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Coronavirus live news: Bulgaria tightens restrictions ahead of expected surge; further 178 UK deaths reported — as it happened

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Patients waiting to receive a dose of Covid-19 vaccine in Sofia this month
Patients waiting to receive a dose of Covid-19 vaccine in Sofia this month. Bulgaria is tightening restrictions ahead of an expected rise in cases. Photograph: Nikolay Doychinov/AFP/Getty Images
Patients waiting to receive a dose of Covid-19 vaccine in Sofia this month. Bulgaria is tightening restrictions ahead of an expected rise in cases. Photograph: Nikolay Doychinov/AFP/Getty Images

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Key events

A summary of today's developments

  • Boris Johnson has said the UK needs to “go faster” with the vaccination of 16- to 17-year olds, despite a “strong” uptake within the age group.
  • The US plans to invest $3bn (£2.2bn) in the vaccine supply chain as it continues to work to position the United States as a leading supplier of vaccines for the world, Reuters reports.
  • A decision on extending Covid vaccinations to 12- to 15-year-olds is expected to be announced imminently, the Guardian understands.
  • The European Union has agreed to send millions of coronavirus vaccine doses made in South Africa back to the continent, AFP reports.
  • Schoolchildren in France returned from their summer holidays to be told to get vaccinated by headteachers and the French president Emmanuel Macron.

Mexico posted 18,138 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 as well as 993 more deaths on Thursday, Reuters reported.

The latest figures brought the total number of infections in the country to 3,387,885 and the death toll to 261,496, according to health ministry data.

The European Union has agreed to send millions of coronavirus vaccine doses made in South Africa back to the continent, AFP reports.

South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare, which produces the Johnson & Johnson vaccine under a contract with the US pharma giant, will also stop sending doses to Europe, Strive Masiyiwa told reporters at an online briefing.

The African Union’s special Covid envoy said that Aspen’s arrangement to export the doses to Europe had been “suspended”.

A health worker talks to people as they wait to register next to the Transvaco coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine train at the Springs train station on the East Rand, South Africa. Photograph: Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters

The envoy added:

All the vaccines produced at Aspen will stay in Africa and be distributed to Africa.

This issue has been corrected and corrected in a very positive way.

The announcement came with Africa struggling to immunise its people against Covid-19, which AFP wrote was partly because of a lack of supply and widespread vaccine hesitancy.

The US plans to invest $3bn (£2.2bn) in the vaccine supply chain as it continues to work to position the United States as a leading supplier of vaccines for the world, Reuters reports.

White House Covid adviser Jeffrey Zients, a top US health official said during a news conference on Thursday that the funding will focus on manufacturers of the inputs used in Covid-19 vaccine production as well as facilities that fill and package vaccine vials, and will begin to be distributed in the coming weeks.

The US has administered 372,116,617 doses of Covid-19 vaccines in the country as of Thursday morning and distributed 445,672,595 doses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.

Those figures are up from the 371,280,129 vaccine doses the CDC said had gone into arms by September 1 out of the 443,741,705 doses delivered, Reuters reported.

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Boris Johnson has said the UK needs to “go faster” with the vaccination of 16- to 17-year olds, despite a “strong” uptake within the age group.

The prime minister told reporters at Merville Barracks in Colchester that the eligible teenagers were “a very important group for potential transmission”, PA Media reports.

Figures show that almost two-thirds of 16 and 17-year-olds in Wales have had a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, and half of this age group in England and Scotland have been jabbed.

The figure is 40% in Northern Ireland.

Boris Johnson said:

I would urge all 16- to 17-year-olds, everybody who knows 16- to 17-year-olds - the numbers are coming up very fast now, it is very encouraging to see more and more 16- to 17-year-olds taking the jab - but we need to go faster with those.

There are still some who need that protection and I would just urge everybody who hasn’t yet had a jab to go and get one.

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A decision on extending Covid vaccinations to 12- to 15-year-olds is expected to be announced imminently, the Guardian understands.

The anticipated announcement will follow days of increasing pressure on the government’s vaccinations watchdog to approve the idea.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) held a long discussion on the issue today, followed by a vote.

While officials and scientists would not comment before a formal announcement, which could come as early as Friday, ministers are known to be hugely keen to press ahead with the programme, with the bulk of English schools returning this week.

