Scientists investigating the link between vitamin D and Covid outcomes say evidence is lacking that higher levels of the sunshine vitamin lower the risk of falling seriously ill with the disease.
Researchers from Europe, Canada and Japan who analysed the records of more than 400,000 patients found “no evidence” to support the suggestion that higher levels of vitamin D improved coronavirus outcomes.
Specifically, they failed to find a link between vitamin D and the chances of catching the disease, the severity of the illness once caught, or the likelihood of a patient ending up in hospital.
It comes as another study found that the variant first detected in Kent may be up to twice as previous strains.
The more transmissible B117 variant, which spread across the UK at the end of last year before infecting large parts of the world, is between 30 per cent and 100 per cent more deadly, according to research published in the British Medical Journal.
Wagamama owner seeks £175m to get through lockdown and buy new sites
The group revealed that sales had plummeted 57 per cent to £459.8m in 2020 as eateries were ordered to close for much of the year.
Pre-tax losses at the FTSE 250-listed hospitality firm grew to £127.6m, compared to a £37.3m loss in 2019.
Clea Skopeliti10 March 2021 13:38
Covid was underlying cause of one-eighth of Scotland’s deaths in 2020’s final quarter
Covid-19 was an underlying cause of a 12.5 per cent rise in deaths across Scotland during the final quarter of 2020, official figures show.
National Records of Scotland (NRS) statistics show 16,626 fatalities were recorded from October to December, with Covid-19 the underlying cause of 2,093.
This accounts for 12.5 per cent of the quarter’s figure and the same increase on the five-year average for this period.
Julie Ramsay, NRS vital events statistician, said: “After the significantly high number of deaths we saw in April to June last year, the number then returned to broadly average levels in July to September.
“As the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic developed, deaths increased again in October to December.
“The age-standardised mortality rate, which takes into account the growing and ageing population, was 8.9 per cent higher than at the same point in the previous year.”
Clea Skopeliti10 March 2021 13:28
What can I do in England’s next round of rule lifting?
The next date set by the government for further limited changes to lockdown is 29 March. Kate Ng reports on the changes:
Jane Dalton10 March 2021 13:05
No evidence vitamin D cuts risks, study finds
Scientists investigating the link between vitamin D and Covid outcomes say evidence is lacking that higher levels of the sunshine vitamin lower the risk of falling seriously ill with the disease, writes Tom Batchelor:
Jane Dalton10 March 2021 12:52
Scotland care home deaths reach seven-month low
Coronavirus deaths in care homes across Scotland are at their lowest rate since August, according to official figures.
National Records of Scotland figures show that between Monday 1 March and Sunday 7 March, 141 deaths were registered that mentioned Covid-19 on the death certificate – a fall of 89 deaths on the previous week.
Hospital patients accounted for 84 per cent of the deaths over this week – 119, while 14 deaths occurred in care homes – accounting for 10 per cent; and eight were at home or in non-institutional settings.
Jane Dalton10 March 2021 12:45
Pakistan begins vaccinating over-80s against Covid-19
Pakistan has begun inoculating elderly people against Covid-19 as it attempts to tackle high levels of vaccine hesitancy among its 220 million people.
The drive will begin with a focus on people over the age of 80, health minister Faisal Sultan said, telling Reuters that authorities will “will work [their] way down in coming days”.
Hesitancy is high, even among the country’s health workers. According to a poll released last week, nearly half of healthcare staff had concerns over China’s Sinopharm vaccine, which is the only one available in Pakistan at present.
The poll of 555 medical workers conducted by Gallup Pakistan and a physicians’ association between 12 and 20 February found that many health personnel would prefer other vaccines.
The country had distributed 504,400 Sinopharm vaccine doses to provincial authorities by 20 February, and 230,000 front-line health workers had received a dose by Friday, Mr Sultan said.
Clea Skopeliti10 March 2021 12:03
Covid cases drop below 50 in 100,000 in half of UK’s local areas
Covid-19 case rates have fallen below 50 cases per 100,000 people in half of all local areas in the UK, a new analysis shows. One month ago, only six of the 380 local areas were reporting rates below this level.
The analysis, which has been compiled by the PA news agency, shows that for the seven days to 5 March a total of 190 out of 380 local authority areas in the UK recorded Covid-19 case rates below 50 per 100,000 people.
In England, these ranged from 49.7 in Dartford in Kent to 5.7 in South Hams in Devon.
