Covid live: Germany reports new record daily cases; WHO envoy advises minimising international travel | World news

Boris Johnson has come under fire from the World Health Organization’s special envoy for Covid-19 after being photographed without a face covering during a hospital visit.

Asked about pictures of the British prime minister walking through Hexham General without a mask, Dr David Nabarro said:

We all need to be able to do what we’ve got to do, regardless of what politics we adopt.

He told Sky News:

I’m not sitting on the fence on this one – where you’ve got large amounts of virus being transmitted, everybody should do everything to avoid either getting the virus or inadvertently passing it on.

We know that wearing a face mask reduces the risk, we know that maintaining physical distance reduces the risk, we know that hygiene by regular hand-washing and coughing into your elbow reduces the risk.

We should do it all and we should not rely on any one intervention like vaccination on its own.

So, please, would every leader be wearing face masks, particularly when in indoor settings.

This virus is unforgiving and we need to do everything possible to prevent it getting in between us and infecting us.

Dr Nabarro also expressed regret that means of mitigating the spread of Covid, such as use of face masks, have been politicised. He told the broadcaster:

Perhaps that’s the toughest thing about Covid, is that the responses get politicised – in some places if you wear a mask, you’re taught to belong to a particular political party.

That’s the most regretful thing about the present situation; we all need to be able to do what we’ve got to do, regardless of what politics we adopt.

The latest row came after Johnson was pictured last week at the Cop26 climate change summit sitting maskless alongside the 95-year-old environmentalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough.

A No 10 spokesman earlier said of his visit to Hexham General hospital:

The prime minister followed the Covid measures that were in place throughout his visit, including wearing a mask in all clinical areas. He also took a PCR test before the visit. The hospital trust has issued a statement making clear the PM followed its guidelines.

• Germany’s national disease control centre reported a record-high number of new coronavirus cases today, as one of the country’s top virologists warned that another lockdown would be needed if vaccinations do not quickly accelerate.
• “We have a real emergency situation right now,” Christian Drosten, the head of virology at Berlin’s Charite hospital, said regarding the situation at many hospital intensive care units across the country. “We have to do something right now.”
• Hungary recorded 8,434 new Covid-19 infections today, the highest daily tally since early April, with new cases again doubling from last week.
• Slovakia reported 7,055 new cases – the highest level the country has seen since the pandemic began.
• The Czech Republic has recorded its highest number of Covid cases since March 2021, with 14,539 new positive tests. Ladislav Dušek, director of the country’s health information and statistics organisation, warned that “high numbers of infections in the most vulnerable part of the population increases the probability of an additional burden on hospitals, in numbers which can potentially double up very quickly.”
• The World Health Organization’s Covid envoy Dr David Nabarro has warned to minimise international travel even as borders open up, saying: “I’m trying to say to everybody travel if you must – and there are often essential emotional reasons as well as essential economic and another reasons – but try not to travel if you don’t have to. Because travelling does increase your risk, we know that the more contacts you have with other people, the more likely you are to both get the virus and to spread it, so minimise travel please.”
• Nabarro has also criticised UK prime minister Boris Johnson for appearing in a hospital without wearing a face mask this week, urging all world leaders to wear masks when in indoor settings.
• The UK’s health secretary Sajid Javid said this morning he does “not want to see anyone have to walk away from their job” as he urged health and social care staff to get a Covid-19 vaccine ahead of making it compulsory for NHS England staff from 1 April.
• Dr Maggie Wearmouth, who sits on the Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) in the UK, said that legislating mandatory vaccines for frontline health and care workers in England was a “blunt instrument” but she was “supportive” of the move.
• Indonesia and Malaysia have agreed to introduce a travel corridor between them on a gradual basis, starting with key areas like capital cities and the holiday island of Bali.
• Vietnam has said it will by the end of this month have sufficient vaccines to cover its population against Covid-19.
• Four lions at a Singapore wildlife park have tested positive for coronavirus after coming into contact with infected zookeepers, and have symptoms including coughing and sneezing, officials have said.
• The European Union’s drug regulator expects to decide in about two months on whether to allow the use of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine in children aged six to 11 after the US pharmaceutical company sought approval. However, several European countries including Sweden, Germany and France have paused or recommended pausing its use for people 30 or younger due to rare heart-related side-effects.
• People who trust Fox News Channel and other media outlets that appeal to Republicans and conservatives are more likely to believe falsehoods about Covid-19 and vaccines than those who primarily go elsewhere for news, a study in the US has found. The most widely believed falsehood is about the government exaggerating Covid deaths. 60% of Americans either believe that or said they didn’t know whether or not it was true.

Lucy Campbell will be here shortly to take you through the rest of the days Covid news from the UK and around the world. Andrew Sparrow has our live UK politics coverage, and Alan Evans is live at Cop26. I will see you here again tomorrow, take care and stay safe.

The UK’s health secretary Sajid Javid said this morning he does “not want to see anyone have to walk away from their job” as he urged health and social care staff to get a Covid-19 vaccine.

Javid told media outlets this morning the decision to make vaccines compulsory for staff in England from next April was “about patient safety”, adding that it was the government’s and NHS’s duty to protect the vulnerable, who are at increased risk of death from coronavirus.

During his appearances, PA Media quotes him telling LBC Radio:

The vast majority of NHS workers are already vaccinated and I want to, of course, thank them for that. They’ve done that not only to protect themselves or their colleagues, most of all I think they’ve done it to protect their patients.

We know that people in hospital, they’re already very vulnerable, and the last thing they want is to be exposed to Covid-19 when it could have been prevented, and that can be fatal for them in that condition.

I think, ultimately, this is the right call – it is the duty of the NHS and the government to do everything that we can to protect vulnerable people.

