#liverpool latest news covid

[sportearly]

"Get informed," Florian Plettenberg gives Liverpool transfer claims, and FSG plans to heavily support Klopp

“Get informed,” Florian Plettenberg gives Liverpool transfer claims, and FSG plans to heavily support Klopp

Because he has “been informed,” Florian Plettenberg is no longer pursuing a move to Liverpool, and FSG is planning to heavily support Klopp. Florian Plettenberg abandons his transfer request to Liverpool after being “told” that FSG would strongly support Klopp.The decline in performance this season has made it very evident that Liverpool Football Club needs investment, particularly in the…

[oh-saints]

MISS YOU

everyone's been saying long distance relationship sucks. but no one tells freja how much harder it is when your boyfriend is a high-profile footballer playing for real madrid.

martin odegaard x press!OC

word count: 2k

tw: not beta-read and spanish by gtranslate. other than that, none except martin being the best boyfriend

note: a little bonus bcs arsenal finally won against liverpool with martin being the centre of the attacks so he deserves this as much as we do, no?

“hola, mi amor,” it didn’t even take freja a second to relax into her favourite sound in the world; it was why she called him in the beginning. she felt like her head could explode anytime soon without hearing it. “esta bien?”

“para nada,” she sighed deeply, tears swelling up at the back of her eyelid but she held it in, not wanting to add more worry to his life. “i miss you so much, martin.”

“ya tambien, querida. ya tambien…” although they weren’t on a video call, freja knew martin had somehow sensed her breakdown over the line. “you know i can always come and visit you anytime. you just have to say the word.”

that was, in fact, true.

being in a long-distance relationship between madrid and london was never going to be an easy feat, they had known that from the get-go. they were doing everything in their power to make it bearable for both of them because let’s be honest, having a footballer with unusual schedule of working as your boyfriend took the difficulty level to a whole new level.

despite the reality of playing regular football not going martin’s way so far, freja insisted to be the one flying in and out of the capital of spain every chance she got—mostly twice a month—knowing martin could be called to play for the first team anytime. besides, martin missing a training session could significantly jeopardize everything he’s worked hard for, she didn’t want to put more pressure to his shoulder.

freja chuckled to lighten the mood. “if i have you here, all to myself, i don’t think i can send you back to madrid.”

“what if i don’t want you to send me back?”

when you work around the creative world, you’d know for a fact that you won’t have a specific, fixed timeline of work. all you know is the deadline of an event, and being in the fantastic media team for london fashion week means you’d give up almost all of your day off when christmas day and new year’s coming closer, in order to make sure the biggest weekend of london fashion scene went well covered—all three; pre, during, and post event.

if freja wasn’t buried between her editing tools, she’d be stuck in a meeting room, brainstorming all the idea to increase the attention and engagement around london fashion week. she could only thank god she wasn’t in the press team, or else she’d break her neck and bones running about literally everywhere to cover the whole event—red carpets, inside scoops of attending guests, after parties, and so on…

only when the government publicly announced they’d take the extreme measures for the covid outbreak, did freja have the chance to breathe in the fresh air of freedom from endless media works, albeit harbouring a tang of sadness for the sole fact that all of her hard work so far wouldn’t be showcased for the entire world to see.

but had it not for the emergency break pulled, freja wouldn’t have had the chance to look at the latest news, including but not limited to football’s biggest day of the month; winter transfer window deadline.

Real Madrid’s Martin Ødegaard in talk to join Arsenal on loan!

no way.

freja had only been speaking to martin last night over the phone, her talking about the nation-wide lockdown frenzy in the UK and him talking about his usual daily routine while coping with the same unfortunate pandemic in spain. he didn’t mention anything about being offered another loan deal, nor was any change in circumstances under zidane. ever since coming back home from his spell from real sociedad, the president of real madrid was reluctant to let him go to another club again, knowing the potent he could bring to the enemy team if he left but zidane considered him a player not suitable for his style of management. nothing unusual, really.

maybe because it’s still in discussion… freja calmed herself down.

she was feeling all sorts of things, good and bad, and it was giving her headache already. she was excited they’d be in the same city again if the deal passed through, of course, but she was also frustrated at the thought martin had to go on another loan instead of bagging some game time—they promised him that much, should he return to the club after a stellar season in real sociedad. for god’s sake, he could’ve been highlighting the young player award somewhere instead of being hindered in development by his own club.

she wanted to see him succeed in real madrid, she really did. he believed—and she knew—he had what it took to break through the scene, not everyone was called to their national team before they turned 16. and with the way real madrid always put up an adamant fight every time another club asked for martin’s signature on a permanent contract, she was quite positive about it.

was being the operative word here, now. almost seven years in, and no signs of martin playing regular team. not even as a benchwarmer.

as much as freja wanted him all for herself—knowing they were both the happiest last year when martin was playing week in and out for real sociedad and freja was working for the local tourism campaign—she didn’t want to get her hopes high this time, for the expectation always kills.

martin will tell when things get seriously serious, right?

are you seriously joining arsenal?

or at least, considering it?

freja sent the text without hoping immediate reply. considering the current time in madrid, she predicted martin would only see her text after he was done with training and everything entitled to it. she’d get the reply sometimes around dinner time here, that was being the earliest, so she decided to soak in the rare benefit of having a week off by picking up the books she’d bought but never had the chance to read them yet.

“¿dónde estás? are you outside?”

“yeah, i need to stock up some necessities,” freja answered over her airpods as she shoved all of her necessities to the shopping bag. “you know, with the lockdown around the corner and all. are you done for the day?”

“i hope you stock my favourite cereals,” and freja froze on her place. could it be…? “so you won’t forget about my little habits while we’re apart.”

freja released the breath she didn’t realize she was holding.

“i hate that i can’t see you for god knows how long this time,” freja smiled bittersweetly at that, the feeling was mutual on her side of the house. she wished she could’ve watched his expression when he said that, though. martin must’ve pulled out a pout that reminded her of olaf from the frozen series. “ya te extraño mucho, amor mio.”

“yo también siento lo mismo, martin,” oh, fuck london and its weather… freja cursed deep down. it was fine less than an hour ago and the weather forecast didn’t say anything about snow today. almost half a year in this unpredictable weather and freja still didn’t learn her lesson, now she had to brave the cold with only her casual loungewear of sweater and legging. “it’s such a shame that i didn’t have time to book a flight back to madrid before the government halts all flight.”

“i can always fly you out, remember?”

“and have the private jet all to myself?” freja screeched, both at the lonely thought and at the feeling snow falling against her legs. “no, thanks! but babe, i’ll call you later, yeah? it’s suddenly snowing here.”

“you really should’ve worn something warmer, kjære. you’ll catch a cold if you pull on thin layers like that,” if the first sentence wasn’t enough to stop freja’s steps, the second surely did. “i thought i could trust you looking after yourself.”

“how do you know what i’m wearing?”

“because i’ve been standing here and waiting for you to come out,” freja jumped at the extra clothes being draped over herself from behind. turning around and there he was, in flesh and blood, his golden locks looking unbelievably good in contrast to the white snow. “i’m starting to feel cold, too, you know?”

gone was the intense frost stinging her skin—heck, her brain went into malfunction as soon as martin showed up in front of her. she wanted to hug him immediately but was thinking this was some sort of delirium—was she suffering hypothermia already? her tongue was ticklish with so many questions of how directed to her boyfriend but her tear glands were so close to shedding tears of happiness.

“cat got your tongue somewhere, darling?” martin laughed at the endearing sight of his girlfriend going into an overwhelmed mode—a rare one, at that as well, knowing well that his girlfriend was one of those people who always had something to say in return. “am i not getting a hug? or are you not pleased i’m here?”

“how—” martin could see she was still digesting the reality that was closer to her dream, in one way or another, by the way those lovely eyes kept blinking rapidly. “i don’t get it. what are you doing here?”

martin’s smile widened at her speechless state. “why, can’t i see my girlfriend? i thought you missed me?”

“i do, i really do! don’t get me wrong,” freja shook her head in disbelief. “but what about your trainings? you’re not going on a strike, are you? because i don’t want perez to have my head—”

“i accepted arsenal’s proposal to be closer to you but you want me stay in madrid instead?”

“well, you said it yourself—wait, what?”

martin couldn’t help but laugh uncontrollably at his girlfriend’s shocked expression. freja was one of those people who is rarely fazed by anything that comes her way, probably the biggest reason why martin loves being around her at the first place. none of the whole ‘real madrid’s most valuable gem’ status the media plastered on him got into her head. to have her in this state was amusing to him that he went straight to embrace her first, instead of freja’s usual initiation for skin ship.

“it’s a done deal, i’m doing the whole medical and media duty tomorrow,” martin breathed against her hair, this time in relief because he could finally let the cat out of the bag. it’d been pretty hard to lay it low, especially to surprise your girlfriend, with whom you share very much everything on daily basis. “i want you to know this from me first, instead of the media.”

freja pulled away from martin’s grasp, to scan through his face for any sign of deception. “you’re staying here?”

“how else am i supposed to play every weekend if i’m not staying here?” martin chuckled at his girlfriend’s antics, so cute he just wanted to mash those cheeks of her—which was exactly what he did. it was a wonder how he survived almost six months deprived of his daily stress-reliever ball when all he wanted to have her snuggled close in his arms every day she was away. “i hope you have a spare room in your flat.”

freja couldn’t help herself any longer at the feeling of martin’s hands on her cheeks, she stood up on her toes to kiss the one thing she could call her home. his coat be damned, she was becoming warm all over the body from the excitement and happiness bubbling up inside of her, threatening to explode if martin hadn’t sealed her lips from squealing by reciprocating her kiss.

“oh, shut it, olaf,” martin laughed at his girlfriend’s unique moniker for him and freja could only come back to claim his lips once more because good lord, that was the laugh she fell in love with. one she hadn’t had the privilege to hear live for the past six months due to the distance and due to the pressure their respective occupations gave them. “as if we haven’t shared a bed together.”

[jcmarchi]

Redesigning Future mRNA Therapeutics - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/redesigning-future-mrna-therapeutics-technology-org/

Redesigning Future mRNA Therapeutics - Technology Org

Researchers have discovered that misreading of therapeutic mRNAs by the cell’s decoding machinery can cause an unintended immune response in the body.

DNA – artistic interpretation. Image credit: Alius Noreika, created with Bing Image Creator

In a collaboration of universities, including Dr Lance Turtle at the University of Liverpool, researchers have identified the sequence within the mRNA that causes this to occur and found a way to prevent ‘off-target’ immune responses to enable the safer design of future mRNA therapeutics.

mRNA – or ‘messenger ribonucleic acid’ – is the genetic material that tells cells in the body how to make a specific protein.

Researchers from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Toxicology Unit have discovered that the cellular machinery that ‘reads’ mRNAs ‘slips’ when confronted with repeats of a chemical modification commonly found in mRNA therapeutics. In addition to the target protein, these slips lead to the production of ‘off-target’ proteins triggering an unintended immune response.

mRNA vaccines are considered game changing. They have been used to control the COVID-19 pandemic and are already proposed to treat various cancers, cardiovascular, respiratory, and immunological diseases in the future.

This revolutionary class of therapeutics was made possible in part through the work of biochemist Katalin Karikó and immunologist Drew Weissman.

They demonstrated that by adding chemical modifications to the bases – the building blocks of mRNA – the synthetic mRNAs could bypass some of our body’s immune defences allowing a therapeutic to enter the cell and exert its effects. This discovery led to their award of the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 2023.

The latest developments, led by biochemist Professor Anne Willis and immunologist Dr James Thaventhiran from the MRC Toxicology Unit at the University of Cambridge, build upon previous advances to ensure the prevention of any safety issues linked with future mRNA-based therapeutics. Their report is published in the journal Nature.

The researchers identified that bases with a chemical modification called N1-methylpseudouridine – which are currently contained in mRNA therapies – are responsible for the ‘slips’ along the mRNA sequence.

In collaboration with researchers at the Universities of Kent, Oxford and Liverpool, the MRC Toxicology Unit team tested for evidence of the production of ‘off-target’ proteins in people who received the mRNA Pfizer vaccine against COVID-19.

They found an unintended immune response occurred in one third of the 21 patients in the study who were vaccinated – but with no ill-effects, in keeping with the extensive safety data available on these COVID-19 vaccines.

The team then redesigned mRNA sequences to avoid these ‘off-target’ effects, by correcting the error-prone genetic sequences in the synthetic mRNA. This produced the intended protein. Such design modifications can easily be applied to future mRNA vaccines to produce their desired effects while preventing hazardous and unintended immune responses.

“Research has shown beyond doubt that mRNA vaccination against COVID-19 is safe. Billions of doses of the Moderna and Pfizer mRNA vaccines have been safely delivered, saving lives worldwide,” said Dr James Thaventhiran from the MRC Toxicology Unit, joint senior author of the report.

He added: “We need to ensure that mRNA vaccines of the future are as reliable. Our demonstration of ‘slip-resistant’ mRNAs is a vital contribution to future safety of this medicine platform.”

“These new therapeutics hold much promise for the treatment of a wide range of diseases. As billions of pounds flow into the next set of mRNA treatments, it is essential that these therapeutics are designed to be free from unintended side-effects,” said Professor Anne Willis, Director of the MRC Toxicology Unit and joint senior author of the report.

Dr Thaventhiran, who is also a practising clinician at Addenbrooke’s hospital, said: “We can remove the error-prone code from the mRNA in vaccines so the body will make the proteins we want for an immune response without inadvertently making other proteins as well. The safety concern for future mRNA medicines is that mis-directed immunity has huge potential to be harmful, so off-target immune responses should always be avoided.”

Dr Lance Turtle, from the University’s Institute of Infection, Veterinary and Ecological Sciences and who contributed to the paper added: “At the University of Liverpool we are dedicated to tackling major societal challenges through research and collaboration. This latest work brought together a range of disciplines and expertise to simultaneously identify and solve a problem which will have real world impact across the globe.”

Willis added: “These findings can be implemented rapidly to prevent any future safety problems arising and ensure that new mRNA therapies are as safe and effective as the COVID-19 vaccines.”

Using synthetic mRNA for therapeutic purposes is attractive because it is cheap to produce, so it can address substantial global health inequalities by making these medicines more accessible. Moreover, synthetic mRNAs can be changed rapidly – for example to create a new COVID-19 variant vaccine.

In the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines, synthetic mRNA is used to enable the body to make the spike protein from SARS-CoV-2. The body recognises the viral proteins generated by mRNA vaccines as foreign and generates protective immunity. This persists, and if the body is later exposed to the virus its immune cells can neutralise it before it can cause serious illness.

The cell’s decoding machinery is called a ribosome. It ‘reads’ the genetic code of both natural and synthetic mRNAs to produce proteins. The precise positioning of the ribosome on the mRNA is essential to make the right proteins because the ribosome ‘reads’ the mRNA sequence three bases at a time. Those three bases determine what amino acid is added next into the protein chain. Therefore, even a tiny shift in the ribosome along the mRNA will massively distort the code and the resulting protein.

When the ribosome is confronted with a string of these modified bases called N1-methylpseudouridine in the mRNA, it slips around 10% of the time causing the mRNA to be misread and unintended proteins to be produced – enough to trigger an immune response. Removing these runs of N1-methylpseudouridine from the mRNAs prevents ‘off-target’ protein production.

Source: University of Liverpool

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[harpianews]

Liverpool want Arsenal Cup matches to be postponed over COVID

Liverpool want Arsenal Cup matches to be postponed over COVID

Liverpool have requested the club to postpone Thursday’s match against Arsenal in the English League Cup semi-final due to more suspected COVID-19 cases at the club. Liverpool’s first-team training was canceled on Tuesday after more positive tests were reported among players and staff. Liverpool said other factors affecting selection, such as injury and players such as Sadio Mane and Mohamed…

[calacuspr]

PR lessons from the European Super League announcement

Fans were allowed back to watch football in person for the first time this year at the weekend when the FA Cup semi-finals took place at Wembley Stadium.

In normal times, that would be something to celebrate and a key story dominating the sports headlines.

But when news broke on social media of the breakaway European Super League (ESL), fans and media alike could talk of nothing else.

Clearly some senior sports news journalists had been briefed, based on the accuracy of the financial information that they shared.

Many of the revelations, which were subsequently confirmed, suggested a tone deafness on the part of those clubs involved, some of whom have instigated redundancies, player pay cuts and even applied for staff furlough grants from the UK government, while millions have struggled during the pandemic.

The story also showed serious communications errors by the organisers and lessons that all sports organisations can learn from when it comes to issues and crises.

TIMING

The news of the proposed European Super League broke on Sunday afternoon but it was not for some hours until the official statement was released to the public.

This gave plenty of time for the news to be digested by media, fans and players alike, who almost universally expressed outrage and fury at the perceived greed and senselessness of the proposals.

Governing bodies, fan groups and politicians were united in their anger and opposition.

A plan should have been in place to ensure that a comprehensive statement was made available at a pre-agreed time to put the ESL’s views across at the point when the story was expected to break.

As it was, the official release was published late at night, ignoring one of the basic tenets of PR that you don’t leave others to fill the void with negativity when controversial developments take place.

NARRATIVE

Whether fans like to admit it or not, they love to see the top stars of world football playing for or against their team.

In the past week, seeing Neymar and Kylian Mbappe going toe-to toe with the might of Bayern Munich’s array of stars, for instance, provided a mouth-watering and engrossing tie that had everyone salivating at its spectacle.

But the Covid-19 pandemic has seen clubs lose tens if not hundreds of millions in lost revenue from ticketing, merchandise and food and beverage which have presented all sorts of financial challenges for clubs, particularly at the top of the game where salaries are sky high.

While some of this could be recovered once fans are allowed back into stadia, UEFA’s own new Champions League proposals appeared not to have convinced the 12 ESL clubs enough to gain their support when it came to it.

The initial ESL statement included: “The formation of the Super League comes at a time when the global pandemic has accelerated the instability in the existing European football economic model.

“The pandemic has shown that a strategic vision and a sustainable commercial approach are required to enhance value and support for the benefit of the entire European football pyramid.”

Given the parlous financial situation most clubs find themselves in, particularly the giants in Spain and Italy, claims that this is motivated by anything other than money lack credibility.

Florentino Pérez admitted as much when he finally spoke to a Spanish news organisation more than 24 hours after the story first broke, citing the need to recover lost earnings caused by the pandemic.

The ESL did not focus on the challenges facing the clubs and the reasons why the UEFA proposals did not make sense.

In doing so, they handed the moral high ground to their critics and rivals who themselves have not always taken into account the views of fans, players or clubs when making their decisions.

LEADERSHIP

The ESL statement quoted just three ESL executives, Real Madrid’s Florentino Pérez, Manchester United’s Joel Glazer and Andrea Agnelli, Chairman of Juventus.

When the press release was published on each club’s website, there were no individual quotes from executives of those clubs (even if they were not included in the original statement) with the curiosity of United’s Glazer even quoted on the website of arch-rivals Liverpool and Manchester City, something that would previously have been considered unthinkable.

With such considerable financial backing, why were the executives of each club not guided on the key messaging so that they could engage with fans and media who are interested in their specific perspectives the day after the announcement?

If their executives really believe in the proposals they are seeking to implement, why not have the confidence to put the ESL case forward in person?

With no Video News Release or interview opportunities – remember that Zoom has been used in these socially-distanced times to great effect – the organisation gave the impression of arrogance and hiding behind its corporate backers at a time when the clubs’ fans are confused, angry and in need of direct engagement.

ENGAGEMENT

Talking of engagement, the late, great Sir Matt Busby, who led Manchester United to the title and European Cup as it then was, once said “Football is nothing without fans.”

What the Covid-19 pandemic has confirmed is that football’s global appeal has not waned in empty stadia, despite the clear lack of atmosphere without fans cheering on their heroes.

The scheduling of matches over the past few years has made the loyal, died-in-the-wool match-going fans feel disengaged and ignored, with long journeys at inconvenient times required to accommodate television schedules in lucrative overseas markets.

Is it any wonder that in his statement, Perez said: “Football is the only global sport in the world, with more than four billion fans.” Hardly a ringing endorsement of those in Madrid who live and breathe their club and undermining his later comments that audiences were falling.

While football tourists make up an increasing number of those who attend matches in person, clubs used to rely on a loyal, mainly local fanbase, whose traditions and rituals are the fabric of the atmosphere and intensity which makes top level football such a spectacle.

Granted, fans have never been an integral part of the decision-making process for clubs and football administrators, but so many of the leaders of the ESL clubs rarely, if ever, give media interviews or talk directly to the stakeholders who should matter most.

No wonder the scenes at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge were so dramatic, with former goalkeeper and now Technical Director Petr Cech having to plead with fans who were peacefully protesting and blocking the route for team coaches to enter the stadium car park.

The fact that fans from each of the six English clubs came together in a combined effort to thwart the ESL plans and even hold a Zoom call with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson showed the depth of feeling and the importance fans have in the game.

Coaches of the English ESL clubs claimed not to have known anything about the plans until they were revealed at the weekend. Liverpool coach Jurgen Klopp, forced to speak ahead of the Leeds United game when his club’s owners had not yet faced the media, said: “People are not happy with it, I can understand it. I can't say a lot more because we were not involved in the process - not the players, not me - we didn't know about it. We will have to wait how it develops.”

What of the players? Threatened with the prospect of being excluded from international competitions, how would they feel about these developments that they have had no opportunity to discuss before they were seemingly confirmed?

Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson reportedly led a captains’ call before a co-ordinated campaign by him and his team-mates to express their displeasure on social media.

Liverpool sponsor Tribus pulled out of their deal before the ESL project collapsed. Time will tell how other club sponsors feel given the negative feedback towards their partners.

VISION

Football is all about entertainment, rivalry, and the jeopardy that can see a club win a trophy and be relegated in quick succession.

There is an argument that top clubs playing against top clubs in a closed format without relegation may lose its novelty, but even without engagement, the initial communications did nothing to excite and inspire the fans who loyally follow their teams home and away.

At a time when the football family should be working together to support all levels of the game from grassroots to elite level, these developments showed how little club owners care about their traditional fanbase.

The prospect of shorter games and other rule changes to suit a younger audience whose attention spans are supposedly limited added to the uproar and underlined the lack of understanding of the fundamentals that make football great.

As Adam Crafton, from The Athletic, put it: “It’s amazing. I just spent 48 hours thinking ‘surely there’s more to this? Surely they have a plan to articulate the vision?’ And then you realise, there really isn’t.”

It has been said that football clubs have been brands for some time, and if you subscribe to that train of thought, how much damage has been done to those brands and how will they recover?

***

When clubs started pulling out of the ESL on Tuesday evening, it did not take long for more to follow and forced the ESL to make a second, late statement which was so rushed, it did not even go out on headed notepaper.

Tellingly, almost 24 hours later, the ESL had not been updated to include the latest developments.

The ESL debacle raises further questions about the importance of club owners as custodians of these great institutions rather than simply using them as income-generating playthings with no consideration for culture and tradition.

While there has been widespread criticism and this has continued to be handled poorly from a communications perspective, too many organisations have been sleep walking to the point where this has now happened.

And as a result of that apathy, football’s reputation has been tarnished and it will take a long time to repair it.

[sportearly]

Liverpool Champions League winner "near" shocking Premier League return

Liverpool Champions League winner “near” shocking Premier League return

A former Liverpool star who won the Champions League is ‘near’ to making a surprising return to the Premier League. Pako Ayestaran, once an assistant manager for Liverpool, reportedly is on the verge of making a comeback to the Premier League. According to Spanish news site Onda Cero, Rafa Benitez’s former assistant will be joining Unai Emery’s coaching staff at Aston Villa. Once Benitez took…

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Depp v Heard: Warner Bros. Damage Control

As the Coronavirus Pandemic ultimately ends the 2020 movie season, it seems other forces are set to threaten the 2021 and even 2022 release schedule, but rather than a global life-threatening pandemic, this comes from the ongoing, highly-publisized domestic legal battle between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard.

This post will be predicting the state of play for the future careers of the two actors as well as the typhoon of trouble Warner Bros. find themselves in as they try to weather the storm they find themselves caught in as two of their biggest movie franchises find themselves in flux.

No More Grindelwald:

So yes, the latest headline in this ever-growing Depp v Heard battle is that Johnny Depp has been fired from the Fantastic Beasts movies in the wake of the actor’s libel case loss days ago.

Now clearly this is the direct action of Warner Bros. as all the headlines tend to include the words “fired” or “axed” rather than Depp himself stepping down, which is a very definitive difference as both Depp and Heard wanted to delay these court cases so they could get back to their respective roles which they have admitted they both enjoy.

Now to be honest, Johnny Depp in the role of Gellart Grindelwald has been tainted since the reveal of his casting in the first Fantastic Beasts movie. This was of course tainted by the fact that this legal battle was already going on but Depp was effectively vilified as the culprit in all this.

However, despite the very public controversy around the casting to the degree of a mass boycott petition for The Crimes of Grindelwald, for some fans like myself we enjoyed him in the role. It may not have been him back on the form of his glory days but considering his other work of late, his role in the Wizarding World franchise and his small yet crucial role in Murder on the Orient Express remind fans of when he was at the top of his game with the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

Now that’s not to say Grindelwald is gone in the movies going forward. I mean yes these prequels are supposed to be about the history between Dumbledore and Grindelwald, but that doesn’t mean Grindelwald has to always be portrayed by Johnny Depp. He can change his face magically as he did in the first movie with Polyjuice Potion to look like Colin Farrell, a role by the way many fans believed he should have continued with, so why couldn’t he change his face again?

In fact it has been confirmed that Grindelwald will be recast as well as also being confirmed that Fantastic Beasts 3 has now been delayed due to this news from December 2021 to Summer 2022. I don’t understand how this franchise is still standing with all of this controversy...even without COVID the franchise is a hea

What Goes Around Comes Around:

Now I am not for one second siding with either Johnny Depp or Amber Heard in this battle, in fact I believe they are both at fault and the best way to resolve this with minimal damage prior to this libel case was for the two of them to both accept blame, get a divorce and move on from each other. However, Depp chose to sue a newspaper for liability and now we are where we are.

Why I am targeting this post at Warner Bros. specifically is because, in my opinion, as they publicly fired Depp from Fantastic Beasts, then there should also be some repercussions for Heard with Aquaman 2 unless the studio wants to be seen as siding with Heard in this ongoing case.

That being said, like Depp as Grindelwald I really enjoy Heard as Mera. That’s not me saying I like Heard, agree with Heard or anything like that. That is me doing what I always do which is not really paying attention to the artist’s personal life and simply focusing on the job they are hired to do.

The good thing about the Heard side of this argument is that Warner Bros. DC are already taking steps to potentially phase Mera out in the DCEU by introducing a new female character to Aquaman 2, that many fans believe will be Dolphin, as a potential new love interest for Jason Mamoa’s Aquaman. So unlike Depp’s Grindelwald who is a major pivotal part of the Fantastic Beasts movies, Mera, though essential to the Aquaman story for any DC fan, isn’t pivotal to the movies unfortunately.

DCEU Future:

Another linking factor that forms the unholy trinity creating the shitstorm for Warner Bros. is what to do with Ezra Miller in both Fantastic Beasts and at DC.

While maybe not as damaging to the franchises as the Depp v Heard case, or the J.K. Rowling controversy for the Wizarding World franchise, Miller has proven to be a problem child for Warner Bros. firstly as The Flash and then as Credence Barebone.

Now yes the final straw for many DC fans may have been the photographic/video evidence showing the actor throttling a civilian on a night out, but Miller has always been a wild card for any franchise given his somewhat unique artistic styling and wanting to put as much of himself into a role as possible.

Let’s face it, when we first saw him in Justice League as The Flash. We didn’t see Barry Allen, we saw Ezra Miller as The Flash. Now maybe the upcoming Snyder Cut will prove why Miller was originally cast in the role but I am putting my foot down onto my dislike of the portrayal by saying that Joss Whedon wanted Ezra Miller to fall onto Gal Gadot’s cleavage, Gal Gadot refused and they had to bring in a body double but Ezra Miller was still okay with it.

Am I saying that if DC fires Amber Heard they need to also fire Ezra Miller? No because not only has Ezra Miller been in the promotion of both the Snyder Cut and the upcoming Flashpoint movie, I feel it sets too negative a precedent of negative press or controversy equals being cut no matter how pivotal to the movie or show you are.

The Bright Side:

I do want to try and finish this on a lighter note because all there seems to be is doom and gloom at the moment. Not only has this happened to Depp and may potentially happen to Heard, but also it has been rumoured that Wonder Woman 1984 is set to once again be pushed back from its dual Christmas Day cinematic/PVOD release date to June 2021.

However, while I feel if Heard was to be cut from Aquaman 2, the movie would also be pushed back which would benefit both it and Black Panther 2 which are both currently slated for the same year and Black Panther 2 strongly hinted at introducing Namor who is effectively Marvel’s Aquaman, we do still have The Batman in our sights and that movie is at least being teed up wonderfully.

It does pose some disappointment in the fact that Colin Farrell probably won’t return to the role of Grindelwald due to his role as The Penguin in The Batman, but there’s a reason Batman remains DC’s strongest property due to the fact in the entirety of DC’s multimedia history it is always Batman-related properties that thrive in movies, television and games.

I mean, in regards to Colin Farrell returning to the role, never say never to Warner Bros. wanting to I guess appease fans by bringing back one of the few good aspects of this Fantastic Beasts movies considering when the characters went from Percival Graves to Gellert Grindelwald fans were screaming for a reversal. Especially as both The Batman and Fantastic Beasts 3 are being filmed in Liverpool.

Overall, as has been said before, I feel the Depp/Heard case is very sensitive and tricky to navigate but how it’s affecting the two actors’ respective movies is the part where I feel we fans can step in. Not obviously change things but at least have our say.

So what do you guys think? What do you think should happen with the Fantastic Beasts movies going forward, not just with this recent development axing Johnny Depp but also with the controversy around Ezra Miller and J.K. Rowling...how much more heat can this franchise withstand?

Similarly should Amber Heard be dropped from Aquaman 2? Would Warner Bros. turning a blind eye show favouritism on her part?

Post your comments and check out more entertainment reports as well as other posts.

[jcmarchi]

Researchers Redesign Future mRNA Therapeutics - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/researchers-redesign-future-mrna-therapeutics-technology-org/

Researchers Redesign Future mRNA Therapeutics - Technology Org

Researchers have discovered that misreading of therapeutic mRNAs by the cell’s decoding machinery can cause an unintended immune response in the body.

In a collaboration of universities, including Dr Lance Turtle at the University of Liverpool, researchers have identified the sequence within the mRNA that causes this to occur and found a way to prevent ‘off-target’ immune responses to enable the safer design of future mRNA therapeutics. mRNA – or ‘messenger ribonucleic acid’ – is the genetic material that tells cells in the body how to make a specific protein. Researchers from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Toxicology Unit have discovered that the cellular machinery that ‘reads’ mRNAs ‘slips’ when confronted with repeats of a chemical modification commonly found in mRNA therapeutics. In addition to the target protein, these slips lead to the production of ‘off-target’ proteins triggering an unintended immune response.

mRNA vaccines are considered game changing. They have been used to control the COVID-19 pandemic and are already proposed to treat various cancers, cardiovascular, respiratory, and immunological diseases in the future.

This revolutionary class of therapeutics was made possible in part through the work of biochemist Katalin Karikó and immunologist Drew Weissman. They demonstrated that by adding chemical modifications to the bases – the building blocks of mRNA – the synthetic mRNAs could bypass some of our body’s immune defences allowing a therapeutic to enter the cell and exert its effects. This discovery led to their award of the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 2023.

The latest developments, led by biochemist Professor Anne Willis and immunologist Dr James Thaventhiran from the MRC Toxicology Unit at the University of Cambridge, build upon previous advances to ensure the prevention of any safety issues linked with future mRNA-based therapeutics. Their report is published in the journal Nature.

The researchers identified that bases with a chemical modification called N1-methylpseudouridine – which are currently contained in mRNA therapies – are responsible for the ‘slips’ along the mRNA sequence.

In collaboration with researchers at the Universities of Kent, Oxford and Liverpool, the MRC Toxicology Unit team tested for evidence of the production of ‘off-target’ proteins in people who received the mRNA Pfizer vaccine against COVID-19. They found an unintended immune response occurred in one third of the 21 patients in the study who were vaccinated – but with no ill-effects, in keeping with the extensive safety data available on these COVID-19 vaccines.

The team then redesigned mRNA sequences to avoid these ‘off-target’ effects, by correcting the error-prone genetic sequences in the synthetic mRNA. This produced the intended protein. Such design modifications can easily be applied to future mRNA vaccines to produce their desired effects while preventing hazardous and unintended immune responses.

“Research has shown beyond doubt that mRNA vaccination against COVID-19 is safe. Billions of doses of the Moderna and Pfizer mRNA vaccines have been safely delivered, saving lives worldwide,” said Dr James Thaventhiran from the MRC Toxicology Unit, joint senior author of the report.

He added: “We need to ensure that mRNA vaccines of the future are as reliable. Our demonstration of ‘slip-resistant’ mRNAs is a vital contribution to future safety of this medicine platform.”

“These new therapeutics hold much promise for the treatment of a wide range of diseases. As billions of pounds flow into the next set of mRNA treatments, it is essential that these therapeutics are designed to be free from unintended side-effects,” said Professor Anne Willis, Director of the MRC Toxicology Unit and joint senior author of the report.

Dr Thaventhiran, who is also a practising clinician at Addenbrooke’s hospital, said: “We can remove the error-prone code from the mRNA in vaccines so the body will make the proteins we want for an immune response without inadvertently making other proteins as well. The safety concern for future mRNA medicines is that mis-directed immunity has huge potential to be harmful, so off-target immune responses should always be avoided.”

Dr Lance Turtle, from the University’s Institute of Infection, Veterinary and Ecological Sciences and who contributed to the paper added: “At the University of Liverpool we are dedicated to tackling major societal challenges through research and collaboration. This latest work brought together a range of disciplines and expertise to simultaneously identify and solve a problem which will have real world impact across the globe.”

Willis added: “These findings can be implemented rapidly to prevent any future safety problems arising and ensure that new mRNA therapies are as safe and effective as the COVID-19 vaccines.”

Using synthetic mRNA for therapeutic purposes is attractive because it is cheap to produce, so it can address substantial global health inequalities by making these medicines more accessible. Moreover, synthetic mRNAs can be changed rapidly – for example to create a new COVID-19 variant vaccine.

In the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines, synthetic mRNA is used to enable the body to make the spike protein from SARS-CoV-2. The body recognises the viral proteins generated by mRNA vaccines as foreign and generates protective immunity. This persists, and if the body is later exposed to the virus its immune cells can neutralise it before it can cause serious illness.

The cell’s decoding machinery is called a ribosome. It ‘reads’ the genetic code of both natural and synthetic mRNAs to produce proteins. The precise positioning of the ribosome on the mRNA is essential to make the right proteins because the ribosome ‘reads’ the mRNA sequence three bases at a time. Those three bases determine what amino acid is added next into the protein chain. Therefore, even a tiny shift in the ribosome along the mRNA will massively distort the code and the resulting protein.

When the ribosome is confronted with a string of these modified bases called N1-methylpseudouridine in the mRNA, it slips around 10% of the time causing the mRNA to be misread and unintended proteins to be produced – enough to trigger an immune response. Removing these runs of N1-methylpseudouridine from the mRNAs prevents ‘off-target’ protein production.

Source: University of Liverpool

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[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 5/7/21: WRATH OF MAN, HERE TODAY, THE UNTHINKABLE, MONSTER, THE WATER MAN and More

It’s a new month, and I guess going by previous years pre-COVID, this weekend would normally be the start of summer. This year, we’re instead getting a summer with a lot of movies that would normally be dumped into April or February or some other uneventful month. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t or won’t be any good movies, but really, there’s nothing that feels like a summer movie until A Quiet Place Part II and Disney’s Cruella open on Memorial Day weekend.

There’s been lots of great developments, though, including the Alamo Drafthouse in Brooklyn reopening this Friday and then in a few short weeks, theaters may be allowed to be open with no capacity rules although social distancing and masks will probably still be in place. Believe me, it’s been a confusing week as the city that got used to being on the backburner when it comes to reopenings, especially with movie theaters, is now dealing with arguing politicians competing to see who could throw open the then most doors fastest. It’s actually pretty embarrassing.

That aside, this week’s The Weekend Warrior column is brought to you by the new album “Coral Island” from Liverpool band The Coral, which I’ve decided to listen to on loop until I finish this column, because it’s taking me so long to get through it. (Eventually, I switched to Teenage Fanclub’s “Endless Arcade,” since I hadn’t had a chance to listen to it yet…. And to an old standby, Royal Blood, with their own excellent new album, “Typhoons.” At least the record business seems to know it’s the summer!)

Before we get to this week’s new movies, a couple tidbits. First of all, I’m thrilled that my friends Larissa Lam and Baldwin Chiu’s documentary FAR EAST DEEP SOUTH can finally be seen by the entire world, or at least the United States. It debuted on PBS World Channel on Tuesday night as part of the “America ReFramed” series, but for the entire month of May until June 3, you can watch it On Demand HERE, and that is huge! (There will be other ways to see it that you can read about here.)

This is an amazing MUST-SEE doc that looks into the little-known Chinese communities that took root in Mississippi in the early 20th Century and how they became such a huge part of that area with their markets, also bonding with the African-American communities that were similarly dealing with racism from the typically white post-Civil War South. It’s not just a history lesson, and it’s an incredibly moving story about a family trying to find its roots in the most unexpected places. There was a good reason why the couple’s short “Finding Cleveland” won the Oxford Film Festival while I was on the jury that year, and Far East Deep South similarly won an award there last year after its World Premiere at Cinequest was almost scuppered by COVID. It’s amazing how much more relevant and important this film has become since I first saw it last year, since both Asians and African-Americans are dealing with serious racial issues, and this movie shows that more than anything, they should be working to boost each other rather than fighting. Do check it out On Demand this month if you get a chance!

Another musician making movies is Mr. Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters. I mentioned his documentary WHAT DRIVES US last week, but I actually only got to watch it on Thursday, and like his previous film Studio City and HBO mini-series, Sonic Highways, it’s a fantastic look at the music biz, this time through a variety of artists who began their careers by piling into vans and driving around the country. That is, except Lars Ulrich from Metallica, who mentions that the band was never so small or indie that they didn’t have a bus. But Grohl has used his vast connections to bring in a lot of great musicians including The Edge from U2, Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and more, making this a very entertaining movie both for fans of the various bands but also live music fans in general. I gotta admit that as much as I loved What Drives Us, it did bring me down a bit since it’s been almost 14 months since I’ve seen any live music, and I really miss it. This is now streaming on The Coda Collection, which you can subscribe to through Amazon Prime Video.

Guy Ritchie is back with his latest movie, WRATH OF MAN (Miramax/MGM), which reunites him with Jason Statham for the first time since 2007’s Revolver, I believe. Statham plays the enigmatic Paul “H” Hill who works at cash truck company Fortico, responsible for moving hundreds of million dollars around Los Angeles each week. Fortico has recently been hit by a lethal robbery, and H’s team soon learn that there’s a lot more to their new coworker, who happens to be looking for revenge against the man who murdered his son.

(Unfortunately, reviews for the movie are embargoed until Thursday at 6pm, so I can’t tell you whether it’s any good or not. Until Thursday night. Sorry!)

But I will talk about the movie’s box office prospects, because why not? Ritchie’s last movie, The Gentlemen, opened in January 2020, during the “before times,” with $10.6 million, but that was more of a classic Ritchie ensemble crime-comedy. Wrath of Man is more of the type of movie Statham has been making over the past few years, a cross between a revenge thriller and a heist flick. In fact, Statham has done a pretty good job creating his own brand through a variety of action-thrillers as well as a number of franchises including “The Transporter” movies, “The Expendables,” and eventually joining the “Fast and the Furious” franchise as Deckard Shaw with Furious 7 in 2017. Statham then went off to make Hobbs and Shaw with Dwayne Johnson, which didn’t do bad with $174 million. Before that, Statham starred in The Meg, a summer shark attack movie that grossed $145 million. Statham going back to help his old mate i.e. the director that gave Statham his start is pretty huge.

But as I said earlier, those were all in the “before times” and with the box office the way it is, it’s hard to imagine that the exciting reunion of Statham and Ritchie can open with more than $10 million but maybe closer to $8 million, because MGM/UA just doesn’t have the marketing clout of a Warner Bros. or Universal. Even so, that should be enough to be #1 this weekend as both Mortal Kombat and Demon Slayer continue to fall away. Unfortunately, if the movie *is* any good -- and I can’t tell you one way or another -- then by the time reviews hit, people will already have other plans for the weekend than to go see the movie. So yeah, that’s pretty dumb on the part of MGM, huh?

UPDATE: MGM is putting the movie into 2,876 theaters and maybe I'm being overly optimistic, because, as you'll read below, the movie IS pretty good and reviews have remained positive with the American reviews rolling in last night, still at 70% Fresh at this writing. Maybe that'll help the movie do a little better, maybe as much as $9 million, although I'll probably owe MGM an apology if it cracks $10 million, and I don't think it will.

Mini-Review: If you’ve seen the trailer for Wrath of Man, you might go into Guy Ritchie’s latest thinking you know what to expect, because it’s sure being sold as another typical Jason Statham revenge thriller. Don’t be fooled by the marketing, the movie really is Ritchie’s chance to make his own version of Heat, an L.A. heist movie that owes as much to Rashomon as another movie being released this week.

Wrath of Man begins with the heist of an armored truck that turns deadly with the wanton murder of a couple guards. From there, you might think we know where things are going when Statham’s “H” company whose truck was hit, and on his first day, he stops a similar heist by killing the truck’s attackers. H is immediately the hero of the company, although he still has quite a few suspicious coworkers and the feeling is quite mutual. Ritchie’s film then slips into the second episodic chapter which goes back five months to that initial heist where we learn that Statham’s son was killed by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I don’t want to go too much deeper into how the movie and story play out, because like The Gentlemen and some of Ritchie’s more intricate films, there’s a lot that purposefully isn’t made very apparent at the beginning. To many, this movie will be seen as even more macho than most of Ritchie's films, to the point where even the only woman guard, Dana, being just as macho as the men. As the movie begins, there’s a lot of joke-cracking and crotch-grabbing, all while Statham’s character silently observes and only acts when necessary.

