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World News / Covid-19: The United Kingdom registered 54,990 COVID-19 cases within the past 24 hours, a drop from 57,725 the day before, according to government figures.
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This takes the total number of registered cases in the country to 2,654,779.
At the same time, an additional 454 fatalities, up from 445 on Saturday, put the overall death toll at 75,024.
UK's health authorities do not keep a tally of recoveries, which leaves the number of active cases in the country unknown.
The UK may have been the origin of a new strain of the coronavirus which is believed to be 70 percent more infectious than its predecessor and may be driving the new wave of transmissions.
AstraZeneca had signed an agreement with Serum Institute of India (SII) to produce 1 billion doses of its experimental vaccine for low- and middle-income countries.
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India News/ Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker: A government’s expert panel has reportedly approved the vaccine, developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, for emergency use in India to provide immunity against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19). According to news agency Reuters, a subject expert committee, set up by Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) to vet Covid-19 vaccine proposals, recommended granting emergency use authorisation to AstraZeneca’s vaccine AZD1222, dubbed in India as Covishield.
AstraZeneca had signed an agreement with Serum Institute of India (SII) to produce 1 billion doses of its experimental vaccine for low- and middle-income countries. The Pune-based company has sought an emergency use authorisation for the Covid-19 vaccine which recently received approval from British regulators.
Britain’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) on Wednesday authorised the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine for deployment across the United Kingdom on the conditions that the vaccine should be administered in two doses, with the second dose given between 4 and 12 weeks after the first.
Here’s all you need to know about the vaccine:
Efficacy: In two different dosing regimens, the AstraZeneca-Oxford Covid-19 vaccine showed the efficacy of 90 per cent and 62 per cent. In participants who received two full doses at least one month apart, vaccine efficacy was 62 per cent, and in participants who received a low dose followed by a full dose, efficacy was 90 per cent.
Safety: The Lancet publication, a leading medical journal, has confirmed that AZD1222 was well tolerated and there were no serious safety events confirmed related to the vaccine. The safety data published is from over 20,000 participants, so far, enrolled across four clinical trials in the UK and Brazil and South Africa.
Storage: The AstraZeneca-Oxford Covid-19 vaccine can be stored, transported and handled at normal refrigerated conditions (2°C to 8°C) for at least six months.
Cost: Adar Poonawalla, the chief executive officer of SII, had told Hindustan Times that Covidshield will be priced in India at Rs 500-600.
Technology: AZD1222 is made of a weakened and modified version of adenovirus (a common cold virus) that causes infections in chimpanzees and contains the genetic material of the SARS-CoV-2 virus spike protein. After vaccination, the surface spike protein is produced, priming the immune system to attack the SARS-CoV-2 virus if it later infects the body.
Three of the patients are in NIMHANS, Bengaluru, two in Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology, Hyderabad and one in National Institute of Virology, Pune.
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World News/ Covid-19 : Six cases of a mutant strain of coronavirus that first surfaced in the UK, have been detected in the country. The new strain is believed to be 70 per cent more infectious, but doctors have said there is no reason yet to believe that it is more lethal or will not be controlled by a vaccine. All six patients have recently returned from the UK, where cases have spiralled within days.
Three of the patients are in NIMHANS, Bengaluru, two in Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology, Hyderabad and one in National Institute of Virology, Pune.
All patients have been kept in "single room isolation" in designated healthcare facilities by the state governments. Their close contacts have also been put under quarantine. Comprehensive contact tracing has been started for co-travellers, their families and others, the government said.
Around 33,000 passengers arrived from the UK between November 25 and December 23. Of them, 114 have tested positive for Covid. Genome sequencing for other specimens is on, the government has said. The states where these passengers arrived, meanwhile, is tracing them and their contacts for Covid RT-PCR tests.
The UK strain surfaces at a time the spread of the infection -- after hitting a peak in September -- has slowed down. Over the last 24 hours, the country logged 16,432 cases -- the lowest since June 24, when 15,968 cases were recorded. The overall coronavirus figure is now 1,02,24,303, the highest after the US.
"The situation is under careful watch and regular advice is being provided to the States for enhanced surveillance, containment, testing & dispatch of samples to INSACOG labs," read a government statement announcing the UK strain.
The government had released details of the genomic surveillance consortium INSACOG, which has been formed to detect the presence of different strains of coronavirus in India. Ten labs across the country will be carrying out genome sequencing.
Besides UK returnees, 5 per cent samples of people who tested positive in the country since November 23 will also be sent for genome sequencing. The samples must have "proper representation particularly from the metro cities where there is high probability of having the new SARS-CoV-2 variant", the government said.
Regular monitoring will help in understanding the evolution of the virus, its effect on transmission of the disease and will also assist in developing potential vaccines in the future, the government said.
On December 21, India temporarily banned flights from the UK and soon extended it to the Vande Bharat flights. The bar was to stay in place till December 31. Mumbai, the city hit worst by coronavirus, announced a night curfew.
The day before, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson had announced the emergence of the new strain.
"Given the early evidence we have on this new variant of the virus, and the potential risk it poses, it is with a heavy heart that I must tell you we cannot continue with Christmas as planned," his tweet read.
The strain – described as out of control" by British health secretary Matt Hancock – was first detected in southeast England in September and quickly became the dominant strain in London and other parts of the UK.
So far, several nations including Denmark, Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Lebanon and Singapore have reported the detection of the UK strain.
World News/Covid-19 :A Chinese court on Monday handed down a four-year jail term to a citizen-journalist who reported from the central city of Wuhan at the peak of this year’s coronavirus outbreak on the grounds of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, her lawyer said.
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Zhang Zhan, 37, the first such person known to have been tried, was among a handful of people whose firsthand accounts from crowded hospitals and empty streets painted a more dire picture of the pandemic epicentre than the official narrative.
“I don’t understand. All she did was say a few true words, and for that she got four years,” said Shao Wenxia, Zhang’s mother, who attended the trial with her husband.
Zhang’s lawyer Ren Quanniu told Reuters: “We will probably appeal.”
The trial was held at a court in Pudong, a district of the business hub of Shanghai.“Ms Zhang believes she is being persecuted for exercising her freedom of speech,” Ren had said before the trial.
Critics say that China deliberately arranged for Zhang’s trial to take place during the Western holiday season to minimize Western attention and scrutiny. U.S. President Donald Trump has regularly criticised Beijing for covering up the emergence of what he calls the “China virus”.
The United Nations human rights office called in a tweet for Zhang’s release.
“We raised her case with the authorities throughout 2020 as an example of the excessive clampdown on freedom of expression linked to #COVID19 & continue to call for her release,” it said.
Criticism of China’s early handling of the crisis has been censored, and whistle-blowers such as doctors warned. State media have credited the country’s success in reining in the virus to the leadership of President Xi Jinping.
The virus has spread worldwide to infect more than 80 million people and kill more than 1.76 million, paralysing air travel as nations threw up barriers that have disrupted industries and livelihoods.
In Shanghai, police enforced tight security outside the court where the trial opened seven months after Zhang’s detention, although some supporters were undeterred.
A man in a wheelchair, who told Reuters he came from the central province of Henan to demonstrate support for Zhang as a fellow Christian, wrote her name on a poster before police escorted him away.
Foreign journalists were denied entry to the court “due to the epidemic”, court security officials said.
A former lawyer, Zhang arrived in Wuhan on Feb. 1 from her home in Shanghai.