Most of Wales’ local areas are now below 50 cases per 100,000 people, with Ceredigion recording a rate of just 9.6.
The majority of areas in Scotland are also below 50, including the Shetland Islands (4.4) and the Orkney Islands (no recent cases).
In Northern Ireland, two of the 11 local authority areas are now below 50: Newry, Mourne & Down (40.8) and Fermanagh & Omagh (33.2).
The infection rates across the four UK nations have fallen to their lowest level since September last year.
Nationwide, Wales had a rate of 42.8 cases per 100,000 people in the week to 5 March, while the figure was 60.8 in England, 62.9 in Scotland and 65 in Northern Ireland, according to PA’s analysis.
Clea Skopeliti10 March 2021 11:46
Scotland reports 20 deaths and 691 cases
Scotland has recorded 20 further deaths of coronavirus patients and 691 new cases in the past 24 hours, Nicola Sturgeon said.
Scotland’s first minister told MSPs on Holyrood’s Covid-19 Committee that Wednesday’s figures mean a total of 7,461 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for the disease.
The daily test positivity rate is 3.1 per cent, Ms Sturgeon said.
A further 19,781 Scots have received their first dose of a vaccine, the first minister told the committee, pushing the total figure to 1,809,158.
More figures on the number of people in hospital will be available later in the day, the first minister said.
Clea Skopeliti10 March 2021 11:33
Treasury’s former top mandarin blasts Test and Trace as ‘most wasteful spending of all time’
The government’s Test and Trace system has been blasted as “the most wasteful and inept public spending programme of all time” by a former head of the Treasury civil service.
The former mandarin’s attack came after a report by a Westminster spending watchdog found there was no evidence that the programme has had any measurable impact on the coronavirus pandemic despite its “unimaginable” £37bn budget over two years.
Lord Macpherson, who led the Treasury civil service from 2005 to 2016 tweeted: “This wins the prize for the most wasteful and inept public spending programme of all time. The extraordinary thing is that nobody in the government seems surprised or shocked. No matter: the Bank of England will just print more money.”
Full report by Andrew Woodcock here:
Clea Skopeliti10 March 2021 11:27
Kent variant may be up to twice as deadly, study suggests
The virus variant first detected in Kent may be up to twice as deadly as previous strains, a new study has suggested as researchers warn new variants could hinder vaccination efforts.
The more transmissible B117 variant, which spread across the UK at the end of last year before infecting large parts of the world, is between 30 per cent and 100 per cent more deadly, according to research published in the British Medical Journal.
Researchers at the Universities of Exeter and Bristol found that the Kent variant led to 227 deaths in a sample of 54,906 patients – compared with 141 among the same number of closely matched patients who had the previous strains.
The higher transmissibility of the Kent strain meant that more people who would previously have been considered low risk were hospitalised.
Leon Danon, from the University of Bristol, senior author of the study, said that “there is a real concern that other variants will arise with resistance to rapidly rolled out vaccines”, adding that monitoring for emerging variants and acting in response must be “a key part of the public health response in the future”.
Clea Skopeliti10 March 2021 11:07
EU diplomat summoned to UK’s Foreign Office over vaccine row
A senior EU diplomat has been summoned to the Foreign Office in London, the latest twist in the increasingly bitter row over Covid vaccine supply.
It follows an accusation by European Council president Charles Michel that the UK government had imposed an “outright ban” on the export of jabs produced in Britain.
Foreign secretary Dominic Raab sought to “set the record straight” in a letter to Mr Michel on Tuesday evening – claiming the EU chief’s claims were “completely false”.
Adam Forrest bringing you the latest here:
Clea Skopeliti10 March 2021 10:49
Kenya approves Sputnik V vaccine
Kenya has approved Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine for use against the new coronavirus, the Russian Direct Investment Fund announced on Wednesday.
The sovereign wealth fund, which is promoting the vaccine globally, said that 47 countries had now approved Sputnik V for use.
Clea Skopeliti10 March 2021 10:37
Texas scraps mask mandate and occupancy restrictions on businesses
Texans have awoken to their state-wide mask requirement having been scrapped, alongside other restrictions such as caps on customer numbers in venues.
Texas’ rollback of coronavirus restrictions is the most extreme so far in the United States, along with a similar measure in Mississippi. In practice, however, large swathes of the Lone Star State have barely enforced these rules in the last year.
The US’s second most populous state was one of the first to reopen its economy after the first wave of pandemic cases last May.
Austin’s city council voted to still mandate face coverings – and dared state officials to sue the city.
