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Gathered mainly from international media sources December 2020 - March 2021 |
For recent entries click "Invalid Item"  These are news/opinion items which caught my eye. Click on the link below: 31 Mar 2021 "Invalid Entry" 24 Mar 2021 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 22 Mar 2021 "Invalid Entry" 21 Mar 2021 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 19 Mar 2021 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 17 Mar 2021 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 26 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" 25 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" 24 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" 22 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 21 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 19 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 18 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" 16 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" 15 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" 14 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" 9 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" 8 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" 4 Feb 2021 "Invalid Entry" 30 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" 29 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" 28 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" 27 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" 26 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 24 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" 23 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 21 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" 20 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 19 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 18 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" 14 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" 12 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" 11 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" 10 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" 4 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 2 Jan 2021 "Invalid Entry" 29 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 27 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" 24 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" 23 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 22 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 20 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" 19 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" 18 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 17 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 16 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 15/12/20 "Invalid Entry" 13 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" 12 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" 11 Dec 2020 "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" For earlier entries drill down the list 10 Dec 2020 - Covid: Genes hold clues to why some people get severely ill 10 Dec 2020 - Referendum for the state of Texas to secede from the U.S. ? 10 Dec 2020 - Covid-19: More single day dead than in 9/11 terror attack or on D-Day landing 10 Dec 2020 - Covid-19: France moves to night-time curfew from 15 December 10 Dec 2020 - Elon Musk has launched the latest prototype of his Starship vehicle from Texas. 9 Dec 2020 - Covid-19 - $600 direct payment to most Americans? 9 Dec 2020 - Hunter Biden under federal investigation 9 Dec 2020 - Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine data gets positive FDA review 9 Dec 2020 - Is BIG TECH censoring different ideas about COVID-19? 9 Dec 2020 - Clashes in Portland 9 Dec 2020 - UK is investigating two possible allergic reactions to Pfizer coronavirus shot 9 Dec 2020 - Open letter by the Prime Minister of Hungary to the European Union 9 Dec 2020 - VACCINE OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM 9 Dec 2020 - UK EXIT FROM THE EU (Last supper?) 8 Dec 2020 - ROALD DAHL AND A WOKE APOLOGY |
Tesco has introduced purchasing limits on some products including eggs, rice, soap and toilet roll. The move is to make sure everyone has access to the products, it said in an email to customers. Customers are allowed to buy up to three of each item. The move comes as almost 3,000 lorries remain stranded in Kent after restrictions on travel and freight between the UK and France were introduced. The supermarket giant also encouraged customers to shop alone to ensure social distancing in stores. 1,500 lorries stuck in Kent as UK and France aim to restart freight Tesco said it has "good stock levels" and customers should "shop as you normally would". Tesco introduced limits on some products in September in a bid to prevent a repeat of the panic-buying that led to shortages in March. France shut its UK border for 48 hours on Sunday amid fears of a new coronavirus variant. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has since announcedthat some travel can resume, although lorry drivers are still advised not to travel to Kent after days of disruption. Dozens of other countries have banned UK arrivals, including India, Iran and Canada. |
| The World Health Organization says there's no evidence the new variant of coronavirus that's taken hold in Britain increases the severity of disease. Scientists, though, are urgently investigating whether it may spread more easily in children. Earlier variants found it harder to infect children than adults and any evidence this new one is different could alter the role they, and crucially schools, play in the pandemic. On Monday, the prime minister said he wanted to open schools in January "if we possibly can". The new variant has, of course, plunged much of southern England into a tier four lockdown, and prompted Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to introduce their own tougher measures. The UK's top scientist has warned it is now "everywhere" and more areas may need to enter the highest level of restrictions. On Monday night, the Stormont Executive voted against imposing a travel ban from Great Britain into Northern Ireland. But it backed plans to issue new guidance against all but essential travel between NI, GB and the Irish Republic. The variant isn't restricted to the UK by the way - cases have been detected in Denmark, Australia, Italy and the Netherlands. The rapid spread of the new variant of coronavirus has been blamed for the introduction of strict tier four mixing rules for millions of people, harsher restrictions on mixing at Christmas in England, Scotland and Wales, and other countries placing the UK on a travel ban. So how has it gone from being non-existent to the most common form of the virus in parts of England in a matter of months? The