At Port Moresby General Hospital, about 20% of women presenting in labour have symptoms of Covid-19. Of these, about one-third (four to five women a day) test positive. We get the test results back about two to three hours after we take the swabs, so often by the time the woman is delivering her baby it is too late to transfer her to the Covid isolation ward for the birth and staff have attended to her and been exposed to the virus, without being able to don the appropriate level of PPE and practice other precautionary measures to protect themselves. The UK coronavirus variant spread rapidly through care homes in England at the end of 2020 and accounted for 60% of positive cases analysed in two weeks, government-funded research suggests. In the South East, where the variant was most dominant, it accounted for 80% of positive test results in care home staff and residents processed in the second week of December and analysed by researchers from University College London (UCL). Researchers analysed 4,442 positive PCR tests undertaken by care home residents and staff and processed between November 23 and December 13. A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “Protecting residents in care homes is a key priority and we are doing everything we can to support the sector, including offering free PPE, regular testing and providing over 1.1 billion for infection control measures. “In the face of the new variant, we acted to protect those most at risk in care homes, with an additional 269 million to fund tests and increase staffing. In addition, we have prioritised residents for a vaccine in line with advice from the independent JCVI. “This study helped inform our response to the new variant and the national restrictions and vaccination programme are helping to reduce transmission. It is vital we all continue to follow the latest guidance to reduce infections, stay safe and save lives.” Australia will immediately provide 8,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses and critical health equipments to Papua New Guinea (PNG) due to the spike in new coronavirus infections in the country, prime minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday. It will also request AstraZeneca PLC and European authorities to grant access to one million doses of the country’s contracted vaccines for PNG, Morrison said. Australia will also suspend all charter flights for two weeks from Wednesday midnight and outbound travel to the country, the prime minister said, Reuters reports. The front page of Wednesday’s Guardian in the UK. Brazil death toll surpasses 282,000 Brazil on Tuesday registered a record 2,841 deaths in the past 24 hours. In total, 282,127 people have died in Brazil. Cases rose on Tuesday by 83,926 to 11,603,535, Reuters reports. Pregnant women vaccinated against Covid-19 could pass along protection to their babies according to a new study in Israel, Reuters reports. According to the research conducted in February, antibodies were detected in all 20 women administered both doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine during their third trimester of pregnancy and in their newborns, through placental transfer. “Our findings highlight that vaccination of pregnant women may provide maternal and neonatal protection from SARS-CoV-2 infection,” the study said. The findings by researchers from Jerusalem’s Hadassah- University Medical Center were posted this month on medRxiv, an online distribution service for unpublished research manuscripts that have not been peer-reviewed. The authors noted the small size of the study and said further research was necessary to gauge the effect of vaccination at different stages of pregnancy, and the safety and efficacy of the different vaccines now available. One of the researchers, Dana Wolf, was quoted by the Jerusalem Post as saying the group will now start looking at how long the antibodies triggered by the vaccinations will last in the babies. Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE said last month they had started a 4,000-volunteer international study to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of their Covid-19 vaccine in healthy pregnant women. The trial will also assess whether vaccinated pregnant women transfer protective antibodies to their babies. Londoners receiving the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine dismissed concerns about its potential risks, after several countries suspended its use due to fears about blood clots, AFP reports. “I’ve just had the AstraZeneca jab and I’m very happy with that,” said Sofia Harding, a 57-year-old seamstress, at the Science Museum in the British capital. “I’m not concerned about other countries being a bit cautious because I don’t think there’s enough evidence,” she told AFP. The low-cost jab, developed by scientists at Oxford University with the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical giant, was initially hailed as a game-changer in the fightback against the virus. But it has since faced problems internationally, with doubts expressed in some EU countries about its suitability for older people. Further concerns over cases of blood clots have prompted several countries to halt its rollout, even as regulators and global health experts said it was safe to use. Those receiving the jab in Britain include Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, who received her first dose earlier this year. On a visit to a vaccination centre at a mosque in north London with her husband Prince Charles on Tuesday, she told a doctor she had received the AstraZeneca jab. “Although it didn’t matter. I didn’t ask. I don’t even ask because I hate injections so much that I shut my eyes... whatever comes out,” she said. Giles Johnson, a 57-year-old photographer, also insisted he was “completely relaxed” about getting the AstraZeneca jab rather than the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine also being used in the UK. “Statistically, people have blood clots as a matter of routine,” Johnson said. “I think the overall benefits of both vaccines... far exceed the possible negatives.” An extra £12 billion a year investment is needed in the NHS and care system in England to try and recover the damage done by Covid-19, according to a report. Covid-19 has inflicted such damage on England’s health and care services that it has undone years of progress and threatens “decade of health disruption,” the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said in its State of Health and Care report. There have been 31 million fewer GP appointments, which will be most concerning for people with long-term conditions, and an additional 4,500 avoidable cancer deaths are expected this year because of pandemic disruptions, the report found. Checks on people with severe mental illnesses have fallen below a third of their target levels, resulting in 235,000 fewer people having been referred for psychological therapies. The IPPR says the severe strain being endured by the NHS in England can be tackled with an extra 2.2 billion per