Her short video clips uploaded to YouTube consist of interviews with residents, commentary and footage of a crematorium, train stations, hospitals and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Detained in mid-May, she went on hunger strike in late June, court documents seen by Reuters say. Her lawyers told the court that police strapped her hands and force-fed her with a tube. By December, she was suffering headaches, giddiness, stomach ache, low blood pressure and a throat infection.
Requests to the court to release Zhang on bail before the trial and livestream the trial were ignored, her lawyer said.
Other citizen-journalists who have disappeared in China without explanation include Fang Bin, Chen Qiushi and Li Zehua.
While there has been no news of Fang, Li re-emerged in a YouTube video in April to say he was forcibly quarantined, while Chen, although released, is under surveillance and has not spoken publicly, a friend has said.
World News/ Covid-19 : Romanian nurse Ionut Ivan has spent the last nine months caring for so many coronavirus patients he has lost count.
But that has not dimmed his enthusiasm for bringing some festive cheer, dressing up as Santa Claus and distributing fruit and sweets to the almost 100 COVID-19 patients currently hospitalised at the Marius Nasta institute in Bucharest.
His protective suit is red and a fake white beard made of wadding is taped to the edges of his mask and gown. He wears a Santa cap held in place by his face shield.
“Ho ho ho, Santa has come bearing gifts, though in this place I wish you health,” he tells Gheorghe Iulian Butca, a 63-year-old patient in the intensive care unit above the machine noise. “It’s good to see you.”
The European Union state has reported 604,251 coronavirus cases since February and 14,766 deaths and the pandemic has brought Romania’s underdeveloped healthcare system into focus.
“We are at maximum capacity,” the institute’s manager Beatrice Mahler said. “We exceed the allotted number of COVID-19 beds daily, a situation we have been facing for more than a month.”
Mahler said Santa Claus visits the hospital’s children wing every year, but that in 2020 he expanded to adults because “he needs to offer a spark of hope and joy to COVID-19 patients”.
Brindusa Gheorghiu, a 45-year-old veterinarian in intensive care for almost a week, said her Christmas wish was to get better and return to her husband and child. But for now she was making do with the good cheer of nurse Ivan.
“We are fighting to live and we are feeling better with him here,” she said.
Bollywood News/ India News:Superstar Rajinikanth has been admitted in the hospital. The actor, who had tested negative for Covid-19 recently, seems to possess severe fluctuations in his blood pressure and is being monitored for the same at a private hospital in Hyderabad. Rajinikanth was shooting for his upcoming film, Annaatthe within the city, but the was placed on hold after four crew members tested positive for Covid-19.
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The hospital authorities released a press release today about his health condition. The statement read, "Mr Rajinikanth has been admitted in the hospital today in the morning. He was shooting for a movie in Hyderabad since the last 10 days. a couple of people on the sets tested positive for Covid-19. Mr Rajinikanth was tested on 22nd December for Covid-19 and he was negative. Since then he has isolated himself and was monitored closely.
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Though he did not have any symptoms of Covid-19, his blood pressure showed severe fluctuations and needed further evaluation for which he has been admitted to the hospital. He will be investigated and monitored closely in the hospital till his blood pressure settles down before being discharged. apart from fluctuating blood pressure and exhausation. he does not have any other symptoms and is hemodynamically stable. "
Earlier, Annaatthe producers Sun Pictures had shared on their social media page, "Announcement : During routine testing at #Annaathe shoot 4 crew members have tested positive for Covid19. Superstar @rajinikanth
and other crew members have tested negative. To ensure utmost safety #Annaatthe shooting has been postponed."
Announcement : During routine testing at #Annaathe shoot 4 crew members have tested positive for Covid19. Superstar @rajinikanth and other crew members have tested negative. To ensure utmost safety #Annaatthe shooting has been postponed.
Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker/India News: India is probably going to approve Oxford/AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine for emergency use by next week after its local manufacturer submitted additional data sought by authorities, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.
This could be the first country to give the regulatory green light for British drugmaker’s vaccine because the British medicine regulator continues to look at data from the trials.
India, the world’s biggest vaccine-making country, wants to start out inoculating its citizens next month and is additionally considering emergency use authorisation applications for vaccines made by Pfizer Inc and native company Bharat Biotech.
Getting vaccines to the world’s second-most populous country with one among the very best infection rates also will be an enormous step within the battle against the pandemic.
The AstraZeneca-Oxford shot is taken into account vital for lower-income countries and people in hot climates because it's cheaper, easier to move and may be stored for long periods at normal fridge temperatures.
India's Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) first reviewed the three applications on Dec. 9 here and sought more information from all the businesses , including from Serum Institute of India (SII), which is making the AstraZeneca shots.
SII, the world's biggest vaccine manufacturer, has now provided all the info , the 2 sources said. The authorities were still expecting more details from Pfizer, a government health adviser told here a news briefing on Tuesday, while one among the sources said additional information was expected from Bharat Biotech.
Both sources said Indian health officials were in direct contact with their British counterparts over the AstraZeneca shot which there have been “strong indications” an approval would come by next week.
The expected approval comes after data from AstraZeneca’s late-stage trials within the UK and Brazil released earlier this month showed the vaccine had efficacy of 62% for trial participants given two full doses, but 90% for a smaller sub-group given a half, then a full dose.
The Indian regulator is merely considering the 2 full-dose regimen of the shot despite it showing a lower success rate, the sources said.
“Serum is ready,” said one of the sources. “Initially, we may get around 50 million to 60 million doses.”
The sources declined to be named as deliberations were ongoing and therefore the timeline could change.
CDSCO chief V.G. Somani didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Bharat Biotech and Pfizer declined to comment, while SII didn't immediately answer an email seeking comment.
India has not yet signed a vaccine supply affect any company, but SII has already stockpiled quite 50 million doses of the AstraZeneca shot and plans to form a complete of 400 million doses by July.
World News/ Covid-19 : Britain’s European neighbours began closing their doors to travellers from the United Kingdom on Sunday amid alarm about a rapidly spreading strain of coronavirus that has caused cases to soar there.
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France said it would bar all people coming from the United Kingdom for 48 hours from Sunday night, including freight carriers, whether by road, air, sea or rail.
Germany, Italy and the Netherlands ordered a suspension of flights from Britain, while Ireland said it would impose restrictions on flights and ferries from its neighbour.
Belgium said it would close its borders to flights and trains - including the popular Eurostar service - coming from the United Kingdom.
“The COVID variant recently discovered in London is worrying and will need to be investigated by our scientists,” Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza said.
“In the meantime we choose the path of maximum prudence.”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Saturday that the new strain had led to spiralling infection numbers. His government tightened its COVID-19 restrictions for London and nearby areas, and also reversed plans to ease restrictions over the Christmas period.
The travel curbs also compound problems for the United Kingdom as it finally exits the European Union on Dec. 31 after a transition period this year. London and Brussels have so far failed to reach a post-Brext trade deal, raising the prospect of chaos in goods traffic.
The German government said all flights from the United Kingdom would be suspended from midnight.
“It (the virus mutation) has not yet been identified in Germany,” Health Minister Jens Spahn told public broadcaster ARD. “But of course we take the reports from Britain very seriously.”
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo said the ban on incoming travel from Britain covers Eurostar services via the Channel Tunnel and will take effect for at least 24 hours from midnight on Sunday, broadcaster VRT said.
The Italian order blocked any flights departing from Britain and prohibited anyone who had transited through it in the last 14 days from entering Italy.
