Headlines
• 70% of US adults have had one vaccine
• J&J withdraws application for vaccine approval in India
• 46% of private UK landlords reduced tenants’ rents last year
• San Francisco reintroduces mask mandate
• Wuhan to test 11m residents
World news
• Johnson & Johnson has withdrawn its application seeking accelerated emergency approval of its vaccine in India, the country’s drugs regulator has said.
• 70% of adults in the US have now received at least one vaccination, reaching a target Joe Biden originally said he had hoped to achieve by 4 July.
• A survey for Shawbrook Bank showed 46% of private landlords in the UK reduced or paused their tenants’ monthly rent payments last year due to the pandemic. Some 28% of landlords said they gave their tenants a payment holiday while a further 18% offered a rent reduction for a certain period.
• The EU has made the first pay -outs to member states from its €800bn post - Covid recovery plan. The first instalments from the pooled “Next Generation EU” fund were €2.2bn to Portugal, €770m to Belgium, and €12.1m to Luxembourg
• Several kidney transplants within the Belfast Health Trust area could not g o ahead at the weekend because not enough nurses were available to support surgeons. The trust was offered healthy kidneys from deceased donors but they were turned down, as the operations could not be carried out without sufficient staff.
• San Francisco and six other counties in California’s Bay Area are to reimpose mask mandates for indoor spaces.
• Scotland to move beyond level zero from 9 August. Masks will continue to be mandated. • Female labour participation rate in India fell to 16.1% during the July - September 2020 quarter, the lowest among the major economies, a government report said. The unemployment rate among women touched 15.8%, compared with 12.6% among male workers during the three months that ended in September 2020.
• Authorities in the Chinese city of Wuhan will begin testing its entire 11m residents after a new outbreak.
• The number of deaths involving Covid in the UK has risen 46% in the week ending 23 July, according to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics. 392 deaths were registered that mentioned Covid -19 on the death certificate, 124 more than were reported in the previous week.
• Guadeloupe will to go into a new partial lockdown for at least three weeks. The new measures will start on Wednesday, with the re -introduction of a daily curfew between 20:00 and 05:00. Travel during the day will be restricted to a 10km radius. Bars, gyms, stadiums and swimming pools will be closed, but shops will stay open with restaurants being able to serve at lunchtime.
• The England men's cricket team's planned tour of Bangladesh, which was due to take place in September and October, will now take place in March 2023.
• US Senator Lindsey Graham has tested positive after having had a vaccine.
• Germany has said it will begin offering third vaccines to elderly and at-risk groups. Care -home residents will be offered Pfizer or Moderna booster shots, regardless of which vaccine they originally received.
• Nigeria has received a donation of four million doses of vaccine from the US government.
• A study published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology (BMJ), which looked at two groups of children aged six to eight in Hong Kong, showed a potential increase in myopia incidence with a significant decrease in outdoor time and increase in screen time among schoolchildren in Hong Kong following extended periods of lockdown.
• Greece has withdrawn its team from the Olympics artistic swimming competitions after four athletes tested positive.
• Morocco is introducing new restrictions from tonight, including a curfew from 9pm to 5am. Travel between Marrakesh, Casablanca and Agadir will also be banned except for those with a vaccination passport or for essential travel.
