Coronavirus updates: Positive signs in Oxford coronavirus vaccine trial

Mark Savage

Music reporter, BBC News

Q Magazine, a cornerstone of rock journalism in the UK, is to close after 34 years.

“The pandemic did for us and there was nothing more to it than that,”said the editor Ted Kessler in a tweet. He also shared the editor’s letter for the final issue, due on 28 July, in which he said: “I must apologise for my failure to keep Q afloat.”

The magazine’s circulation had fallen to 28,000 per month from a peak of 200,000 in 2001.

Founded in 1986 by Mark Ellen and David Hepworth, Q arrived at the same time as the CD revolution took off – and its glossy, aspirational format chimed perfectly with the times.

Its hefty and comprehensive reviews section not only covered new releases, but the copious re-issues that were starting to appear as record labels plundered their archives to bolster the new format.

Read more here.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has welcomed today’s progress towards a vaccine but says work still needs to be done to combat the spread of Covid-19.

At a briefing in Geneva, Dr Mike Ryan, director of the WHO emergencies programme, congratulated the scientists behind the Oxford vaccine, saying: “This is a positive result but again there is a long way to go.”

He added that now, “real world” trials must be done on a larger scale. There are 23 potential vaccines in development thus far.

“But it is good to see more data and more products moving into this very important phase of vaccine discovery.”

WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also emphasised that any successful vaccines must be accessible to all.

He said many countries are seeing the advantages of making the vaccine “a global public good”, but some are “going the reverse direction”.

“When there is no consensus, it could be actually owned by those who have money and those who cannot afford it may not have access to the vaccines.”

The director-general also said that while vaccine research continues, “we have to save lives now”.

“We must continue to accelerate vaccine research while doing more with the tools we have at hand.”

US President Donald Trump has said that, from tomorrow he will resume regular public briefings about his administration’s response to America’s coronavirus outbreak.

Mr Trump gave 35 daily briefings with the White House’s coronavirus task force in March and April, but frequently came under criticism for providing false or misleading statements. In turn, he accused the media of bias.

He said the revival of briefings would allow him to share “positive things” his administration is doing, and updates on vaccines and treatments.

“I think it’s a great way to get information out to the public,” the president told reporters. “We had a lot of people watching, record numbers watching in the history of cable television, and there’s never been anything like it.”

His first briefing is scheduled for Tuesday at 17:00 local time (21:00 GMT).

A further 11 deaths have been recorded in the UK, bringing the total number of people who died in hospital, care homes and the community after a positive coronavirus test to 45,312.

According to coronavirus.data.gov.uk, there were also 580 new positive tests in the last 24 hours, continuing a trend in recent days when the fall in cases appears to have levelled out.

It comes after the Department of Health has ordered a review into the UK-wide daily death statistics, after concerns that figures contributed by England may include deaths which occur months after a positive test. Other UK nations have a 28-day cut-off point.

But Public Health England is continuing to make the figures available on the coronavirus data dashboard. It says that about 4,000 of the 45,000 deaths occurred after more than 28 days, and only 2,000 of those were not attributed by the recording doctor to Covid-19.

Florida has reported its fifth consecutive day of more than 10,000 new Covid-19 cases.

On Sunday, an additional 12,478 people tested positive for coronavirus, according to the state health agency.

The total number of cases since March in the Sunshine State is now more than 350,000. The death toll is nearing 5,000, and hospitals across the state say bed space is filling up.

As officials try to contain the surge, some parts of South Florida have enacted curfews. On Saturday, Miami Beach set a curfew of 20:00 to 05:00. On Friday, Broward County ordered a curfew from 23:00 to 05:00, in place until 1 August.

Congresswoman Donna Shalala, a Democrat representing part of Miami-Dade county, told ABC News: “The residents here are terrified and I’m terrified, for the first time in my career, because there’s a lack of leadership.”

About 23% of the total number of cases were reported in just the last week, the Tampa Bay Times reports.

In an interview aired on Sunday, US President Donald Trump told Fox News: “We have embers and we do have flames. Florida became more flame-like, but it’s – it’s going to be under control.”

More on Florida:

• What’s behind the new US outbreaks?
• How did Florida get so badly hit by Covid-19?

One of those who volunteered to take part in the Oxford University vaccine trial is Lydia Guthrie.

She was injected on April 30th with either the experimental Covid-19 vaccine or a placebo vaccine that protects against meningitis.

Lydia says she developed flu-like symptoms after having her vaccine, but was warned by the research team that this might happen.

Despite the small risk that was involved, she told BBC OS on World Service radio that she doesn’t feel “brave or selfless”.

