RationalWiki:What is going on with the coronavirus?/July 2021

July 2021
A group of prankers who pretended to be AstraZeneca shareholders, got Piers Corbyn to accept a bribe of £10 000 to stop him doing COVID denial against the drug company. The UK government are no longer considering making it compulsory for university students to be fully vaccinated against Covid to attend lectures in England. The Northern Irish government has agreed to the details on a countrywide post-pandemic stimulus scheme. The scheme which would consists of a £100 ($140, €117) gift card to every adult in Northern Ireland to spend on local high street retailers. A deaf woman wins a discrimination case against the government for not having British Sign Language interpreters at Covid briefings in England like they do in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The House of Commons All-Party Public Accounts Committee has said the estimated total cost of emergency spending for the pandemic for the UK could be as much as £370 billion ($509 billion, €432 billion), and would take decades to repay. They have also said that a public inquiry must start imminently. [https://taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4255807 Restrictions in Taiwan are reduced from Level 3 (aka "soft lockdown"( to Level 2. The number of people who can meet indoors increases from 5 to 50. The number of people who can meet outdoors increases from 10 to 100. Some entertainment venues can reopen. Kindergartens can reopen too and after-school clubs can start again.] Doug Ford's key pandemic decisions were swayed by business interests and lobbying First case of the lambda variant detected in Texas. Eight members of the British Olympics squad are self-isolating, two South African soccer players have tested positive for Covid and so has US tennis star Coco Gauff. Katie Hopkins has been dropped by Channel 7 from doing Big Brother VIP, after openly saying that she had breached the special quarantine provision that allowed her to come to Australia. Update: She's been deported. Dr. John Baptist Mukasa, a pioneering fully-trained neurosurgeon and notably one of only 13 in the entire nation of Uganda, has passed from COVID. UK Health Secretary, Sajid Javid, ushers in the UK's July 19th relaxation of all Covid restrictions... by testing positive for Covid. Daily new Covid cases in the UK top 50,000 for the first time since January, ahead of the government's planned July 19th reopening. Only Indonesia, with 54,000, had more new cases. Despite the lifting of restrictions in England from the 19th, supermarket chains Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Lidl & Aldi, department store chain John Lewis and bookseller Waterstone's are keeping their mandatory mask requirements Victoria plunges into 5 day lockdown after cases from the Delta outbreak rise to 18. This is their fifth lockdown. [https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51205344 Unlike in England, wearing face masks is still mandatory on public transport in Wales as well as in health and social care settings. The current rules in Scotland, that mean masks have to be worn on public transport and in shops, restaurants and pubs, are unlikely to change any time soon.] Transport for London and Eurostar have said that masks will still be required on their transport services even after 19th July, under their conditions for carriage. Although mask wearing will not be required on other English rail services. Restrictions in Taiwan, in place since mid-May, have been extended until 26 July. But they're being eased a bit.

[https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57761343 It's possible to have two different variants of the coronavirus at the same time. A 90-year-old woman who died in Belgium in March did. It's not yet known if that was a factor in her death.] Catching Covid to own the libs. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57760883 No spectators will be allowed at any Olympic venues in or around Tokyo. The city will also be under a state of emergency from 12 July to 22 August.] As Boris Johnson and Ayn Rand fanboy, Health Secretary Sajid Javid, prepare for the UK to "live with Covid" from June 19th, amid rapidly rising infection rates, hospital emergency departments are seeing new records for patient numbers in recent weeks. New Lambda variant, which may be deadlier than Delta, and which was originally detected in Peru, now in more than 30 countries. Contrasting attitudes to "living with covid" - New Zealand not prepared to allow people to die; On the other hand Boris thinks "we must reconcile ourselves, sadly, to more deaths from covid" Woohoo! Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has said that half of all Irish adults are now fully vaccinated. The majority of Covid restrictions, including social distancing and mask mandates, are likely to end on 19 July, Boris Johnson says. A final decision is due to be made on 12 July. Luxembourg’s Prime Minister, Xavier Bettel, admitted to hospital after testing positive for COVID-19. Twitter bans anti-vax crank Sherri Tenpenny, whose latest scam was telling people that the Covid vaccine makes you magnetic. [https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57666245 Researchers in the Netherlands and Canada find Covid infections are common in the pet cats and dogs of people who had the disease. The worry is that pets could pass the virus on to people, although that does not seem to have happened yet.]