The film’s shift to more of a classic Ritchie ensemble does slowly take place, but by the third chapter, it shifts to the group perpetrating the cash truck heists with an “inside person,” taking the movie to yet another place that makes it more obvious that this is Ritchie’s attempt at delving into the L.A. heist genre that other filmmakers have done so well.

Oddly, Statham doesn’t have too many lines, acting almost like a Terminator in his determination to right wrongs, but as always, Ritchie puts together a fantastic ensemble cast including a number of great American character actors who we rarely get to see in such great roles. I was particularly impressed with Jeffrey Donovan, who has appeared in a number of otherwise forgettable crime films this past year. The same can be said for Holt McCallany as H’s truck driver “Bullet,” but Ritchie also cast the likes of Josh Hartnett and Scott Eastwood in smaller yet still significant supporting roles, all of whom become more interesting as you start figuring out who all the players are.

Like I said, the movie is fairly macho and the few women play very small roles, but it’s how things are set-up in the first few acts to then change course and build to an absolutely amazing third act that will undoubtedly bear comparisons to Heat. And yet Wrath of Man (which is actually based on a little-seen French crime-thriller) does branch away from some of Ritchie’s standards, first of all by being far darker and even more violent with any of the wisecracking humor that pervades a lot of Ritchie’s work to counterbalance such violence disappearing once the flashbacks begin. It’s all punctuated by a fantastically tense score by Christopher Benstead, which seems a bit much at first but eventually settles into the perfect pace and tone for the action.

Despite disappearing for a good chunk of the movie, Statham is still great, basically killing everyone as his characters are wont to do, but watching how all of the different ideas come together leads to such a satisfying conclusion that one hopes those who might be put off, thinking they know where it's going due to the somewhat pathetic and obvious marketing will give it a chance to see how Ritchie has changed gears as effortlessly as he did with Aladdin a few years back.

Rating: 7.5/10

After even a longer time since he directed a movie, Billy Crystal once again takes the helm for HERE TODAY (Sony/Stage6), a movie in which he plays comedy writer Charlie Burns, whose chance encounter with Tiffany Haddish’s lounge singer, Emma Payge, leads to an unlikely friendship, as he struggles with early stage dementia.

I’ve known about this movie for over a year now, and I was pretty excited to finally get to see it, since I was such a fan of the other movies Crystal has directed, 1992’s Mr. Saturday Night and 1995’s Forget Paris, and it’s just amazing to me that he hasn’t directed a movie since.

At first, it seems like it’s the type of meet-cute we’ve seen so much in Crystal’s past filmography, but his pairing with Haddish isn’t something that might work on paper, but in fact, their comic styles mesh so perfectly together that it’s amazing that no one thought of putting them together before.

Crystal wrote the film with comic Alan Zweibel, who adapted it from his own short story “The Prize,” which refers to Haddish’s character winning Charlie in an auction for a lunch. Actually, her ex won the lunch, and she decided to use it because… free lunch! It’s a pretty simple set-up but one that allows the filmmakers to explore some of the odder things that happen in life.

Much of the movie’s humor plays upon the differences between the two characters, and how unexpected their friendship is. I can totally relate, because I have a lot of good long-time friends who most people might never expect us to be friends, but Crystal, Zweibel and Haddish pick up on that and create a movie that’s very funny but has enough other characters around the duo toa allow their characters to show how they’re just really nice people. We see that with how Charlie takes a young writer at his late night show under his wing or how Emma livens up the bat mitzvah of Charlie’s granddaughter. Oh yeah, and Haddish sings. She actually has a number of great performances in the movie, and seriously, anyone who watches this movie is gonna wanna see a smart filmmaker put Haddish in a musical immediately.

The film also acts as a truly touching tribute to Crystal’s friend, the late Robin WIlliams, who was diagnosed with the exact same type of dementia after his suicide death, and knowing that fact, makes the film even more poignant. More importantly, it doesn’t use Charlie’s condition for laughs, and for that alone, I feel like this is ten times better than that overrated Oscar winner The Father.

Here Today’s biggest problems come in the third act when it feels like the movie is starting to over-extend its welcome, even going into somewhat expected places, but it recovers from that rough third act to land a really nice ending. Crystal has always proven himself to be a really strong mainstream filmmaker (ala Rob Reiner and others) who makes crowd-pleasing movies, and it’s so nice seeing him going behind the camera for a movie that’s obviously very personal but also highly relatable.

As far as box office, I certainly have high hopes that Crystal still has an older audience of fans who might want to see him on the big screen again. I’m just not sure if this will be in more than 1,000 theaters, and though I’ve seen quite a bit of marketing, I just haven’t seen Crystal or Haddish do nearly as much in terms of getting out there that would be necessary to reach an audience that might want to venture out into movie theaters to see the movie vs. waiting until it’s on cable/streaming. There’s also Tiffany Haddish’ fanbase, and there could be some benefit for the movie coming out the same week as her new CBS show “Kids Say the Darndest Things.”

I’d love to be optimistic with this making $4 to 5 million but it’s probably more likely to be closer to $3 million especially with capacity limits still in place for most theaters and the audience generally being older.

UPDATE: Maybe I was a little too optimistic, because I enjoyed the movie so much and it will probably be closer to $1 or 1.5 million since other reviews aren't as great.

Next, we have two movies finally being released many years after their festival premieres…

The Swedish apocalyptic thriller THE UNTHINKABLE (Magnet), directed by Victor Danell, is finally being released after playing genre fests in 2018 and 2019. It stars Christoffer Nordenrot as Alex, a young piano virtuoso who ran away from home due to his abusive father Bjorn (Jesper Barkselius). Years later, he returns home for his mother’s funeral after she’s killed in a terrorist attack on Sweden. At the same, there’s a virus that’s erasing people’s memories, but Alex is still in love with Anna (Lisa Henni), the girl he had a crush on when he left, and the three of them will have to help each other face all the horrible things hitting their home at the same time.

As I was watching this movie, a lot of it felt eerily familiar to me, but I couldn’t figure out why. The more I watched it, the more I realized that I actually HAD seen the movie before. Sure enough, I saw this movie over two years ago at the “What the Fest?!” in New York two years ago, and I honestly don’t remember loving it. Still, I decided to give it a fresh look, hoping to get more out of it on second viewing.

Some of the same things bothered me on this second viewing, because it’s really hard to figure out exactly what is going on and whether the horrific events are natural, man-made or a combination of both. For some time, we get so mired into Alex’s lame relationship with Anna, and when he returns home, his conspiracy theory-driven father is busy protecting a bunker that’s being invaded by foreign military troops he thinks are Russians. We cut between these two disparate scenarios while sometimes returning to the capital of Sweden and throwing in a few big set pieces. It’s so disjointed that you feel like you’re watching a lot of random unrelated events, maybe a bit like last week’s About Endlessness -- maybe it’s a Swedish thing?

There are aspects of The Unthinkable that are quite commendable, particularly those action moments and how the mystery about what is happening develops as the film goes along. Eventually, the film does find a more consistent pace, and things start becoming a little clearer, which makes the final act better than much of what we’ve watched earlier. Even so, it’s still quite annoying how long it takes to figure out what’s going on, even on a second viewing, and for most people, that may already be far too frustrating to get through it.

Hitting Netflix on Friday over THREE years after it premiered at Sundance is music video director Anthony Mandler’s directorial debut, MONSTER (Netflix), based on the novel by Walter Dean Myers. It stars Kelvin Harrison Jr. (Waves) as Steve Harmon, a 17-year-old film student put in jail, accused of murder in a bodega robbery. His defense lawyer (Jennifer Ehle) is trying to help him be released, but he’s fighting against the odds of a judicial system that sees him as a “monster” because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I have to be honest that I did go to see this at Sundance the week it premiered, and for whatever reason, I just wasn’t feeling it, so I only really caught about twenty minutes of it. Watching it now with more time and a little less weary than I usually am towards the end of Sundance, I was able to appreciate Monster more for what it is. On the surface, it’s just about Steve’s case and how what really happened unfolds before our eyes and we learn more about those around Steve and how their influence may have pulled a smart and studious young man into the criminal world that now has him in prison with much more violent life-long criminals.

We already knew that Harrison was a great actor, but Monster shows us that he was already on his way to greatness with this movie that for whatever reason got buried even as it dealt with issues that have been in the headlines almost every day since this debuted.

Mandler takes an interesting approach, both non-linear and also with blatant nods to Kurosawa’s Rashomon, which is even cited by Steve’s teacher, played by Tim Blake Nelson. Jeffrey Wright and Jennifer Hudson are decent as Steve’s parents, but they’re generally smaller and non-showy roles compared to the moments between Harrison and Ehle. Much of the film takes place in the courtroom with flashbacks showing what happened through the viewpoint of whomever is on the stand, which eventually includes Steve himself.

The way Mandler handles the material may lean more on the artiness rather than something more mainstream -- Michael B. Jordan’s Just Mercy comes to mind -- but it’s just as powerful in showing how someone like Steve can be othered by society into being a criminal. Sure, there have been other handlings of this sort of material that I thought were better films, but if you know anyone who has ever had dealings with the “justice” system and know how unfair and horrible it can be even to the innocent, then Monster will certainly strike a chord.

Also hitting Netflix this week is the new series based on Mark Millar and Frank Quitely‘s comic books, JUPITER’S LEGACY (Netflix), another kind of twist on the superhero genre ala Amazon Prime Video’s series based on Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson’s The Boys. I love the comics, and I can’t wait to finally get around to seeing Netflix’s first adaptation of a Millarworld property.

David Oyelowo makes his directorial debut with THE WATER MAN (RLJEfilms), a movie about a young boy named Gunner Boon (Lonnie Chavis), whose mother (Rosario Dawson) is battling leukemia. In an effort to cure her, Guner goes off on a journey along with a teenage girl named Jo (Amiah Miller) to find the mythical Water Man, who can provide them with a magic token that might save Gunner’s mother’s life.

I’ve interviewed Oyelowo a few times before, and I really like him a lot, so I had really high hopes for him as a director since I feel he’s just a terrific actor. Unfortunately, the material here is just not strong enough that I think even a far more experienced filmmaker could make something out of it.

Set in PIne Hills, we meet Gunner, a bright kid who loves drawing comic books, but he has trouble connecting with his father (Oyelowo), so when he has an idea that might help his sick mother, he goes off with a head-strong teen named Jo, in search of the Water Man, a summertime adventure permeated by a lot of very bad low-budget visual effects.

Honestly, I’m not even sure where to begin with where The Water Man falters, because Oyelowo has such a great cast, including Alfred Molina and Maria Bello in tiny parts. The story is a problem, as is the writing, which is just so bland and dull, that there’s really nothing in Oyelowo’s direction or any of the performances that really can salvage it. Neither of the child actors have much charisma or personality, and even Dawson’s performance, which would normally be a showstopper is repeatedly lessened by the constant cutting back to the kids. (And as someone who beat leukemia myself, I’m never a fan when cancer is depicted in movies as a death sentence rather than just another hurdle in life that needs to be overcome.)

Oyelowo himself may be one of his generation’s best actors, but he brings so little to the role of Gunner’s father, maybe to not take away from his younger star, but it hurts that he doesn’t do more to create a stronger conflict by making the character more horrible to drive Gunner away. The actual Water Man doesn’t improve things when he finally shows up, essentially talking like a pirate but not even remotely paying off.

Honestly, The Water Man seems like such a misguided venture -- Exec. Produced by Oprah, no less -- and it might have been totally forgettable if the characters didn’t keep saying the title of the movie every five minutes.

Hitting theaters Friday after a festival run is Tran Quoc Bao’s action-comedy THE PAPER TIGERS (WELL GO USA), starring ALain Uy, Ron Yuan and Mikel Shannon Jenkins as martial artists once known as “the three tigers but now middle-aged men must set aside old grudges and dad duties to avenge the murder of their teacher. I’ve had a screener of this since last summer when it played at Fantasia Festival in Montreal, and I just never got around to watching it, but if I’m able to squeeze it in before the weekend, check back here for my review.

Streaming on Shudder this Friday is Ryan Kruger's South African comedy-thriller FRIED BARRY (Shudder), starring Gary Green as Barry, a violent street junkie who is abducted by aliens who take over his body in order to… well, actually… they do a lot of drugs, have a lot of sex and other craziness. It’s a pretty strange and bizarre movie that reminds me a little of movies like a lower-fi Under the Skin or Beyond the Black Rainbow, and much of it is driven by the insane and unique performance by Green and the odd characters he encounters that I think will find its fans for sure, but it will definitely be for a very select audience of genre festival fans, as this is by no means a mainstream genre film.

Speaking of which, another movie out this week which I wasn’t allowed to see in advance is Gia Coppola’s MAINSTREAM (IFC Films), starring Maya Hawke as a young woman seeking internet stardom by making YouTube videos with a charismatic stranger, played by Andrew Garfield, until “the dark side of viral celebrity threatens to ruin them both.” Yup, it’s one of THOSE movies. It also stars Nat Wolff, Jason Schwartzman and Johnny Knoxville, but I haven’t heard anything good about it, and I’m not sure my curiosity is piqued enough to spend any of my own personal money to check it out.

Hitting Amazon on Friday is the doc THE BOY FROM MEDELLIN (Amazon) from Matthew Heineman (City of Ghosts, Cartel Land), a portrait of musical superstar J. Balvin, as he prepares for a massive sold-out stadium show in his hometown of Medellin, Colombia, which is hindered by the growing civil unrest in the area.

Lots of other movies this week, but a few that i just wasn’t able to get to this week, including:

ABOVE SUSPICION (Lionsgate) INITIATION (Saban Films) ENFANT TERRIBLE (Dark Star Pictures) QUEEN MARIE (Samuel Goldwyn Films) SILO (Oscilloscope) CITIZEN PENN (Discovery+)

That’s it for this week. Next week, Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson star in SPIRAL: FROM THE BOOK OF SAW (Lionsgate) and Angelina Jolie returns for the thriller THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD (New Line) and Timur Bekmambetov’s thriller, PROFILE (Focus Features). That’s right. This will be the first weekend in over a year where we’ll have three or maybe even four new wide releases.

[krinsbez]

Random Pulp Hero Thoughts

So, I'm on a bit of a Holmes kick, RN; two of the books I read last week had vague Holmes ties...

-Murder In Old Bombay by Nev March, a mystery set in 19th Century India who's protagonist decides to become a detective after reading the then-recently published The Sign of the Four.

-The Dark Archive by Genevieve Cogman, who's protagonist chose to name herself after The Woman, and who's supporting cast includes Peregrine Vale, a Great Detective from an alternate universe weird steampunk Victorian London who is repeatedly noted as being very Holmes-like.

...and the two books I finished this week and the third I've begun and will finish next week, are even more so. In backwards order...

-There's A Murder Afoot by Vicki Delany, the secondmost recent installment (which I missed on initial publication due to the Current COVID Crisis) in the "Sherlock Holmes Bookshop" series of cozy mysteries, about an expat British woman who runs a Sherlock Holmes-themed bookstore in a small New England resort town and keeps solving mysteries with the Holmesian intellectual abilities she refuses to acknowledge she has. This book has her return to the UK, and introduces the fact that she has a more intelligent older sister who supposedly is a minor functionary in the British Government but clearly is of greater importance.

-The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars by Anthony Boucher, a recently-republished 1940 novel set in then-contemporary Hollywood. When Metropolitan Pictures announces that their upcoming film adapatation of The Speckled Band will be written by Stephen Worth, an ex-PI who's a devotee of the hardboiled subgenre of detective fiction an has made his utter disdain for the Great Detective genre and of Holmes in particular, that early fandom society launches a campaign to get him fired. In an effort to appease the BSI, who's number include quite a few influential public figures, five of them are invited to come to Hollywood and consult on the film. When Worth is murdered, they become the chief suspects...

And finally...

-In League With Sherlock Holmes, the latest anthology of "stories inspired by the Sherlock Holmes canon"  edited by Laurie B. King and Leslie S. Klinger. It comprises...

"The Strange Juju Affair At the Gacy Mansion" by Kwei Quartey. In contemporary Ghana, a police detective consults Superindentendent Mensah Blay, a legendary former member of the Ghana Police Service who has retired to make wooden children's toys, to help solve a crime that has him stumped. Very good, feels pretty Holmesiean despite, y'know...

"What My Father Never Told Me" by Tess Gerritsen. A young woman comes to Britain to dispose of her late father's ashes, and discovers he was part of something grander than she ever imagined. Yecch. This isn't a story, it's the prologue to a story, and also hinges on the idea that Holmes was actually a villain.

"The Case of the Wailing Ghosts" by Joe R. Lansdale and Kasey Lansdale. A duo of occult detectives are hired to break a ghost, and end up dealing with a supernatural murderer. Great story, not sure what it's doing in this book, asides from the two protagonists having a somewhat Holmes-and-Watson relationship.

"The Twenty-Five Year Engagement" by James W. Ziskin. A proper pastiche, pretty good.

"When You Hear Hoofbeats" by Robin Burcell. A contemporary detective story, with minimal Holmesian content, asides from some proper names (the victim is a plastic surgeon named John H. Watson, the suspects are his wife Mary and his business partner Joseph Bell), and the police detective narrator enlisting a former colleague who's become a PI to help solve the case. Good though.

"Mr. Holmes I Presume" by Joe Hill. This is a short essay written as an introduction to...

"Dying Is Easy" a short comic written by Hill, illustrated by Martin Simonds, apparently an installment of a series they did a few years back about a '90s cop-turned-standup-comedian who keeps having to solve crimes anyways named Syd "Shit-talk" Holmes. Not very Holmes-y, but fun.

"The Observance of Trifles" by Martin Edwards. the tale, in the form of a rather ramble-y blog posts and some comments on it, of how a Sherlockian becomes convinced that another Sherlockian who has become wealthy and famous with his works analyzing the Canon, has been plagiarizing him, and sets out to murder the man. All the characters are given pseudonyms drawn from the Canon, and vaste swathes of the text are quotes or paraphrases thereof. Fun, if a bit depressing.

"Infinite Loop" by Naomi Hirahara. An R.A. in 1980s Stanford University, Joann Wat, is forced to enlist the aid of Shel Rock, a Junior who is the dorm's resident drug dealer, when the parents of one of the Freshmen under her ostensible care may or may not have gone missing. Good stuff, not very original flavor-y of course, but there are some neat Holmesian touches asides from the proper names.

"A Seance in Liverpool" by Lisa Morton. A young ACD, about to set out on his stint as a ship's surgeon, before completing his Doctorate, is convinced bya friend to attend a seance. Things do not go as planned, but he gets an idea for a new character...Good stuff, not what you'd expect.

"Benchley" by Derek Haas. A printer's apprentice finds a body and summons the police. More I cannot say without spoiling. I love it, although it isn't quite Canon compliant.

"The Murderer's Paradox" by David Corbett. A tale narrated by Prof. Moriarty, which seems to follow the take that he was a Fennian. Or he's posing as one in order to enlist two young people as part of an effort to mess with Holmes, it's not clear. ACD's defense of the Boer War is crucial to the plot, though I wonder if some of the language used is anachronistic; did the terms "racist" and "Imperialist" in the modern, derogatory sense exist in 1902? Not a bad story by any means, but not for me.

"A Scandal On The Jersey Shore" by Brad Parks. In which a modern-day descendant of The Woman must prove her BFF isn't guilty of murder. A fun romp.

 "The Adventure of the Northwood Bilker" by James Lincoln Warren. A contemporary Forensic Linguist, Shirley Ho, is hired to find a missing journalist who infiltrated a cult. Very good stuff, if a bit technical in places.

"Cumberbachelor" by Maria Alexander. In modern LA, a young woman must find a way to save her sister's wedding when their mother becomes convinced she's become engaged to Benedict Cumberbatch. Good story, not very Holmes-y.

"A Case of Mistaken Identity" by Chelsea Quinn Yarboro. A somewhat unethical therapist treats (or pretends to treat) a brilliant serial killer who believes himself to be Sherlock Holmes. The story hints that the POV character has A Plan in mind for his patient, but never states what said plan is. Not my cuppa.

[harpianews]

Liverpool: Klopp in COVID isolation, absent for Chelsea game

Liverpool: Klopp in COVID isolation, absent for Chelsea game

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp will miss Sunday’s Premier League match at Chelsea in what the club called a suspected positive coronavirus test. Klopp has mild symptoms and is now in isolation, Liverpool said on Saturday. Assistant manager Pepijn Legends will be on the touchline leading the team at Stamford Bridge, but three other members of the backroom staff have also reported suspected…

[thistledownandmagic]

[ten things that spark joy.]

I was tagged by @im-not-the-one-youre-looking-for. I’m not good at tagging people, so if you want to spark joy yourself, go for it!

1. The two new feline residents of my house. They are very cute and much more active than the geriatric cats that we’ve had previously.

2. The two different D&D campaigns I’m a part of. One plays in person, the other online (two of our members live out of state now). I’m excited for the online game because I’ve just created a new character to play with them (I had been playing the same character for both due to REASONS WE DON’T NEED TO GO INTO AT THIS MOMENT) - a librarian Bard. Very me. :)

3. The Old Guard. I haven’t fandomed this hard and this fast for something in a long time. Like, I want to make stuff for it. It feels nice.

4. Candles. Specifically from two different companies: The Wiffletree Company (personal friends of mine! brand new small business!) and Mountain Madness Soap Company (local, and they make soap as well!). Wiffletree’s Moroccan Blackberry and Mountain Madness’ Peach Nectar are my current favs.

