COVID-19 Coronavirus UK and World News Weekend Update 1st / 2nd May 2021.

COVID-19 Coronavirus UK and World News Weekend Update 1st / 2nd May 2021.

The UK added 1,671 cases today and now has reported a total of 4,420,201 positive cases of COVID-19. We completed 1,072,576 tests yesterday.

The counter says 34,505,380 people had been given at least one dose of a vaccine in the UK by midnight last night. 15,329,617 people had received 2 doses and are fully vaccinated.

1,451 people were in hospital on Thursday 29th April, with 185 people using a ventilator on Friday 30th April.

In the 24 hours up until 5pm yesterday, we officially reported the loss of another 14 people who have tested positive to COVID-19 within 28 days, making a total of 127,538 losses of life in all settings.

Rep. Of Ireland 249,838 (+401) cases and 4,906 losses of life. (Not yet reported today.)

There have now been a total of 153,341,770 reported cases worldwide. The number of people who have lost their lives worldwide to COVID-19 is 3,212,745. Already 130,640,571 people have recovered.

In Wales:
From Monday 3 May, gyms, leisure centres and swimming pools can open. Children and adults can take part in indoor organised activities. Your household can choose one other household to meet indoors, becoming an extended household. 

Several times now the public have asked questions at the UK/English COVID briefings, and the Government have clearly listened and acted in response. Last week someone asked about Care Home residents being allowed out more often, they made incredibly sensible, science-based points, and voila.... In England:
"From Tuesday 4 May, residents will be able to leave their care homes to visit a friend or family member’s garden, or go on walks in places such as parks, public gardens and beaches. They will not have to self-isolate when they return.
Residents must be accompanied by either a care worker, or nominated visitor, and follow the government guidelines of washing hands regularly, keeping social distance, and remaining outside, in line with step 2 of the roadmap.
The changes come as the data shows cases continuing to fall, meaning it is now much safer for care home residents, who are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19, to leave their homes. Keeping visits outdoors will ensure any risk is minimised as much as possible."

The UK public are being reminded, this time via Dominic Raab, that it's unlikely we'll be able to just lift all restrictions on June 21st and pretend like it's 2019. We need to take it carefully, or we risk having to take a step back. Waiting a little extra time before you can drop things like masks or social distancing is surely a much smaller price to pay. 

Lost Their Fight:
Prominent Kenyan anti-vaxxer Dr Stephen Karanja
He claimed COVID vaccinations were "totally unnecessary", and instead advocated steam inhalation and drug therapies which have already been mass trialled and proven ineffective (in the UK and by the World Health Organisation).

The USA has announced a ban on travellers from India. Australia have gone a step further and barred entry to anyone who has been to India in the last 14 days, including Australian citizens. Barring entry to your own citizens is a really incredibly extreme move, and shows how strongly they want to avoid an outbreak.

The UK have now fully vaccinated over 15m people - almost 1/4 of the entire population. The USA have vaccinated over 100m. Vaccines ARE going into arms worldwide. The New York Times vaccination tracker has the total at over 1.13billion doses worldwide. That's roughly 15 doses for every 100 people on the planet. 

There's been another COVID ward fire in India. 18 people lost their lives. Many hospitals don't have central oxygen, or it has run out, so each patient has their own oxygen cylinder. If they overheat they explode, and if there's a fire, any leaking oxygen feeds it.
Relatives and utterly shattered medical workers, who are trying their best in a living hell, are going to make mistakes. 

On Friday night  Liverpool's Bramley-Moore dock played host to a mass event trial. 3,000 clubbers were allowed entry to the UK's first legal nightclub night in over a year. Attendees didn't need to wear masks or socially distance, but had to show a negative test before entry, and will have to take another test in a few days time.
It's a good place for a test, because the old dock building is insanely huge, with really high ceilings, and lots of space for ventilation. Fingers crossed all of those tests come back negative, wouldn't that be awesome. 

