Coronavirus latest news: Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine shows 'limited efficacy' against South African variant

Global Health Security Team
The Oxford vaccine was less effective against the South Africa strain in phase I and II trials - EPA
The Oxford vaccine was less effective against the South Africa strain in phase I and II trials - EPA

AstraZeneca says its vaccine developed with the University of Oxford appeared to offer only limited protection against mild disease caused by the South African variant of Covid-19, based on early data from a trial.

The study from South Africa's University of the Witwatersrand and Oxford University showed the vaccine had significantly reduced efficacy against the South African variant, according to a Financial Times report.

Among coronavirus variants currently most concerning for scientists and public health experts are the Kent, South African and Brazilian variants, which appear to spread more swiftly than others.

"In this small phase I/II trial, early data has shown limited efficacy against mild disease primarily due to the B.1.351 South African variant," an AstraZeneca spokesman said.

Follow the latest updates below.

05:08 AM

Chinese whistleblower doctor remembered

The message was tucked into a bouquet of chrysanthemums left by a mourner at the back of Wuhan Central Hospital to honour a Chinese whistleblower doctor who died from coronavirus one year ago today.

It was simply the number of a Bible verse, Matthew 5:10, which says: "Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

A card with a portrait of Dr Li Wenliang at a hospital in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province - Feature China/Barcroft Media via Getty Images
A card with a portrait of Dr Li Wenliang at a hospital in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province - Feature China/Barcroft Media via Getty Images

Dr Li Wenliang died from the virus first detected in Wuhan. A small stream of people marked the anniversary with visits to the hospital, some leaving flowers.

The 34-year-old ophthalmologist was one of eight whistleblowers who local authorities punished early on for "spreading rumours" about a SARS-like virus in a social media group. His situation, eventually made public in media reports, made him a potent symbol for the perils of going against official messaging in China.

The Chinese public embraced Dr Li, whose presence online painted a picture of an ordinary person. His wife was pregnant and he was soon to be a father. He sent the "rumour" because he wanted to warn others.

The public also watched as he fell ill with the disease he was warning them about, eventually worsened, and died.

Wuhan one year on: The city that appears safe from Covid - but at what cost?

04:08 AM

Players ready for first Grand Slam after quarantine drama

Australia reported no new local coronavirus cases for a third day on Sunday, as tennis players geared up for the first Grand Slam of the year in Melbourne tomorrow.

The Australian Open will have a reduced attendance of 30,000 fans a day - about 50pc lower than usual because of Covid protocols.

Those public health protocols, which have been credited with making Australia one of the most successful nations in battling the virus, forced players into a two-week hotel quarantine after landing in Melbourne in January.

More than 500 staff and players tested negative on Friday in re-testing required after a worker at their quarantine hotel caught the virus.

Follow the latest Australian Open news here.

03:54 AM

Tennis champ questions LTA's Covid protocols

Andy Murray - REUTERS/Charles Platiau
Andy Murray - REUTERS/Charles Platiau

Former world number one Andy Murray has raised doubts about the Lawn Tennis Association's health protocols at its high-performance training facility after he tested positive for Covid-19 and had to miss the Australian Open.

The three-time Grand Slam winner was forced to pull out of the first major of 2021 in Melbourne after he was unable to find what he called a "workable quarantine" following a positive test on January 14.

"I stuck to all of the protocols. I couldn't pick it up anywhere else because I hadn't left my house or National Tennis Centre for 10 weeks, and then there were some positive cases there," the 33-year-old said.

READ MORE: Andy Murray 'p----- off' at LTA over slip in bio-secure standards he claims left him with Covid-19

03:48 AM

Exclusive: Teachers jumping queue for vaccines

Teachers have been accused of jumping the queue for vaccines after a city council invited every school to put forward staff to receive the jab, a Telegraph investigation has found.

The Government has set a target for the first four priority groups, including everyone over the age of 70 and the clinically extremely vulnerable, to be vaccinated by the middle of February.

Former education minister Tim Loughton said anyone not providing "intimate care" for "clinically vulnerable" children was jumping the queue.

Read the full story here.

03:45 AM

Hotel quarantine regime needs a 'sunset clause'

Hotel quarantine needs a “sunset clause” otherwise foreign travel could be destroyed for years, hotels and MPs have warned the Government.