The Netherlands banned flights carrying passengers from the United Kingdom from Sunday and the restrictions will remain in place until Jan. 1, the Dutch government said.
Austria is also planning to ban flights from Britain, the APA news agency said, citing the health ministry. Sweden said it was preparing a decision to ban entry from the United Kingdom.
Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic also announced plans to bar flights from the United Kingdom.
At London’s St. Pancras International station, the terminal for Eurostar, thousands of travellers tried to secure places on trains.
“We got the last two tickets for today,” said a Frenchman named Leny. “We each respectively had tickets for Monday and Tuesday. But given the situation and what is happening we didn’t want to take any risk. And we were the last to be able to do so.”
The new variant in Britain has added a twist to a battle against the virus that many countries in Europe are waging.
The number of coronavirus cases in Britain surged by 35,928 on Sunday, the highest daily rise since the start of the pandemic, and it recorded 326 deaths, taking the official toll to more than 67,000.
In addition to the measures announced for England, the United Kingdom’s other nations, who control their own anti-coronavirus policies, tightened restrictions. Scotland has imposed a ban on travel to the rest of the United Kingdom.
UK PM Boris Johnson announced the creation of a new tier – Tier 4 – within the Covid-19 alert system, under which towns and areas in England are placed. London has been within the top Tier 3 with the toughest restrictions, but has gone further within the lockdown-like Tier 4
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World News/ Covid-19: Rapid transmission of a newly-discovered variant of Covid-19 in London and nearby areas prompted UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday to place the capital under similar restrictions that were imposed under the national lockdown in November, while relaxations allowed for Christmas are cancelled.
The new variant, he said, was no less lethal than the original version and there's no evidence that a vaccine is a smaller amount effective against it; but he added that there's much that's not known about it.
The World Health Organization has been informed of the development.
Johnson announced the creation of a replacement tier – Tier 4 – within the Covid-19 alert system, under which towns and areas in England are placed. London has been within the top Tier 3 with the toughest restrictions, but has gone further within the lockdown-like Tier 4.
The curbs become from Sunday morning until December 30.
Johnson said during a televised briefing from Downing Street, “There is still much we don’t know. While we are fairly certain the variant is transmitted more quickly, there is no evidence to suggest that it is more lethal or causes more severe illness. Equally there's no evidence to suggest the vaccine are going to be any less effective against the new variant.
“Our experts will continue their work to improve our understanding of the variant. So we are learning more about this variant as we go. But we know enough already to be sure that we must act now.
“First, we will introduce new restrictions in the most affected areas – specifically those parts of London, the South East and the East of England which are currently in tier 3. These areas will enter a new tier 4, which will be broadly equivalent to the national restrictions which were in place in England in November.”
Life under Tier 4 in London and southeast England from Sunday morning are going to be almost like the lockdown, which incorporates people staying at home, unless moving out for exemptions allowed; non-retail shops, gyms and leisure facilities to close; work from home; people must not travel out of Tier 4 areas.
Health secretary announced the discovery of the variant in parliament on Monday, while Chris Whitty, chief medical officer for England, gave more details of the variant identified by Public Health England’s genomic surveillance. consistent with Whitty, this is often a “critical and dangerous moment”.
Whitty added, “As a result of the rapid spread of the new variant, preliminary modelling data and rapidly rising incidence rates within the southeast, the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) now considers that the new strain can spread more quickly.
“We have alerted the WHO and are continuing to analyse the available data to improve our understanding. there is no current evidence to suggest the new strain causes a higher mortality rate or that it affects vaccines and treatments, although urgent work is underway to confirm this.”
Johnson said Christmas this year “will be very different”, adding that people altogether tiers shouldn't travel, which can affect visit meet families over the festive period.
The curbs come days after he had announced relaxations for Christmas, which are now scrapped.
“As prime minister, it is my duty to take the difficult decisions, to do what is right to protect the people of this country. Given the early evidence we have on this new variant of the virus, and the potential risk it poses, it is with a heavy heart that i must tell you we cannot continue with Christmas as planned,” Johnson said.
"In the Pfizer contract it's very clear: 'we're not responsible for any side effects.' If you turn into a crocodile, it's your problem," Jair Bolsonaro said on Thursday.
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World News/Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker:Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has launched an attack on coronavirus vaccines, even suggesting that the one developed by Pfizer-BioNTech could turn people into crocodiles or bearded ladies.
The far-right leader has been sceptical of the coronavirus since it first emerged late last year, branding it "a little flu." in the week he insisted he wouldn't be vaccinated, even while launching the country's mass innoculation program.
"In the Pfizer contract it's very clear: 'we're not responsible for any side effects.' If you turn into a crocodile, it is your problem," Bolsonaro said on Thursday.
That vaccine has been undergoing tests in Brazil for weeks and is already getting used within the united states and Britain.
"If you become superhuman, if a woman starts to grow a beard or if a man starts to speak with an effeminate voice, they will not have anything to do with it," he said, pertaining to the drug manufacturers.
When launching the immunization campaign on Wednesday, Bolsonaro also said it might be free but not compulsory.
But the Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the vaccine was obligatory, although couldn't be "forced" on people.
That means authorities can fine people for not being vaccinated and ban them from certain public spaces, but not force them to take it.
Brazil has recorded quite 7.1 million cases and almost 185,000 deaths from Covid-19 amongst its 212 million population.
Bolsonaro said that when a vaccine has been certified by Brazil's regulatory authority Anvisa, "it will be available for everyone that wants it. But me, I won't get vaccinated."
"Some people say I'm giving a bad example. But to the imbeciles, to the idiots that say this, I tell them I've already caught the virus, I have the antibodies, so why get vaccinated?"
There are alittle number of cases of apparent reinfection although there's no certainty over whether an individual are often reinfected or how long immunity lasts.
Bolsonaro caught the virus in July but recovered within three weeks.
Brazil is within the middle of a second wave of coronavirus infections.
After peaking in June to August cases had been dropping but that changed in November.
On Thursday, Brazil surpassed 1,000 daily deaths from covid-19 for the first time since September.
The country's immunization program has been widely criticized for being late and chaotic, not least given Bolsonaro's opposition.
World News/Covid-19:Britain's capital are going to be placed under the highest level of coronavirus restrictions from Wednesday amid a "very sharp" spike in Covid-19 cases in London and its surrounding areas and a new variant of coronavirus being identified as liable for the "faster spread", the united kingdom government announced in Parliament on Monday.
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Health Secretary Matt Hancock told MPs within the House of Commons that "swift and decisive action" was needed because the doubling rate of the deadly virus has hit just seven days in many of those areas.
Tier-3 restrictions, the highest level in England's three-tier system, mean a near-complete lockdown, with people allowed to meet those they are doing not accept only in outdoor settings and hospitality venues directed to shut apart from takeaways and deliveries.
"A new variant of coronavirus has been identified in the UK, which may be associated with the fastest spread in the southeast of England," said Hancock.
"We do not know the extent to which this is because of the new variant but no matter its cause, we have to take swift and decisive action which unfortunately is absolutely essential to control this deadly disease while the vaccine is rolled out…We must act now to shift the curve… because when the virus moves quickly, we must move quickly too," he said.
The minister said that experts had identified over 1,000 cases with the variant, predominantly within the south of England.
"Cases have been identified in nearly 60 different local authority areas and numbers are increasing rapidly. Similar variants have been identified in other countries over the last few months," he said, adding that the world Health Organisation has been notified about the variant which it's unlikely to cause more serious disease than other variants of the coronavirus.