5. Strawberries. We planted A LOT of them in our backyard garden this year and they taste AMAZING.

6. Theatre Proshots. The Combo of National Theatre At Home, Shakespeare’s Globe, ALW’s Shows Must Go On and all the other ways the arts community has been trying to stay afloat during this Time of COVID has given me second opportunities to experience beloved performances and introduce people to new works! 

7. Letters. I’ve been penpal-ing with a friend of mine (our combined effort to keep the USPS from disappearing) and even though I’ve been VERY BAD in responding to her latest missive (it went in the mail this week!), there definitely is something in having a thing you can hold and take the time to absorb and then formulate a response.

8. Elementary. I don’t exactly know what happened when it was on and I just... stopped watching after S1. Now that the series is complete (and on Hulu!), and partly due to being reminded of JLM through NTAtHome’s screening of Frankenstein and the Holmes connection for both him and The Batch, I’m actually finishing it. I’m mid-way through S6 right now and I really do appreciate how... human Jonny fashioned his Sherlock. He is a work in progress, even as we all are works in progress. I just wish I had picked up the show again while it was still on - the fandom here on Tumblr is practically dormant, for obvious reasons.

9. Office Supplies. One should not let me loose in a Staples or Office Max, because I will take home SO MANY THINGS I DON’T NEED. #iammymothersdaughter

10. Liverpool being Champions of England. Of course, they had to do it in the year that we changed TV packages and I lost all my sports channels, but IT STILL HAPPENED AND I AM SO HAPPY I COULD DIE.

[sciencespies]

Covid-19 news: Infection rate in England rises to one in 500 people

https://sciencespies.com/biology/covid-19-news-infection-rate-in-england-rises-to-one-in-500-people/

Covid-19 news: Infection rate in England rises to one in 500 people

By Michael Le Page , Clare Wilson , Jessica Hamzelou , Adam Vaughan , Conrad Quilty-Harper and Layal Liverpool

Public information messages in central Manchester, England

Jon Super/AP/Shutterstock

Latest coronavirus news as of 5 pm on 25 September

Infection rate within communities in England and Wales continues to rise 

One in 500 people in England had the coronavirus in the week ending 19 September, up from one in 900 people the previous week, according to the latest results from a random swab testing survey by the Office for National Statistics. “It’s a worrying increase and is occurring across all age groups, particularly in the North of England and London,” said Simon Clarke at the University of Reading in a statement. “While it’s true that there are many more tests conducted nowadays, this is clear evidence of an accelerating spread of the virus,” said Clarke. “We can expect to see an increasing burden placed on our hospitals and a consequent increase in deaths.” 

Northern Ireland, which was included in the survey for the first time, and Wales have also seen increases in infections. One in 300 people are estimated to have had the virus in Wales and Northern Ireland during the same time period. In Wales, this figure is up from one in 500 the week before. This weekend, new restrictions will be put in place in the Welsh city of Cardiff as well as in Swansea county areas and in the town of Llanelli. 

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The UK’s R number – the number of people each coronavirus case infects – has increased for the third week in a row, up to an estimate of between 1.2 and 1.5, an increase from between 1.1 and 1.4 the previous week, according to official figures. This is most likely to represent the situation two to three weeks ago due to a time lag in the data used to model the R. Infections across the country are estimated to be growing at a rate of between 4 and 8 per cent every day.

Other coronavirus news

Only 11 per cent of people told to self-isolate actually do so for the full 14-day period, which the UK government has been aware of since June. The finding comes from a survey that began in February. Results were published online yesterday to the pre-print server medRxiv and have not yet been peer-reviewed. The government’s scientific advisors recommend that 80 per cent or more of the contacts of people diagnosed with the coronavirus self-isolate for the full time period in order to help limit onward spread. 

Independent SAGE – an independent group of scientists publishing advice for the UK government – says Sweden’s success in tackling the coronavirus pandemic has been overstated. In a report published today, the group dismissed the idea of “herd immunity” as a strategy for dealing with the UK’s epidemic in the absence of a vaccine and said it is “irresponsible and unethical to try”.

Spain’s government has recommended imposing a new partial lockdown on the entire city of Madrid due to rising cases. The capital accounts for more than a third of the country’s hospital admissions, according to local authorities. Under the new restrictions, people would be banned from travelling outside of the city but would still be allowed to leave their homes to go to work and school.

The Netherlands recorded its highest daily increase in cases since the start of the pandemic, with 2777 new cases confirmed today. The country’s previous record for daily new cases was set just yesterday, when 2544 cases were recorded.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 984,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 32.3 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

When did the coronavirus first reach Europe and the US?: No cases were reported outside China until January 2020, but a study published on 10 September claims that cases in the US began to rise by 22 December. Many people there and in Europe suspect they had coronavirus around this time. Yet overall, the evidence suggests there were few cases outside China this early on. 

Birdsong during lockdown: If you thought birdsong sounded different during lockdown, it turns out you were probably right. The uniquely quiet circumstances of the covid-19 restrictions in San Francisco saw birds respond by lowering their pitch, singing sexier songs and making their songs clearer.

Essential information about coronavirus

Everything you need to know about the pandemic

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You could be spreading the coronavirus without realising you’ve got it

Which covid-19 treatments work and how close are we to getting more?

What are the main coronavirus vaccine candidates?

What to read, watch and listen to about coronavirus

Health Check is New Scientist’s weekly health newsletter by reporter Clare Wilson. This week she examines a new study from the only city in the world to have achieved herd immunity to the coronavirus and explores what the impact might be if the UK were to try a similar strategy.

Race Against the Virus: Hunt for a Vaccine is a Channel 4 documentary which tells the story of the coronavirus pandemic through the eyes of the scientists on the frontline.

The New York Times is assessing the progress of different vaccine candidates and potential drug treatments for covid-19, and ranking them for effectiveness and safety.

Humans of COVID-19 is a project highlighting the experiences of key workers on the frontline in the fight against coronavirus in the UK, through social media.

Coronavirus, Explained on Netflix is a short documentary series examining the on-going coronavirus pandemic, the efforts to fight it and ways to manage its mental health toll.

New Scientist Weekly features updates and analysis on the latest developments in the covid-19 pandemic. Our podcast sees expert journalists from the magazine discuss the biggest science stories to hit the headlines each week – from technology and space, to health and the environment.

The Rules of Contagion is about the new science of contagion and the surprising ways it shapes our lives and behaviour. The author, Adam Kucharski, is an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, and in the book he examines how diseases spread and why they stop.

Previous updates

The new NHS Covid-19 app for England and Wales

Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

24 September

NHS Covid-19 app goes live in England and Wales but testing and tracing still limited

The official test and trace app for England and Wales went live today, with more than one million downloads so far. The app uses Bluetooth technology built into smartphones to detect people nearby and alert users if any of those people later test positive for the virus. The government is urging everyone over the age of 16 to download and use the app. 

Some users have already reported issues with the app, and it does not work on some iPhone and Android smartphones, including iPhone 6 and older models. UK health minister Matt Hancock told BBC Breakfast this morning that the app would run on the “vast majority” of smartphones in the country. But there are concerns that limitations in testing and contact tracing could negate any potential benefit of the app. 

The latest NHS Test and Trace figures reveal that it is taking longer to return results for coronavirus tests in England. Only 28.2 per cent of coronavirus tests performed in community testing centres returned results within 24 hours in the week leading up to 16 September, down from 33.3 per cent in the previous week. During the same period, NHS Test and Trace reached 60.2 per cent of the contacts of people who were diagnosed with the virus, below the level of 80 per cent or more recommended by the government’s scientific advisors. 

Just 18 per cent of people in the UK report self-isolating after developing symptoms of the coronavirus and only 11 per cent say they self-isolate after being told by contact tracers that they have been in contact with a confirmed coronavirus case, according to a preliminary study by researchers at King’s College London. The study, which has not been peer-reviewed, surveyed more than 31,000 people in the UK between 2 March and 5 August.

The number of new coronavirus cases in England also went up, but less sharply than the previous week, with 19,278 people testing positive for the virus between 10 and 16 September, compared to 18,371 the week before. This small weekly increase may reflect “oddities in the reporting testing system, rather than a sudden plateau in viral cases,” said James Naismith at the University of Oxford in a statement. 

Other coronavirus news

The number of people in the UK diagnosed with common conditions – including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and mental health conditions – was about 50 per cent lower than would normally have been expected between March and May this year, a study has found. The study, published in The Lancet Public Health analysed electronic health records from 47 general practices in Salford, UK, between January 2010 and May this year. The UK went into lockdown on 23 March.

United Airlines in the US is expected to become the first airline to offer rapid coronavirus testing to some of its passengers. The firm plans to conduct a trial of the programme on flights from San Francisco to Hawaii starting on 15 October, using 15-minute rapid tests supplied by US biotechnology company Abbott.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 978,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 31.9 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Testing troubles: How the UK can get its catastrophic coronavirus testing under control. 

Doctor administers a vaccine

Udom Pinyo/Getty Images

23 September

Volunteers will be deliberately infected with the coronavirus in first challenge trials

Healthy volunteers will be deliberately infected with the coronavirus to test the effectiveness of experimental coronavirus vaccines in London next year, in the world’s first human challenge trials for coronavirus. About 2000 people in the UK have volunteered to be given one of a number of experimental vaccines and then receive a dose of the coronavirus under controlled conditions. The volunteers have joined the trial, which is due to begin in January, through advocacy group 1Day Sooner. Earlier this year the group organised an open letter signed by prominent researchers including Nobel laureates, urging the US government to immediately prepare for human challenge trials. The researchers behind the trials, which are being funded by the UK government, told the Financial Times that the trials would play an important role in helping to identify the most promising vaccine candidates likely to move into clinical testing in early 2021.

Other coronavirus news

There were 6178 new coronavirus cases recorded across the UK today, the highest daily total since 1 May. Scotland recorded 486 new coronavirus cases yesterday, the highest daily figure since its epidemic began, first minister Nicola Sturgeon told a briefing today. In the Scottish city of Dundee, 500 university students have been told to self-isolate due to a suspected outbreak in a halls of residence. Meanwhile, in England, more than a million pupils were absent from school last Thursday for reasons related to covid-19, according to the nation’s Department for Education. Yesterday, the Isle of Scilly off the coast of Cornwall in England recorded its first coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic.

The UK’s prime minister Boris Johnson has urged people in England to follow new rules announced yesterday aimed at limiting the spread of the coronavirus, warning that the government could introduce further restrictions if people fail to adhere. “If people don’t follow the rules we have set out, then we must reserve the right to go further,” Johnson said during a televised address. However, some have questioned the logic behind the new rules. “Closing down restaurants and pubs earlier will do little to stave the spread for as long as multiple different households can interchangeably meet up,” David Strain at the University of Exeter said in a statement.

The official test and trace app for England and Wales will be launched tomorrow after being trialled in Newham in London and the Isle of Wight. It will be the second iteration of the app, after the first was abandoned because it struggled to detect iPhones. There are concerns about the lack of transparency around the new app, and the government has not yet demonstrated that it is effective and ready for mass rollout, the Health Foundation charity said in a statement today.  

Germany’s contact tracing app, the Corona-Warn-App, has been used to transmit 1.2 million coronavirus test results from laboratories to users during its first 100 days, according to officials. The app has been downloaded more than 18 million times since it was first launched in June and more than 90 per cent of laboratories in the country are now connected to it.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 972,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 31.6 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Asymptomatic infection: People who have the coronavirus without symptoms appear to have similar levels of the virus in their noses and throats to people with mild symptoms, a study has found. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean they are as likely to spread covid-19 as those who are sick.

Doctor’s diary: How can we deal with the long covid-19 symptoms?

A staff member wears a face mask as she serves customers at the The Shy Horse pub and restaurant in Chessington, Greater London

BEN STANSALL/AFP via Getty Images

22 September

New restrictions for England could last six months, UK prime minister says

People in England will be asked to work from home where possible and pubs, bars and restaurants will be required to close at 10 pm each night, under a series of new restrictions announced by UK prime minister Boris Johnson today, which come into force on Thursday. Under the new rules, which Johnson today told MPs could stay in place for six months, pubs, bars and restaurants will be restricted to table service only and face masks will be compulsory for hospitality staff and non-seated customers, as well as for retail workers and taxi drivers. In Scotland, a ban on meeting people in houses will be extended from Glasgow and its surroundings to the entire country, and bars, pubs and restaurants will have to close at 10 pm. 

Linda Bauld at the University of Edinburgh said in a statement that the new measures for England are not as stringent as might have been expected, with some of them already in place in parts of the nation under local lockdowns. “What is worrying, however, is that they will be accompanied by sticks but no carrots,” said Bauld, which she says “risks rising levels of non-compliance” among the public. Shops and hospitality businesses that fail to comply to the rules on use of face coverings, contact tracing and limits on maximum group sizes, risk closure or fines of up to £10,000. Fines for individuals not wearing face coverings or following rules will be increased from £100 to £200 for the first offence. 

Cabinet office minister Michael Gove told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that people should work from home “if you can,” a reversal of advice from the prime minister in July, when he encouraged people to go back to workplaces. 

“The urging of people to work from home if at all possible is sensible. There should never have been encouragement of people to return to their workplace,” Michael Head at the University of Southampton said in a statement. “We have already seen outbreaks linked to the office environment, and there is no reason to promote an increase in numbers of commuters travelling on public transport.”

Other coronavirus news

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has backtracked on advice it posted last week regarding airborne transmission of the coronavirus. The advice suggested the virus spreads through tiny droplets that can linger in the air. The World Health Organization acknowledges that there is some evidence that airborne transmission can occur in crowded spaces with inadequate ventilation but says the main route of coronavirus transmission is through larger droplets from coughs and sneezes, which can land on surfaces and get onto people’s hands. The CDC retracted its guidance yesterday, with a spokesperson telling CNN that a “draft version of proposed changes to these recommendations was posted in error.”

More than 200,000 people in the US have now died from covid-19, according to Johns Hopkins University, the highest number for any nation. The country has recorded more than 6.8 million cases of the coronavirus.

Covid-19 was a factor in 1 per cent of all deaths registered across England and Wales in the week ending 11 September, according to the Office for National Statistics. The figure is among the lowest since March but there are concerns deaths may rise due to recent increases in cases and hospitalisations.

No new locally acquired coronavirus infections were recorded in New South Wales in Australia today for the first time in 76 days. Two infections confirmed yesterday were both returned travellers in hotel quarantine, according to local health authorities.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 965,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 31.3 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Staff at a NHS appointment only testing facility take testing kits from members of the public in Redcar, England

Ian Forsyth/Getty Images

21 September

New localised lockdown restrictions to come into force in parts of the UK tomorrow

Amid warnings from scientists that the UK’s epidemic is doubling every seven days, which could lead to 50,000 cases a day by mid-October, the UK has imposed new restrictions to try and limit the spread of coronavirus. The country’s chief medical officers also advised that the coronavirus alert level be raised from 3 to 4. According to the government’s 5-tier alert system, an alert level of 4 indicates that transmission is high or rising exponentially and warrants increased social distancing measures. The UK is currently recording around 3000 cases per day, compared to around 5000 a day at the peak of the epidemic in spring. 

Wales has now followed England in introducing additional localised coronavirus restrictions, set to come into force tomorrow. In total, at least 13.9 million people in the UK now face some form of additional local restrictions. From 6 pm tomorrow, people in Merthyr Tydfil, Bridgend, Blaenau Gwent and Newport in Wales will not be allowed to leave those areas or to meet with people from other households. Restaurants, bars and pubs will be required to close from 11 pm each night. Similar restrictions will affect Rhondda Cynon Taf in Wales as well as 10.9 million people in parts of north-west England, West Yorkshire and the Midlands starting tomorrow. Today, Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon told journalists that additional lockdown restrictions will “almost certainly” be put in place in Scotland over the next few days as well. 

Other coronavirus news

Coronavirus restrictions will be lifted across New Zealand today, with the exception of Auckland, where some restrictions will remain in place. “Our actions collectively have managed to get the virus under control,” the country’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern told a press conference today. There are currently 62 active cases of the virus in New Zealand, 33 of which are connected to a cluster in Auckland. Rules in Auckland will be eased further on Wednesday, with a limit on gatherings to be increased from 10 to 100 people.

Strict new lockdown measures came into force in Spain’s capital Madrid today. At the weekend, thousands of people in the city’s southern district of Vallecas took to the streets to protest against the new restrictions. Under the new rules people won’t be allowed to leave the areas where they live except to go to work or for emergency medical treatment.

India’s Taj Mahal reopened today for the first time since it was closed due to the pandemic in March. Visitors will be required to adhere to strict physical distancing rules and the number of visitors will be limited to 5000 per day – a quarter of the usual rate.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 961,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 31.1 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Death toll: Most people still don’t have any level of immunity to the virus behind covid-19. But there is a growing risk that some of us are becoming immune to the enormous numbers that this pandemic is throwing out on a weekly basis. The global death toll from covid-19 is nearing 1 million. That is a number that we shouldn’t allow ourselves to become blasé about.

UK epidemic: The UK faces a “very difficult problem” of rising covid-19 deaths and cases if it does not change course, chief medical officer for England Chris Whitty has warned.

Shoppers walk past an electronic billboard displaying a UK Government advert in Newcastle, UK

OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images

18 September

UK government considering short-term national lockdown in October

The UK could face a second nation-wide lockdown in October, according UK health minister Matt Hancock. In an interview today, Hancock told Sky News that the government isn’t ruling out a short-term national lockdown in October. “We do have to recognise that the number of cases is rising and we do have to act,” he said. This comes after warnings from senior scientific advisors to the government that the UK is about six weeks behind France and Spain in terms of coronavirus cases, and can expect to see a significant increase in cases by mid-October without further intervention. France set a record for daily new coronavirus cases in the country on Thursday, recording 10,593 new cases within 24 hours, according to its health ministry.

The latest estimate of the UK’s R number – the number of people each coronavirus case infects – is between 1.1 and 1.4, up from between 1 and 1.2 the previous week and between 0.9 and 1.1 the week before, according to the latest government figures. The current number is representative of the situation two to three weeks ago due to a time-lag in the data used to model the R number. In documents released today, the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies warn that new infections in the UK may be doubling as quickly as every seven days and, according to the latest results from a random swab testing survey by the Office for National Statistics, about one in 900 people in communities in England had the virus in the week ending 10 September, up from about one in 1400 the previous week. 

Parts of north-west England, West Yorkshire and the Midlands have become the latest areas in the UK to see tightening coronavirus restrictions. Starting on Tuesday, people in these areas won’t be allowed to mix with people from other households, and pubs and restaurants will be required to shut at 10 pm each day. “It does seem ironic that after encouraging mass attendance at pubs, cafes and restaurants through ‘eat out to help out’, that we are now contemplating restricting or closing those activities down,” said Jonathan Ball at the University of Nottingham in a statement. At least 13.5 million people in the country are now facing local restrictions of some kind, including 10.9 million people in England. 

Other coronavirus news

Details on a participant in the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine trial who experienced neurological symptoms, which halted the trial in early September, have been revealed in an internal safety report by the firm. The 37 year-old woman experienced symptoms of a rare neurological condition called transverse myelitis, including pain, weakness and difficulty walking, according to the report.

Israel today became the first country to introduce a second nation-wide lockdown, with people required to stay within 500 metres of their homes, except if they are travelling to work. 

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 947,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 30.2 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

People entering Oxford Circus Station in London, England.

17 September

Steep rise in new coronavirus cases in England despite testing shortage

The weekly number of people testing positive for the coronavirus in England has risen sharply, as the country is experiencing testing shortages. Between 3 and 9 September, 18,371 people were diagnosed with covid-19, which is “a substantial increase of 167 per cent compared to the end of August,” according to NHS Test and Trace. These may be “the last reliable figures” on the state of the nation’s epidemic for some time because of the reduced availability of tests, said Daniel Lawson at the University of Bristol in a statement. 

The time for tests to be returned is also taking longer. The proportion of test results received within 24 hours fell to 14.3 per cent during the same period in September, down from 32 per cent the week before. “Tests which take many days to report and action, are of no value in suppressing the pandemic,” said James Naismith at the University of Oxford in a statement. In June, UK prime minister Boris Johnson told parliament that all coronavirus tests would be returned within 24 hours by the end of the month.  

The website for booking coronavirus tests online in the UK is struggling to cope with the growing demand for tests. An increasing number of users are reporting receiving error messages when attempting to book tests on the site.

Other coronavirus news

Today the UK government announced new restrictions affecting almost two million people in the north-east of England, where case rates are particularly high. Under the new rules, which come into force at midnight tonight, people will be banned from meeting people from other households. Restaurants, bars and pubs will also be required to close at 10 pm. Affected areas include Sunderland, where the infection rate is currently 103 per 100,000 people, as well as Newcastle, South Tyneside and Gateshead, all of which have infection rates above 70, UK health minister Matt Hancock told MPs today. “The data says that we must act now,” said Hancock. 

Europe has “alarming rates of transmission”, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned today, as it encouraged countries to stick to the recommended 14-day self-isolation period for people who may have been exposed to the coronavirus. In the UK, the recommendation is currently 10 days. Other European countries, including Portugal and Croatia, are considering reducing the length of recommended self-isolation, according to the Guardian. “Knowing the immense individual and societal impact even a slight reduction in the length of quarantine can have […] I encourage countries of the region to make scientific due process with their experts and explore safe reduction options,” Hans Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe, said at a press conference.

