‘Everything is postponed’: Australians facing Covid isolation over Christmas

Leaders insist festivities will go on but many who had planned family get-togethers could now find themselves home alone

Many Australians could end up spending the festive holiday period alone in isolation after being exposed to a Covid case even as governments resist shutting borders and insist Christmas won’t be cancelled.

Overworked health systems are struggling to cope up with new outbreaks and some state and territory governments have moved to tighten mask mandates and social distancing restrictions.

Continue reading...

Coronavirus | The Guardian

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The world’s economic recovery from Covid-19 looks likely to be uneven | Nouriel Roubini

The bounce-back will be stronger in the US and China, but Europe and Japan face a slower restart Coronavirus – latest updates See all our coronavirus coverage After the most severe global recession in decades, private and official forecasters are increasingly optimistic that world output will recover strongly this year and thereafter. But the coming expansion will be unevenly distributed, both across and within economies. Whether the recovery is V-shaped (a strong return to above-potential growth), U-shaped (a more anemic version of the V) or W-shaped (a double-dip recession) will depend on several factors across different economies and regions. With the coronavirus still running rampant in many countries, one key question is whether the emergence of virulent new strains will trigger repeated stop-and-go cycles, as we’ve seen in some cases where economies reopened too soon. One particularly ominous possibility is that more vaccine-resistant variants appear, heightening the urgenc...
Read more

As Covid mutates, the vaccine makers are adapting too

Focus on the exciting potential of T-cell immunity is spurring the sector on to create a new generation of jabs The speed at which scientists worked to develop the first Covid jabs was unprecedented. Just nine months after the UK went into lockdown, 90-year-old Margaret Keenan officially became the first person in the world outside a trial to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. But the virus is mutating, and the emergence of the Omicron variant last month is already focusing attention on the next generation of jabs. So what do we know about the new Covid-19 vaccines? One change is with delivery mechanisms, such as San Francisco firm Vaxart’s vaccine-in-a-pill, and Scancell’s spring-powered injectors that pierce the skin without a needle. But the biggest development is in T-cell technology. Produced by the bone marrow, T-cells are white blood cells that form a key part of the immune system. While current vaccines mainly generate antibodies that stick to the virus and stop it infect...
Read more

Coronavirus live news: UK starts vaccinating 12- to 15-year-olds; China reports 49 new cases

Children will be offered jabs at school from Monday; China cases down from 66 a day earlier Gordon Brown calls for urgent action to avert ‘Covid vaccine waste disaster’ Australian Olympic gold medallist Madi Wilson admitted to hospital with Covid Chris Rock says he has Covid-19 and urges doubters: ‘Get vaccinated’ Slow but steady has seen the EU win out in the vaccine race See all our coronavirus coverage 6.32am BST China reported on Monday 49 new confirmed coronavirus cases in the mainland for Sept. 19, down from 66 a day earlier, according to National Health Commission data. Of the new infections, 28 were locally transmitted, all of them in the southeastern province of Fujian, the health authority said. That compares with 43 local cases a day earlier. China reported two new asymptomatic coronavirus cases, which it does not classify as confirmed infections, compared with 19 a day earlier. No new deaths were reported. As of Sunday, mainland China had recorded 95,738 co...
Read more