UK COVID variant may pose higher death risk

The variant is already known to be more easily spread, and is putting the National Health Service under “intense pressure”, he said in a press conference. “We’ve been informed today that in addition to spreading more quickly, it also now appears that there is some evidence that the new variant, the variant that was first discovered in London and the southeast, may be associated with a higher degree of mortality,” he said.The new UK variant is transmitting between 30 per cent and 70 per cent more easily than the original COVID-19 strain.However Johnson said current evidence showed both vaccines remained effective against old and new variants.Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance has warned that there was some uncertainty about the data, and the evidence suggesting a higher risk of death was not strong at this stage.“I want to stress that there’s a lot of uncertainty around these numbers and we need more work to get a precise handle on it,” he said.“But it obviously is a concern that this has an increase in mortality as well as an increase in transmissibility.”‘WE CANNOT, WILL NOT, LET PEOPLE GO HUNGRY’: BIDENUS President Biden has officially signed another two executive orders providing urgent relief for struggling Americans.Speaking prior to signing the orders, he said he expected federal agencies to do what they could to provide relief for families, small businesses and communities buckling under the financial strain of the COVID pandemic.“We cannot, will not, let people go hungry,” he said.“We cannot let people be evicted because of nothing they did themselves. We cannot watch people lose their jobs and we have to act. We have to act now. It’s not just to meet the moral obligation to treat our fellow Americans with the dignity and respect they deserve.“We must act decisively and boldly to grow the economy for all Americans, not just for tomorrow, but in the future.”The two orders focus on expanding food assistance and delivering stimulus funding to very low-income Americans, and the other on raising the minimum wage to $15 for the federal workforce.“Today I’m signing an executive order that directs the whole of government, a whole government effort to help millions of Americans who are badly hurting,” Biden said.“It requires all federal agencies to do what they can do to provide relief to families, small business and communities, and in the days ahead I expect agencies to act.“A lot of America is hurting. The virus is surging. We’re 400,000 dead, expected to reach well over 600,000.“Families are going hungry. People are at risk of being evicted. Job losses are mounting again. We need to act. No matter how you look at it, we need to act.”US VACCINATION CAMPAIGN AIMS FOR 100 MILLION SHOTS IN 100 DAYSUS President Biden unveiled a strategy to get the coronavirus pandemic under control in the United States. It begins with a national vaccination campaign to administer 100 million shots during his first 100 days in office. Biden also signed executive orders to bolster pandemic response and testing capabilities, and issued a federal mask mandate for interstate travel.

Dr Anthony Fauci says he’s confident the US “can and should” vaccinate up to 85 per cent of the adult US population by summer’s endAmericans are becoming more willing to get the coronavirus vaccine when it’s available to them: About 66 per cent say they’ll try to get vaccinated, according to a CNN poll, up from 51 per cent in October.Dr Fauci returned to the White House briefing room on Thursday barely able to conceal his delight at no longer having to serve under a hostile president.“I can tell you, I take no pleasure at all in being in a situation of contradicting the President,” Dr Fauci told the room, appearing nonetheless pleased he has a new president who is committed to the role scientists play in beating the pandemic.

“The idea that you can get up here and talk about what you know, what the evidence, what the science is — let the science speak,” he added. “It is somewhat of a liberating feeling.”Dr Fauci, 80, is America’s most qualified infectious diseases expert with a long history of serving seven US presidents. Dr Fauci became the target of Donald Trump’s scorn and was publicly refuted by Mr Trump even as his administration failed to control the virus.On Friday (local time) Dr Fauci said that Mr Trump’s lack of openness and honesty about the magnitude of the pandemic “very likely” cost American lives.“When you start talking about things that make no sense medically and no sense scientifically, that clearly is not helpful,” Dr Fauci said on CNN.Asked by CNN’s John Berman if the Trump administration’s lack of facts cost lives, Dr Fauci said, “You know, it very likely did.”Despite challenges with distributing and administering vaccines, the US “can and should” vaccinate 70-85 per cent of adults by the end of the Northern summer, Dr Fauci said.That could bring a semblance of normalcy by the autumn.

If the US were to administer 1 million shots per day, as stipulated by Mr Biden’s goal of giving 100 million shots in his first 100 days in office, it would take until the end of 2021 to fully vaccinate 75 per cent of US adults, assuming every adult needs two shots.According to a CNN report, that time frame would be reduced if some people received one-dose vaccines. Johnson & Johnson produced one such candidate and is expected to report on Phase 3 clinical trials by the end of the month.On Friday (local time) Dr Fauci said he believes the US can exceed 100 million shots in 100 days.“If we can do better than that, which I personally think we likely will, then great.”