He stressed that mobile testing and community testing also are being expanded, with another 67 local authorities getting community testing in the week to help areas “move down tiers” and return closer to normal life.
In reference to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine rollout currently underway, Hancock said that thanks to science “help is on its way”, but “this isn't over yet”.
The announcement on Monday means even before the formal review date of the tier system scheduled for Wednesday, London , the South and West of Essex and South Hertfordshire are going to be placed into Tier 3 from 0001 GMT on Wednesday morning.
UK's Medicines and Healthcare products regulatory agency issued the advisory after two NHS workers developed allergies shortly after receiving the Pfizer vaccine; they're stable now.
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World News/Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker:British healthcare regulator has issued a warning that individuals with history of serious allergies shouldn't be given the newly approved Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. The advisory was issued after two NHS workers suffered allergic reactions on Tuesday.
Medicines and Healthcare products regulatory agency (MHRA) said that the allergy advisory applies to people that have had reactions to medicines, food or vaccines, reported the BBC.
Dr June Raine, chief executive of MHRA, informed a parliamentary committee on Wednesday that the cases of severe allergic reactions didn't appear during vaccine trials. "We know from the very extensive clinical trials that this wasn't a feature. But if we need to strengthen our advice, now that we've had this experience in the vulnerable populations - the groups have been selected as a priority - we get that advice to the field immediately," said Dr Raine.
The two UK healthcare workers reportedly developed anaphylactoid reaction shortly after the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine was administered to them, the report said. They received treatment shortly after, and are stable now.
Anaphylactoid reactios appear as skin rashes, breathlessnes and a drop in blood pressure. this is often different from anaphylaxis, which may cause death.
Notably, both individuals have prior history of allergies and carried adernaline pens for fiirst aid within the event of severe reactions.
The Pfizer-BioNTech jab, codenamed BNT162b2, became the first ever vacccine against coronavirus to receive emergency use approval - first in the UK then in Bahrain. the companies have also approved regulators in India for emergency use authorisation of the inoculation, but it seems like a long shot, considering the very fact it's never underwent any trials within the country. The vaccine has got to be stored at extremely frigid temperatures of -70 degree Centigrade , which presents another argument against its appoval by the Indian regulator.
Meanwhile, the united kingdom has began to vaccinate its priority groups against COVID-19 using the Pfizer vaccine. Margaret Keenan, 90, and Shakespeare , 81, were the first and second recipients of the jab vaccine in the world. British government intends to administer 800,000 in the coming weeks.
An early riser, Keenan received the jab at her local hospital in Coventry, central England, on Tuesday morning at 0631 GMT, a week before she turns 91.
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World News/Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker:Margaret Keenan, a 90-year-old grandmother from Northern Ireland , became the first person within the world on Tuesday to receive the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine shot outside of a trial as Britain began vaccinating its population.
An early riser, Keenan received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at her local hospital in Coventry, central England, on Tuesday morning at 0631 GMT, a week before she turns 91.
A video showed Keenan being pushed in a wheelchair out of the ward while nursing staff clad in protective gear lined the corridor to applaud and cheer, in an echo of moving video clips released through the year when COVID-19 survivors finally left hospital.
Britain is the first Western country to start out immunising its general population in what has been hailed as a decisive watershed in defeating the coronavirus.
"I feel so privileged to be the first person vaccinated against COVID-19," said Keenan, as she received the shot from a nurse originally from the Philippines in front of a photographer and television crew.
"It's the best early birthday present I could wish for because it means I can finally look forward to spending time with my family and friends in the new year after being on my own for most of the year."
Keenan, referred to as Maggie to her friends, is a former jewellery shop assistant who only retired four years ago. She has a daughter, a son and 4 grandchildren.
Video footage showed her wearing a light blue mask, a gray cardigan along with a blue t-shirt with a penguin in snow and therefore the message "Merry Christmas" as she received the shot in her left arm from nurse May Parsons.
Parsons, one among many thousands of individuals from round the world employed in Britain's National Health Service (NHS), where she has worked for twenty-four years, said the last few months had been tough, but there was now light at the end of the tunnel.
Britain is the worst-hit European country from COVID-19, with over 61,000 deaths. Prime Minister Boris Johnson hopes to show the tide against the disease by rolling out the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine before the united states or European Union .
The mass inoculation will fuel hope the world may be turning a corner in the fight against an epidemic that has crushed economies and killed over 1.5 million, although ultra-cold storage and tricky logistics will limit its use for now.
"Thank you to our NHS, to all of the scientists who worked so hard to develop this vaccine, to all the volunteers - and to everyone who has been following the rules to protect others," Johnson said on Twitter.
British Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Stephen Powis, medical director for NHS England, said they both found it very emotional watching the vaccine programme rollout.
The BBC said the second patient to receive the jab in Britain was a person named william shakespeare from Warwickshire.
Britain has ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech shot. As everyone requires two doses, that's enough to vaccinate 20 million people within the country of 67 million.
About 800,000 doses are expected to be available within the first week, with care home residents and carers, the over-80s and some health service workers the highest priority to get them.
Pfizer Inc submitted application to DCGI seeking emergency use authorisation on Dec 4; also seeks permission to import vaccine for sale and distribution in India.
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World News/Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker: Pfizer has become the primary company to seek emergency use approval of its vaccine candidate in India after getting clearance within the UK and Bahrain. Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE vaccine candidate, BNT162b2, has shown 95 per cent efficacy against coronavirus during a preliminary clinical trial data analysis. It's sought approval from the Drugs Controller General of India for emergency use authorisation. the development is significant since Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during an all-party meet on Friday, cited experts to mention that India could have the first coronavirus vaccine in weeks and that eight vaccines are going to be manufactured in India.
Pfizer, in its application submitted on December 4, has sought permission to import the vaccine for sale and distribution in India. It also sought the waiver of clinical trials on Indian population as per the special provisions under the New Drugs and Clinical Trials Rules, 2019, to urge instant approval for emergency use, a PTI report said.
"Pfizer India has submitted an application on December 4 to the DCGI seeking emergency use authorisation (EUA) for its COVID-19 vaccine in India," an official source told the press agency .
AIIMS Delhi Director Dr Randeep Guleria had earlier said that India was in talks with Pfizer-BioNTech regarding its COVID-19 vaccine candidate. He said no such communication had been initiated with Moderna for its experimental COVID-19 vaccine.
The UK became the first country within the world to approve Pfizer and BioNTech coronavirus candidate on December 2 after the Medicines and Healthcare Products regulatory agency (MHRA) found the jab safe. The country has already ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine to vaccinate its 20 million population. After the united kingdom , Bahrain has also approved the vaccine for 'emergency use'. Bahrain's drug regulatory body said the approval was granted after a radical analysis and review of all available data.
The approval for Pfizer's vaccine candidate came in just 10 months since it started developing it, which is that the fastest within the history of vaccines. Other countries just like the US and the European Union also are vetting the Pfizer and BioNTech candidate and the one developed by Moderna Inc.
Notably, Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna, and Russia's Sputnik V are the sole vaccines that have claimed over 90 per cent efficacy of their respective candidates so far. While Russia had already rolled out Sputnik V for the masses in August, the recently announced data results on the efficacy of Moderna, Pfizer, and BioNTech's vaccines have also raised high hopes. Besides, Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca and therefore the University of Oxford's vaccine candidate, being developed along side India's Serum Institute, has also achieved 70 per cent efficacy during the preliminary analysis of its Covid-19 trial participants.