Javid said staff who refuse a jab could be moved to non-patient facing roles, but that figures in the government’s impact assessment regarding how many could leave were a “cautious estimate”. There are between 80,000 and 100,000 unvaccinated NHS staff in England

The European Union’s drug regulator expects to decide in about two months on whether to allow the use of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine in children aged six to 11 after the US pharmaceutical company sought approval.

“The current timeline for evaluation foresees an opinion in approximately two months, unless supplementary information or analysis is needed,” the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said in a statement.

Reuters notes that the European Union had in July authorised the vaccine for use in teens aged 12 to 17 years, but several countries including Sweden, Germany and France have paused or recommended pausing its use for people 30 or younger due to rare heart-related side-effects.

I’ll be continuing to bring you the latest Covid news from the UK and around the world, but we’ve also got another couple of live blogs up and running now that might catch your eye.

Andrew Sparrow has launched the UK politics live blog. He is leading with the swirl of sleaze around Boris Johnson’s government.

We’ve also got live coverage by Alan Evans from Cop26, on an important day for the conference, as a draft agreement has emerged.

Hungary recorded 8,434 new Covid-19 infections today, the highest daily tally since early April, with new cases again doubling from last week. Slovakia reported 7,055 new cases – the highest level the country has seen since the pandemic began. This map shows the worsening situation across Europe right now.

Germany’s national disease control centre reported a record-high number of new coronavirus cases today, as one of the country’s top virologists warned that another lockdown would be needed if vaccinations do not quickly accelerate.

The 39,676 cases registered by the Robert Koch Institute surpassed the previous daily record of 37,120 new cases it reported on Friday. The institute said Germany’s infection rate rose to 232.1 new cases per 100,000 residents over the past seven days.

Berlin’s Charite hospital said Tuesday it had to cancel planned surgeries due to the number of staff members caring for people with Covid-19. Authorities have said most of latest patients are unvaccinated.

“We have a real emergency situation right now,” Christian Drosten, the head of virology at Charite, said regarding the situation at many hospital intensive care units across the country. “We have to do something right now.”

Drosten said he expects “a very strenuous winter” if vaccinations don’t pick up quickly. “We probably need to control infection activity again through contact measures – not probably, but certainly,” he said. “We’re in a bad situation: we have 15 million people who could have been vaccinated and should have been vaccinated,” Drosten said.

Several hospitals have said in recent days that they are again working at their limits and have ICUs so full of coronavirus patients that they cannot admit new patients at the moment.

Kirsten Grieshaber notes for Associated Press that Germany has a caretaker national government following a September federal election. The parties that are expected to form the next government plan to introduce legislation this week that would allow a declaration since March 2020 of an “epidemic situation of national scope” to expire at the end of the month and provide a new legal framework for instituting coronavirus measures.

As during other periods of the pandemic, the country has a patchwork of regional rules. Most places restrict access to many indoor facilities and events to people who have been vaccinated against the virus, have recovered from Covid or recently received negative test results – with the latter category now excluded in some areas. However, there are complaints that the rules are often laxly enforced.

An odd one here from Agence France-Presse: Four lions at a Singapore wildlife park have tested positive for coronavirus after coming into contact with infected zookeepers, and have symptoms including coughing and sneezing, officials have said.

The endangered Asiatic lions started displaying signs of illness at the weekend, prompting officials to order coronavirus tests. The infected big cats along with five others at the Night Safari park have been placed in isolation in their den, the government’s animal and veterinary service said.

“All the lions remain bright, alert and active,” said Sonja Luz, from Mandai Wildlife Group, which operates the park. “We expect that the lions will make a full recovery with minor supportive treatment.”

Three zookeepers from the Night Safari are confirmed to have been infected. The park is an open-air zoo home to hundreds of animals, which welcomes visitors at night.

An African lion at Singapore Zoo – which is adjacent to the Night Safari – has also fallen sick, and officials have ordered virus tests. Both Singapore Zoo and the Night Safari remain open, although the lion exhibits have been temporarily closed.

Animals have become infected with the virus on previous occasions. Lions, tigers and gorillas have tested positive at US zoos, while domestic cats and dogs have also been hit.

Germany’s vaccine advisory committee recommends people under 30 be vaccinated only with the Biontech/Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine, as it showed a lower number of heart inflammations in younger people than the Moderna vaccination, it said this morning.

The committee, known as STIKO, said it also recommends pregnant women, independent of their age, be inoculated only with the Biontech/Pfizer vaccine as well.

France’s vaccine advisory board made a similar recommendation earlier this week.

People who trust Fox News Channel and other media outlets that appeal to Republicans and conservatives are more likely to believe falsehoods about Covid-19 and vaccines than those who primarily go elsewhere for news, a study in the US has found.

While the Kaiser Family Foundation study released this week found the clear ties between news outlets that people trusted and the amount of misinformation they believe, it took no stand on whether those attitudes specifically came from what they saw there.

“It may be because the people who are self-selecting these organisations believe (the misinformation) going in,” said Liz Hamel, vice president and director of public opinion and survey research at Kaiser.

Associated Press reports that Kaiser polled people on whether or not they believed seven widely circulated untruths about the virus, among them that the government is exaggerating the number of deaths attributable to the coronavirus, hiding reports of deaths caused by vaccines or that the vaccines can cause infertility, contain a microchip or can change DNA.

For people who most trusted network or local television news, NPR, CNN or MSNBC, between 11% and 16% said they believed four or more of those untrue statements, or weren’t sure about what was true.

For Fox News viewers, 36% either believed in or were unsure about four or more false statements, Kaiser said. It was 46% for Newsmax viewers and 37% for those who said they trusted One America Network News.

The most widely believed falsehood is about the government exaggerating Covid deaths. Kaiser said 60% of Americans either believe that or said they didn’t know whether or not it was true.