government's advisers on new infections now say they have "high" confidence that it is more able to transmit than other variants. All the work is at an early stage, contains huge uncertainties and a long list of unanswered questions. Why is this variant causing concern? Three things are coming together that mean it is attracting attention: It is rapidly replacing other versions of the virus It has mutations that affect part of the virus likely to be important Some of those mutations have already been shown in the lab to increase the ability of the virus to infect cells All of these come together to build a case for a virus that can spread more easily. However, there is no absolute certainty. New strains can become more common simply by being in the right place at the right time - such as London, which had only tier two restrictions until recently. But already the justification for tier four restrictions is in part to reduce the spread of the variant. "Laboratory experiments are required, but do you want to wait weeks or months [to see the results and take action to limit the spread]? Probably not in these circumstances," Prof Nick Loman, from the Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium, told me. How much faster is it spreading? It was first detected in September. In November around a quarter of cases in London were the new variant. This reached nearly two-thirds of cases in mid-December. Mathematicians have been running the numbers on the spread of different variants in an attempt to calculate how much of an edge this one might have. But teasing apart what is due to people's behaviour and what is due to the virus is hard. The figure mentioned by Prime Minister Boris Johnson was that the variant may be up to 70% more transmissible. He said this may be increasing the R number - which indicates if an epidemic is growing or shrinking - by 0.4. That 70% number appeared in a presentation by Dr Erik Volz, from Imperial College London, on Friday. During the talk he said: "It is really too early to tell… but from what we see so far it is growing very quickly, it is growing faster than [a previous variant] ever grew, but it is important to keep an eye on this." There is no "nailed on" figure for how much more infectious the variant may be. Scientists, whose work is not yet public, have told me figures both much higher and much lower than 70%. But there remain questions about whether it is any more infectious at all. "The amount of evidence in the public domain is woefully inadequate to draw strong or firm opinions on whether the virus has truly increased transmission," said Prof Jonathan Ball, a virologist at the University of Nottingham. How far has it spread? It is thought the variant either emerged in a patient in the UK or has been imported from a country with a lower ability to monitor coronavirus mutations. The variant can be found across the UK, except Northern Ireland, but it is heavily concentrated in London, the South East and eastern England. Cases elsewhere in the country do not seem to have taken off. Data from Nextstrain, which has been monitoring the genetic codes of the viral samples around the world, suggest cases in Denmark and Australia have come from the UK. The Netherlands has also reported cases. A similar variant that has emerged in South Africa shares some of the same mutations, but appears to be unrelated to this one. Has this happened before? Yes. The virus that was first detected in Wuhan, China, is not the same one you will find in most corners of the world. The D614G mutation emerged in Europe in February and became the globally dominant form of the virus. Another, called A222V, spread across Europe and was linked to people's summer holidays in Spain. What do we know about the new mutations? An initial analysis of the new variant has been published and identifies 17 potentially important alterations. There have been changes to the spike protein - this is the key the virus uses to unlock the doorway to our body's cells. One mutation called N501Y alters the most important part of the spike, known as the "receptor-binding domain". This is where the spike makes first contact with the surface of our body's cells. Any changes that make it easier for the virus to get inside are likely to give it an edge. "It looks and smells like an important adaptation," said Prof Loman. The other mutation - a H69/V70 deletion, in which a small part of the spike is removed - has emerged several times before, including famously in infected mink. Work by Prof Ravi Gupta at the University of Cambridge has suggested this mutation increases infectivity two-fold in lab experiments. Studies by the same group suggest the deletion makes antibodies from the blood of survivors less effective at attacking the virus. Prof Gupta told me: "It is rapidly increasing, that's what's worried government, we are worried, most scientists are worried." Where has it come from? The variant is unusually highly mutated. The most likely explanation is the variant has emerged in a patient with a weakened immune system that was unable to beat the virus. Instead their body became a breeding ground for the virus to mutate. Does it make the infection more deadly? There is no evidence to suggest that it does, although this will need to be monitored. However, just increasing transmission would be enough to cause problems for hospitals. If the new variant means more people are infected more quickly, that would in turn lead to more people needing hospital treatment. Will the vaccines work against the new variant? Almost certainly yes, or at least for now. All three leading vaccines develop an immune response against the existing spike, which is why the question comes up. Vaccines train the immune system to attack several different parts of the virus, so even though part of the spike has mutated, the vaccines should still work. "But if we let it add more mutations, then you start worrying," said Prof Gupta. "This virus is potentially on a pathway for vaccine escape, it has taken the first couple of steps towards that." Vaccine escape happens when the virus changes so it dodges the full effect of the vaccine and continues to infect people. This may be the most concerning element of what is happening with the virus. This variant is just the latest to show the virus is continuing to adapt as it infects more and more of us. A presentation by Prof David Robertson, from the University of Glasgow on Friday, concluded: "The virus will probably be able to generate vaccine escape mutants." That would put us in a position similar to flu, where the vaccines need to be regularly updated. Fortunately the vaccines we have are very easy to tweak. |
