country."

In other news, more than 50 million coronavirus vaccine doses have now been given in England. More than 31 million people have had their first jab, and over 18m have had their second.

Some 13,000 deaths and 39,100 hospitalisations have been prevented in the UK due to the vaccination programme up to 9 May, according to PHE analysis.

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2021-05-23 08:54:40Z
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