“It’s not that brave because I trust the people involved. It’s also not selfless because if we find a vaccine, I will benefit just as much as anybody else,” said Lydia. “If we get a vaccine I’ll be able to hug my mum again, and that’s really worth it for me.”

James Gallagher

Health and science correspondent, BBC News

These results from the Oxford vaccine trial are exciting, but
this is only the first hurdle. It is still not a vaccine we can say “works”.

It is great news the vaccine can induce an immune response, including both antibodies that attack the virus and
T-cells, which hunt out and kill cells infected by the virus.

But we do not know what level of
immune response is needed to protect people from coronavirus. That is why
further research is still needed.

The answers at the moment are
unlikely to come from the UK as there is not enough coronavirus doing the
rounds to prove whether the vaccine is making a difference.

The Oxford team already has
trials under way in South Africa and Brazil and there are plans for one in the
US too.

However, it may yet require
“challenge trials” in which people are vaccinated and deliberately infected
with the virus to see how effective it is.

Read more here.

England’s chief nursing officer Ruth May has told MPs she was “dropped” from the daily Downing Street briefings in the wake of Dominic Cummings’ controversial trip to Durham.

She said she did not know why her appearance was cancelled, but said she was “of course” asked in a preparatory session for her views about lockdown rules, amid a public outcry about the apparent breach by the prime minister’s adviser.

Ms May said: “In my view the rules were clear, they were there for everyone’s safety and they applied to us all.”

But she also said it was a “regular occurrence” for her colleagues to be stood down from the briefings and said she had been scheduled to appear at a subsequent briefing, but she was “stuck in traffic”.

Max Matza

BBC News, Washington

A dining experience beloved by generations of hungry Americans is in danger of being spoiled by the coronavirus pandemic.

Buffets – from the humblest hotel breakfasts to the grandest casino banquets – are struggling to stay afloat as new health restrictions come into place and wary diners eschew the self-serve dining tradition.

Many loyal buffet-goers are also elderly, and among the more virus-vulnerable groups.

Susan Yin, the owner of Jack’s Fresh in downtown Washington DC, told the BBC that her average sales have dropped nearly 90% after they re-opened two months ago following a two-month closure.

Jack’s Fresh, which specialises in Asian food and American sandwiches, is currently making around $500 (£398) per day, down from an average of $3,500 before the pandemic, she says.

“No people work in this area,” says Mrs Yin, referring to the commuters that have mostly been working from home since March. “It’s still very quiet.”

Read the full story here.

Pumza Fihlani

BBC News, Johannesburg

A community in a newly formed informal settlement near the South African city of Cape Town has given the pandemic a new twist and named their area Covid-19.

The place is occupied by people who have lost their income due to the pandemic and cannot afford to pay rent.

It has different sections named Covid-1, Covid-2 etc all the way up to Covid-19.

Many of the homes there are made from corrugated iron.

Another informal settlement nearby has been named Sanitizer. It’s partly in jest but also reflects the effects that the virus is having on some communities.

Locals have said they are aware of the growing number of informal settlements, especially at this time, but managing them is difficult.

Land is a contentious issue in South Africa and Cape Town is often cited as a prime example of how structural apartheid forced black and marginalised communities to live on the peripheries of the city often needing to spend a lot of money to get to work.

More than three million South Africans have lost their jobs since the lockdown and as the country battles with a sharp rise in infections, putting strain on the health system – the economic effects of the pandemic are beginning to hit hard too.

Read more:

• Coronavirus in South Africa: Inside Port Elizabeth’s ‘hospitals of horrors’

James Gallagher

Health and science correspondent, BBC News

Earlier we reported that a new coronavirus vaccine, developed by the University of Oxford, appears to be safe and triggers an immune response.

The vaccine – called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 – is made from a genetically engineered virus that causes the common cold in chimpanzees.

It has been heavily modified, first so it cannot cause infections in people and also to make it “look” more like coronavirus.

Scientists did this by transferring the genetic instructions for the coronavirus’s “spike protein” – the crucial tool it uses to invade our cells – to the vaccine they were developing.

This means the vaccine resembles the coronavirus and the immune system can learn how to attack it.

Read more here.

The number of people who died in English hospitals after a positive coronavirus test has reached 29,187 after NHS England recorded six more deaths in the last 24 hours.

The patients were aged between 74 and 98 years old and all had underlying health conditions.

The Department for Health and Social Care said on Friday it was “pausing” publication of daily death figures for the whole of the UK over concerns that the data for England may have included people who died months after a positive coronavirus test.

But Public Health England is continuing to make these figures available on the coronavirus data dashboard, which is expected to be updated later.