They want ministers to spell out a clear exit strategy for the quarantine which will see an estimated 1,425 passengers a day from 33 “red list” countries required to self-isolate in Government-approved hotels at their own expense for 10 days from February 15.

They fear the regime will decimate travel if it continues through the summer by deterring Britons from going abroad for fear their destination could be added to the “red list” of nations with new Covid variants, forcing them into quarantine hotels on their return.

Read the full story here.

03:43 AM

Today's top stories

Latest Stories

  • Harris has reportedly pushed Biden's coronavirus team to focus on overlooked communities

    After Vice President Kamala Harris received her second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in a televised event at the National Institutes of Health in January, Rep. Joyce Beatty's (D-Ohio) phone lit up with calls from constituents who were "newly curious" about getting vaccinated themselves, she told The New York Times. As Beatty explained, watching a Black woman receive the vaccine "gave people hope and gave people education." Black Americans are nearly three times more likely to die from the coronavirus, the Times notes, but they are far less likely to be inoculated, in large part because of a lack of access, but also, some experts have pointed out, because of longstanding wariness about government-driven health programs. Harris, it seems, was able to ease some of those concerns with her public vaccination, and she also has reportedly pressed President Biden and his advisers in private to focus on how their policies will ensure less advantaged people in both urban and rural settings are protected against the virus. "The vice president pushed us hard, in a very good way," Jeffrey Zients, Biden's coronavirus response coordinator, told the Times. "She pushed me on, 'Where are we on mobile vaccination units? How many are we going to have, in what period of time? Are they going to be able to reach rural communities and urban communities? How much progress have you made?" Read more about Harris' role in the Biden administration so far at The New York Times. More stories from theweek.comSenator Ivanka?CIA analyst involved with briefing Biden shouldn't be trusted after defending torture program, former Senate investigator says'Explosive' Woody Allen documentary featuring video account from 7-year-old Dylan Farrow to debut on HBO

  • ‘Pink hat lady’ arrested after Capitol riot defends herself as a cheese purveyor with ‘no military background’

    'I have no military background ... I’m a mom with eight kids. That’s it. I work. And I garden. And raise chickens. And sell cheese at a farmers’ market'

  • 95-year-old woman who worked as Nazi concentration camp secretary charged over 10,000 murders

    A 95-year-old woman has been charged as an accessory to the murder of 10,000 people because she worked as a secretary at a Nazi concentration camp, German prosecutors announced on Friday. The woman has not been named under German privacy laws but has been partially identified by local media as Irmgard F, a German pensioner living in a retirement home in Pinneberg, north of Hamburg. From June 1943 and April 1945 she worked as a secretary and typist for the commandant of Stutthof concentration camp, in present day Poland. She is charged with “assisting those responsible for the systematic killing of Jewish prisoners, Polish partisans and Soviet prisoners of war at the camp”. It is not the first time a woman has been charged over the Holocaust, but the decision to bring charges against a former secretary is the latest in a series of recent attempts to widen prosecutions beyond those directly involved in sending prisoners to their deaths.

  • Biden administration suspends Trump asylum deals with El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras

    The Biden administration said on Saturday it was immediately suspending Trump-era asylum agreements with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, part of a bid to undo his Republican predecessor's hardline immigration policies. In a statement, State Department Secretary Antony Blinken said the United States had "suspended and initiated the process to terminate the Asylum Cooperative Agreements with the Governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras as the first concrete steps on the path to greater partnership and collaboration in the region laid out by President Biden."

  • Biden back in Delaware with moving on his weekend to-do list

    On President Joe Biden's weekend to-do list? Biden flew aboard Air Force One for the first time as president on Friday, but not on a trip to sell his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan or to confer with a U.S. ally. Biden's son Hunter also turned 51 on Thursday.

  • Capitol rioter asked family if he could stay with them — one called the FBI, feds say

    Federal prosecutors said the man was captured on video yelling “F— the blue” at police officers.