It will take at least a year before a coronavirus vaccine becomes generally available to the US public, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Robert Redfield told a US Senate panel yesterday. In an interview with Fox & Friends earlier this week, US president Donald Trump said a vaccine could be ready “in a matter of weeks.”

Coronavirus deaths

The worldwide death toll has passed 942,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 29.9 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

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People queue at a coronavirus testing facility in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham

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15 September

Widespread reports of people struggling to get coronavirus tests in England

England’s coronavirus testing system is significantly overwhelmed, with many people in the nation’s 10 worst-hit coronavirus hotspots unable to get tests. People trying to book swab tests on Monday in Bolton, Salford, Bradford, Blackburn, Oldham, Preston, Pendle, Rochdale, Tameside and Manchester were told that it was not possible, according to LBC. Bolton currently has 171 coronavirus cases per 100,000 people, the highest rate in England. “It seems that there are several bottlenecks in the testing procedures. These are not being made publicly available so we can only speculate that these may be limited materials for the testing process, capacity and procedural issues,” said Brendan Wren at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in a statement. “This needs to be addressed urgently, and if it is [a lab] capacity [problem] then university labs should be more widely deployed,” said Wren.

A spokesperson for the Department for Health and Social Care told the Guardian: “It is wrong to say testing is not available in these areas, and our capacity continues to be targeted where it is needed most.” However, there have also been reports of testing shortages elsewhere. NHS Providers, a body that represents hospital trusts in England, told the BBC that NHS staff are having to self-isolate, because they are unable to get tests for themselves or their family members. 

Laboratories analysing community swab tests in England were stretched to capacity as far back as August, emails seen by the Guardian revealed today. NHS England sent an email to all NHS laboratories on 24 August calling for them to support the UK Lighthouse Labs Network, a private group of labs that has been analysing community swabs, due to a “surge in capacity.”

Other coronavirus news

A report by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation warns that the coronavirus pandemic has pushed back progress on improving health around the world by “about 25 years.” The pandemic has increased poverty by 7 per cent and led to a drop in routine vaccination coverage from 84 per cent last year down to 70 per cent, according to the report. “It’s a huge setback,” Bill Gates said at a media briefing on the report’s findings today. The report also highlighted the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on women, racial and ethnic minority communities and people living in extreme poverty. 

Schools in England have seen a higher absence rate among pupils this term compared to last year, according to the nation’s Department for Education. Official figures suggest 88 per cent of pupils attended school last Thursday, below the figure for the same term last year of about 95 per cent. Since schools reopened earlier this month, school leaders have warned that delays in testing are leading to year groups being sent home, the BBC reported.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 930,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 29.3 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Anti-government protesters rallying in Madrid, Spain amid the covid-19 outbreak, on September 12, 2020

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14 September

New global record for daily new coronavirus cases as WHO warns of rise in deaths in Europe

A record single day increase in global coronavirus cases was recorded on Sunday with 307,930 new confirmed cases . The largest increases were in India, the US and Brazil, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO also warned that Europe can expect to see more deaths from covid-19 as soon as next month. “It’s going to get tougher. In October, November, we are going to see more mortality,” said Hans Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe, in an interview with the AFP news agency today. Cases in Europe have increased sharply over the last few weeks, with case rates highest in Spain and France. There are 270.7 cases per 100,000 people in Spain and 153.9 per 100,000 people in France, according to the latest 14-day cumulative figures from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. In the UK there are 51.1 cases per 100,000 people.

Other coronavirus news

Laboratory-made antibodies will be given to about 2000 covid-19 patients in UK hospitals as part of the UK’s RECOVERY trial, a large-scale clinical trial to test existing drugs as therapies for covid-19. In June, data from the RECOVERY trial provided the first evidence that a steroid drug called dexamethasone could save lives for those with severe covid-19. In the new trial of antibodies made specifically to combat the coronavirus, the first patients will be given the experimental treatment in the coming weeks. “There are lots of good reasons for thinking it might well be effective – stopping the virus from reproducing, stopping the virus from causing damage, improving survival for patients,” Martin Landray at the University of Oxford, who is co-leading the RECOVERY trial, told the BBC. “Monoclonal, or targeted, antibodies are already used to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases,” said Fiona Watt, executive chair of the Medical Research Council in the UK, in a statement. “The new trial will tell us whether antibodies that attack the virus can be an effective treatment for covid-19.”

An email seen by the BBC reveals that UK government chief scientific advisor Patrick Vallance argued that the UK’s coronavirus lockdown restrictions be imposed earlier than they actually were, and in response he was given a “telling off” from other senior officials. Vallance referred to advice given by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies on 16 March, suggesting “additional social-distancing measures” be implemented “as soon as possible.” The UK went into lockdown on 23 March, about two months after the country’s first confirmed case, which some researchers blame for the UK’s high number of coronavirus deaths.

Israel has become the first country to announce a second nationwide lockdown to begin Friday and last three weeks. It is an effort to contain a second-wave surge of new cases, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Sunday. People will be required to stay within 500 metres of their homes, with the exception of travelling to workplaces. Schools will also be closed.

US president Donald Trump held the first indoor presidential campaign rally in months in Nevada on Sunday, despite local officials saying it violated the state’s rule limiting gatherings to 50 people. In a statement before the rally, Nevada’s governor Steve Sisolak criticised Trump’s decision saying “Now he’s decided he doesn’t have to respect our state’s laws. As usual, he doesn’t believe the rules apply to him.”

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 925,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 29 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

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Racism in healthcare: Covid-19 is affecting ethnic minorities more severely, but we will never understand why if we don’t collect the right data, says Alisha Dua.

Members of the public attend an NHS covid testing facility in Bolton town centre as restrictions are tightened in the area on 9 September

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11 September

New data suggests England’s R number could be as high as 1.7

The UK’s coronavirus epidemic is growing, according to the latest government figures. Simon Clarke at the University of Reading described this as a “massive blow to the government’s strategy to contain the spread of covid-19.” The UK’s R number – the estimated number of people each infected person goes on to infect – is between 1 and 1.2, up from between 0.9 and 1.1 last week. This data is representative of the situation two to three weeks ago, due to a time-lag in the data used to model the R, but is in line with more recent data for England from a separate study by researchers at Imperial College London, which suggests England’s R number could be as high as 1.7. 

The study, commissioned by the Department of Health and Social Care, tested over 150,000 people in communities in England between 22 August and 7 September and used this to model the R number. It found that 0.13 per cent of people tested positive – equivalent to 130 per 100,000 people in the population. The latest results from a random swab testing survey by the Office for National Statistics also indicate an increase in infections in communities in England and Wales in recent weeks.

The rise in cases “suggests that the recent uptick in cases is not just because of greater testing,” said Clarke in a statement. “It’s likely that the coronavirus is circulating more freely out in the community again, meaning we are likely to need greater restrictions on our lives to push the transmission rate back down again.”

Other coronavirus news

A new coronavirus contact tracing app will go live across England and Wales on 24 September, the government announced today. The new app will allow people to scan QR codes to register visits to bars and restaurants and will use Apple and Google’s method for detecting other smartphones nearby. The UK government was previously forced to abandon development of an earlier app, built on different technology, due to its inability to recognise a significant proportion of Apple and Android devices. Scotland’s app, Protect Scotland, went live yesterday.

Birmingham in England is being put under a local lockdown due to a spike in cases. The city now has the second highest rate of coronavirus infection in England, after Bolton. There were 85.4 cases per 100,000 people in Birmingham during the week ending 7 September, up from 32 in the previous week. People in Birmingham will no longer be allowed to meet with other households.

India has recorded the highest number of daily new coronavirus cases in a single country since the pandemic began, with 96,551 cases recorded in the country on Thursday.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 910,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 28.2 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Reports of reinfection: In recent weeks, the first confirmed reports of people who have been re-infected with the coronavirus have begun to trickle in. Such cases suggest that, in some people at least, the immune system doesn’t develop lasting protection against the virus. How worried should we be?

An adult singer from the York Minster Choir walks to rehearse ahead of a performance in York, England.

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10 September

Latest figures show significant jump in weekly coronavirus cases in England

The number of people who tested positive for the coronavirus in England was 9864 in the week ending 2 September, up 47 per cent from 6732 in the previous week, according to the latest figures from NHS Test and Trace. It’s the highest number of weekly positive cases recorded since the system was launched in May. During the same week, NHS Test and Trace only managed to reach 69.2 per cent of the contacts of people diagnosed with the virus in England – below the target of 80 per cent or more recommended by government scientific advisors to limit infections from spreading. 

Public health specialists have raised concerns about the feasibility of government plans announced yesterday to spend £100 billion on expanding testing to 10 million tests per day by early 2021. Chaand Nagpaul, council chairman of the British Medical Association told the BBC it is unclear how these tests will work, given the “huge problems” with lab capacity. Sarah-Jane Marsh, director for testing at NHS Test and Trace apologised for the problems with the testing scheme earlier this week. Even if testing can be expanded, concerns remain about accuracy and contact tracing capacity. Transport secretary Grant Shapps told BBC Breakfast this morning that the technology to carry out the plan doesn’t currently exist.

Other coronavirus news

US president Donald Trump admitted to playing down the threat posed by the coronavirus in March, during an interview with journalist Bob Woodward revealed in his forthcoming book. “I wanted to always play it down,” Trump told Woodward on 19 March. “I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.” Trump also acknowledged the virus was “more deadly than even your strenuous flu” as early as February – a time when he was publicly saying the virus was less of a concern than the flu.

AstraZeneca chief executive Pascal Soriot today told an online briefing he is hopeful that the company’s coronavirus vaccine candidate could be ready for global distribution in the first half of 2021. Trials of the vaccine, which is being developed in partnership with the University of Oxford, were put on hold yesterday after a participant developed neurological symptoms. An independent safety committee is currently reviewing data on the affected participant, said Soriot. 

Scotland’s Test and Protect system, the nation’s equivalent to NHS Test and Trace in England, today released its Protect Scotland app, which alerts people if they have been in close contact with someone who later tests positive for the coronavirus. Like Northern Ireland’s app, Scotland’s new app was built using the toolkit provided by Apple and Google. England doesn’t yet have a widely available equivalent app but has been testing a similar one on the Isle of Wight and in the London borough of Newham over the past month, after abandoning development of an NHS Covid-19 app built on different technology, due to its inability to recognise 96 per cent of Apple phones and 25 per cent of Google Android devices.

University students in England may be required to stay in their student accommodation and avoid visiting their family homes in the event of local coronavirus outbreaks, according to new guidance published by the UK Department for Education today. Students with covid-19 symptoms should “self-isolate in their current accommodation”, the guidance says. It also suggests that universities group students living in halls of residence into “households” that include all of those living on the same floor or sharing communal facilities, potentially including as many as 30 students. The guidelines add that private gatherings, including those within student households, must still be limited to a maximum of six people.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 905,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 27.9 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

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A general view of analytical chemists at AstraZeneca headquarters in Sydney

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9 September

UK government plans to expand coronavirus testing to 10 million tests a day

The UK government plans to carry out 10 million coronavirus tests per day by early 2021, according to documents obtained by the BMJ. Currently, the UK’s testing capacity is 350,000 per day. As part of the new plan, £100 billion will go towards the expansion of the country’s testing programme, the documents revealed, and GSK and AstraZeneca are among firms named for supplying tests and laboratory capacity respectively. 

Martin McKee at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine told the BMJ the plan is too optimistic and disregards “enormous problems with the existing testing and tracing programmes.” NHS Test and Trace in particular has been criticised for its repeated failure to reach a sufficient proportion of the contacts of people who test positive for the virus in England. Between 28 May and 26 August, the scheme reached 78.5 per cent of the contacts of people diagnosed in England – below the target of 80 per cent or more recommended by government scientific advisors. 

Jon Meeks, a biostatistician at the University of Birmingham who reviewed the documents for the BMJ, tweeted that the documents “show a severe lack of science or reality. No consideration of harms that screening us all would create.” In the BMJ he raised the problem of false positives: “If you test 60 million people [with a 99% accurate test] we will be classifying a group the size of the population of Sheffield as wrongly having covid.”

Other coronavirus news

Advanced trials of one of the most promising coronavirus vaccine candidates have been put on hold after a participant became ill in the UK. Drug firm AstraZeneca, which is developing the vaccine in partnership with the University of Oxford, has voluntarily paused the trials. This is standard procedure in vaccine development, and allows time for the researchers to determine the cause of the illness and ensure the safety of participants. AstraZeneca described the action as “routine” in a statement to STAT. The vaccine candidate has already passed preliminary trials, and is now undergoing phase II and III trials involving approximately 30,000 participants in the US as well as in the UK, Brazil and South Africa. These larger trials are designed to test whether it can prevent people from becoming infected with the coronavirus or getting ill with covid-19, as well as assessing long term safety.

Social gatherings in England will be limited to a maximum of six people from Monday 14 September, in an effort to tackle a recent spike in coronavirus cases. People will not be allowed to gather in groups larger than six either indoors or outdoors, with the exception of gatherings in schools, workplaces and some events such as weddings and funerals. UK health minister Matt Hancock told the BBC today that the new rule is “super simple” and will be “enforced by the police.” People could be fined between £100 and £3200 for violating the rule, he said. “We’ve seen in other countries around the world where they don’t take action then you end up with this second peak, resulting in more hospitalisations and more deaths, and we don’t want to see that here,” said Hancock.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 898,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 27.6 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

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People walk on the street in central Bolton, Greater Manchester

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8 September

New restrictions could be introduced across England due to surge in cases 

The government could tighten restrictions on people meeting in England following the recent spike in coronavirus cases. According to several reports, the government could reduce the number of people allowed to meet outdoors to six, down from the current limit of 30. Restrictions on how many people can meet indoors may also become tighter, according to Sky News. Under current guidelines, only two households can congregate indoors. 

England’s deputy chief medical officer, Jonathan Van-Tam, said the new wave of cases was because “people have relaxed too much.” Today, 2420 people tested positive for the coronavirus in the UK, down from 2948 on Monday but still high compared to daily figures in recent months. John Edmunds, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies told ITV that the UK as a whole is in a “risky period” because the country’s R number – the number of people each infected person goes on to infect – has risen above 1. An R number higher than 1 means that an epidemic is growing. 

Some measures are already tightening in some parts of the UK, including Bolton, in Greater Manchester. The town currently has the highest case rate in the country, with 120 cases of the virus per 100,000 people. Pubs and restaurants there will now have to be take-away only and stay closed between 10 pm and 5 am, UK health minister Matt Hancock announced today. The current guidance, which says people should not socialise with those from a different household, will be made legally binding, he told MPs. The number of people allowed to visit hospitals and care homes will also be reduced under the new measures. “The rise in cases in Bolton is partly due to socialising by people in their 20s and 30s. We know this from contact tracing,” said Hancock, adding “we’ve identified a number of pubs at which the virus has spread significantly.” 

Other coronavirus news

Amid increasing reports of people being told to attend drive-through testing centres hundreds of kilometres away from their homes, the director of testing for NHS Test and Trace, Sarah-Jane Marsh, tweeted an apology today to people in England who haven’t been able to get tested for the coronavirus. Marsh described laboratory processing as “the critical pinch-point” and said “we are doing all we can to expand quickly.” Last month researchers warned that the UK would probably face a second wave of coronavirus infections in winter if the country’s testing and contact tracing system didn’t improve by September.

There were 101 deaths from covid-19 in England and Wales during the week ending 28 August, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics. This is down from 138 deaths in the previous week and is also the lowest number of deaths from the disease recorded since the week ending 13 March.

A school in Nottinghamshire in England has been forced to close after its head teacher was admitted to hospital with covid-19. Pupils and staff at Trowell Primary School have been told to stay home and self-isolate until 21 September. In the week since pupils returned to classrooms, coronavirus outbreaks have been reported at dozens of schools in England and Wales. Across Liverpool, an estimated 200 pupils are self-isolating after positive covid-19 cases at five schools, while five teachers at a school in Suffolk have tested positive.Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 897,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 27.3 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

What is a vaccine and how do they work?: The latest video in our new YouTube series, Science with Sam, explains how vaccines work by training your immune system to recognise viruses and bacteria. We also take a look at the unprecedented worldwide effort to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus, and consider the challenges involved in making, testing and distributing covid-19 vaccines.

People undertake a coronavirus test at a walk-in test facility in Bolton, UK, September 7, 2020

Phil Noble/REUTERS

7 September

The UK recorded its highest number of daily new cases since May on Sunday

There were 2948 new coronavirus cases confirmed in the UK today, down slightly from the 2988 new cases confirmed on Sunday, which marked the highest daily increase in cases recorded in the country since 23 May. “This is especially concerning for a Sunday when report numbers are generally lower than most other days of the week,” said Paul Hunter at the University of East Anglia in a statement. “Sadly it is beginning to look like we are moving into a period of exponential growth in the UK epidemic and if so we can expect further increases over coming weeks,” said Hunter.

UK health minister Matt Hancock yesterday expressed concern about the rise in cases, which he said were largely among people under 25, especially those between 17 and 21. “Of course younger people can pass on the disease to their grandparents and we do not want to see that,” Hancock said yesterday. In France and Spain, rises in infections among younger adults in August were followed by higher numbers of hospital admissions for older and more vulnerable people in subsequent weeks. “It’s concerning because we’ve seen a rise in cases in France, in Spain, in some other countries across Europe, and nobody wants to see a second wave here,” Hancock said today.

Hancock’s concerns about younger people transmitting the virus to more vulnerable groups are shared by the government’s scientific advisors. A report endorsed by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies published last week warns there is a significant risk that reopening universities could amplify local and national transmission, adding that “it is highly likely that there will be significant outbreaks.” Because of the higher proportion of asymptomatic cases among younger age groups, cases and outbreaks are also likely to be harder to detect among student populations, says the report.

Other coronavirus news

India confirmed 90,632 new coronavirus cases in 24 hours, the country’s health ministry reported on Sunday, setting a new global record for the number of infections recorded in a single country in one day. India has confirmed more than 4.2 million cases since the pandemic began, the second-highest number for any country after the US.

The Tokyo Olympic Games will take place next year “with or without covid”, according to John Coates, vice-president of the International Olympic Committee. Previously, the committee said they would cancel the Games scheduled for July 2021 if necessary. 

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 889,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 27.1 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Keeping schools safe: There is wide agreement that schools must reopen, and stay open. Achieving this is fraught with unknowns, however. Although it seems that children are less likely to transmit and get sick from the coronavirus, we don’t know why that is the case. Should an outbreak occur, pupils’ families and school staff could still be at risk. In order to keep schools safe, governments must be prepared to shut down other areas of society to keep overall levels of virus transmission low.

Sputnik V, Gamaleya National Center

THE RUSSIAN DIRECT INVESTMENT FUND

4 September

Russia’s vaccine candidate produced antibody and T-cell responses in early-stage trial

A preliminary trial of Russia’s coronavirus vaccine candidate Sputnik V suggests it is safe and induces an immune response. The vaccine was approved by Russian authorities last month, before any data had been made public or a large-scale trial had begun. In the preliminary trial, it was tested in a small group of 76 healthy volunteers. All the volunteers developed coronavirus-specific antibodies and T-cells, and none experienced serious adverse reactions, according to results published in The Lancet today. However, it still isn’t clear whether the vaccine protects people from becoming infected with the coronavirus or from getting ill. This will be investigated through phase III testing, which is already underway, and which is expected to include 40,000 people across Russia. 

Some researchers are concerned that vaccine developers may come under political pressure to release doses of the vaccine for administration to the general public, before phase III testing is complete. “A vaccine should not be used to short-cut the implementation of public health interventions that are already known to be safe and effective, until the vaccine itself has been shown to be safe and effective,” said Eleanor Riley at the University of Edinburgh, in a statement. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) today said it does not expect widespread coronavirus vaccination until mid-2021. “We are not expecting to see widespread vaccination until the middle of next year,” said WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris at a briefing in Geneva. Harris said phase III trials will need to go on long enough to determine how “truly protective” and safe a given vaccine candidate is.

Other coronavirus news

Preliminary findings from a study by Public Health England found low rates of coronavirus infection among children and teachers in pre-school and primary school. Researchers took swabs from more than 12,000 children and teachers across 131 primary schools in England in June and early July, and detected only three cases of the virus. Ravindra Gupta at the University of Cambridge said the findings are not surprising, since limited numbers of children were attending schools in England during this time period. “We must not be complacent and falsely reassured,” said Gupta in a statement. “From September there will be more children, more mixing, more crowding and over winter less time will be spent outdoors,” he said, adding that there will be less chance to socially distance in schools in the coming months than it was possible to do in June.

New Zealand has recorded its first death from covid-19 since 28 May. A man in Auckland died after being admitted to hospital. His death is the first connected to a recent outbreak in the city, including 152 cases.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 870,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 26.3 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Social distancing: Computer scientists have used a database of public cameras to keep track of how well people are adhering to social distancing guidelines.

A medical worker takes a swab to test for the coronavirus at a drive-in testing facility

ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP via Getty Images

3 September

New funding announced for trials of rapid new coronavirus tests in the UK

The UK government today announced £500 million worth of funding for trials of rapid coronavirus tests, including recently developed swab and saliva tests that can be performed in 90 minutes or less. The trials will also include community pilots investigating the effectiveness of repeat testing in schools and among the general population. “We are backing innovative new tests that are fast, accurate and easier to use and will maximise the impact and scale of testing, helping us to get back to a more normal way of life,” UK health minister Matt Hancock said in a statement today. 