India are low on supplies of items needed to make vaccines. Joe Biden responded to their public requests for help, by re-allowing export of ingredients, but it's going to take a little while before that filters through, and production capacity can start to increase. Currently the Serum Institute can make around 2.5m doses of vaccine a day.
The crisis was always going to affect the whole world in more ways than one.
The situation in India hasn't yet peaked, and is steadily continuing to get worse day on day.
India have been vaccinating 2.5m-3m people a day (they believe they could easily do 10m). At 2.5m a day it sounds like that won't take long, but just to give everyone in India a single dose at that rate, would take over a year and a half. Until they're in a better position, India aren't exporting vaccines, including to the WHO's COVAX initiative.
Probably wise, for any nation that has the capability, to start thinking about domestic production. 

The Intercept are reporting that fully medically approved factories around the world are ready and willing to make more vaccines - they just need the recipes.
Although several vaccines are now not-for-profit, they don't give out a recipe to something so complex to just anyone. That's understandable, a dodgy vaccine could be deadly, it has to be safe, but it seems they are missing some genuine facilities out, and it's frustrating from all angles. 

Today I've given you the total daily cases added to a country's stats yesterday, to give you a real idea of who is struggling the most at the moment. These are all of the countries which reported over 5,000 new daily cases yesterday. Some smaller countries are also having a bad time, but won't usually feature in the tables because the numbers are smaller, although they will have at least as hard a job trying to recover. I've added population counts because it gives a clearer view of how deeply a country is affected.

Hope this long weekend beings you an excellent Bank Holiday / Labour Day / Easter Day / Beltane / Ramadan - with sunshine and smiles, and social contact....

Some numbers. All people, very much like you:

Countries / Cases / Losses of life (+ daily totals added YESTERDAY in the 24 hours to midnight GMT):

India 19,549,656 (+392,562) 215,523 (+3,688) Population 1,380m

Brazil 14,725,975 (+60,013) 406,565 (+2,278) Pop. 212m

USA 33,146,015 (+42,040) 590,707 (+664) Pop. 331m

Turkey 4,849,408 (+28,817) 40,504 (+373) Pop. 84m

France 5,642,359 (+25,670) 104,706 (+192) Pop. 65m

Germany 3,412,373 (+20,141) 83,702 (+160) Pop.84m

Colombia 2,877,746 (+18,022) 74,215 (+495) Pop. 51m

Iran 2,516,157 (+17,080) 72,090 (+332) Pop. 84m

Argentina 2,993,865 (+16,502) 64,096 (+231) Pop. 45m

Italy 4,035,614 (+12,962) 121,033 (+226) Pop. 60m

Russia 4,814,558 (+9,270) 110,520 (+392) Pop. 146m

Philippines 1,046,637 (+9,210) 17,354 (+120) Pop. 110m

Ukraine 2,078,086 (+8,549) 44,436 (+351) Pop. 44m

Canada 1,227,035 (+7,610) 24,261 (+42) Pop. 38m

Chile 1,204,755 (+6,510) 26,457 (+104) Pop. 19m

Poland 2,798,621 (+6,473) 67,924 (+423) Pop. 38m

Netherlands 1,502,107 (+5,755) 17,169 (+21) Pop. 17m

Nepal 328,893 (+5,706) 3,298 (+19) Pop. 29m

Peru 1,804,915 (+5,470) 61,789 (+312) Pop. 33m

Iraq 1,070,366 (+5,167) 15,498 (+33) Pop. 40m

UK 4,418,530 (+1,907) 127,524 (+7) Pop. 68m

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Sources:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

https://apnews.com/article/india-fires-health-coronavirus-f500cb7b9e28871cf6e4e9e6ccbc1529

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/care-homes-residents-allowed-more-out-of-home-visits

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-56922517

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/social-distancing-lockdown-masks-raab-b1840904.html

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/india-vaccine-production

https://twitter.com/i/events/1388324627043078144

https://twitter.com/i/events/1387852432600862729

https://twitter.com/jamieeast/status/1388208030672723968?s=19

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-56943652

https://www.nme.com/news/music/footage-liverpool-pilot-club-night-return-live-music-2931408

https://twitter.com/i/events/1388395026317672448

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html