A vaccine is seen as the best chance for the planet to get back to some semblance of normality amid a worldwide pandemic which has killed nearly 1.5 million people and upended the worldwide economy.
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World News/Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker:Britain approved Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday, jumping before the united states and Europe to become the West's first country to formally endorse a jab it said should reach the foremost vulnerable people early next week.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson touted the medicine authority's approval as a worldwide win and a ray of hope amid the gloom of the novel coronavirus which has killed nearly 1.5 million people globally, hammered the planet economy and upended normal life.
Britain's Medicines and Healthcare products regulatory agency (MHRA) granted emergency use approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which they say is 95% effective in preventing illness, in record time - just 23 days since Pfizer published the first data from its final stage clinical trial.
"It's fantastic," Johnson said. "The vaccine will begin to be made available across the uk from next week. it's the protection of vaccines that will ultimately allow us to reclaim our lives and get the economy moving again."
The world's big powers are racing for a vaccine for months in an attempt to be first to begin the long road to recovery.
The approval of a vaccine to be used almost exactly a year since the novel coronavirus emerged in Wuhan, China, may be a triumph for science, Pfizer boss Albert Bourla and his German biotechnology partner BioNTech.
China has already given emergency approval for 3 experimental vaccines and has inoculated around 1 million people since July. Russia has been vaccinating frontline workers after approving its Sputnik V shot in August before it had completed late-stage testing on safety and efficacy.
But the european Union's drug regulator said on Wednesday that its longer approval process for COVID-19 vaccines was safer, because it was supported more evidence and checks that the procedure chosen by Britain.
British leaders said that, while they would love to get a jab themselves, priority had to be given to those most in need - the elderly, those in care homes and health workers.
'HISTORIC MOMENT'
The U.S. drugmaker said Britain's emergency use authorization marks a historic moment within the fight against COVID-19. Pfizer announced its vaccine breakthrough on Nov. 9 with stage III clinical trial results.
"This authorization is a goal we have been working toward since we first declared that science will win, and we applaud the MHRA for their ability to conduct a careful assessment and take timely action to help protect the people of the uk," said CEO Bourla.
"As we anticipate further authorisations and approvals, we are focused on moving with the same level of urgency to safely supply a high-quality vaccine around the world."
Britain's medicines regulator approved the vaccine in record time - partly by doing a "rolling" concurrent analysis of knowledge and therefore the manufacturing process while Pfizer raced to conclude trials.
"With 450 people dying of COVID-19 infection every day in the UK, the benefits of rapid vaccine approval outweigh the potential risks," said Andrew Hill, senior visiting research fellow within the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Liverpool.
"However, we need new independent clinical trials to monitor long-term safety and efficacy."
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is about to satisfy on Dec. 10 to debate whether to recommend emergency use authorization of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and therefore the European Medicines Agency said it could give emergency approval for the shot by Dec. 29.
"The data submitted to regulatory agencies around the world are the result of a scientifically rigorous and highly ethical research and development programme," said Ugur Sahin, chief executive and co-founder of BioNTech.
U.S. media reported on Tuesday that the White House had summoned FDA head Stephen Hahn to discuss why the U.S. agency hadn't moved faster to authorise Pfizer's vaccine.
FIRST IN LINE?
Britain said it might start vaccinating ordinary people early next week after it gets 800,000 doses from Pfizer's manufacturing centre in Belgium. The speed of the rollout depends on how fast Pfizer can manufacture and deliver the vaccine.
Johnson said last month that Britain had ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine - enough for slightly below a third of the population as two shots of the jab are needed per person to gain immunity.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said hospitals were ready to receive the shots and vaccination centres would be set up across the country but he admitted distribution would be a challenge as long as the vaccine must be shipped and stored at -70C (-94F), the sort of temperature typical of an Antarctic winter.
Pfizer has said the shots can be kept in thermal shipping boxes for up to 30 days, from up to fifteen days previously guided. Afterwards, the vaccine are often kept at fridge temperatures for up to five days.
Other frontrunners in the vaccine race include U.S. biotech firm Moderna, which has said its shot is 94% successful in late-stage clinical trials. Moderna and Pfizer have developed their shots using new messenger RNA (mRNA) technology.
AstraZeneca said last month its COVID-19 shot, which is based on traditional vaccine technology, was 70% effective in pivotal trials and could be up to 90% effective.
India News/Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker:India may not need to vaccinate all of its 1.3 billion people if it manages to inoculate a critical mass and break the transmission of the coronavirus, senior government officials said on Tuesday.
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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who toured the facilities of three vaccine makers over the weekend, has emphasized the importance of a vaccine to rein in COVID-19.
In October, he said that the government was preparing to reach every single citizen as soon as a vaccine was ready.
World Health Organization experts have pointed to a 65%-70% vaccine coverage rate as sufficient to reach population immunity.
“The government has never spoken about vaccinating the entire country,” Rajesh Bhushan, the top bureaucrat in India’s federal health ministry, told a news conference on Tuesday without reference to Modi.
India says may not need to vaccinate entire population to control COVID-19
India currently has the world’s second-highest number of coronavirus infections, behind only the United States, with 9.46 million cases and 137,621 deaths.
India recorded 31,118 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, the lowest daily tally since Nov. 17, data from the health ministry showed.
“...If we are able to vaccinate a critical mass of people, and break that virus transmission, then we may not have to vaccinate the entire population,” Balram Bhargava, Director General of the state-run Indian Council Of Medical Research, said at the press briefing.
India’s plan to roll out a COVID-19 shot in the first few months of 2021 wouldn’t be impacted by an alleged adverse reaction during AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine trial, Bhushan said.
India says may not need to vaccinate entire population to control COVID-19
A 40-year-old Indian man said in a complaint over the weekend that he had suffered serious “neurological and psychological” symptoms after receiving the vaccine in a trial being run by the British drugmaker’s partner, Serum Institute of India.
University of Oxford and AstraZeneca on Monday said that their Covid-19 vaccine was up to 90 per cent effective in late-stage clinical trials.
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World News/Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker : The Serum Institute of India (SII) will apply for emergency license of Covid-19 vaccine within the next fortnight , said chief executive officer Adar Poonawalla on Saturday.
Speaking to reporters through virtual press conference minutes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to SII’s facility in Pune on Saturday, Poonawalla said, the vaccine, post-authorization, will initially be distributed in India then to African countries.
“We are in process of applying for emergency licensing in the next two weeks. we will have to wait and see when we get the authorisation,” said Poonawalla while responding to an issue on Covishield vaccine’s distribution within the country.
“The vaccine will be distributed initially in India and then we will look at COVAX countries which are mainly in Africa. The united kingdom and European markets are being taken care of by AstraZeneca and Oxford. If they need our help for scaling up production capacity, we are always there to support them.”
The SII, the world’s largest vaccine maker, has signed an agreement to manufacture the vaccine developed by the Jenner Institute of Oxford University together with British-Swedish pharma company AstraZeneca.
University of Oxford and AstraZeneca on Monday said that their Covid-19 vaccine was up to 90 per cent effective in late-stage clinical trials, raising hopes for the arrival of shots in India by the end of the year.
According to Poonawalla, the Covishiled vaccine has proved effective during trials. “What we found in Covishield during trials globally was that there was zero hospitalisation and 60 per cent reduction in sterilizing immunity.”
Poonawala said during PM Modi’s visit to the manufacturing facility at SII, various issues about pricing and logistics also as pros and cons of other vaccine candidates were discussed.