Having quicker tests could help speed up the identification of infected people and the tracing of their close contacts. But having a rapid test is “useless” if contacts can’t be identified because the tracing system is overwhelmed, Joshua Moon at the University of Sussex said in a statement. NHS Test and Trace has been criticised for its repeated failure to reach a sufficient proportion of the contacts of people who test positive for the coronavirus in England. According to the latest figures, 78.5 per cent of the contacts of people diagnosed with the virus in England were reached by NHS Test and Trace between 28 May and 26 August – below the target of 80 per cent or more recommended by government scientific advisors.

Other coronavirus news

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has notified states to prepare for the roll-out of a coronavirus vaccine within two months. “Limited covid-19 vaccine doses may be available by early November 2020,” according to CDC documents first published by the New York Times.  And in a letter to governors on 27 August, first obtained by McClatchy, CDC director Robert Redfield wrote: “CDC urgently requests your assistance in expediting applications for [vaccine] distribution facilities and, if necessary, asks that you consider waiving requirements that would prevent these facilities from becoming fully operational by November 1, 2020.” But public health researchers are concerned that the move is being driven less by evidence and instead by a political effort to rush a vaccine before the November election. Michael Osterholm at the University of Minnesota told the Associated Press that “the public health community wants a safe and effective vaccine as much as anybody […] but the data have to be clear and compelling.”

Pharmaceutical giants GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi will start testing their protein-based coronavirus vaccine candidate in humans for the first time, to assess its safety and ability to induce an immune response. If this and subsequent trials are successful, the companies have said they could be requesting regulatory approval in the first half of next year. 

A surge in demand for coronavirus tests has left the UK struggling to keep up. Some people with symptoms who tried to book coronavirus swab tests online told the BBC they were directed to testing centres more than 100 miles away from their homes. This could act as a “big disincentive to being tested”, Paul Hunter at the University of East Anglia told the BBC, potentially limiting efforts to contain localised spikes in cases.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 864,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 26 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Pharmacist holding packs of dexamethasone anti-inflammatory steroid tablets.

LEWIS HOUGHTON / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

2 September

Steroid drugs that reduce inflammation found to save lives from severe covid-19

A group of drugs that reduce inflammation have been confirmed to increase survival in people with severe covid-19. In a landmark study bringing together all the trials done so far looking at the effect of steroids on coronavirus, researchers in the World Health Organization (WHO) REACT working group analysed results from seven randomised clinical trials, which included 1703 critically ill patients with covid-19. They compared the outcomes of those who had received one of three corticosteroid drugs – dexamethasone, hydrocortisone or methylprednisolone – with those who received standard care or a placebo. The researchers found that 32 per cent of those who received a corticosteroid treatment had died from the disease after 28 days, compared to 40 per cent of those who did not. 

“The evidence for benefit is strongest for dexamethasone,” Stephen Evans at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said in a statement. These new results, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, add weight to earlier findings from the RECOVERY trial, which found that dexamethasone reduced deaths in critically ill covid-19 patients by a third for patients on ventilators and by a fifth for those receiving oxygen – the first drug shown to do so. “This analysis increases confidence that [dexamethasone] has a really worthwhile role in critically ill patients with covid-19,” Evans said. As a result of the study, the WHO is expected to update its guidance on treatment. In the UK, the drug has been in use for treating severely ill covid-19 patients since June.

Other coronavirus news

The US will not take part in a global initiative to develop and distribute a future coronavirus vaccine, because of its association with the WHO. More than 170 countries are participating in the initiative, called COVAX, which is working to ensure the equitable and fair global allocation of a potential vaccine. “We will not be constrained by multilateral organizations influenced by the corrupt World Health Organization and China,” White House spokesperson Judd Deere said in a statement. The US is due to withdraw from the WHO entirely next July – a move Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has vowed to reverse if he is elected in November.

Coronavirus restrictions have been eased in parts of Greater Manchester, Lancashire and West Yorkshire in England, with the exceptions of Bolton and Trafford in Greater Manchester. The government today announced that restrictions on meetings between different households indoors in these areas, which were also due to be lifted today, would now remain in place due to increasing infection rates. Bolton currently has one of the highest rates of new virus cases in England, with 59 cases per 100,000 people in the week ending 29 August. Similar restrictions have also been introduced in the Glasgow area in Scotland, which has seen a rise in cases over the last two days.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 858,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 25.8 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Schools reopening: Schools across England and the US are about to reopen their doors to students who have been at home for months thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. What is the best way to keep children, and school staff and parents, safe?

Face coverings in schools: Should children returning to school wear face coverings? Official advice on this has evolved during the pandemic.

Oxford vaccine: A large trial of a coronavirus vaccine developed by the University of Oxford has begun in the US. With similar trials already under way in the UK and Brazil, hopes are rising that we could find out if the vaccine works before the end of the year.

Pupils wash their hands as they arrive on the first day back to school at Charles Dickens Primary School in London

Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire/PA Images

1 September

Pupils around the world return to schools with new coronavirus measures in place

Millions of pupils returned to school today for the first time since coronavirus lockdowns were introduced, including pupils in France, Poland, Russia, England and Wales as well as in Wuhan in China, where the coronavirus was first detected. Schools in England and Wales have introduced hygiene and social distancing measures in line with recently updated government guidance, including wearing of face coverings by pupils in communal areas and staggering of break times for different year groups. But a survey of 653 parents in these regions by YouGov revealed that 17 per cent were considering keeping their children out of school due to concerns about coronavirus. 

UK schools minister Nick Gibb today urged parents to send their children back to school. Doing so would “help them catch up on the lost education they’ll inevitably have suffered in the lockdown period,” he told the BBC Breakfast show. A survey of thousands of teachers by the National Foundation for Educational Research suggests that children in England are three months behind in their studies following lockdown, and that the estimated learning gap between advantaged and disadvantaged pupils has risen by 46 per cent. 98 per cent of the teachers in the survey, which was conducted at the end of the last school year in July, said their pupils were further behind in the curriculum than they should have been at the time.

Other coronavirus news

The UK’s prime minister Boris Johnson today told MPs that people in the UK were returning to the office in “huge numbers”, although no evidence has emerged to support the claim. A spokesperson for Johnson told the Huffington Post “people will be returning to the office after the summer break and also children going back to school gives parents some added flexibility.” The UK government’s campaign to encourage people to return to offices launched today. But in a recent survey of more than 6000 workers who have been working from home due to the pandemic, nine out of 10 said they would like to continue to do so.

Pharmaceutical giant Astrazeneca has expanded its agreement with UK company Oxford Biomedica to scale up production of its coronavirus vaccine candidate. Oxford Biomedica has agreed to produce tens of millions of doses of the vaccine candidate, which is being developed by AstraZeneca in partnership with the University of Oxford. The candidate recently entered late-stage trials in the US, with 30,000 people enrolled. In a statement, AstraZeneca said its global manufacturing capacity was close to 3 billion doses.

Although there has been an increase in the use of face coverings in the UK, only 13 per cent of people who wear reusable face masks are maintaining them in a way that is helpful to stopping the spread of coronavirus, according to a poll of 1944 people by YouGov. The survey found that the use of face coverings in the UK increased from 38 per cent to 69 per cent from mid to late July. However, only 13 per cent of people who said they wear washable face masks also said they wash them after every use and at 60 degrees C or higher.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 851,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 25.5 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Immune response: Throughout the coronavirus pandemic there have been fierce debates over the science – when to lock down, whether face coverings help and whether children are less susceptible, for example. The latest row is over whether we have been ignoring a crucial part of our immune response to the virus: T-cells.

Children wait outside the school gate in Johannesburg, South Africa.

KIM LUDBROOK/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

28 August

Children are at “strikingly low” risk of getting severely ill from coronavirus

Children are much less likely to get severe covid-19 than adults, and it is very rare for them to die from it, according to a UK study that was published in the BMJ today. The study tracked 651 under-18s admitted to hospital with coronavirus between January and July in England, Scotland and Wales. Six children died, 1 per cent of the total, and they had all had other severe illnesses before the virus struck, some of which were themselves life-limiting. The authors say this is a “strikingly low” death rate compared with 27 per cent for all ages in the population as a whole over the same time period. The findings are in line with previous similar research. Young people make up 1 to 2 per cent of cases of covid-19 worldwide, although it’s not clear why they seem to be less affected.

“There have been no deaths in otherwise healthy school-age children,” Calum Semple at the University of Liverpool told the BBC. “There is no direct harm from children going back to school,” he said. The findings come as some UK schools have been reopening for all their pupils for the first time since lockdown in March, with most schools in England due to be back by next week.

Other coronavirus news

The UK has announced plans for quickly immunising large numbers of people if a coronavirus vaccine is developed before winter. They involve allowing a wider range of healthcare staff to give shots, such as midwives, physiotherapists and dentists, as well as pharmacists, who already administer flu vaccines. It also grants powers to approve any vaccine that is proven safe and effective before the end of the year to the Medicines Healthcare Regulatory Agency. This body will become responsible for approving all drugs and vaccines from the start of 2021 once the UK’s Brexit transition period is over.

Schools reopening in the US have found Legionnaires’ disease bacteria in their water supply, which can cause deadly pneumonia. The Legionella microbe was found in the water supply of five schools in Ohio and four in Pennsylvania last week, and experts say it could be in more.

The World Health Organization is trying to get more countries to join Covax, its coronavirus vaccine allocation scheme, according to documents seen by Reuters. The WHO plan would see countries pooling funds so that if one vaccine succeeds, all participants will get a fair allocation. But the UN agency has struggled to get enough richer nations on board. Countries including the UK, the US and Japan have made their own deals with manufacturers developing vaccines, securing millions of doses for their own citizens. 

Several large US states have said they will not follow official federal policy to stop testing people who think they have been exposed to the coronavirus but who do not have symptoms. In a rebuke to the new testing policy announced by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), California, Texas, Florida, New York and four other states have said they will continue with the old regime. The CDC’s move provoked claims that it was a politically motivated move to lower the number of people testing positive ahead of the 2020 election.

Coronavirus deaths

The worldwide death toll has passed 832,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 24.5 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Internet outage slows covid-19 contact tracing: Health officials were unable to trace and isolate the contacts of thousands of people who tested positive for the coronavirus in England until up to a week later.

A woman walks past chairs painted with the colours of the Tour de France leaders’ jerseys on the seafront in Nice, France

ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT/AFP via Getty Images

27 August

WHO warns Europe is entering “tricky moment” as coronavirus cases climb

As some European countries have continued to report growth in covid-19 cases, governments are responding by tightening up restrictions and safety measures. France reported 5429 daily cases today, up from 3776 a week ago, and Italy counted 1366 cases, its biggest daily increase in more than three months and up against 642 a week ago. Daily numbers in other major European countries are relatively stable, with Spain at 7296, Germany at 1507 and the UK at 1048.

The French prime minister Jean Castex warned the country had seen an “undeniable surge” of cases and the epidemic “could become exponential”, with cases rising as quickly as they did in the early days of the pandemic. The virus is now circulating in 20 of the country’s 101 “departments”, up from two previously. With France’s reproduction number – the average number of people one infected person will likely infect – now at 1.4, Castex said masks will become mandatory in Paris. The 21-day Tour de France will still go ahead this Saturday.

The German government today rejected calls to relax restrictions, with a leaked plan saying private parties will be limited to 25 people and the anticipated end of a ban on large public gatherings in October will instead be extended to the end of the year.

Hans Kluge at the World Health Organization said today that Europe is entering a “tricky moment” as schools reopen across the continent, though he stressed that schools had not been a “main contributor” to the epidemic. Asked by New Scientist at a press conference today if European countries’ responses to growing cases this week are commensurate with keeping the virus in check, Maria van Kerkhove at the WHO said: “What we are seeing is countries applying different measures. What we are seeing are targeted, tailored approaches. Hopefully these are time-bound.” On measures such as mandating face coverings and limiting the size of gatherings, she said: “All of these are different tools that may need to be applied. I think what we’re seeing is this calibration, of putting in efforts to suppress transmission to keep it at a low level while allowing societies to open up. This is one of the critical things we are all trying to figure out now.”

Other coronavirus news

The number of patients getting heart disease services at hospitals in the US and UK dropped by more than half during the countries’ lockdown, researchers have found. Writing in the journal Open Heart, they warned cardiology departments need to be prepared for a “significant increase in workload” in the coming months as a result.

In the UK, government statistics today show that three months after the launch of England’s contact tracing scheme, it is still falling short of reaching 80 per cent of close contacts of people who have tested positive for covid-19, the level the government’s scientific advisers say is needed. Three quarters of close contacts were reached between 13-19 August. Nearly 300,000 people have been reached since the system’s launch.

Separately, anyone in the UK on a low income who needs to self-isolate for 10 days and cannot work from home will be eligible to get £13 a day from the government in areas affected by local outbreaks, health secretary Matt Hancock said today.

A drug used to help cats with another coronavirus has been found to show promise in tackling the current coronavirus outbreak. The drug, GC376, and its parent, GC373, are “strong drug candidates for the treatment of human coronavirus infections because they have already been successful in animals,” the team write in Nature Communications. Here’s the New Scientist guide to all the latest on covid-19 treatments.

Coronavirus deaths

The worldwide death toll has passed 826,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 24 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Is the rush to roll out a coronavirus vaccine undermining safety? Some shortcuts are being taken in the race to get a coronavirus vaccine approved, but there are also more resources, openness and scrutiny than ever before.

Pupils in Glasgow, Scotland return to school after lockdown on 12 August

Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

26 August

Face coverings will now be mandatory for secondary school pupils in areas of England under lockdown 

Secondary school pupils in areas of England under local lockdowns will now be required to wear face coverings in all communal areas except classrooms, after the government reversed its guidance last night. The government has been under mounting pressure from headteachers to adopt a stricter policy on the use of face coverings ahead of schools reopening next month. Within coronavirus hotspots, “it probably does make sense in confined areas outside the classroom to use a face covering in the corridor and elsewhere,” UK prime minister Boris Johnson told journalists today, citing recently updated World Health Organization guidelines. The new rule won’t apply to schools in areas that aren’t under lockdown, although head teachers in any secondary school will have the flexibility to introduce their own rules. In Wales, the decision on the use of face coverings in schools will be left to individual schools and councils.

Other coronavirus news

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been criticised for changing its guidelines on coronavirus testing to say that some people without symptoms may not require a test, even if they have been in contact with someone who tested positive for the virus. The change has not been explained by CDC leaders. Leana Wen, a doctor and public health professor at George Washington University, told CNN, “These are exactly the people who should be tested,” as they are key to contact tracing.

Fewer than 40,000 cases were confirmed in the US yesterday and daily new coronavirus cases there have been falling, after peaking on 22 July at about 70,000, though this may be due to insufficient testing. The total number of tests administered has fallen from an average of more than 820,000 per day in mid-August to about 690,000 per day in the last week or so.

Coronavirus deaths

The worldwide death toll has passed 820,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 23.9 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Vaccine race: Some shortcuts are being taken in the race to get a coronavirus vaccine approved, but there are also more resources, openness and scrutiny than ever before.

Face coverings: Do you get angry when you see someone without a face covering? They might have a good reason to avoid one, even if it isn’t obvious.

Father and two children walking to school wearing face masks

Sally Anscombe/Getty Images

25 August

UK government under pressure to review policy on face coverings in schools in England

There is growing pressure on the UK government to review its policy on the wearing of face coverings in schools in England, after the Scottish government today announced that secondary school pupils will have to wear them in communal areas from Monday. Public Health England’s current guidance, issued in July, doesn’t recommend the use of face coverings in schools. The Association of School and College Leaders – a headteachers’ union in the UK – has criticised the lack of clarity around the rules on whether teachers and pupils can wear face coverings in schools in England. “The guidance is silent on what schools should do if staff or pupils want to wear face coverings,” the union’s general secretary, Geoff Barton told the BBC. During a visit to the south-west of England today, UK prime minister Boris Johnson said the government is continuing to look at the changing medical evidence, adding “if we need to change the advice then of course we will.” The Welsh government has said it will review its position on face coverings in schools. 

Earlier this month, the World Health Organization issued new guidance saying that children above age 12 should wear face masks in line with recommended practice for adults in the place where they live. Recent outbreaks in Scotland “reinforce the idea that covid-19 transmission in schools is potentially substantial”, said Rowland Kao at the University of Edinburgh in a statement. “Should masks be adopted, their use must be accompanied by awareness of the need for good mask hygiene and regular handwashing.”

Other coronavirus news

Two more patients have been reported to have been reinfected with the coronavirus, one in the Netherlands and another in Belgium. Yesterday, researchers at the University of Hong Kong announced that they had documented the first case of coronavirus reinfection. “That someone would emerge with a reinfection, that doesn’t make me nervous,” Marion Koopmans at Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands told Dutch broadcaster NOS. “We have to see whether this happens more often.” 

Coronavirus cases in Spain are continuing to surge, with 175.7 cases per 100,000 people, according to the latest 14-day cumulative figures from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. This is compared to 62.8 cases per 100,000 people in France and 22.5 cases per 100,000 people in the UK. Unions in Madrid last week warned that the primary care system was “on the edge of collapse” due to lack of staff and capacity for testing.

People living in the Gaza Strip have been put under a lockdown after local authorities confirmed the first locally acquired cases of the coronavirus. A 48-hour lockdown went into effect on Monday evening across the territory.

Bali in Indonesia will not reopen to foreign tourists this year due to concerns about rising coronavirus cases.

Coronavirus deaths

The worldwide death toll has passed 814,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 23.6 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Less deadly in Europe: It is becoming increasingly clear that people are less likely to die if they get covid-19 now compared with earlier in the pandemic, at least in Europe, but the reasons why are still shrouded in uncertainty.

Plasma treatment: Blood plasma donated by people who have recovered from covid-19 will be used as a treatment for the infection in the US. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted an emergency use authorisation for the treatment on 23 August, but the evidence that it works is lacking.

First case of reinfection: A healthy 33-year-old man is the first person confirmed to have caught the coronavirus twice, according to unpublished research from the University of Hong Kong. As details of the case emerge, researchers say there is still much we don’t know.

Hong Kong residents receive free covid-19 test kits

MIGUEL CANDELA/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

24 August

Researchers say they have detected the first case of coronavirus reinfection

Researchers at the University of Hong Kong say they have documented the first case of a person being reinfected with the coronavirus. The team analysed virus samples taken from a man when he first tested positive for the coronavirus in late March, and again when he tested positive for a second time in mid-August. They discovered several differences in the sequences of the virus from the first and second infections, suggesting the man had been infected with two separate strains of the virus, rather than one long-lasting infection. Their findings have been accepted for publication in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal.

What will the discovery mean for the dozens of vaccine candidates being developed to protect people against the coronavirus? It may indicate that being infected with the virus doesn’t necessarily protect people against future infections, said David Strain at the University of Exeter in a statement. “Vaccinations work by simulating infection to the body, thereby allowing the body to develop antibodies. If antibodies don’t provide lasting protection, we will need to revert to a strategy of viral near-elimination in order to return to a more normal life,” says Strain. But Brendan Wren at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said it is important to take these results into context: “This is a very rare example of reinfection and it should not negate the global drive to develop covid-19 vaccines.”

Other coronavirus news

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Sunday issued emergency use authorisation for convalescent plasma as a treatment for severe covid-19. This is drawn from people who have recovered from infection with the coronavirus and contains antibodies to fight the virus. In a statement the FDA said that “the known and potential benefits of the [treatment] outweigh the known and potential risks.” More than 70,000 people in the US have received convalescent plasma as a treatment for covid-19 since March, through a programme run by the Mayo Clinic. FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn said studies have found a 35 per cent improvement in survival for covid-19 patients given the plasma.

At least 17 staff and pupils at a school in Dundee have tested positive for the coronavirus less than two weeks after pupils returned to schools in Scotland. Kingspark school closed last Wednesday and pupils have been told to self-isolate until 3 September. Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon today announced that secondary school pupils in Scotland may be advised to wear face coverings, in light of new guidance from the World Health Organization. Schools in England are due to reopen in September, but a spokesperson for the prime minister today said there are no plans to review the current guidance in England for the wearing of face coverings in schools.

Coronavirus deaths

The worldwide death toll has passed 809,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 23.4 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Australia’s second wave: Australia’s second wave of the coronavirus appears to be finally subsiding, but the country isn’t out of the woods yet.

Vaccine technology: Prevention is better than cure, so we should start using genetic techniques to stop dangerous animal diseases jumping to humans, say Scott Nuismer and James Bull.

Commuters arrive for work at Victoria Station in London

Alex Lentati/LNP/Shutterstock

21 August

Coronavirus R number in UK rises slightly but infections appear to be levelling off

In the UK, the latest estimate for the R number, the number of people each coronavirus case infects, has risen to between 0.9 and 1.1, up slightly from 0.8 to 1.0 the previous week. However, due to a time lag in the data used to model the R number, this is more representative of the situation two to three weeks ago. Estimates for the infection growth rates range between -3 and 1 per cent. This suggests infections in the UK are levelling off on average, in a continuation of the trend observed over the last few weeks. This is consistent with the latest results from the random swab testing survey by the Office for National Statistics, which suggests about 24,600 people in England – 1 in 2200 – had the virus in the week ending 13 August, compared to 28,300 people – 1 in 1900 – in the week ending 9 August

Local coronavirus restrictions in place in parts of northern England will be lifted on Saturday. People from two different households in Wigan in Greater Manchester and Rossendale and Darwen in Lancashire will now be allowed to meet in homes and gardens. But restrictions will remain in place in some other parts of Greater Manchester and Lancashire, as well as in parts of West Yorkshire and in Leicester. Oldham, which had the highest rate of infections in the UK last week at 103.1 cases per 100,000 people, has avoided the introduction of restrictions but will be subjected to “a more targeted intervention”, according to the Department of Health and Social Care. 

