Covid Omicron information stay: Boris Johnson insists no new guidelines wanted as Scotland data highest-ever each day circumstances

Over to Scotland, the place the variety of each day coronavirus circumstances is at its highest for the reason that pandemic started, at 20,217.

The most recent information, printed by the Scottish authorities on Monday, present 65,860 new checks for Covid-19 reported outcomes and 34.9 per cent had been optimistic.

The figures embrace a observe advising of delays in between checks being taken and outcomes being reported however saying Public Well being Scotland is monitoring the state of affairs.

There have been 1,031 folks in hospital on Sunday with just lately confirmed Covid-19 and 38 had been in intensive care, the info exhibits.

Belgium has agreed to purchase 10,000 programs every of the Covid-19 antiviral oral therapies developed by Pfizer and Merck & Co, a spokesman for the well being ministry stated.

Governments around the globe are scrambling to purchase paxlovid, the tablet developed by Pfizer.

The UK has ordered 2.7m programs of paxlovid and a pair of.m of Merck’s molnupiravir tablet, which is already being supplied to weak adults.

Months after recovering from Covid, folks have raised ranges of antibodies that may mistakenly assault their very own organs and tissues, even when they’d not been severely in poor health, in keeping with new analysis.

Amongst 177 healthcare employees who recovered earlier than vaccines had been accessible, all had persistent autoantibodies, together with ones that may trigger persistent irritation and harm of the joints, pores and skin and nervous system.

“We do not but understand how for much longer, past six months, the antibodies will keep elevated and/or result in any essential medical signs,” stated Susan Cheng of the Cedars-Sinai Smidt Coronary heart Institute in Los Angeles.

Her group is investigating whether or not autoantibody ranges are linked with persistent signs in folks with lengthy Covid. Their findings had been printed within the Journal of Translational Drugs.

The US Congress is experiencing an unprecedented rise in Covid-19 circumstances, with the seven-day positivity charge at a congressional check website surging to 1 per cent from simply per cent in late November, the Capitol’s attending doctor stated as we speak.

The surge comes because the variety of new Covid-19 circumstances within the US has doubled within the final seven days to a median of 418,000 a day, in keeping with a Reuters tally.

The federal government of Canada’s greatest metropolis Toronto has introduced restrictions to sort out the unfold of the Omicron variant as officers warned a “tsunami” of latest circumstances was imminent.

All colleges in Ontario province will transfer to distant studying from Wednesday for not less than a fortnight, amid backlash from some dad and mom who stated closures would trigger long-term harm to youngsters.

Amongst different measures is a capability cap of fifty per cent on retailers and indoor ceremonies equivalent to weddings and funerals.

Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi and his spouse Isaura have examined optimistic for Covid-19 and are isolating, his workplace stated.

Mozambique’s coronavirus infections are at their peak, information from a Reuters tracker present, with the typical variety of new circumstances growing for seven days in a row.

New 12 months’s Eve noticed a “shift in behaviour” away from the cautious perspective of buyers forward of Christmas, retail specialists say.

Footfall was up 5.2 per cent on UK excessive streets in contrast with per week earlier on Christmas Eve, in keeping with information from trade analyst Springboard.

In central London alone, footfall surged by 54.8 per cent on New 12 months’s Eve from per week earlier.

Earlier than the pandemic in 2019, excessive road footfall throughout the UK dropped by 9 per cent on New 12 months’s Eve from Christmas Eve.

The NHS is in “state of disaster”, leaders have warned as hospitals throughout the nation declared vital incidents and prime minister Boris Johnson admitted pressures will final for “weeks”.

Our well being correspondent Rebecca Thomas experiences:

Covid-related employees shortages throughout England are inflicting “horrible” garbage assortment delays, native politicians have warned, with bins in some areas left “overflowing” with waste from the festive interval.

Councillors in London, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Buckinghamshire have stated bin assortment companies have been scaled again as employees proceed to fall sick with the virus.

Chelmsford Metropolis Council confirmed 23 members of employees had been absent and cancelled three days’ value of meals waste collections.

North Somerset Council stated they’d been unable to select up 1,000 recycling bins on New 12 months’s Eve as crews stay “stretched resulting from employees illness”.

Stephanos Ioannou, a Conservative councillor in Enfield, stated the variety of complaints about missed bin collections was roughly double the typical for this time of yr.

“I have been driving spherical my ward and seeing bins overflowing and Christmas timber are left outdoors,” he informed the PA information company.

“Over the Christmas interval, normally I get on common 30 emails per week on waste companies.

“I checked my inbox yesterday… and had about 50 or 60.”

Many components of the well being service are “in a state of disaster”, the chief govt of the NHS Confederation has warned.

Matthew Taylor stated that “in lots of components of the well being service, we’re at present in a state of disaster” and that within the face of employees absence and excessive demand ranges, some hospitals had been having to declare “a vital incident”.

“Some hospitals are making pressing calls to exhausted employees to surrender relaxation days and go away to allow them to maintain core companies,” he wrote in a weblog printed on Monday.

He added that many hospitals had been compelled to ban guests to cut back the unfold of an infection, whereas “NHS England is continuous to plan for surge capability”.

“Group and social care companies, which had been already massively overstretched, are at breaking level.

“In lots of areas, ambulance companies are unable to fulfill their goal response instances,” he added.