PHE has said that about 4,000 of the UK’s 45,000 reported deaths happened more than 28 days after a test, the cut-off point for coronavirus deaths in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Of those, about 2,000 deaths were not blamed on coronavirus by the recording doctor.

The men’s T20 World Cup, scheduled to be held in Australia between 18 October and 15 November, has been postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The cricket tournament is now scheduled to be held in October and November 2021 with another tournament in 2022.

“The decision gives us the best possible opportunity of delivering two safe and successful T20 World Cups,” said ICC chief executive Manu Sawhney.

Follow our updates here.

Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, has updated its safety guidelines to stop visitors from exploiting a loophole in its mask policy.

The resort opened earlier this month with strict rules on social distancing, masks, and a host of measures to help prevent the spread of coronavirus.

While the wearing of masks is mandatory for guests, until recently guests were able to take them off while eating and drinking.

The rules have now been changed and visitors can still eat on site while being “stationary and [maintaining] appropriate physical distancing”.

Disney has been criticised for reopening as Florida grapples with one of America’s largest outbreaks of Covid-19. But the entertainment giant has defended its decision.

“Covid is here, and we have a responsibility to figure out the best approach to safely operate in this new normal,” said Josh D’Amaro, Disney’s theme park chairman, in an interview with the New York Times.

The Bahamas has announced it will ban US visitors amid recent rises in Covid-19. The Caribbean nation had begun reopening its borders at the start of July.

Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said in an address on Sunday: “Regrettably, the situation here at home has already deteriorated since we began the reopening of our domestic economy. It has deteriorated at an exponential rate since we reopened our international borders.”

The Ministry of Health has confirmed a total of 153 Covid-19 cases, 49 of which happened after the borders opened on 1 July.

“Our current situation demands decisive action, if we are to avoid being overrun and defeated by this virus.”

By Wednesday, the Bahamas will prohibit all international commercial flights and vessels – with exceptions for commercial flights from the UK, Canada and the EU.

All visitors – as well as any returning Bahamians – will be asked to show a negative Covid-19 test from an accredited laboratory upon arrival.

Americans who are currently on the islands will still be able to leave on outgoing flights, but no new tourists from the US will be allowed in.

Scotland has recorded seven new cases of coronavirus, the first fall in the daily infection numbers for five days.

It comes after positive tests for 23 people were reported on Sunday, the highest increase for almost a month. The nation also saw an outbreak at a contact tracing centre in North Lanarkshire, which serves the NHS in England.

With no new deaths reported, leaving the toll at 2,941, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said all the latest cases would still be closely examined and contact tracing carried out where necessary.

In Wales, the toll remains at 1,547 after Public Health Wales said no additional deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours. There were 15 more cases confirmed by testing.

Chris Mason

Political Correspondent

They are calling it “Honk for Hope”. Dozens of coaches from all over the country are currently driving around Westminster and making a lot of noise.

It is an industry that feels abandoned by the government during the economic slump that has accompanied the coronavirus pandemic – and says it is in urgent need of support.

There’s been no response yet from the Department for Transport.

Aerospace companies in the UK have been awarded grants worth £200m to support their recovery from coronavirus and invest in green technology.

The projects, which are receiving matching funding from the companies, include innovative wing designs from Airbus and an efficient UltraFan engine led by Rolls-Royce.

Airbus announced earlier this month that it is planning to cut 1,700 jobs in the UK while Rolls-Royce is slashing its workforce by a fifth, with 3,000 jobs going after the coronavirus led to a drastic fall in air travel.

A coronavirus vaccine developed by the University of Oxford appears safe and trains the immune system.

Phase one trials involving about 1,077 people showed the injection led to them making antibodies and white blood cells that can fight coronavirus.

The findings are hugely promising, but it is still too soon to know if this is enough to offer protection and larger trials are under way.

The UK has already ordered 100 million doses of the vaccine.

The French president and the German chancellor say they’re cautiously optimistic that the 27 EU leaders can reach an agreement on a coronavirus recovery package, on the fourth day of intense negotiations.

Discussions resumed with what France’s Emmanuel Macron said was “the possible hopes of a compromise”, but he added: “Nothing has been agreed yet, so I will remain extremely cautious”.

“There’s a spirit of compromise that’s there, there have been some very tense moments and some moments that will no doubt be difficult again.”

A key sticking point has been what part of the proposed €750bn (£680bn; $857bn) fund would be available to countries as non-repayable grants.

“Last night… we put in place a framework for a possible agreement,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday.

“This is a step forward and it gives hope that an agreement can be reached today – or at least that an agreement is possible.”