“In Austin, we’re committed to saving lives,” city council member Greg Casar wrote on Twitter.
The Texas Education Agency’s guidance for public schools is for the continued use of masks, while care homes will not relax measures.
Clea Skopeliti10 March 2021 10:19
Spain could start using vaccine passports in May, tourism minister says
Spain could begin using vaccine passports in May, the country’s tourism minister has said, when the international tourism fair FITUR is set to take place in Madrid.
“We could be in a position to start implementing the digital passport (when FITUR starts on 19 May)”, Reyes Maroto told Antena 3 TV station.
EU leaders have agreed to work on vaccine certificates to kick-start the tourism industry, which has been severely damaged by the pandemic, with the European Commission announcing last week draft legislation would be introduced for an EU-wide pass.
Clea Skopeliti10 March 2021 09:48
‘Don’t book foreign holidays’, urges transport secretary
The transport secretary has once again warned prospective travellers not to book summer holidays.
This morning,Grant Shapps was asked on the BBC Today programme by Mishal Hussain: “Still too early to book foreign holidays?”
Mr Shapps said: “Yes, in as much as we know that the Global Travel Taskforce that I’m running reports on 12 April. We’ve said that it will remain illegal to travel internationally till at least 17 May. That’s an ‘at the earliest’ date.”
Clea Skopeliti10 March 2021 09:25
Vaccines should eliminate possibility of winter surge in Covid deaths, Sage member says
The UK is right to take a cautious approach to relaxing restrictions, a Sage member has said, adding that vaccines should push down number of Covid fatalities over winter.
Asked about the pace of relaxing restrictions, Andrew Hayward, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at University College London, told Times Radio that “it’s taken a long time for us to learn to be cautious in this respect; I don’t think it’s time to return to a more risky approach”.
Prof Hayward, who was speaking in a personal capacity, said that vaccinations should minimise deaths if there were a surge in Covid-19 infections over the winter.
He said: “What the vaccine should do is take out the possibility of that surge leading to, say, over 100,000 deaths. I think that’s unlikely… we’re going to be much more likely to be talking in the tens of thousands of deaths and hopefully in the low tens of thousands of deaths.”
The Sage member said that although the estimate “sounds terrible”, it is comparable to annual figures linked to flu and other respiratory infections.
Clea Skopeliti10 March 2021 09:13
Relaxing restrictions too quickly could lead to ‘tens of thousands of hospitalisations’, Sage member says
Opening schools and relaxing lockdown restrictions are “very big steps” and “we don’t really understand what impact they will have on transmission”, a Sage member has said.
Speaking in a personal capacity, Andrew Hayward, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at University College London told Times Radio there are “very sizeable numbers of people” who are “vulnerable to ending up in hospital and dying”.
He added that despite the vaccine rollout, it is still possible there will be “tens of thousands of hospitalisations and very many deaths if we relax too quickly”.
Clea Skopeliti10 March 2021 08:57
Russia reports 9,079 cases, 466 deaths
Russia has added a further 9,079 Covid-19 cases to its tally, including 1,116 in Moscow, taking the national infection total to 4,351,553 since the pandemic began. This compares with 10,416 a week ago.
The government coronavirus taskforce said that 466 people had died in past 24 hours, pushing its death toll to 90,275 – a rise from 443 last Wednesday.
Clea Skopeliti10 March 2021 08:39
Bulgaria reports highest daily number of cases in three months
Bulgaria has reported 3,502 new Covid-19 cases – its highest daily figure in three months, while the number of fatalities rose to 132, government data showed.
Regional health authorities may shut schools, gyms, non-essential retail and hospitality if they consider it necessary to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Non-urgent operations in hospitals have already been cancelled.
Clea Skopeliti10 March 2021 08:26
Transport secretary defends Test and Trace after watchdog fails to find proof it cut infections
Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has said the pandemic would have been “one heck of a lot worse” without Test and Trace, in the wake of a report which found “no clear evidence” it had cut infection levels.
Mr Shapps told Sky News: “It certainly hasn’t been cheap fighting coronavirus but it has absolutely been necessary.
“9.1 million people have been contacted by Test and Trace. These are people who otherwise would be wandering round often unaware that they had coronavirus and spreading it around further.
“Whatever the coronavirus experience we have had as a nation, good or bad, it would have been one heck of a lot worse if we didn’t have a Test and Trace system which has contacted so many people and prevented the disease spreading further.”
Clea Skopeliti10 March 2021 08:19