Meanwhile, New York State said it has administered 93 per cent of the first dose COVID-19 vaccine shots it has received from the feds – but data shows the Big Apple has just 80,000 shots to last the rest of the week and it will run out on Friday (local time).Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned that the Empire State will run out of two-dose vaccines on Friday, as the state recorded 96,000 inoculations in the last 24 hours alone.“We have the operational capacity to do even more – but we need more doses from the federal government because the real problem continues to be that the demand outpaces supply,” Mr Cuomo said in a statement.BIDEN ADDRESSES PANDEMIC POVERTYUS President Joe Biden is ordering an expansion of government benefits for impoverished Americans, after the coronavirus pandemic ignited the worst hunger crisis the United States has seen in modern times.The decree, one of two executive orders the White House said he will sign Friday, is modest and far short of the actions the president has called for from Congress.Nonetheless, it represents one of Mr Biden’s first actions since taking office on Wednesday aimed at reviving the world’s largest economy, after COVID-19 caused mass lay-offs beginning last year that have left many people scrambling to pay bills.Mr Biden’s main initiative to turn the economy around is a $1.9 trillion ($A2.46tn) “rescue” package that he outlined last week, followed by a promised proposal aimed at fuelling job creation.The orders also instruct government agencies to help people more quickly access federal stimulus payments, allow workers to leave jobs that could jeopardise their health, and expand protections for federal workers, while laying the groundwork for a minimum-wage increase for federal contractors.

Even after two massive government aid packages, the US economy is reeling from the damage caused by the pandemic, which has seen the death toll soar past 400,000.The Labor Department reported more than 1.3 million new applications for unemployment were filed last week, and as of the first week of January nearly 16 million people were still receiving some form of government jobless benefits.Amid the widespread joblessness many families are struggling to pay for groceries: the Commerce Department reported in mid-December that 13.7 per cent of adults lived in households where they sometimes or often did not have enough to eat.And millions of children rely on meals from schools, which have been forced to close or modify their schedules during the pandemic.

The government last year offered families food aid equivalent to what their children would be getting at school.Mr Biden’s order also instructs the Agriculture Department to issue guidance that would allow states to expand food aid to an additional 12 million people, and re-evaluate its basis for determining benefits, according to the White House.Mr Biden’s second order restores collective bargaining rights to federal government employees, and instructs agencies to do the preliminary work to allow him to issue a new order in coming weeks requiring federal contractors to pay their workers a minimum of $15 ($A19.45) an hour and provide them with paid emergency leave.Mr Biden has proposed raising the national minimum wage to $15, but that would require approval by Congress, where Democrats have a slim majority.

UK FACES DOUBLE-DIP RECESSION AFTER VIRUS CURBSRestrictions across the UK continue, as Downing Street announced that a new £800 ($A1415) penalty will be imposed for people going to illicit events.The fines will apply to those who attend illegal gatherings of more than 15 people in private homes.Authorities are also considering closing its borders to contain COVID-19 variants and may offer £500 ($A885) to people diagnosed with the virus as an incentive to self-isolate.Ministers will not consider lifting any restrictions until 15 February but it is likely the current situation will continue into the Northern spring and possibly summer.Britain’s private sector activity shrank in January after the coronavirus lockdown and the Brexit fallout, survey data showed on Friday (local time), placing the economy on course for a double-dip recession.The composite purchasing managers’ index (PMI) sank to an eight-month low at 40.6 points, compilers IHS Markit and the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) said in a statement.

The shift below 50 — indicates contraction — compared with 50.4 in December.“A steep slump in business activity in January puts the locked-down UK economy on course to contract sharply in the first quarter of 2021, meaning a double-dip recession is on the cards,” said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit.“Services have once again been especially hard hit but manufacturing has seen growth almost stall, blamed on a cocktail of COVID-19 and Brexit, which has led to increasingly widespread supply delays, rising costs and falling exports.” Those delays were sparked after Britain finally departed the European Union’s single market and customs union at the start of this year.The economy had already suffered a historic recession in the first half of last year owing to an initial virus lockdown.

TOKYO GAMES CANCELLED “CATEGORICALLY UNTRUE”Reports of this summer’s Tokyo Olympic Games being cancelled due to COVID-19 are “categorically untrue”, the International Olympic Committee said in a statement to CNN on Friday.The Japanese government also said on Friday that it is determined the Games will go ahead following an unconfirmed report that a cancellation might be imminent.On Friday, the Times of London, citing an unnamed senior member of the ruling coalition, reported that Japanese authorities had privately concluded that the Olympics could not proceed due to the ongoing pandemic. CNN has not independently verified this report, which officials have refuted“Some news reports circulating today are claiming that the government of Japan has privately concluded that the Tokyo Olympics will have to be cancelled because of the coronavirus,” said the statement from the IOC.“This is categorically untrue … All parties involved are working together to prepare for a successful Games this summer.”In a statement, the Tokyo 2020 organisers said that Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga had expressed to them his determination to hold the Games, and that meetings were ongoing to ensure that they could go ahead while implementing thorough infection countermeasures and other precautions due to the pandemic.“All our delivery partners including the national government, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee, the IOC and the IPC are fully focused on hosting the Games this summer,” the statement said. “We hope that daily life can return to normal as soon as possible, and we will continue to make every effort to prepare for a safe and secure Games.”