Covid-19 Daily Bulletin

11 March 2021

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

Key Announcements:

• Yesterday, 5,926 new cases of coronavirus were reported.
• Sadly, 190 new deaths within 28 days of a positive test were reported in the previous 24 hours.
• Yesterday, 217,301 people received their first dose of a covid vaccine
• Cancer patients are much less protected against Covid-19 than other people after one dose of the Pfizer vaccine, the first real-world study in this area suggests.
• Nearly six in ten people believe the pandemic has increased the gulf between social classes, according to a new poll from the Social Mobility Commission.
• Additional testing and genomic sequencing is being deployed to targeted areas within Wandsworth (SW11 and SW15), where the COVID-19 variant first identified in South Africa has been found.
• New analysis shows lateral flow tests (LFD) to have a specificity of at least 99.9 per cent when used to test in the community and could be as high as 99.97 per cent.
• The ‘Kent variant” that has spread around the world since it was first discovered in Britain late last year is between 30 per cent and 100 per cent more deadly than previous dominant variants.

Devolved

• Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has said Scotland’s objective must be “to eliminate” coronavirus.
• The Northern Ireland Executive meets later to discuss when all children should return to school.
• Rapid coronavirus testing kits are being rolled out to employers in four key sectors in Northern Ireland.
• Shop owners say they are being “treated like children” with a lack of detail about when non-essential retailers in Wales can reopen.

International

• A total of 34m doses of coronavirus vaccine have been exported from the EU despite shortages for people living in the bloc, including 9m sent to the UK and 1m to the US.
• Brazil has exceeded 2,000 Covid-related deaths in a single day for the first time, as infection rates soar.
• US president Joe Biden has pledged surplus vaccines will be shared with the rest of the world.
• South Korea will extend vaccination for people aged 65 years and older.
• An infux of Covid-19 patients from Papua New Guinea has sparked a “code yellow” emergency at the Cairns Hospital in Australia.
• Austria’s national medicines regulator has suspended use of a batch of the AstraZeneca vaccine after four patients were diagnosed with dangerous blood clotting conditions after receiving the jab.

Stakeholders

• Shutdowns of the Ferguson shipyard during the Covid pandemic have added an extra £4.3m to the cost of two over-budget and delayed CalMac ferries.
• The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) is reporting that the market for homes has slowed further with lockdown, and more in Scotland than other parts of the UK.
• Some babies and toddlers who have missed out on social interaction in the Covid pandemic could suffer in the long term, a group of charities have said .

Unconfirmed reports

• Coronavirus deaths will be in the tens of thousands next winter and the virus managed like the flu, a member of the government’s scientific advisory committee has predicted.
• Ministers are under pressure to confirm the return of foreign holidays after Spain said that it would reopen to vaccinated tourists.
• Concerns over false results mean some parents are withdrawing their consent despite many schools reporting none or very few positive Covid tests.