| More than 40 countries have now banned UK arrivals due to concerns about the rapid spread of the new variant. European countries are continuing their discussions on how to co-ordinate a response to it. It's likely to involve efforts to pool scientific expertise and unify travel procedures. It is understood one option under discussion would see all UK travellers required to test negative for Covid-19 before departure. |
| UK-France border blockage The UK and France have been working on a plan to restart the flow of freight between the two countries. France shut the border on Sunday night due to fears about the spread of a new coronavirus variant, halting the movement of goods along a vital trade artery. French Europe Minister Clément Beaune said measures agreed between Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron to end the ban would be announced later and come into effect from Wednesday. Meanwhile, hundreds of lorry drivers have spent a second night sleeping in their vehicles waiting to depart. They're being redirected to Manston Airfield in Kent to take them off the choked-up M20. |
| Two men have been found guilty of the manslaughter of 39 Vietnamese migrants found dead in a lorry trailer in Essex. The migrants suffocated in the sealed container en route from Zeebrugge to Purfleet in October 2019. Eamonn Harrison, 24, who dropped off the trailer at the Belgian port, and people-smuggler Gheorghe Nica, 43, were convicted by an Old Bailey jury. Two others were convicted of being part of a wider people-smuggling conspiracy. Lorry driver Christopher Kennedy, 24, from County Armagh, collected the trailers from Purfleet on the earlier two runs, claiming he thought he was transporting cigarettes. But the jury found Kennedy and Valentin Calota, 38, of Birmingham, guilty of conspiring to assist illegal immigration. During the trial, jurors were given a snapshot of the victims - who included a bricklayer, a university graduate and a nailbar technician - and their dreams of a better life. Many of their families borrowed heavily to fund their passage, relying on their potential future earnings once they got into the UK. Det Ch Insp Daniel Stoten, from Essex Police, said: "If you look at the method, the way they transported human beings... we wouldn't transport animals in that way." Another two men - Irish haulage boss Ronan Hughes, 41, of Tyholland, County Monaghan, Ireland, and 26-year-old lorry driver Maurice Robinson - had previously admitted manslaughter. Home Secretary Priti Patel described the deaths as a "truly tragic incident". Prosecutors said in the fatal run, the container became a "tomb" as temperatures in the unit reached an "unbearable" 38.5C (101F). The migrants, aged 15 to 44, were sealed inside for at least 12 hours. They had used a metal pole to try to punch through the roof, but only managed to dent the interior. Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones said: "There was no way out, and no-one to hear them; no-one to help them." Harrison, of Newry, County Down, towed the trailer to Zeebrugge, from where it was transported to Purfleet. During the 10-week trial, he claimed he did not know there were people in the trailer and that he watched "a wee bit of Netflix" in bed as they were loaded on. He also said he had no idea there were migrants in two other trailers that he had dropped off at the same port in the previous 12 days. Robinson, from County Armagh, collected the trailer when it arrived on UK shores just after midnight on 23 October. His boss, Hughes, had messaged him: "Give them air quickly don't let them out.". Robinson gave a thumbs-up in reply. But when Robinson stopped on a nearby industrial estate, he found that the migrants were all dead. There was a series of telephone conversations between him and Hughes and Nica, of Basildon, Essex, before Robinson eventually dialled 999. In his evidence, Nica said Robinson told him: "I have a problem here - dead bodies in the trailer." Det Ch Insp Stoten said that many of the police officers who attended "were really young in service" and it was possibly the first time some had ever seen a dead person. He said he believed the "absolutely horrendous scene" would stay with those officers "for the rest of their career and, quite probably, the rest of lives". On all three runs, Nica had arranged cars and a van to transport the migrants at the UK end. Jurors were shown CCTV footage of him carrying a holdall of cash to Hughes's room at the Ibis hotel, Thurrock, early on 19 October. Nica admitted to conspiring to assist illegal immigration in the first two runs, but he insisted that he believed the third run was all to do with smuggling cigarettes. The mechanic told jurors he had been roped into people-smuggling, and said: "I never wanted to be involved in this kind of job." The day after the bodies were found, Nica travelled to Romania, claiming he was "scared" of a "big, big investigation", but prosecutors said the defendant's version of events was "ridiculous". Det Ch Insp Stoten said the gang stood to make between £10,000 and £12,000 per person transported, "the lion's share of which would have gone to Ronan Hughes and Gheorghe Nica". The jury had heard that on 14 October, between the two successful runs, Kennedy was found at the French end of the Channel Tunnel with 20 Vietnamese migrants in his trailer. At least two of those people ended up dying in the fatal run. Police believe the smugglers had "doubled-up" the load on 23 October because of the problem on 14 October, and that was what led to the deaths. This gang had been smuggling people for months and months, the Old Bailey heard. On the first of several successful runs on the same route, a couple, Marie Andrews and Stewart Cox, saw people getting out of a van on a country lane in Orsett, Essex, and dialled 999. Police attended but did not seize CCTV footage from the nearby golf course, in which a lorry and other vehicles were seen on the lane. If, perhaps, Essex Police had managed to get to that footage, follow it up and identify some of the vehicles before the fatal run 12 days later, then this gang might possibly have been disrupted before these 39 people died. Asked about that, the force said it could only allocate the resources available at the time. But it says that now, if there are ever reports of people in the back of a lorry and the driver is present, the driver will be arrested. Alexandru-Ovidiu Hanga, 28, of Hobart Road, Tilbury, Essex, and Gazmir Nuzi, 43, of Barclay Road, Tottenham, north London, had earlier admitted assisting unlawful immigration linked to the case. Mr Justice Sweeney adjourned sentencing of all the defendants to 7, 8 and 11 January. Ms Patel said her "thoughts remain with those affected by this tragedy". "Today's convictions only strengthen my resolve to do all I can to go after the people-smugglers who prey on the vulnerable and trade in human misery," she added. |
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