Covid-19 Daily Bulletin

30 Mar

30 March 2021

A series of daily updates for CHO members regarding relevant updates pertaining to Coronavirus from home and abroad.

Key Announcements:

  • The number of people who tested positive for the virus yesterday in the UK was 4,654, with 23 people sadly losing their lives within 28 days of testing positive.
  • Scientists have said that new Covid vaccines will be needed globally within a year, as a survey of experts in relevant fields concluded that new variants of the virus could arise in countries with a low vaccine coverage.
  • Prime Minister Boris Johnson has joined more than 20 world leaders in calling for a new global settlement to help the world prepare for future pandemics. They say another pandemic or health crisis is a matter of “not if, but when”.
  • A major intervention letter led by Sir Lenny Henry urges Black Britons to get the Covid-19 vaccine. This comes after data from the Office for National Statistics reported that just 49 percent of Black or Black British adults said they were likely to have the jab. Henry is joined by other high-profile figures, such as Chiwetel Ejiofo and KSI, alongside calls from the NHS.

Devolved

  • Northern Ireland’s First Minister Arlene Foster said she was “delighted” to have received her first AstraZeneca jab.
  • Cardiff’s homeless numbers are down 90 per cent from pre-pandemic times. Cardiff council said the number of people sleeping rough fell from about 80 in September 2019, to around 8.

International

  • Canada has suspended its use of the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine for those under 55, claiming that there is “substantial uncertainty about the benefit” of the vaccine, given the risk of a rare type of blood clot.
  • A team of international experts will present their findings today from a mission to China, which concluded that Covid-19 probably passed to humans from a bat via an intermediary animal, all but ruling out a laboratory leak.
  • France recorded the highest number of people in intensive care units with Covid-19 since the second lockdown in November and the number of people in hospital with the disease rose by over 600 in a day, the biggest jump in more than four months.

Stakeholder

  • The NHS confederation has said that there is more work to do to make sure that access to the vaccine is equitable. Dr Layla McCay, director of policy at the NHS Confederation, also said that there was more work to be done to “to overcome vaccine hesitancy, as marginalisation clearly plays a major part in pushing uptake down”.