Coronavirus latest: England should ‘strike a sensible balance’ on Covid isolation rules, says education minister

One in five US states reported record high levels of Covid-19 hospitalisations during August. By late August, the number of patients hospitalised in the US with coronavirus topped 100,000 for the first time since January. Although that figure continued to edge higher, to 104,178 on August 31 — more than double the level at the end of July — there are signs the national pace of admissions is easing.

About 500,000 people in the UK with severely weakened immune systems will be offered a third jab in an effort to protect them from the virus ahead of the winter months, UK health secretary Sajid Javid said on Wednesday. He said the decision was based on the recommendations of the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, but stressed it was not the beginning of the long-awaited booster campaign. 

The degenerative effect on the brain of coronavirus will add fuel to the “pandemic of dementia”, which will affect an estimated 80m by the end of the decade, scientists have warned. Alzheimer’s Disease International unveiled on Wednesday a specialist working group to better understand the scale of the problem and recommend ways to combat it.

Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced plans to require over-18s to show evidence they have been vaccinated in order to gain entry to nightclubs and large events. The move by the Scottish government, which has previously been sceptical about the use of such “vaccine passports”, underscores concern about surging cases since schools returned last month.

World leaders have been urged by academics, celebrities, former politicians and chief executives to convene a global summit at this year’s UN General Assembly and commit to vaccinating 70 per cent of the world’s population by mid-2022. Signatories, including the chief executives of Anglo American, BT and Rolls-Royce, said in a letter that 7bn doses of “high-quality” coronavirus vaccines should be sent to developing countries by the end of the year, with a further 7bn dispatched by the middle of 2022.

One in seven children aged 11 to 17 in England who have had Covid-19 suffer from persistent symptoms, a government-backed study has found. The CLoCk study, funded by the National Institute for Health Research and UK Research and Innovation, compared data from about 3,000 people aged 11 to 17 who tested positive for Covid-19 in England between January and March this year and 3,700 children who tested negative.