The SII is currently producing 50-60 million doses per month and plans to proportion to 100 million doses by January next year.
“We are producing 50 to 60 million doses per month and post-January, it will be scaled up to 100 million doses a month. we have built the largest pandemic-level facility in Pune and our new campus in Mandri. That was also showcased to the PM with a tour around the facility and a lot of detailed discussions,” Poonawalla further mentioned.
On signing any deal with the govt of India, Poonawalla said there has been no contract signed with centre yet.
“As of now, we don’t have anything in writing on how many doses they will purchase but as indicated by the health ministry, they would need 300-400 million doses by July 2021,” said the SII CEO.
Poonawala also claimed the Oxford drug will be transported easily at normal refrigerator temperatures, unlike a number of the other candidates which require extreme cold storage.
India's pharmaceutical company Hetero ties up with Russian Direct Investment Fund
Sputnik V free in Russia, for other countries its price will be less than 700 rupees
India News/Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker:The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and India's pharmaceutical company Hetero have tied up to produce Corona's vaccine Sputnik V. This agreement is to make 100 million doses every year in India. Production will start from next year.
Sputnik V has been created by the Gameleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology of Russia. RDIF is overseeing its production and promotion abroad. The clinical trial for the third phase of the vaccine has been approved. These trials are ongoing in many countries including Belarus, UAE, Venezuela. According to IDIF, the second and third phase trials are going on in India.
More than 50 countries have requested to make 120 million doses of this vaccine. The vaccine will be produced in India, China, Brazil, South Korea and other countries for supply in the global market.
'Big step in the fight against Corona'
Murali Krishna Reddy, Director, International Marketing, Hetero Labs Ltd, said Sputnik V is most effective in treating Kovid-19. We are very pleased with this partnership with RDIF to develop the vaccine. This partnership is another step towards fulfilling our commitment and the Make in India campaign in the fight against Corona.
At the same time, RDIF CEO Kirill Dmitriev said that we are happy to announce the agreement with Hetero. This will pave the way for the production of safe and most effective corona vaccine in India. Thank you for partnering with Hetero. This will help us to increase the production capacity and provide a better solution to the people of India in this challenging period of Corona.
Hetero has over 25 years of experience
Hyderabad based company Hetero is India's leading generic pharmaceutical company. It was founded in 1993 by Dr. BPS Reddy. It is the world's largest manufacturer of anti-retroviral drugs for the treatment of HIV / AIDS. The company has over 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Hetero's business spans 126 countries.
95% effective Sputnik vaccine
Sputnik has proven to be 95% effective in fighting corona during a trial. The second preliminary analysis of the clinical trial showed that 42 days after the first dose, it showed 95% efficacy. The data was 91.4% 28 days after the dose was given.It will also cost much less than other vaccines. People of Russia will get it for free. For other countries, its price will be less than 700 rupees.
World News/ Covid-19 : On the doorstep of a terraced house in northern England, virus hunter Colin Hutchinson came face-to-face with the new wave of COVID-19, and the obstacles to slowing its spread.
A retired surgeon, Hutchinson is part of a local team of “contact tracers” in Halifax, Yorkshire, that aims to reach infected people before they infect others. His experience that day in mid-October, he said, summed up why Britain’s “tracking of the virus is very, very poor.”
He wanted to speak urgently to a 54-year-old woman who’d tested positive for COVID-19, to identify her contacts. The area’s two hospitals were filling up – 40 COVID-19 patients were already being treated – and deaths from the virus had tripled in the district in the previous two weeks.
A gaunt woman appeared at the door, coughing. She apologised for not answering her phone, then gave Hutchinson the details of six others who were ill. Then came the bureaucracy. The six, all a few feet away inside the house, must be told to isolate. But, under the rules of England’s Test and Trace system, Hutchinson wasn’t allowed to speak to them. Instead, he had to go home and enter their names into a database so a call centre could contact them individually.
“The whole process could have been wrapped up there in one go,” said Hutchinson, a local councillor for the opposition Labour Party.
The government says the rules are designed to ensure patient confidentiality. For many health experts, such incidents exemplify a systemic failure to control COVID-19.
Among the world’s wealthiest nations, Britain had the second-highest death toll from the coronavirus in the first wave of the pandemic, behind the United States. Adjusted for population, Britain’s toll was the third highest.
After enduring a three-month lockdown in the spring, Britons hoped that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government would put in place a new strategy to protect the nation through the winter. But with infections again spreading and deaths reaching over 350 per day, England entered another lockdown on Nov. 5.
The country is one of many struggling to cope with a new surge of the disease. With more than 12,000 additional deaths by Nov. 19 in the second wave, Britain is recording nearly four times more deaths per capita than Germany, though not as many as Spain or France. Few countries have got things completely right.
Johnson, who contracted the coronavirus himself, was blamed by many scientists for acting too slowly to stop the initial spread in the spring. As Reuters reported earlier this year, behind this tragedy lay a failure to spot the infection as it arrived, to stamp it out with an early lockdown and to implement effective tracing and isolation of cases, as pioneered in Asia and used to effect in Germany.
Stung by such criticism, Johnson offered hope. Even if cases rose again, he said confidently on June 3, the country would be able to “replace national lockdowns with individual isolation and, if necessary, local action where there are outbreaks.” A month later, he told lawmakers a system now in place to test and trace COVID-19 cases was “as good as, or better than, any other system anywhere in the world” and would play “a vital part in ensuring that we do not have a second spike this winter.”
Now, an investigation by Reuters has exposed how lessons from the first wave were not learned, and why Britain once again was forced into a drastic lockdown. New measures were put in place – a rapid increase in testing capacity, for example. But the government’s failure to share full data on the disease’s spread with local authorities and the public gave a false impression of success. This concealed what one health expert called an “iceberg” of infection and led to a relaxation of social restrictions too soon in some places.
And while tests and contact tracing expanded, they did so in such an inefficient way that they couldn’t keep pace with the spread of the virus. A Reuters analysis reveals that England has managed to trace just one non-household contact – someone who doesn’t live with the infected person – for every two identified cases of COVID-19. That compares to over 20 contacts for each single case in Singapore and Taiwan, according to studies.
The reason for this dysfunction, Reuters reporting shows, lies in a disjointed design and a government preference, contrary to some expert advice, for national solutions over targeted, local responses.
“This is not the system that I would design from what I understand about it now,” said David Heymann, a world authority on contact tracing and the first chairman of Public Health England, the government agency charged with leading the response to pandemics. A system to tackle the pandemic needs to be locally centred, said Heymann. “Face-to face trust is what’s important...You can’t do contact tracing from a central location to be effective.”
A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care, Britain’s health ministry, denied that the government’s response to COVID-19 was failing. Since the start of the pandemic, the spokesman said, “we have worked rapidly to build the biggest testing system per head of population of all the major countries in Europe.” The tracing system was helping to stop the spread of the virus and had asked more than two million people to self-isolate, the spokesman added.
A LOST OPPORTUNITY
At the start of the summer, as the first wave of COVID-19 retreated, scientists told the government what was now required: a system to suppress any new outbreaks quickly. At its centre, scientists said, should be contact tracing: detective work to locate outbreaks and find and quarantine any potential new cases.
Asia-Pacific countries such as China, South Korea, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand had shown how rapid, local and intrusive steps can be effective in extinguishing outbreaks. But such work is intensive. It needs to happen at lightning speed and people need to isolate when told to do so.