  • Greene claims 'I'm fine with' getting kicked off her House committees: 'It'd be a waste of my time'

    Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Friday declared she's been "freed" after being removed from her House committee assignments, claiming continuing to serve on them would have been a waste of time. The House of Representatives on Thursday voted to remove the controversial Georgia lawmaker from her committee assignments over a string of racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-Muslim comments and support for baseless conspiracy theories and violent rhetoric. In a press conference Friday, Greene said it was freeing to admit she "believed things that were wrong" in a speech the day before, during which she did not apologize but rather expressed regret for being "allowed to believe things that weren't true." "Going forward, I've been freed," Greene said Friday. "I do, I feel freed." Greene went on to claim that "I'd be wasting my time" by continuing to serve on House committees "because my conservative values wouldn't be heard," even though she also asserted removing her from them "stripped my voters of having representation to work for them." "I'm fine with being kicked off my committees because it'd be a waste of my time," she insisted. Greene went on to celebrate that she now has "a lot of free time on my hands," but she ended the press conference after refusing to address a question about her liking a Facebook post in 2019 calling for violence against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). More stories from theweek.comSenator Ivanka?CIA analyst involved with briefing Biden shouldn't be trusted after defending torture program, former Senate investigator says'Explosive' Woody Allen documentary featuring video account from 7-year-old Dylan Farrow to debut on HBO

  • Mike Pence starting podcast to 'share the good news of conservatism'

    Barely two weeks after leaving office, the former US vice president Mike Pence has switched his attention to “attracting new hearts and minds to the conservative cause” as the host of a podcast directed at American youth. Mr Pence will become the first Ronald Reagan presidential scholar at the Young America’s Foundation (YAF), a group set up in the 1960s to promote conservative values among a generation of high school and college students and those just embarking on their working lives. Hosting a podcast will be familiar territory for Mr Pence, who was a prominent conservative radio voice in the Midwest for several years before his election to Congress in 2000. Billing himself as “Rush Limbaugh on decaf,” a milder version of the firebrand right-wing radio personality beloved by Donald Trump's supporters, Mr Pence hosted discussions on conservative and religious themes. “The Vice-President will certainly be focused on the conservative accomplishments of the last four years and projecting those accomplishments and lessons learned forward,” a Pence spokesperson said of the podcast, according to Politico.

  • President Biden's flight home on Air Force One

    President Biden's first flight on Air Force One as commander-in-chief lasted 25 minutes — about one-third the time it takes for the Acela to trace his beloved Amtrak route from D.C. to Wilmington.What he's saying: It's a "great honor" to ride as president on the iconic symbol of American power and diplomacy, Biden told reporters on the tarmac upon landing at New Castle Air National Guard Base. Be smart: sign up FREE for the most influential newsletter in America.“You realize, they’ve used this air strip to practice landings for the 747 takeoffs for the president’s plane for a long time,” Biden said, with the nostalgia of someone with a home just five miles away. “Now I’m getting off that plane. It’s really kind of strange.”Behind the scenes: Axios was on board for Biden's sunset flight home to Delaware on Friday.At Joint Base Andrews, he tucked a challenge coin into the palm of the female colonel who greeted and saluted him before he boarded at 5:31 p.m. The flight was wheels up at 5:42 p.m. and landed at 6:07 p.m.The weekend family visit comes between his son Hunter's birthday and the Super Bowl, between a crucial COVID-19 budget framework vote and the impeachment trial of former President Trump.TVs aboard the flight showed ESPN — and CNN, a departure from his predecessor's viewing habits.Everyone including the president wore masks.Biden didn't talk politics with his press corps — nor did he make the customary trip to the back of the cabin for small talk amid the pandemic, opting instead for a short, outdoor gaggle after the flight.After 36 years in the U.S. Senate and eight years as Barack Obama's wingman, Biden has taken countless flights on all kinds of government aircraft. Friday's short flight was on the "baby" plane, a 757, not the big 747. It's “a great plane," he said. "It’s the same plane that we had as vice president, only it’s much nicer.”Get smarter, faster with the news CEOs, entrepreneurs and top politicians read. Sign up for Axios Newsletters here.

  • 117 inmates take over section of downtown St. Louis jail

    The incident began after a "defiant" inmate got into a fight with a corrections officer and other prisoners jumped in, officials said.