Other coronavirus news

Travellers arriving in the UK from Croatia, Austria and Trinidad and Tobago will be required to quarantine for two weeks upon arrival, starting at 4.00 am on Saturday, UK transport minister Grant Shapps announced yesterday. There are currently 47.2 cases per 100,000 people in Croatia compared to 21.2 per 100,000 people in the UK, according to cumulative figures for the last 14 days from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Those arriving in the UK from Portugal, which currently has a case rate of 28.5 per 100,000 people, will no longer need to self-isolate. Shapps said it would be “too difficult” for the UK to adopt a more targeted approach to the quarantine rules like Germany’s, affecting travellers from specific regions rather than entire countries, due to the difficulty in assessing infection patterns overseas in sufficient detail.

Coronavirus cases have been reported among pupils or teachers at 41 schools in Germany’s capital Berlin, less than two weeks after schools reopened. Berlin was one of the first places in Germany to reopen schools after the summer break. Schools in Scotland reopened earlier this month and schools in England will reopen in September. 

South Korea recorded its highest number of daily new coronavirus cases since 8 March, with 324 new cases confirmed on Thursday. There have been 732 cases linked to the new outbreak so far, 56 of which have been linked to a single church in Seoul.

Lebanon has reintroduced a partial lockdown and an overnight curfew in an attempt to suppress a recent spike in coronavirus infections in the aftermath of the Beirut port explosion. The country recorded 605 new cases on Thursday, its highest daily case number so far.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 794,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 22.7 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Coronavirus and flying: Is it safe to fly with the coronavirus still circulating? That depends partly on where you are. But while hard evidence is scarce, it appears the risk of being infected with covid-19 during a flight is relatively low.

Commuters at Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof central train station in Frankfurt, Germany.

Alex Kraus/Bloomberg via Getty Images

20 August

WHO warns of “risk of resurgence” in Europe as Germany and Spain see cases surge

The risk of a resurgence of the coronavirus “has never been far away,” the World Health Organization (WHO) regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge said during a briefing today. Europe recorded 40,000 more coronavirus cases in the first week of August, compared to the first week of June, when cases were at their lowest, and cases have steadily been rising in the region, in part due to the relaxation of public health and social measures, he said. Germany recorded its highest daily number of new cases since April, with 1707 new cases confirmed on Wednesday. Spain recorded 3715 cases on the same day, the highest daily number there since the country’s lockdown was lifted in late June. “Authorities have been easing some of the restrictions and people have been dropping their guard,” said Kluge. 

Kluge thanked young people for the sacrifices they have made to protect themselves and others from covid-19 but expressed concern about people aged between 15 and 24, who account for a growing number of cases. “Low risk does not mean no risk. No one is invincible,” he said.

Other coronavirus news

England saw a 27 per cent increase in the number of people testing positive for coronavirus in the week ending 12 August compared to the previous week, according to the Department of Health and Social Care. Its latest figures state that 6616 people tested positive for the virus, whilst the number of people tested for the virus went down by 2 per cent over the same time period.

UK health minister Matt Hancock yesterday told the BBC that people in the UK should be able to return to workplaces without the need for wearing face masks, citing evidence from NHS Test and Trace that people have been largely catching the virus in meetings between households rather than in offices. But researchers, including microbiologist Simon Clarke at the University of Reading, say there isn’t sufficient data to rule out the risk of transmission within workplaces and from workplaces to households. “The virus needs to be taken into homes by someone and they will have had to pick it up from somewhere else […] even a single workplace transmission could lead to multiple onward infections in a family, household or other setting.”

India reported a record daily increase in coronavirus cases for the country today, with more than 69,652 cases confirmed, according to its health ministry.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 788,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 22.4 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Rewilding the sky: Let’s take inspiration from the way we intervene to help degraded ecosystems recover and attempt to restore the atmosphere back to full health, taking advantage of the lull in human activity under covid-19, writes Graham Lawton.

A medical worker takes a swab sample in a drive-thru testing centre

REUTERS/Carl Recine – RC2Z2I9ILO1A

19 August

Random swab testing survey to be expanded in England and to other UK nations

Coronavirus tests will be carried out on more people in the UK to help monitor the spread of the virus, the government says. The random swab testing survey for coronavirus by the Office for National Statistics, which started in May, will be expanded to test more people in England as well as people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the UK’s health minister Matt Hancock announced today. In England, the survey will expand from testing 28,000 people every two weeks in the community, outside of hospitals and care homes, to testing 150,000 people. Hancock said this is part of a wider effort to expand coronavirus testing in the UK.

Testing larger numbers of people will allow smaller changes in infection growth trends to be interpreted with more reliability, says biologist and medical innovation researcher Michael Hopkins at the University of Sussex. It will provide a “higher definition picture of the outbreak”, helping to pinpoint at-risk groups within the population, says Hopkins. More widespread testing could also help capture people who have the virus but are asymptomatic. An analysis by the ONS published yesterday found that only 28 per cent of people testing positive for the coronavirus in England reported having symptoms around the time they were tested.

Other coronavirus news

Australia’s prime minister Scott Morrison backtracked today after saying that coronavirus vaccination would be mandatory in Australia. Currently there isn’t a coronavirus vaccine available but there are 160 vaccine candidates being developed and 31 are in human trials. The Australian government recently secured access to the vaccine candidate being developed by the University of Oxford in partnership with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, and has now said that if the vaccine is approved it will offer it to Australian citizens for free. Clarifying his earlier comments about making the vaccine mandatory, Morrison said “we can’t hold someone down and make them take it”, adding that vaccination would be “encouraged.”

Almost 1200 fewer people died this year in New Zealand up to 20 July compared to during the same period last year, a rare trend in light of the global pandemic. Some researchers speculate this may be due to a reduction in deaths from other respiratory illnesses, thanks to the introduction of measures to limit the spread of the coronavirus. In May, neighbouring Australia reported lower flu rates than usual, which was also attributed to coronavirus lockdown measures. New Zealand has recorded only 22 covid-19 related deaths. 

South Korea recorded its biggest daily increase in coronavirus cases since March yesterday, with 297 cases of the virus confirmed. Officials in Seoul have begun introducing restrictions on gatherings in the city and its surrounding area, prohibiting indoor gatherings of more than 50 people and outdoor gatherings of more than 100 people.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 782,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 22.1 million, according to the map and dashboard from Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Achieving herd immunity: Today, some headlines celebrate the fact that many places might have achieved herd immunity including Britain and pockets of London, New York and Mumbai. But others warn that millions will die before we get there. The true picture is far messier, partly because scientists don’t even agree on what herd immunity is, let alone how it might be achieved. So how will we know when populations are protected against the coronavirus?

A worker holding a tray containing ampoules of “Sputnik V”, a covid-19 vaccine candidate developed by the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology in Zelenograd, Russia

Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg via Getty Images

18 August

“We need to prevent vaccine nationalism,” says WHO director-general

The World Health Organization (WHO) today called for an end to “vaccine nationalism”, the hoarding of vaccine doses by some nations. “The fastest way to end this pandemic and to reopen economies is to start by protecting the highest risk populations everywhere,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press briefing today. “We need to prevent vaccine nationalism,” he said. The priority should be protecting essential workers and other at-risk groups, Ghebreyesus said: “If we can work together, we can ensure that all essential workers are protected and proven treatments like dexamethasone are available to those who need them.” Although there currently isn’t a vaccine available for covid-19 there are more than 160 candidates in development, with 31 in human trials. Several countries have already secured deals for doses of some of these vaccine candidates. The UK has purchased at least 190 million doses, including 100 million of the vaccine candidate being developed by the University of Oxford and pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. 

Separately, Takeshi Kasai, WHO Western Pacific regional director, told the briefing that “the epidemic is changing.” He said that “people in their 20s, 30s and 40s are increasingly driving the spread. Many are unaware they are infected.” This increases the risk of the virus spreading to the more vulnerable,” he added.

Other coronavirus news

Public Health England will be replaced by a new public health agency, UK health minister Matt Hancock confirmed today. The new agency, called the National Institute for Health Protection, will combine “the expertise of Public Health England with the enormous response capabilities of NHS Test and Trace and the Joint Biosecurity Centre,” Hancock said at the Policy Exchange think tank. Dido Harding, the current head of NHS Test and Trace, will lead the new organisation initially, Hancock said. NHS Test and Trace has been criticised for repeatedly failing to reach the proportion of contacts of people diagnosed with coronavirus that is recommended by government scientific advisors – 80 per cent or more. Between 30 July and 5 August for instance, the system only managed to reach 74.2 per cent of the contacts of people who tested positive for the virus in England. 

The proportion of people in the UK who reported experiencing symptoms of depression was 20 per cent in June, up from 10 per cent in July last year, according to a survey by the Office for National Statistics.

Voters from six US states filed a lawsuit against the country’s president Donald Trump and the postmaster general Louis DeJoy yesterday over cuts to the US postal service ahead of the upcoming general election. Many states are expecting a surge in postal ballots this year due to the pandemic.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 775,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 21.9 million, according to the map and dashboard from Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Travelling abroad safely: Many countries have seen an increase in coronavirus cases, making going abroad more of a gamble. So what are the different options for managing the current risks from international travel, and which countries have got it right?

Return of covid-19 to New Zealand: New Zealand has acted swiftly to contain a new coronavirus outbreak after going 102 days virus-free, but it’s still unclear whether it can stamp it out again.

A-level students hold a sit in protest at the Department for Education over the results fiasco

17 August

A-level and GCSE grades in England to be based on teachers’ predictions instead of controversial algorithm

Pupils in England will be given A-level and GCSE grades estimated by their teachers rather than by an algorithm that sparked protests after it was used to moderate the grades of A-level pupils last week. The algorithm, which was introduced because the pandemic disrupted the usual exam process, resulted in about 280,000 A-level pupils in England seeing their scores drop by at least one grade or more compared to their predicted results.Those from disadvantaged backgrounds were worst-affected. UK education minister Gavin Williamson today announced that England’s exams regulator, Ofqual is scrapping the algorithm, bringing policy in line with the UK’s other nations. Williamson and Ofqual chair, Roger Taylor apologised for the “distress” caused. 

Other coronavirus news

England’s health agency, Public Health England, could be replaced by a new body specifically focused on dealing with pandemics. The new agency would be modelled on Germany’s Robert Koch Institute and is expected to be announced this week by the UK’s health minister, Matt Hancock, according to a report in the Sunday Telegraph. The article also indicates that Hancock plans to merge the NHS Test and Trace scheme with the pandemic response work of Public Health England. “The reports in the media of a proposed ‘axing’ of Public Health England is of huge concern,” said Amitava Banerjee, clinical data scientist and cardiologist at University College London. A major restructuring of public health function, as the global covid-19 emergency continues, will divert limited resources away from public health measures such as testing and tracing, said Banerjee. 

Voters in the US are concerned about whether it is still safe to post their ballots, after the country’s president Donald Trump last week said he would block additional funding required for the postal service to handle the expected surge in postal ballots this year. Many US states have been trying to make postal voting easier so that people are able to vote safely during the pandemic.

South Korea tightened social distancing rules on Sunday after 197 new coronavirus cases linked to a new outbreak were confirmed on Saturday. “We’re facing a crisis where if the current spread isn’t controlled, it would bring an exponential rise in cases, which could in turn lead to the collapse of our medical system and enormous economic damage,” director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Jeong Eun-kyeong said during a briefing.

New Zealand’s general election will be postponed by a month due to an on-going coronavirus outbreak in Auckland, the country’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern announced today. Nine new cases in the new cluster were confirmed today, bringing the total to 58 cases so far.

A new test for coronavirus-specific T-cells – immune cells that help the body fight infections – could help researchers developing vaccine candidates. The test is being developed by UK company Indoor Biotechnologies, which says early trials found that some people who had the coronavirus but tested negative for antibodies went on to test positive for T-cells. It still isn’t clear whether antibodies or T-cells provide long-lasting immunity against the virus and how long such immunity might last.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 776,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 21.7 million, according to the map and dashboard from Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Coronavirus and pets: Reports of pets being infected with the coronavirus have been growing, but how worried should owners be? And could pets be spreading the virus between people?

Passengers wait next to the Eurostar Terminal at the Gare du Nord train station in Paris.

Michel Euler/AP/Shutterstock

14 August

UK visitors to France could face restrictions after UK imposed quarantine on arrivals 

Travellers arriving in France from the UK could be required to quarantine for two weeks after arrival into the country, Clément Beaune, France’s junior minister for European Affairs, told journalists on Thursday. His statement came after the UK added France and the Netherlands to its list of countries from which arriving travellers will be required to quarantine for 14 days. France currently has a coronavirus case rate of 34.0 people per 100,000, according to cumulative figures for the last 14 days from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, with 41.6 cases per 100,000 people in the Netherlands. The case rate in the UK is currently 17.3 per 100,000 people. The UK’s new rules are effective from 4:00 BST on Saturday 15 August and will also apply for people arriving in the UK from Monaco, Malta, Turks and Caicos and Aruba. Transport minister Grant Shapps said that there are currently about 160,000 people from the UK on holidays in France. 

Other coronavirus news

Restrictions affecting parts of northern England and Leicester will stay in place due to on-going local outbreaks, the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care announced today. People living in the affected areas in Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, East Lancashire and Leicester aren’t allowed to meet with people from other households indoors or in private gardens. Oldham in Greater Manchester has experienced the largest week-on-week rise in cases in England, recording a rate of 107.5 cases per 100,000 people between 2 and 8 August, up from 57.8 during the previous week. The government says the restrictions will be reviewed again next week. 

Elsewhere in England, easing of restrictions allowing small wedding receptions, live indoor performances and beauty treatments will go ahead from Saturday after being delayed from the original date of 1 August, UK prime minister Boris Johnson confirmed today. Bowling alleys, casinos and play centres will also be allowed to reopen.

Despite some local outbreaks, coronavirus cases across England as a whole appear to be levelling off, according to the latest results from a random swab testing survey by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The ONS estimates that 28,300 people in England – one in 1900 people – had the virus in the week ending 9 August, the same as the previous week.

New Zealand has extended a lockdown in Auckland by at least 12 days, the country’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern announced today. New Zealand had been free of locally transmitted coronavirus infections for 102 days until four people from the same household in Auckland tested positive for the virus earlier this week. The number of cases in the new outbreak there has since risen to 29. 

North Korea has lifted a three-week lockdown in the border city of Kaesong after a suspected coronavirus case there, state media reported today. The World Health Organization last week said that tests on the suspected case – a man who returned to North Korea after defecting – had been inconclusive. North Korea has not reported any other cases.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 760,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 20.9 million, according to the map and dashboard from Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Staff of Guardian Funerals transport the casket of Covid-19 victim

Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

13 August

UK government has changed the way deaths from covid-19 are recorded in England

England’s covid-19 death toll has been revised down by more than 5000, after the UK government announced a new UK-wide standard for recording deaths caused by the coronavirus. The changes mean the removal of 5377 deaths from Public Health England’s official record, decreasing the UK’s total numbers of deaths from the virus from 46,706 to 41,329 as of 12 August. 

People who recovered from covid-19 before dying from other causes more than a month later may have been included in the previous death toll due to the way Public Health England was collecting its data. “It had become essentially useless for epidemiological monitoring,” said epidemiologist Keith Neal at the University of Nottingham, UK. From now on England’s official death toll will only include people who died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus, bringing it in line with the other nations in the UK. 

Other coronavirus news

The number of patients admitted to hospitals in England for routine treatment was down by 67 per cent in June compared to the same time last year, according to data from NHS England. The number of people visiting accident and emergency units was also down, by 30 per cent compared to last year, as was the number going to their family doctor with symptoms of cancer and being urgently referred to a specialist , at 20 per cent lower than last year. The NHS England data also suggests more people waited longer than usual for planned procedures, such as knee and hip operations. The Health Foundation charity told the BBC that this indicates the NHS is still “nowhere close to business as usual following the first outbreak of covid-19,” and warned that long waiting times could lead to deterioration in people’s health.

The coronavirus may have been circulating in New Zealand for weeks prior to the country’s new outbreak, according to New Zealand’s director-general of health, Ashley Bloomfield. The first person in the new cluster of cases started showing symptoms as early as 31 July, Bloomfield said during a media briefing in Wellington, adding that genome sequencing was underway on the original four cases to try and trace the train of transmission. Officials are also investigating the theory that the cases were imported via refrigerated freight. New Zealand had been free of locally transmitted coronavirus infections for 102 days before four people from the same household tested positive earlier this week. 

Authorities in two cities in China said they found traces of the coronavirus on imported frozen food and on food packaging. Samples of chicken wings imported to the city of Shenzhen from Brazil and packaging of frozen shrimp imported from Ecuador to a city in China’s Anhui province tested positive for the virus. It isn’t yet clear when the products became contaminated but China is increasing screening at its ports. The coronavirus can survive for up to two years frozen at -20°C but is destroyed by heating to 70°C. The World Health Organization says that there isn’t currently any evidence that people can catch the virus from food or food packaging. 

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 750,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 20.6 million, according to the map and dashboard from Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Sweden’s coronavirus strategy: Sweden was one of the few European countries not to impose a compulsory lockdown. Its unusual strategy for tackling the coronavirus outbreak has both been hailed as a success, and condemned as a failure. So which is it?

Two woman in Ripollet, Catalonia wearing face masks outside a coronavirus testing area.

PAU BARRENA/AFP via Getty Images

12 August

Germany and Spain among a growing list of western European countries where coronavirus cases are surging

Coronavirus cases are rising in Germany, Spain and other countries in western Europe, with Spain recording 1418 new infections on Tuesday, and Germany detecting 1200 cases in the last 24 hours, the country’s biggest daily increase for three months. In the Netherlands, daily new infections are back to about half the level they were at during the initial peak. Spain now has the highest rate of coronavirus infections in the region, with 94 cases per 100,000 people, compared to 38 in the Netherlands, 30 in France, 18 in the UK and 14 in Germany, according to cumulative figures for the last 14 days from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. 

Germany’s health minister, Jens Spahn, says people returning from holiday may be the reason for the increasing number of cases in Germany, as the UK and Germany continue to warn people against non-essential travel to parts of Spain. Any holidaymakers returning to the UK from Spain are required to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival. The list of countries from which all arrivals to the UK must quarantine may be updated this week to include 14 more countries, including France.

Other coronavirus news

The World Health Organization (WHO) is in talks with Russian authorities about reviewing the coronavirus vaccine candidate whose approval for use in Russia yesterday sparked criticism from researchers. Russia’s vaccine, Sputnik-V, is not on the WHO’s list of six vaccines that have reached phase III trials involving clinical testing on large groups of people. Russia’s health minister Mikhail Murashko today dismissed safety concerns expressed by foreign researchers about the rapid approval of the vaccine as “groundless.”

Lebanon announced its highest number of daily new coronavirus cases yesterday since the start of the pandemic, with more than 300 new cases and seven deaths from covid-19. Hospitals in the country are overwhelmed following the aftermath of the explosion in Beirut last week. WHO spokesperson Tarik Jarasevic told a UN briefing yesterday that the displacement of people due to the explosion risks accelerating the spread of the coronavirus there.

At least 800 people are estimated to have died around the world as a result of misinformation about the coronavirus during the first three months of this year, a study has found. A further 5800 people are estimated to have been admitted to hospital for the same reason during this period. The majority of the deaths and hospitalisations were due to people consuming methanol and alcohol-based cleaning products, incorrectly believing that they were cures for covid-19, according to the study, which was published in The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

Coronavirus deaths

The worldwide death toll has passed 744,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 20.4 million, according to the map and dashboard from Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Children at risk: A staggering 115 million children in India are at risk of malnutrition, as the world’s largest school lunch programme has been disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.

Who should get vaccinated first?: It is August 2021, and the moment the world has been waiting for has finally arrived – a vaccine against covid-19 has passed all the tests and is ready to be rolled out. But this isn’t the end. There are more than 7.5 billion people in need of vaccination but perhaps only a billion doses available in the first six months of production. Who gets one?

Staying connected: Greeting neighbours or gossiping with a colleague can boost your health and well-being, but coronavirus lockdowns are putting that in jeopardy. Here’s how to stay connected.

New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern announced new lockdown measures in Auckland after four new coronavirus cases were detected in the community

New Zealand government

11 August

New Zealand reimposes Auckland lockdown after first locally transmitted cases for 102 days

New Zealand has reported its first new coronavirus cases thought to be acquired through local transmission, after going 102 days without a single reported case outside of managed isolation or quarantine. Four people within one family in south Auckland tested positive for the virus, New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern said today at a press briefing. New Zealand has been widely praised for its aggressive response to the coronavirus, closing its borders to non-nationals and implementing one of the strictest lockdowns in the world, all at a time when the country had only 205 cases and no deaths from covid-19. Testing is now being ramped up in Auckland and lockdown restrictions will be reimposed there from tomorrow. Everyone except essential workers will be asked to work from home and schools will be closed for most children. Other public facilities, including bars and restaurants, will be required to close and gatherings will be limited to 10 people. 

