Parents in the UK should choose whether they allow their children to be vaccinated against Covid-19 if ministers overrule scientific advice against mass vaccination of healthy 12- to 15-year-olds, the government’s independent vaccine advisers said.
The government is set to push ahead with vaccinations for teenagers but Prof Anthony Harnden, the deputy chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said on Saturday that it was “entirely up to parents” to decide.
“The health benefits from vaccinating well 12- to 15-year-olds are marginally greater than the risks,” he told the Observer.
Slovakia has reversed its policy of allowing only people vaccinated against Covid-19 to attend public events during a visit by Pope Francis this month following low registration numbers.
“A negative test or proof of overcoming Covid-19 in the last 180 days will be sufficient to get a ticket,” the Slovak Catholic Church’s bishops’ conference (SBC) said.
The ban on unvaccinated people had been controversial in the EU member state, where only 49.5% of adults are fully vaccinated – compared over 70% in the EU as a whole.
Until now, only Slovaks with full vaccination against Covid-19 had been able to register for the 12-15 September papal visit, and the number of those registered has been much lower than expected.
“A lot of people have been asking to lift the vaccination requirement. So, as it is possible, we accommodated this request,” SBC spokesman Martin Kramara told AFP.
President Biden (@POTUS)
I know some folks are hesitant to get vaccinated, but the vaccine is safe, effective, and the best way to protect yourself and those you love. I sat down with Stephanie, who got the Pfizer vaccine after it received its full FDA authorization, to talk about her experience. pic.twitter.com/osdgY6Jggi
France has reported 88,159 coronavirus deaths in hospital, an increase of 83, Reuters reports.
The country has had more than 112,000 deaths overall.
France also recorded 13,336 new cases on Saturday. It has had over 6,81 million cases in total.
The Home Office has admitted that long queues at Heathrow immigration checks have been “unacceptable” and blamed a shortage of Border Force officers.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Throughout the pandemic we have been clear that queue times may be longer as we ensure all passengers are compliant with the health measures put in place to keep the UK public safe.
“However, the very long wait times we saw at Heathrow last night are unacceptable.
“This is the busiest weekend of the year for returning passengers, with particularly high numbers of families with children under the age of 12 who cannot use e-gates.
“Border Force is rapidly reviewing its rosters and capacity and flexibly deploying our staff across the airport to improve waiting times.”
Department of Health and Social Care (@DHSCgovuk)
#COVID19 VACCINE UPDATE: Daily figures on the total number of COVID-19 vaccine doses that have been given in the UK.
As of 4 September, 91,456,622 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been given in the UK.
Visit the @PHE_uk dashboard for more info:
https://t.co/cQkuLQglz1 pic.twitter.com/GIo9xYXA4U
As companies around the UK call their employees back to workplaces this month – some for the first time since March 2020 – family charities warn that increasing numbers, especially mothers and pregnant women, are being made to do so against their will.
Jane van Zyl, chief executive of the charity Working Families, reports growing numbers of calls to its advice line, mostly from women “who don’t want or aren’t able to return to the office as much as their employer is demanding”.
Since April, the charity has seen a sharp rise in calls about flexible working, while a third are about childcare issues.
More data from Italy. Patients in hospital with Covid-19 – not including those in intensive care – stood at 4,204 on Saturday, down from 4,164 a day earlier.
There were 53 new admissions to intensive care units, increasing from 42 on Friday.
The total number of intensive care patients was 569 from a previous 556, Reuters reports.
Some 331,350 tests for Covid-19 were carried out in the past day, compared with a previous 296,394, the health ministry said.
Italy reported 56 coronavirus-related deaths on Saturday, down from 58 the previous day, Reuters reports.
The daily tally of new infections decreased to 6,157 from 6,735, the health ministry said.
A total of 129,466 deaths linked to Covid-19 have been registered in Italy since its outbreak emerged in February last year.
Italy has reported more than 4.5 million cases to date.
The UK has reported 37,578 new cases of Covid-19, government data showed on Saturday.
It means cases reported between 29 August and 4 September were up 2.4% compared with the previous seven days.
A further 120 people were reported as having died within 28 days of a positive test for coronavirus, bringing the total to 133,161.
People in Germany have been urged by the country’s health minister to take the Covid-19 vaccine, with the warning that if vaccination numbers do not increase the country’s hospitals may be overwhelmed by patients later in the year.
So far just 61% of Germany’s population have had a complete course of two Covid vaccines, a lower proportion than in comparable European countries, and the daily vaccination rate has been falling for weeks.
New infections are on the rise, meanwhile. On Saturday, the Robert Koch Institute, Germany’s disease control agency, reported 10,835 new Covid-19 cases, up from 10,303 a week ago.
The slowing uptake prompted the health minister, Jens Spahn, to tweet: “We need at least 5 million vaccinations for a safe autumn and winter.”
“The number of people who have been vaccinated is too low to prevent an overburdening of the health system,” the health minister told daily Hannoversche Zeitung, according to the Associated Press. He said 90% of Covid-19 patients in intensive care are unvaccinated, the German news agency dpa reported.
Christian Drosten, who is regarded as Germany’s foremost coronavirus expert, said the idea of “a relaxed autumn is a risky assumption” and warned that contact restrictions may have to be implemented again if new infections keep going up, dpa reported.
Drosten suggested some Germans don’t appreciate vaccines enough because the earlier phases of the pandemic were less devastating in Germany than in other European countries. “They have had a horrible experience as an entire society,” Drosten said of other European countries. “Many deaths, a real lockdown, where one was only allowed to go out for shopping for a reason, and where the streets were patrolled by the military.”
In Germany, 92,325 people have died of Covid-19, according to the Robert Koch Institute. Other European countries have seen many more deaths even though their populations are lower: Britain has had over 133,000; Italy had 129,000 and France has seen over 115,000 dead.
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