Summary

Here is another brief round-up of the main coronavirus talking points from today:

  • The UK reported 38,154 new Covid cases on Thursday and 178 more deaths within 28 days of a positive test, according to official data.
  • Members of the UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) have been sent suspicious packages and hate mail throughout the pandemic, one of the UK’s leading virologists has revealed.
  • In Greece, unvaccinated healthcare workers have been offered a second chance to get jabbed after hundreds protested against the mandatory shot.
  • Philippines’ president Rodrigo Duterte has denied allegations that medical supplies such as personal protective equipment and face masks were overpriced.
  • The African Union’s Covid envoy has announced that vaccine doses produced by a plant in South Africa will no longer be exported to Europe.
  • In Bulgaria, restaurants and bars will have to close at 10pm from 7 September, while indoors sports will have to be held without spectators.

That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for today. My colleague Charlie Moloney will be taking over the blog to bring you all the latest Covid news for the rest of this evening.

Philippines’ president Rodrigo Duterte has denied allegations that medical supplies such as personal protective equipment and face masks were overpriced, lashing out at lawmakers probing government officials over emergency purchases last year.

The leader’s administration is facing growing criticism over its handling of one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in Asia.

“At the height of the pandemic, when it began, we had nothing,” Duterte said in a weekly late-night national address. “It was costly because of lack of supply.”

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Photograph: Eloisa Lopez/Reuters

Opposition lawmakers questioned the government’s emergency deals to buy medical supplies from a lowly-capitalised company with links to government officials.

Calla Wahlquist
Calla Wahlquist

In Australia, the Kimberley Aboriginal Medical Services has written to local churches asking them to counter dangerous misinformation promoting vaccine hesitancy among Aboriginal communities.

It comes after the Western Australian senator Pat Dodson condemned the “evil” messages of a small number of rogue Christian groups, which are fuelling anti-vaccination sentiment in the Kimberley.

Vicki O’Donnell, the chief executive of Kimberley Aboriginal Medical Services (KAMS), said that while some communities in the area had high rates of vaccinations, there was “resistance in some communities due to religious groups and the misinformation that they’re providing”.

“The messaging is that you don’t need to have the vaccine because God’s going to save you,” she told Guardian Australia, adding:

I’m Catholic, and I have the utmost respect for religious groups, but at the end of the day if you’re not vaccinated God isn’t going to help you because you’re going to end up very sick and you’re going to die. And that’s the reality.

In Greece, unvaccinated healthcare workers have been offered a second chance to get jabbed after hundreds protested against the mandatory shot.

The government also said it would allow those who have been already suspended to return to work amid protests in central Athens on Thursday.

Greece has suspended nearly 6,000 frontline health care workers who missed a September 1 deadline to get at least one vaccine shot from their jobs, a government official told Reuters.

The news agency reported:

Hundreds of those workers staged a five-hour work stoppage on Thursday and took to the streets in Athens and other Greek cities for a second time in less than a month to protest against the new rule.

A labour union official for hospital workers POEDIN said that a total of 10,000 unvaccinated staff could be suspended, disrupting operations at understaffed Greek hospitals at a time when infections remained high and were likely to rise further.

“We have worked so hard during the pandemic and this is what we get,” said protester Anna Haritou, who worked as a midwife at an Athens hospital until she was suspended on Wednesday.

Hundreds of Greek healthcare workers, accompanied by ambulances, protest in the centre of Athens. Photograph: Eurokinissi/REX/Shutterstock

Attempting to ease any fallout, the government said legislation would be amended to allow workers be removed from suspension and get back to their jobs immediately as long as they got the first dose in the coming days.

The main condition is that they complete both of their vaccinations.

Natalie Grover

There is “almost certainly no urgency” to press ahead with booster shots for healthy adults and it may be better to see how the pandemic pans out before deciding, the scientist leading key research into third shots has said.

Prof Saul Faust, chief investigator of the Cov-Boost study whose data next week is expected to help inform a decision on the rollout of boosters across the UK, told the Guardian that for now it may be preferable to prioritise only the vulnerable, including those with compromised immune systems.

Meanwhile, some scientists said booster shots may be useful for routine use even among highly vaccinated populations to reduce Covid transmission, especially given the prevalence of the Delta variant.