  • Democrats Will Regret Their Move against Marjorie Taylor Greene

    At least Marjorie Taylor Greene won’t have to spend time sitting at the end of the dais during long committee hearings. House Democrats voted to boot her from her committee assignments in an act that they will surely come to regret, perhaps as soon as January 2023. If the majority can keep members of the opposition party off of committees based on incendiary comments, it’s not clear why the GOP ever let, say, Maxine Waters serve on any committees when it had control of the chamber, or why it ever will again. Kicking off Greene will come to be remembered as another inflection point in the steady unraveling of institutional norms on Capitol Hill. That said, we believe that Republicans should have taken matters into their own hands and denied Greene her committee assignments to draw a line against malicious lunacy in their own ranks. That Democrats had a gun to his head with their threat to have a floor vote on Greene’s committee assignments probably made it more politically difficult for Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to act on his own. He did seek a deal with the Democrats to take her off the House Committee on Education and Labor and the Budget Committee and instead relegate her to the Small Business Committee. When Democrats didn’t bite, McCarthy again condemned her past comments and wrung an expression of regret from her in an internal GOP meeting earlier in the week that she repeated on the House floor on Thursday. Her statement didn’t ring with sincerity, but it was better than nothing, even if she was immediately holding a combative press conference where she said, “I’m fine with being kicked off committees because it’d be a waste of my time.” We have, no doubt, not heard the last of her.

  • Senate votes down $15 minimum wage during vote-a-rama. Bernie Sanders seems unfazed.

    The Senate slogged through a long series of votes late Thursday and early Friday, with the Democrats voting down most of the theoretically limitless series of amendments to their budget resolution. "The endurance run known as the 'vote-a-rama' is a time-honored tradition of the reconciliation process — the budget tool Democrats will likely use to expedite passage of [President] Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan without any GOP support," Politico explains. Most of the vote-a-rama involved "Republicans forcing Democrats into tedious and uncomfortable votes on a variety of issues as Democrats inflicted maximum pain by dragging out the legislative torment," Politico reports. But some amendments did pass with bipartisan support. By a voice vote, for example, the senators approved an amendment from Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) to "prohibit the increase of the federal minimum wage during a global pandemic." Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour is one of the heavy lifts in Biden's proposal. "A $15 federal minimum wage would be devastating for our hardest-hit small businesses at a time they can least afford it," Ernst argued on the Senate floor. The measure's biggest proponent, Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), shrugged off the vote, noting that his plan raised the minimum wage over five years, starting after the pandemic. "We need to end the crisis of starvation wages in Iowa and around the United States," he said, adding that he "will do everything that I can" to make sure the measure "is included in this reconciliation bill." The minimum wage hike may be stymied by other factors: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is opposed, and it may run afoul of so-called Byrd Rule limits on what can be included in reconciliation bills. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said if it doesn't make it in this bill, Democrats will include it in other legislation. The Senate also approved amendments to keep America's Israeli embassy in Jerusalem, prevent undocumented immigrants from getting direct stimulus checks, and — by a 99-1 vote — restrict Biden's $1,400 checks from going to "upper-income taxpayers." That proposal, from Manchin and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), did not specify any income thresholds, and Biden's proposal already includes phasing out the checks up to $300,000-a-year households. Congress and the White House are negotiating the phase-out and cutoff points, and Biden is meeting with Democratic leaders and committee chairs Friday morning to discuss the COVID-19 relief bill. More stories from theweek.comSenator Ivanka?CIA analyst involved with briefing Biden shouldn't be trusted after defending torture program, former Senate investigator says'Explosive' Woody Allen documentary featuring video account from 7-year-old Dylan Farrow to debut on HBO

  • Biden administration doesn't want to get 'mixed up' in Brexit over Northern Ireland border row

    Joe Biden doesn't want to get "mixed up" in Brexit over the Northern Ireland border row, an ally of the president has told the Sunday Telegraph, The source said the new White House administration is monitoring the situation carefully but is loathe to intervene, marking a significant departure from Donald Trump's foreign policy style. The European Union's recent blunder triggering Article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol in a row over vaccines, threatening to effectively create a border on the island of Ireland, set off alarm bells in Washington DC. There was no public comment on the issue at the time from Mr Biden, who has made statements on the subject in the past and is deeply personally committed to the Good Friday Agreement, or from his administration. But it was considered the latest in a series of troubling diplomatic faux pas by the EU as the US seeks to rebuild relations. The Biden source told The Sunday Telegraph: "Whatever the EU or the UK does [in relation to Northern Ireland] the administration wants to tread carefully, wait and see what develops, and not take a hard position. It's a tough one because you have the UK, Ireland and the EU, and you can't win.