The government’s scientific advisory committee, SAGE, backed by multiple research reports, told Johnson in May that after a person got sick with COVID-19, an effective system requires 80% of their contacts to be reached and told to isolate within three days.
That is difficult, and the scientists emphasised the need for other measures as well. Graham Medley, a member of SAGE, told Reuters contact tracing can never replace measures such as social distancing. Both are necessary.
Johnson was under political pressure from within his own party to ease restrictions that were damaging the economy and limiting people’s freedoms. By May 20, he announced the creation of a “world-beating” contact-tracing service to reopen the country.
A business executive and Conservative Party member of the House of Lords, Dido Harding, took charge of the new system. It aspired to what she called on June 11 the “gold standard” of “isolating all contacts within 48 hours of someone requesting a test.” Scientists made clear that anything less would be ineffective in stopping the spread of the virus.
A Reuters study of official data shows that, as things turned out, Harding’s system fell far short of this target. At best, about half of all contacts of people sick with COVID-19 are told to self-isolate. And it takes tracers an average of six or seven days from when someone gets sick to reach those contacts. Reuters also found that many people withhold the names of their contacts, and there is usually no detailed follow-up investigation.
Some scientists said the problem was that the government made a system of ill-fitting parts. There was a testing system, a separate national tracing service and a smartphone app for digital contact tracing.
“It’s like we’ve got three-quarters of a dam,” said David Bonsall, a clinical scientist at Oxford who has advised the government on its smartphone app. “I’m very proud of what we’ve built, but three-quarters of a dam is as good as no dam at all.”
The system’s gaps are deadly. “What you’ve got are giant holes representing parts of Track and Trace that are too slow to stop a wave of infections. And it’s like natural selection – the virus just works its way through those holes,” Bonsall said.
Eleanor Roaf, a public health director in Trafford, which covers part of the Greater Manchester region, said delivering a good test-and-trace system on time had been one of the “lost opportunities in lockdown.”
A health ministry spokesman said the government had always said that test and trace was “not a silver bullet.”
LAYERS UPON LAYERS
As they looked around for an institution to run a contact-tracing system, Johnson and Harding did have one available: the country’s National Health Service (NHS) which provides free healthcare to all.
In normal times, medical tests are carried out by general practitioners or in NHS hospitals; analysis is done in NHS labs or labs belonging to government agency Public Health England. NHS doctors and nurses who handle infectious disease have experience in contact tracing, as do local and regional health teams.
But instead, the government created a 12 billion pound ($16 billion) Test and Trace system that is largely privately operated. Three firms – Randox Laboratories, Serco Group Plc and Sitel Group – got among the biggest contracts, more than 725 million pounds between them, much of it without other companies being invited to bid. Private companies would handle the bulk of COVID-19 tests and, separately, contact tracing.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock explained at the time that Britain was turning to commercial and academic partners to “build from scratch.” On April 2, John Newton, the official then leading the testing program, announced the creation of a “separate workstream entirely independent of the NHS.”
While it’s unclear how an NHS-run system would have coped with building up testing and tracing, the chosen design went against the advice of some scientists and public health experts. Local directors of public health, who are employed by local authorities, had been lobbying the government to be involved. On May 18, the Association of Public Health Directors complained about “the limited extent that the government has involved local government in all aspects of the test, track and trace programme.”
The first part of the new service was testing. Hancock laid out its importance on May 21, saying, “As we follow our plan, our testing regime will be our guiding star. It’s the information that helps us to search out and defeat the virus.”
The government outsourced the organisation of non-hospital tests, referred to as community tests, to consultancy firm Deloitte. It created an online booking service and a network of drive-through testing centers. A chain of privately-run laboratories, known as Lighthouse Labs, was established to analyse the samples. These labs were operated by various firms and academic institutions, and overseen by the Department of Health, the health ministry.
In a statement to Reuters, the ministry denied bypassing the NHS. A spokesman said existing NHS labs had greatly expanded operations but new mass capacity was required.
The contact-tracing part of the new Test and Trace service was launched at the end of May. Serco and Sitel recruited thousands of “tracers” whose job it is to call people and tell them to isolate.
And there was one more element. The government announced in April what officials called a game changer – a smartphone app that would do some of the work of human contact tracers. But the original app was scrapped in June before its launch because of technical problems. Months were spent developing a new one, which was finally released in September.
Between all these components of Test and Trace is a series of computer systems through which the details of people with COVID-19 and their contacts are passed. Reuters found that to get a non-hospital test result, details of a patient’s case flow through at least four different databases. To reach a contact tracer, the case flows through at least five.
This complexity created delays. Mat Barrow is the managing director of a private Leeds-based company, X-Lab, that runs a national exchange that processes test results. Barrow told Reuters that sending results directly to local authorities rather than through the various databases would shorten the current process by “about a day.” Experts say this could make a critical difference in blocking the disease’s spread.
The data transfer led to glitches. In September, nearly 16,000 positive case records were lost from the system for several days – causing a delay in contact tracing. The government blamed a “legacy” file system that cut off records after about 65,000 rows of data. Hancock, the health minister, said the incident “should never have happened.”
Jon Crowcroft, professor of communications systems at the University of Cambridge, said the more databases used, the greater the chance of things going wrong, and centralising data can lead to errors and delays. There are cloud-based platforms that can handle much bigger datasets more quickly and reliably, Crowcroft said. “The data in this case is not complex. I’m mystified why they’d not start from something slightly more up-to-date.”
The government disputes that it created a disjointed system. The health ministry spokesman told Reuters – without providing evidence – that the test-and-trace service was “breaking chains of transmission” thanks to cooperation between local and national teams in “the largest diagnostic network in British history.”
A HIDDEN ICEBERG
In the first wave of the pandemic, Britain’s testing capacity was well below what was needed. As Reuters has previously reported, at first more than 99 in every 100 cases went undetected. Heading into the summer, Johnson hoped the new Lighthouse Labs would make a difference. He set a target of 500,000 tests per day capacity by the end of October, up from 25,000 in mid-April.
Even as testing was increasing, many local authorities were struggling to get access to the results of the community tests, leaving them in the dark about how many cases there were in their area. This was because, until the end of June, there wasn’t a system to transfer results from the Lighthouse Labs to local health officials.
When the information was finally shared, it revealed what Roaf, the Trafford public health director, said was an “iceberg” of hidden infections in northwest England, particularly in less affluent areas. In Greater Manchester, for instance, when the Lighthouse Lab data for June was added to the previously available figures, it pushed up the number of cases to nearly 2,500 from 703.
In the town of Oldham in Greater Manchester, results from hospital tests had suggested the number of cases was falling in June. When the community testing data became available, a more worrying picture emerged, said Arooj Shah, deputy leader of Oldham Council. The infection rate had not budged at all and remained “significantly higher” than England’s overall average. The new adjusted figures for Oldham showed 391 cases, a five-fold increase.
Many officials in the North believe that, if they’d had full access to the data, they would have argued against easing social restrictions from July. “The lockdown probably finished about the right time in London, but that was too soon for us,” said Roaf. “The view in the North West is that we didn’t push it down low enough before everything unlocked.”
There was a harsh human cost. While Johnson permitted holiday travel from July and launched a discount scheme to revive pubs and restaurants, many elderly and other vulnerable people were kept in isolation through the summer months. As case numbers rose again, hopes of family reunions slipped away.
Before the pandemic, Marie Meehan used to visit her 91-year-old mother, Peggy Curley, twice a day in her Liverpool nursing home, stopping in before and after work.