A man receives a shot of vaccine against COVID-19 disease. Photograph: Zurab Kurtsikidze/EPA

On Thursday, scientists including Prof Neil Ferguson suggested that even if evidence did not yet show waning protection in the double-vaccinated against serious illness and death, booster shots could help reduce the spread of cases.

Matthew Weaver
Matthew Weaver

Members of the UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) have been sent suspicious packages and hate mail throughout the pandemic, one of the UK’s leading virologists has revealed.

Prof Calum Semple, a member of Sage and the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), said the incidents of abuse included one “particularly nasty” experience when he was targeted by anti-vaxxers.

Semple, a professor of child health and outbreak medicine at the University of Liverpool, has regularly appeared on television and radio to be interviewed about Covid since the pandemic began.

He said during this time he and his colleagues on Sage had “attracted adverse attention” from people frustrated by the government’s response to Covid. He added:

I’ve never been at a Sage meeting where we’ve sat around drinking coffee saying ‘wouldn’t it be a jolly good idea if we closed the pubs?’ That conversation has never and will never happen.

It’s about what is the likely contribution of construction versus schools versus large matches, and that’s where you can then present a menu of likely impacts, and then it’s for policymakers to make the decisions, but we’re not a talking shop or we’re not a suggestion box or a brains trust, it’s very much about dealing with inadequate information and giving best opinion.

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Summary

Here is a brief summary of the main Covid headlines from around the world this afternoon:

  • The UK reported 38,154 new Covid cases on Thursday and 178 more deaths within 28 days of a positive test, according to official data.
  • In Italy, the prime minister, Mario Draghi, has predicted 80% of people aged 12 and above will have been vaccinated by the end of September.
  • The African Union’s Covid envoy has announced that vaccine doses produced by a plant in South Africa will no longer be exported to Europe.
  • In Bulgaria, restaurants and bars will have to close at 10pm from 7 September, while indoors sports will have to be held without spectators.
  • Booster shots may be useful even among highly vaccinated populations to reduce Covid transmission, especially given the prevalence of the Delta variant, scientists have said.
  • Hundreds of healthcare workers in Greece marched through Athens this morning to protest against mandatory Covid vaccines for anyone working in their sector.
  • Schoolchildren in France returned today from their summer holidays to be told to get vaccinated by headteachers and the French president Emmanuel Macron.

Schoolchildren in France returned today from their summer holidays to be told to get vaccinated by headteachers and the French president Emmanuel Macron.

Some 12 million pupils went back to the classroom on Thursday - but only about 47% of 12-to-17-year-olds are fully vaccinated, a concern for the spread of the coronavirus and for how long classes can remain open.

Macron told French children in a video posted on social media:

You need to keep getting vaccinated, and you need, even if I know it’s a bit unpleasant, to continue wearing a mask in the classroom, wash your hands and keep your distance.

Bonne rentrée ! pic.twitter.com/IwYW5qVZcz

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) September 2, 2021

He also visited a classroom in Marseille, where he chatted with children - with one asking him if nasal swabs for Covid go all the way into the brain, according to a Reuters reporter.

In the Rodin high school in central Paris, there was the same pro-vaccination message.

Macron visits Bouge primary school near Marseille. Photograph: Daniel Cole/EPA

School principal Julie Bouvry told pupils as they arrived for their first day back:

I encourage you to get vaccinated, with the two doses, so that we can have a good year, all together. That’s the objective.

Pivoting back to that Mario Draghi press conference in Italy, his health minister, Roberto Speranza, has just said that the Italian government is planning to start administering a third Covid vaccine shot later this month.

Speaking alongside his prime minister, Speranza said the third jab would be made available to people with the most fragile immune systems.

The Italian health minister, Roberto Speranza, speaks to reporters in Rome, Italy. Photograph: Remo Casilli/Reuters

Draghi also said Italy might make inoculations obligatory for everyone once the anti-Covid vaccines had been given full approval by EU and Italian regulators.

Italy reported 62 coronavirus-related deaths on Thursday, down from 69 the previous day, while the daily tally of new infections rose to 6,761 from 6,503, the health ministry said.

A total of 129,352 deaths linked to Covid have been registered in Italy since its outbreak emerged in February last year.

That is the second-highest tally in Europe behind Britain and the ninth-highest globally. Italy has reported 4.55 million cases to date.

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