  • ‘Something has gone seriously awry’: Supreme Court strikes down California’s Covid ban on church worsip

    The court rejected similar restrictions in New York

  • Man Who Pushed 91-Year-Old in Oakland Chinatown Assaults 2 Others Right After

    An unidentified assailant was caught on surveillance camera pushing a 91-year-old man to the ground in a recent unprovoked attack in Oakland Chinatown. The incident happened outside the Asian Resource Center at the corner of Harrison and 8th streets on Jan. 31, according to ABC7. The suspect reportedly approached two other victims shortly after the first attack, resulting in one of them losing consciousness, according to the Oakland Police Department’s statement.

  • ICC clears way for war crimes probe of Israeli actions

    The International Criminal Court said Friday that its jurisdiction extends to territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, potentially clearing the way for its chief prosecutor to open a war crimes probe into Israeli military actions. The decision was welcomed by the Palestinians and decried by Israel's prime minister, who vowed to fight “this perversion of justice.” The U.S., Israel's closest ally, said it opposed the decision.

  • Kyle Rittenhouse fires attorney who helped raise his $2 million bail

    Kyle Rittenhouse, 18, from Illinois who's accused of killing two people and wounding a third during a police brutality protest in Wisconsin last summer fired John Pierce, a California attorney who had been soliciting money for his case.

  • 10 Not-Cheesy Valentine’s Day Gifts to Give Your Friends

    Okay, one does include actual cheeseOriginally Appeared on Architectural Digest

  • Fox Business Cancels Lou Dobbs Tonight following Lawsuit

    Fox Business has canceled host Lou Dobbs’s program Lou Dobbs Tonight, The Los Angeles Times reported on Friday. The announcement came one day after voting-machine company Smartmatic filed a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox, naming Dobbs in the suit along with hosts Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro. Smartmatic, whose machines were used only in Los Angeles County during the 2020 election, contends that lawyers for former President Trump “created a story about Smartmatic” to discredit its products in an attempt to bolster claims that Democrats stole the election. However, Fox said in a statement that the change was a part of previously planned changes to the network’s programming. “As we said in October, Fox News Media regularly considers programming changes and plans have been in place to launch new formats as appropriate post-election, including on Fox Business,” a Fox representative told the Times. “This is part of those planned changes.” Dobbs has not directly commented on the cancelation, although he retweeted criticisms of Fox on Friday evening. A staunch supporter of former President Trump, Dobbs repeatedly interviewed Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell to discuss now-debunked claims of widespread election fraud. “Lou Dobbs is and was great. Nobody loves America more than Lou,” Trump said in a statement. “He had a large and loyal following that will be watching closely for his next move, and that following includes me.” Meanwhile, Fox has vowed to defend itself against Smartmatic’s suit. Fox “is committed to providing the full context of every story with in-depth reporting and clear opinion,” the network said on Thursday, and “will vigorously defend [against] this meritless lawsuit in court.”

  • CIA analyst involved with briefing Biden shouldn't be trusted after defending torture program, former Senate investigator says

    Morgan Muir, the longtime CIA analyst whom The New York Times reported was tasked with delivering President Biden's daily intelligence briefings, played a leading role in the CIA's defense of its torture program and cited information the agency later publicly admitted was inaccurate during a standoff with the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2013, BuzzFeed News reports. The extent of Muir's involvement in the showdown was not previously known, per BuzzFeed. Daniel Jones, a former Senate investigator and the lead author of the committee's 6,700-page report on the torture program, said he "would not trust" Muir to "convey accurate information," and former Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), an outspoken member of the committee at the time, said Biden "should have serious concerns about entrusting his presidential daily briefing to anyone who may have helped cover up this dark chapter in our nation's history." Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a committee member then and now, didn't specifically address Muir, but told BuzzFeed "the American people deserve transparency about the backgrounds of high-level intelligence officials." Amanda Schoch, a spokeswoman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said Muir is a "widely respected intelligence officer who has demonstrated the highest standards of integrity and professionalism throughout his career." But she added that Muir is not Biden's briefer "as that term is generally understood," and he won't be in the Oval Office. Instead, he'll reportedly be in charge of what's known as "mission integration," meaning he'll coordinate "intelligence collection and analysis across multiple briefings." Read more at BuzzFeed News. More stories from theweek.comSenator Ivanka?'Explosive' Woody Allen documentary featuring video account from 7-year-old Dylan Farrow to debut on HBOHarris has reportedly pushed Biden's coronavirus team to focus on overlooked communities