Category Archives: Government

Government, Health, Society

One Covid jab helps to halve its spread

RESEARCH

A SINGLE dose of vaccine cuts the risk of spreading coronavirus by up to half, a major study has revealed.

Not only does the jab cut a person’s chance of catching Covid, it also greatly reduces their chances of passing it on should they get infected.

The research, which involved almost 1.5million adults, is the first of its kind to confirm the effectiveness of vaccines in curbing the virus’s spread.

Other studies have shown the jab massively reduce the odds of developing symptoms and ending up in hospital, even among the elderly and people with long-term health issues.

The latest analysis found that adults who received the Pfizer vaccine – but still caught the virus – were 49 per cent less likely to spread it to other household members than those who were not inoculated.

For the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, recipients were 38 per cent less likely to transmit it to others in their household. But the fact both vaccines dramatically reduce the virus’s ability to spread – as well as preventing serious illness – offers renewed hope they hold the key to a return to normal life.

This latest research further reinforces that vaccines are the best way out of this pandemic as they protect you and they may prevent you from unknowingly infecting someone in your household. A second dose provides the strongest possible protection.

The jabs’ ability to prevent virus transmission kicked in after only 14 days and they worked regardless of a person’s age or the number of people within their household, with whom they had close contact.

Dr Mary Ramsay, who is head of immunisation at Public Health England, which carried out the study, said: “While these findings are very encouraging, even if you have been vaccinated, it is really important that you continue to act like you have the virus, practise good hand hygiene and follow social distancing guidance.”

Previously, a major Oxford study found that a single dose of either the Oxford/AstraZeneca or the Pfizer vaccine reduced symptomatic infection by nearly three quarters, compared to people who had not had the jab.

The authors were so encouraged by the findings they said the jabs would enable the country to control the pandemic without the need for future lockdowns.

The UK Government has announced that more than 13million adults had received both doses of the jab – a quarter of the population.

Although the researchers only looked at the vaccines’ effectiveness in cutting transmission at home, they believe they will also prevent its spread on public transport, in offices and in schools.

Standard
Britain, Environment, Government, Politics, Society

Troops could be deployed to protect rainforests

ENVIRONMENTAL SECURITY

ONE

BRITISH soldiers could be sent in to battle to stop countries cutting down rainforests and drilling for oil, according to the former foreign secretary William Hague.

The former cabinet minister says the focus of the Armed Forces could soon switch from protecting energy supplies to guarding the natural environment.

“In the past the UK has been willing to use armies to secure and extract fossil fuels,” he writes in the Environmental Affairs journal. “But in the future, armies will be sent to ensure oil is not drilled and to protect natural environments.

“The UK will need to use all of its diplomatic capacity to ensure that these resources are not used and that natural environments are protected.”

Referring to Brazil, Lord Hague predicts that “as climate change climbs the hierarchy of important political issues, it will be increasingly difficult to square our climate change policy with agreeing a free trade deal with a country that clears a football pitch-sized area of the Amazon rainforest every minute.”

He also says Britain is too reliant on China for the components of electric batteries, warning that “it is now impossible for us to remain dependant on them in such a critical area”. As a result, our policies towards China and climate change have become unavoidably linked,” he adds.

Lord Hague, who was Conservative foreign secretary from 2010 to 2014, says Britain “cannot get away with talking the talk without walking the walk” on the climate.The UK has launched a strategy that will see the Armed Forces going as “green as possible”. In the last few days, the UK has said it will speed up cuts to emissions so that they would be reduced by 78 per cent by 2035, compared with 1990 levels.

TWO

THE Secret Intelligence Service has begun “green spying” to ensure nations uphold their climate change commitments, the head of MI6 has said.

Richard Moore, known in Whitehall as C, revealed the new form of espionage after world leaders made stronger pledges on tackling global warming.

“Our job is to shine a light in places where people might not want it shone,” he told Times Radio.

“And so clearly, we are going to support what is the foremost international foreign policy agenda item for this country and for the planet, which is around the climate emergency.

“Where people sign up to commitments on climate change, it is perhaps our job to make sure that actually what they are really doing reflects what they have signed up to.”

Mr Moore who took charge of MI6 in October, described the new task as “a bit like what we have always done around arms control”. He said: “On climate change, where you need everyone to come on board and to play fair, then occasionally just check to make sure they are.”

He declined to go into further detail about what “green spying” would involve and did not explicitly name any countries.

Standard
Britain, Government, India, Society

Britain could send ventilators to virus-stricken India

COVID SURGE

BRITAIN has pledged to support India in its battle against the devastating Covid surge which has brought the country to its knees.

The UK Government said it is “looking at what we can do to help” after India recorded 332,000 new cases in a single day.

Hospitals across the nation are buckling under the strain of a ferocious second wave, with some running out of oxygen and turning away patients due to overcrowding.

Reports have indicated that 2,263 deaths were recorded in India yesterday, although limited testing capacity means this is likely to significantly underestimate the total.

The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, said: “We’re looking at what we can do to help and support the people of India, possibly with ventilators. Thanks to the ventilator challenge, the huge efforts of British manufacturers, we’re better able now to deliver ventilators to other countries. But also possibly with therapeutics, Dexamethasone, other things, we’ll look at what we can do to help.”

Yesterday, India recorded 332,730 new infections – the highest one-day tally of any country since the beginning of the pandemic. It was the second day running the country of around 1.4billion people broke the record.

India is now recording one in three of all worldwide Covid 19 cases. Ministers declared victory against the virus two months ago when there were around 11,000 cases a day.

The surge has been fuelled by a “double mutant” variant, thought to be more infectious.

So far 132 cases of the Indian variant have been detected in Britain, around half of which are in London. The variant contains two mutations in the virus’s spike protein, which could help it spread more easily and evade vaccines. India has been added to the UK’s travel “red list”, prompting a last minute scramble for flights to Heathrow. The Prime Minister has also cancelled a trip to Delhi which was scheduled to go ahead this weekend where he had hoped to secure millions of vaccine doses.

Government scientists have said that the current border measures in place are not enough to prevent the spread of new variants, but they can delay it. One senior scientist said there were likely to be “many more” cases of the Indian variant in the UK than the 132 detected so far. It is acknowledged that the Indian variant is more transmissible than the base virus although it isn’t known if it’s more transmissible than the Kent variant due to lack of data on vaccine efficacy.

Desperate families in India have been begging for oxygen or medical help on social media, and crowds have gathered outside hospitals with some dying on stretchers as they wait.

Three days ago, 22 patients died at a hospital in Maharashtra when their oxygen supply ran out after a leak in the tank. Yesterday, 13 Covid patients died when a fire broke out at a Mumbai hospital.

Dr Atul Gogia, who works at a hospital in Delhi, said: “We do have oxygen but it’s now on a day-to-day basis. We got some oxygen last night, so we have some oxygen now.” He also added: “We do not have enough oxygen points, patients are coming in with their own oxygen, others without, we want to help them but there are not enough beds or oxygen points, and not enough oxygen to supply them.”

Max Healthcare, which runs hospitals in northern and western India, has appealed on Twitter for oxygen at its facility in Delhi. The company said, “We regret to inform that we are suspending any new patient admissions in all our hospitals in Delhi until oxygen supplies stabilise.”

The government has started shuttling trains containing tanks of oxygen across the country to hotspots. Crematoriums are also overwhelmed, with one in Delhi resorting to building pyres in its car park.

Standard