Other coronavirus news

Researchers have expressed concerns about the approval of a coronavirus vaccine candidate in Russia today. The virus has been approved for widespread use, despite only being tested in dozens of people. “There is no data on the Russian-led vaccine for the global health community to scrutinise,” said Michael Head, public health research fellow at the University of Southampton, UK. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin said one of his daughters has already been inoculated, and claimed it was safe. 

The number of contact tracers working for NHS Test and Trace will be reduced by 6000 in England by the end of this month, the UK government has announced. The remaining 12,000 contact tracers will work more closely with local public health authorities to help with contact tracing within communities. Between 16 and 22 July, NHS Test and Trace only managed to reach 75 per cent of the contacts of people who tested positive for the coronavirus in England. Dido Harding, head of NHS Test and Trace said that having a more localised approach will ensure more contacts of coronavirus cases within communities can be reached.

Australia’s remote Northern Territory will keep its borders shut to coronavirus-affected states until at least 2022, according to local officials. People arriving from affected states will be required to quarantine at a hotel for 14 days at their own expense.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 737,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 20.1 million, according to the map and dashboard from Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Question about the UK’s new rapid tests: Two 90-minute tests for the coronavirus will be rolled out by the UK government in the coming weeks – and while both are promising, neither has publicly available data to support its use.

Common cold virus vaccine: A vaccine that protects against one of the main common cold viruses – respiratory syncytial virus – has been shown to be safe and effective in a clinical trial and could be available by 2024.

A man seen in a street during a snowfall in the early stages of the pandemic.

Sergei Fadeichev/TASS via Getty Images

10 August

No indication there is seasonality with the coronavirus, says WHO 

There is no indication that the coronavirus is seasonal and it could bounce back any time, World Health Organization (WHO) leaders said at a press briefing today. Evidence suggests the coronavirus is unlike flu, which tends to spike in autumn and winter. “If you take pressure off the virus, the virus will bounce back. That’s what we will say to countries in Europe – keep the pressure on,” said Mike Ryan, WHO executive director of the emergencies program. Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead of WHO’s covid-19 response, said that the majority of the world’s population remains susceptible to the virus, and WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus emphasised the importance of countries taking targeted action to tackle local outbreaks through methods like localised lockdowns employed in Leicester, UK. 

Other coronavirus news

The WHO says it has only received a fraction of the funding it needs for an initiative aimed at developing and distributing drugs, vaccines and other tools to help tackle the pandemic. “While we’re grateful for those that have made contributions, we’re only 10 per cent of the way to funding the billions required to realise the promise of the ACT [Access to Covid-19 Tools] accelerator,” Tedros said during a press briefing today.

“Greece has formally entered a second wave of the epidemic,” Gkikas Magiorkinis, an epidemiologist at Athens University and one of the scientists advising the Greek government, told journalists today. This comes after Greece recorded its highest number of daily new coronavirus cases since the pandemic began, with 203 confirmed on Sunday.

In France, it is now compulsory to wear a face mask outdoors in certain crowded areas within Paris. Health officials said the rate of positive coronavirus tests was 2.4 per cent in the Paris area compared to the average of 1.6 per cent for people tested in the country as a whole. Other cities, including Nice and Lille, have also introduced new rules making face masks mandatory in specific outdoor areas.

It has been more than 100 days since New Zealand last detected a locally acquired coronavirus case. As of today, the country has only 21 active infections, all of which are being managed in isolation facilities. Authorities are still testing thousands of people each day. “We need to be prepared to quickly stamp out any future cases,” said New Zealand’s director-general of health Ashley Bloomfield on Sunday. 

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 731,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 19.9 million, according to the map and dashboard from Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

NHS advice board promoting Test and Trace in Birmingham city centre in the UK

Mike Kemp/In PIctures via Getty Images

7 August

The number of people estimated to have the virus in England may be levelling off

The number of people estimated to have covid-19 in England appears to be levelling off, after rising slightly in July, according to a random swab testing survey of almost 120,000 people by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The ONS estimates that 28,300 people outside of hospitals and care homes in England had the virus in the week ending 2 August – about one in every 1900 people. This is down slightly from the previous week’s estimate of 35,700. But it isn’t clear how infection rates may differ across different regions. In Wales, which was included in the survey for the first time, an estimated 1400 people had covid-19 in the week ending 2 August, equivalent to one in every 2200 people.

The proportion of people in the UK who say they have been wearing face coverings has gone up for the second week in a row, according to a separate ONS survey. In the week ending 2 August, 96 per cent of people said they had worn a face covering outside their home, up from 84 per cent in the previous week and 71 per cent the week before. The survey also found that 72 per cent of people said they had socialised with others in person, just over half of whom said they had always maintained social distancing. 

Other coronavirus news

Coronavirus vaccine trials could be undermined by the lack of diversity among participants, according to researchers. In the recent trial of a coronavirus vaccine candidate being developed by the University of Oxford in partnership with AstraZeneca, fewer than 1 per cent of the approximately 1000 participants were black and only about 5 per cent were Asian, compared to 91 per cent of participants who were white. In a smaller trial of a vaccine candidate being developed by US company Moderna, 40 out of 45 participants were white. “Diversity is important to ensure pockets of people don’t have adverse side-effects,” Oluwadamilola Fayanju, a surgeon and researcher at Duke University told the Guardian.

The city of Preston in England is being placed under stricter local lockdown measures following a rise in coronavirus cases. From midnight on 7 August residents from different households aren’t allowed to meet indoors or in private gardens. These new measures are in line with those currently in place in east Lancashire, Greater Manchester and parts of West Yorkshire.

More than one million people in countries across Africa have been diagnosed with the coronavirus, although health officials say this is certainly an underestimate. “We haven’t seen the peak in Africa yet,” Mary Stephen, technical officer at the World Health Organization’s regional office for Africa told Al Jazeera. Although the majority of cases confirmed so far are in South Africa, it is also performing significantly more tests than other African countries.

India has recorded its highest number of daily new coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic, with 62,538 cases confirmed on Friday. There have been more than 2 million cases recorded in the country since the pandemic began.

Coronavirus deaths

The worldwide death toll has passed 715,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 19.1 million, according to the map and dashboard from Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Click here to see previous daily updates

Matthew Rowett

Matthew Rowett

Matthew Rowett

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£100k per week player at Liverpool will not be starting tomorrow's game against Napoli, according to Jurgen Klopp

£100k per week player at Liverpool will not be starting tomorrow’s game against Napoli, according to Jurgen Klopp

Jurgen Klopp, manager of Liverpool, has addressed the media before the Reds’ Champions League encounter against Napoli. After Saturday’s disappointing 2-1 loss to Leeds, manager Jurgen Klopp addressed the media on the club’s website. Liverpool’s undefeated home record was snapped by Crysencio Summerville’s late goal, and it was yet another dismal effort from Klopp’s team. What Kinds of…

[lockdownuk]

Lockdown Diary Part 7

A personal account during the lockdown in the UK due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

23/03/2020 8:30pm Boris Johnson, UK Prime Minister, gives a live address to the nation to, effectively, put the country on lockdown to stem the spread of the deadly coronavirus strain, Covid-19.

Many of us have been self-isolating for days but this latest development within the UK in reaction to the pandemic feels very serious and very scary. I decided to keep a simple diary and where better but online.

Day 181: Typing on day 182. I received an email from someone at DSM who had got my CV from Helen Proctor (she was the manager that interviewed me along with the founder) and wants me to interview for a IT business consultant role for a shoe firm (Loakes) in Kettering. I called the chap and had a quick chat and arranged it for Wednesday.

A few beers, as it’s Friday, and caught up via video chat with Foggy and Irish Mike (Foggy’s on quarantine having holidayed in the south of France). It was a late one and they were both pissed, but nice to chat. Andy and Ham were meant to join but were no shows - Ham had his sister’s funeral this week - might explain it.

Day 182: I messaged Ham - he went round his folk’s house after work last night as his two sisters were there. I have to admit, I am ignorant of all of Ham’s brothers and Sisters so he may well have meant one was Preaya in an urn.

Someone on the Oundle Chatter FB group asked about Google Hangouts (on behalf of her son who is attending college and they have online classes using it. I am now about to look into it for her. Why did I get involved. It’s 8pm on a Saturday, ffs!

Update, I researched it and messaged her - seems I hit a nail on the head and she seemed suitably grateful. Booze and pizza coming right up (at 9:15pm)

Day 183: Up at just before 2pm - I drank shed loads last night and went to bed after 4am. Faffed about but did manage my stair climb, a 10km walk and I am now making a roast dinner-ish tea (chicken breast stuffed with red leicester and wrapped in bacon) with all the veg and yorkies (I am trying to empty the freezer as it needs defrosting).

Day 184: I posted on FB that today was half a leap year of lockdown (that’s wrong, should have been yesterday). Rachel replied that it isn’t lockdown anymore. I replied that it is for me but that got me thinking - are we officially in lockdown still? Checked, and we are. Posted that on the same thread and Badger replied that the current level of lockdown has been uprated to level 4, whatever that actually means. Rachel’s post worries me - 1. ‘cos it’s indictative of the far-too-relaxed attitude and, 2. I wasn’t even sure even though I’m still observing the same lockdown behaviour that I was before Boris made his announce on March 23rd. Scary how facts bleed into fiction. 

Jim contacted me today, asked me to call. I did so, he says I’ll be asked to return to work (from home) on the 5th October (two weeks). Shirley from HR will be in contact. I’ll believe when I see the email from her! 

Day 185: Boris announced a tightening of the relaxed lockdown including pubs shutting at 10pm. None of it really affects me since I’m still in as full a lockdown as when it started.

Received an email from John Morton at DSM for an interview at Loakes tomorrow (Wed) at 09:30am.

Received a Facebook message from the editor at Oundle Chronicle - he wants to do a short article about the photos I take and post on the Oundle Chatter fb group.

Day 186: Interview went ok.

Called Dad and Rita to let them know that I received an email from RCI confirming that I will be back at work on the 5th of October.

In the evening, Facebook had posts concerning somebody walking round Creed Road with a knife in his hand, and the police getting involved!

Day 187: Spend spend spend. Paid my speeding fine today £357, my water bill £147, bought two new duvet cover sets and two new sheets ��58, a new pair of walking boots (my relatively new Hi-Tec are leaking and falling apart) £75. Oh, and the car insurance renews day after tomorrow, £230. Thank fucking fuck I’m being taken off furlough!

Day 188: Friday and I’m going to have a few beers and watch a couple of films.  I’ve been trawling through Seinfeld and am most the way through S3, and it’s brilliant. The Kramer character is mentally good. One episode had the actress who played Janice in Friends - that episode is a classic - which also included an scene whereby the cast are all exclaiming ‘Saturday night’ similar to the Friends TikTok trend. Got a call this morning about a service delivery lead role for EPM, a education service provider, based in Huntingdon. It’s a good role, very involved, reporting directly to the head of IT. But it’s only £32k pa. I replied to the email the recruiter subsequently sent to say I am interested but that salary is less than £5k pa than I am on now as a 2nd line support techie!  Lastly, I am well on my way to doing 500,000 steps in September!

Day 189: I was woken by the doorbell - a delivery of one of the duvet cover sets. On the door mat was a missed parcel delivery note from Ryal Mail (I have to get whatever it is from Warmington PO) and a note from next door (No. 34) asking for me to turn my music down at 10.30pm. That’s fair enough but....10.30pm! What are they, 80 years old? I have felt low today. There is no rhyme nor reason as to my moods suffice to say I am not of the happiest dispostion on a permanent basis, resigned to being alone. In fact, I have come to terms with the fact I’ll die alone but, it seems, some days I cope with it a lot worse than others. On that cheery note, it’s 8.45 pm on a Saturday night so, I am about to launch into some beers, weed and pizza. I think tonight I’ll seek out the second John Wick film - watch the first last night - so fucking good. You gotta love Keanu!

Day 190: Hopefully the last Sunday of having an enforced no-work-on-Monday so I’m going to have a beer or two (it’s now 8:20pm - just cracked open a Bud), watch American Sniper and eat Chilli and naan bread and onion rings. I did a 12 km walk today - I recall a time when 40-45 minuts walking was enough. Today’s walk was 2 hours! I know it’s only walking but I feel fitter than I have for years; still unfit, but fitter. Day 191: Well, I enjoyed the decadence of boozing last night but it meant getting up at after midday! Still managed two walks, trip to Tesco’s in Hampton after picking up the mystery parcel from Warmington PO. It was two unknown bottles of beer for a marketing campaign I entered a few days ago! I have to not open the beers until I receive instruction whereby I’ll be joining in with other drinkers in video chat! Day 192: Smahed 500k steps for September with one day to go! Cleaned the kitchen - I’m going to do the whole house over the next few days while I have the free time since I’m back to work on Monday.  The lad from next door called round this eveing to ask if I got the note. When I said yes, he told me they (he and his partner) can still hear music. FFS! I asked where their bedroom was, it’s along side mine, so I guess it’s the TV sound that is travelling up and disturbing them. Great, fuck knows what I should do if I want to watch anything after 10:30pm. I suppose going back to work is good timing..I shall be going to bed around that time myself, especially if I want to get up early to get a walk in before starting at 09.00 am.

Day 193: Typing on day 194. Only managed one walk today, before 9.00am. It made a great change walking that early. I then set about doing housework (which I started yesterday) - I want to clean the house from top to bottom before going back to work. i.e. while I have time during the working week. I did the Kitchen yesterday and the whole lounge today. It’s fucking knackering. I managed 519k steps in September, works out at 9.6 miles per day, which is good and, also, annoying. I have taken delivery and laundered all my new bedding. It’s brushed cotton lushness, can’t wait to try it. Last ‘happy hour’ of (this current) furlough, so I had beers (and a fucking spicey sausage casserole)...hence penning this a day late.

Day 194: I didn’t get out of bed until nearly 2pm, FFS. Spome with Ricky Roberts about kayaking, it sound sliek something I could take up but, I would need to join the boat club to have somewhere to get in and out!

Day 195: Sueanne from work called to let me know she’s taking over from Jim ‘til new yer and that the team are looking forward to my return - lovely. Dad called, he and Rita are fine as usual - lovely.

Day 196: Got up fater 2pm. I was seriously fucking wasted last night. Had a video chat with Fog - just checked, it ended at 02.04am and I did a lot more drinking and smoking after that. I still managed a 9.7km walk and am now going to settle down to a few (just a few!) beers, shepherds pie and watch Casino. Day 197: Quiet Sunday with some bizarre results in Super Sunday in the prem. Man U lost at home to Spurs 1-6 and Liverpool were thrashed at Villa Park, 7-2. Work tomorrow, feeling a little apprehensive, not sure why. Got to go to the office (to reset password) at 09.00am

Day 198: Back to work. It went OK. I had to go to the office so that my a/c could be enabled and password reset and t get VPN working. There were a few problems but I was back home and logged in OK in the afternoon. Saw Mark in the office - he’s lost weight and was telling me about a cycling accident - I knew about it, but I didn’t realise he had been in hospital and had a plate put in his shoulder. He also has the exact same issue with codeine as me! I am pleased to be back at work but it’s different - no Jim and Sueanne in charge is the main thing. I’m just going to keep my head down; it’ll be for the best.

Day 199: Second day back at work and I’m (trying to) crack on with it. It’s all coming back... New walking boots arrived today (I have them on as I type); I reckon I’ll be OK to walk in them with no breaking in. That’s just as well as my evening walk took me by the marina and the path between the lock, the small bridge and, especially, the larger bridge into the field at the bottom of Basset Ford Road was flooded, no way my boots will be dry for tomorrow.  I did my stair climb before work, 3.5 km walk at lunchtime and then a long, second one, as mentioned, later. I want to try and do a short walk before work in future, hopefully. On the way back from the lunchtime walk, I saw the lad from next door who thanked for me keeping the music down as per the note he left, so, that’s all good.

Day 200: I’ve started a work diary,  à la ENDC....nowhere as urgently required but I just think it’s a good idea.

I wore my new boots for the lunchtime walk (3.6km) and they’re fine. However, I didn’t use them in the evening, they niggled the left foot a bit, so some breaking in is required. My usual ones were just about dry enough having been sat on the radiator! Day 201: Popped into the office today to pick up my full headset dongle, did a quick shop at Asda. So, only one walk today. I have not yet managed to get a walk in before work, just the stair climb, so missed out on a lunchtime walk today since I was shopping. Did 8.5km in the evening. Bought a card online for K’s birthday. Not sure why, we seem not to be communicating - I haven’t heard from her for over a month now which, as mentioned before, I shouldn’t find as hard as I do. The card’s pretty cool though, a quip about just getting a card as a present would involve non-essential travel. Now I am back at work, I want a to do loist app. I recall a smart one that was a linear/curved affair that I saw on Producthunt but, fuck me, I couldn’t find it after over an hour looking. Then I checked Google apps and there it was (Lightpad.ai) - I was chuffed and relieved. The lad from oundle School has been trying to get hold of me via Messenger (he tells me by email) so he can interview for the article in the Chronicle. He has pencilled in Saturday at 6pm.Fuck knows if it will go ahead, the whole thing is sketchy. Day 202: First week back at work over and done. I ordered some stuff from Amazon (slippers and socks) and they offered a free trial of Prime, which is the norm, but, seeing as I have had a free trial under that a/c, I assumed it would error, as I have seen before. This time it didn’t! So, tonight, I just about to have some beers, eat pizza and watch The Gentlemen,. It was suggested by Miles on FB when I asked for  recommendations. It’s been on my to-watch list since its release. I need some cheering up, I’m having a low ebb today.Day 203: Typing on day 204. The Gentlemen was pretty good. I had lots of beers and smoke and went to bed fucking late, gone 4am. Up at lunchtime. I was meant to be going up Foggy’s for a few beers and to listen to Cobblers vs Posh but I sacked that off. I went for a walk at tea time when it got dark fucking quick and pissed down. I didn’t mind ‘cos Posh won 0-2. I watched two films in the evening: Master and Commander: Far Side of the World and Official Secrets. Both excellent. Day 204: Another late night, so up at just before 2pm. 12.64 km walk! I’m going to make stirfry and watch Knives Out...taking advantage of Amazon Prime.Day 205: I didn’t watch Knives Out last night, Amazon Prime was playing up. Tonight, however, after uninstalling and reinstalling the LG app, it’s working again. But, rather than a film, I have started watching The Boys series. 3/4 through the first episode and I’m kinda hooked. Another long walk tonight (I didn’t go out before work or at lunchtime), over 5 miles. My new boots are a marvel...they’re still new - I can tell I’ve got a little bit of wearing in still to do, but, pretty much from the off, I can walk long distances in them. I’m impressed. I think, because they are so light, they may be susceptible to the cold, especially now I can walk for longer periods without hypo-ing. The snow and frost will be the test.Day 206: Bit of a frustrating day at work. I am pleased I have a diary of events to update, that’s all I will say on this potentially public diary. Had a chat with Mark about certain aspects of the day, it was a good chat whereby he agreed with some of my gripes. In the evening I took part in a Ipsos marketing test of two beers with a whole bunch of people online. Ultimately, you have to choose one of two beers you prefer and answer questions why. It’s then revelaed which beer you chose. The beer I iked best was Stella but 4.6%, I think that’s the next product iine for them. You don’t get to find out the other beer. I shoudl recieve a £15 amazon voucher for partaking. If that actually happens, I’m going to buy a pair of gaiters. My new boots are fab (although I did turn my ankle last night) but their insides don’t half attract gravel and debris.Day 207: A productive day incorporating ToDoist with work and GCal, I have sacked off Lightpad.ai (it was too cumbersome moving tasks between dates) - so I managed to tick a few things off the task list as a result (responding to Jo Broom’s voicemail, chasing an eye appointmen, for example). Tim came round and did the garden, nice chinwag. I saw little Derek the other day, as well, he’s not coping great with the whole pandemic atm, certainly now lockdown has relaxed, he’s not as social as before. Day 208: Had a chat with Sueanne today, which is not unusal, and I was asking about creating KBs...she remarked how well, and quickly, I getting up to speed. It pleased me. I am having battered fishcakes, potato wedges and peas for tea. I am looking forward to it the most ridiculous amount (it’s cooking as I type). I shall eat as I watch more of the rather excellent The Boys. Seinfeld is on the back burner atm. Day 209: Emily Folgate’s room mate at uni has tested positive for Covid19! Marc’s avoiding the pub and I am glad I didn’t pop up there last Saturday! Bumped into Ash and Dee when i walked past the vets, chatted for 5 mins, it was really nice to see them. The lady next door (38) stopped me outside to say she recently realised that it was me who posts photos to FB, and said they’re ‘amazing’! End of week 2 back at work. As I type, I’m on my first beer, about to have many more and a smoke, half way through The Trial of the Chicago 7 on Netflix. Living the dream! Day 210: Things got messy last night. Sugar levels were a mess. I couldn’t even make it upstairs at one point, laid down on the long rug nursing a big bottle of coke. Got up at around 1pm and did usual shit, now having a beer, spicy sausage casserole in the oven (and it is fucking spicy) and I’ll pick a film to watch in a bit. Posh won, 2-0 at home to Oxford, up to 4th, one point behind Lincoln.

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