When Britain entered its first lockdown in the spring, Meehan and other families would gather at the windows to see their parents. “My mum would actually walk the length of the room to wave back at me. She was expecting me,” Meehan said.
There were video chats, and one brief visit in an outdoor gazebo. But, as COVID-19 cases started rising again, Meehan despaired. She joined tens of thousands of people in signing a petition from a grassroots group called Rights for Residents that pleaded with the government to ease restrictions on nursing home visits. Hancock, the health minister, has said he hopes to allow family visits to care homes in England by Christmas.
FAILING THE TEST
After spreading in the North, cases grew steadily across the country – compounded by the reopening of schools at the start of September. COVID-19 was back. Johnson and his ministers had long predicted a second wave in the winter. But not this soon.
And Britain still lacked the infrastructure to deal with it. Testing couldn’t keep pace. The new Lighthouse Labs built up capacity quickly to the end of June, but in July growth slowed and then total capacity began to fall. By Aug. 30, overall testing capacity across all labs stood below the July 9 level.
The reason was a shortage of staff, four laboratory workers told Reuters. The Lighthouse Labs had drawn in temporary staff from universities when they first launched, but as summer ended many of these people returned to their regular jobs. A supervisor at a lab in Milton Keynes, in southern England, said his shift team fell from about 50 in June to below 40 on some days in late summer.
The spokesman for the health ministry, which oversees the Lighthouse network, said the labs had “successfully transitioned” from using highly skilled volunteers to more permanent staff.
By September, demand for tests outstripped the Lighthouse Labs’ capacity, creating a backlog. Thousands of tests were sent abroad for processing and access to tests was delayed.
Back in the first wave, the government’s scientific advisory committee, SAGE, had blamed a “lag in data provision for modelling” for the failure to track the pandemic’s swift spread in Britain. Over the summer, the lag in recording cases didn’t improve.
A Reuters analysis found that it typically took two days to get tested after developing symptoms and a further three days for the result of that test to make it to local officials and contact tracers. That made it impossible to hit the government’s target of isolating all contacts of an infected person within 48 hours of symptoms appearing.
Many results took far longer – about 91,000 took four days, and nearly 70,000 took five days or more.
THE TRACERS
The contact-tracing system, too, has been beset by problems.
Polly Gould, who runs a travel agency on the Isle of Wight, said her family was bombarded with more than 60 phone calls, emails and text messages in October after her two daughters tested positive.
The Gould sisters, who’d come home to celebrate their mother’s birthday, each received a 20-minute call from a contact tracer to ask who they live with and where they had been recently. They were told to self-isolate. Each family member the sisters named as a contact then received a call seeking the same information. That in turn triggered another round of calls to the family, and another.
“It has absolutely driven me mad,” said Gould.
While Gould’s family was deluged with calls, Tim Daily, a 57-year-old financial adviser in Milton Keynes, got none. On Sept. 23, three days after being tested, Daily woke to a text message and email telling him he was positive and should self-isolate for 10 days. “Straight away I was thinking, ‘I should be getting a call from Test and Trace at any time,’” said Daily, who regularly meets four or five clients a day. When the call didn’t arrive, Daily contacted his clients himself. He told Reuters that no contact tracer has ever called him.
The contact-tracing system involves a network of newly recruited staff, most of them working from home. About 3,000 of these are doctors and nurses, often retired. Their job is to call people who’ve tested positive and make a list of recent contacts.
A second group then takes over to call the contacts. Serco and Sitel employ about 12,000 people to do this.
Reuters interviewed seven current and former tracers. Several explained how frustrating they found an automated system that dictates who they call and insists they work from a script. The system requires different members of the same household to be called separately, often on the same number.
Hancock said on Nov. 23 that members of the same household would no longer be called individually by contact tracers.
Most of the time, the contact tracers said they had little to do - even when COVID-19 cases were rising.
Two tracers, both retired doctors, said they didn’t make any calls. One explained how he struggled to log on to the various systems, about six of them, each requiring a username and password. Another said there was a month-long delay in sending him his login details.
A student, working for Sitel from home, told Reuters she had so much free time that she had sewn up all her housemates’ moth-eaten clothes and learned to knit. Another student, working for Serco, said he makes about six calls a day from his bedroom in a shared flat. Some days he doesn’t speak to anyone because the contacts don’t answer the phone. He said many people don’t answer because the tracers call from an unrecognised number, which looks like it’s coming from a marketing company.
Each tracer has on average reached less than one contact per day since the end of May, including household members, according to a Reuters analysis of official data.
A spokesperson for Serco said stories about call handlers with little to do were “an out-of-date depiction” and the service is now a lot busier. “Our operational delivery has been outstanding,” the spokesperson said.
Sitel referred questions about the system’s performance to the health ministry, which oversees and manages it.
The ministry spokesman stressed that contact tracers were reaching “the vast majority of people testing positive and their contacts.” He pointed to data published Oct. 2 showing that in the most recent week the service reached 71.3% of people who tested positive and 83.7% of contacts, where their details were provided.
A Reuters analysis of official data found such figures don’t tell the full story. Only two thirds of people who test positive are reached and willing to provide details of their contacts, the data show. So, on average, no more than 54% of contacts are traced. This figure includes people in the same household, who should be isolating anyway, under government rules. In summary, Reuters found that only half of a non-household contact – someone not living with the infected person – was tracked down in each of the 604,000 COVID-19 cases handled by national tracers since May 28.
Local officials described being sent lists of infected people who claimed to have been in touch with no one. There was no contact information for nearly one in four contacts in the week to Nov. 4, official data show. That compares with 31 contacts per case in Singapore and 27 in Taiwan, according to studies of their methods.
The system is not only inefficient, it’s also slow, according to tracers and Reuters’ data analysis. This analysis shows that from the onset of symptoms, it typically takes seven days in England to reach an infected person’s contacts.
“If you are taking that long, you really have to ask, what is the point?” said Martin McKee, a professor of public health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
In contrast, Singapore’s health ministry said in September it had cut the average time taken to identify and quarantine close contacts to under two days.
The system continues to creak. In the week to Nov. 11, the latest available data, only six out of 10 of the total number of contacts identified by people who tested positive, including household contacts, were reached and asked to self-isolate. The number has barely changed since June.
Many epidemiologists told the government from the beginning that a very different approach was necessary to have any hope of preventing a second wave – to build a system to trace the disease at the grassroots level.
In May, Britain’s leading scientific body, the Royal Society, had stressed the need for “local integration of systems.”
The government was slow to take up that message. With few extra resources, local authorities could create only small teams of contact tracers. These local teams only take on cases that the national team has already failed to deal with – leading to more delay. A report by one London authority found the average time between a positive test and the case reaching local teams was 5.7 days.
The health ministry spokesman said testing and tracing “has always been a collaboration” with local authorities.
As the pandemic worsened, cases in Liverpool skyrocketed. Restrictions at the city’s nursing homes became ever tighter, including at the residence where Meehan’s mother, Peggy Curley, lived.
Dreaded news reached Meehan in October. Several of the residents had tested positive for COVID-19. Soon afterwards, her mother developed a fever and a slight cough. She, too, tested positive.
As her 91-year-old mother’s health declined, Meehan finally was allowed to visit. “No one wants to get ‘the call’ to go in and see our loved ones when it is obviously too late, when all we wanted was to spend any quality time whilst they were well enough to see us,” Meehan said.
On Nov. 9, two weeks after testing positive for COVID-19, Meehan’s mother died.