year for the next five years to try and pull back on the elective backlog and manage the mental health surge. A government spokesman said: “We are backing the NHS in every possible way in our fight against this virus, investing 63 billion this year and 22 billion next year. “This investment comes on top of 9.4 billion capital funding to build and upgrade 40 new hospitals and 3 billion we have earmarked for supporting recovery and tackling the NHS waiting lists. “It is already making a difference, with average waiting times for elective treatment falling by 40% since July and we will continue to work with the NHS to ensure all patients receive the best quality care as quickly as possible.” A Brazilian politician has suggested using helicopters and planes to spray his town with hand sanitizer in a desperate and futile bid to obliterate the coronavirus from above. The mystifying proposal was floated in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul on Monday, as Brazil wrestles with the deadliest phase of its 13-month outbreak and the country’s Covid death toll rose to nearly 280,000. A summary of today"s developments The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said it was investigating more than 30 reported cases of unusual blood disorders out of 5 million recipients of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Sweden’s health agency said it was pausing vaccinations against Covid-19 using AstraZeneca’s vaccine as a precautionary measure. Latvia’s health agency on Tuesday also announced a “temporary suspension” of up to two weeks of the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine. The head of France’s vaccination programme, Alain Fischer, has said decisions by multiple EU countries to suspend inoculations with the AstraZeneca vaccine were due to the unusual nature of the side-effects reported rather than their number (see 10.28am). French prime minister Jean Castex has said that France had entered a third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, as the seven-day average of new cases rose above 25,000 for the first time since 20 November. Castex also said he intends to get an AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine once European health authorities confirm the jab is safe. Two cases of a new coronavirus strain first reported in the Philippines have been found in England. Public Health England said the variant contains a number of notable mutations, including the E484K spike protein found in the Manaus variant. Iceland is to allow entry to all visitors bearing proof of vaccination against Covid starting from Thursday, the country’s health ministry said. The move makes the country one of the first European nations to open its borders beyond the Schengen area (see 5.37pm). Former UK prime minister Tony Blair called for world leaders to make sure that groundbreaking future vaccines are not subject to restrictive intellectual property laws (see 3.54pm). The number of deaths from Covid-19 across Europe passed 900,000, according to an AFP tally. There were more than 530,000 additional deaths in the EU and EFTA countries from January to December 2020, against the average number of deaths during the same period between 2016 and 2019. There was chaos and confusion in Germany and Italy after their decisions to suspend use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid jab, with vaccination centres closing their doors and appointments being abruptly cancelled. The number of new coronavirus infections in the Netherlands increased by 24% in the last seven days, the biggest weekly jump since mid-December, Dutch health authorities said (see 3.16pm). Restaurant and hotel staff set up tables and beds in public squares across Lithuania, urging the government to provide more support to the pandemic-hit hospitality industry (see 2.45pm). Nicaragua received a first batch of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine doses, Vice President Rosario Murillo said on Tuesday, donated through the World Health Organization’s global vaccine-sharing COVAX program. Murillo said Covax had donated 137,000 doses and that the Nicaragua would receive more shots through the Covax mechanism at the end of March, but did not specify how many. In late February, Nicaragua received its first batch of vaccine doses from an initial donation of Russia’s Sputnik V product and has begun inoculating people with pre-existing conditions such as heart disease, kidney failure and cancer. India has also already donated 200,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Nicaragua, and has agreed to deliver an additional 300,000 doses. The UK’s health secretary Matt Hancock has sought to reassure the public that the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine is safe after some European nations halted its roll-out. He told broadcasters: “The Oxford/AstraZeneca jab is safe, we know that over 10 million people have had it in this country, and that’s what the British regulator says but also the World Health Organisation and even the European regulator. “We keep the effects of these vaccines under review all the time and we know that the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is saving lives in the UK right now so if you get the call, get the jab.” Asked if there has been evidence of people turning the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine down in the wake of the European suspensions, Hancock added: “We’re still getting huge numbers of people vaccinated every day and in fact the numbers yesterday were one of the highest numbers that we’ve seen. The enthusiasm for getting the vaccine is incredibly strong and we’re still seeing that.” French prime minister Jean Castex told BFM TV he intends to get an AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine once European health authorities confirm the jab is safe. France and other major EU members - including Germany and Italy - suspended use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine on Monday pending the outcome of investigations into unusual cases of a rare cerebral thrombosis in people who had received it, Reuters reports. Castex added the moment had come to think about measures to contain the spread of Covid-19 in the greater Paris region, with a weekend lockdown being the most likely outcome, as is already the case in other areas. US President Joe Biden said he is in talks with several countries about extra doses of Covid-19 vaccines. “We*re talking with several countries already,” he told reporters as he left the White House to promote his coronavirus stimulus package in Pennsylvania. “I’ll let you know that very shortly.” Biden has promised to make sure every American has access to a vaccine before giving any to other nations. He did not identify the countries. Mexico has asked the US to share doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine it has in stock, a senior diplomat said, following up on a request made by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to Biden. Mexico’s deputy foreign minister for multilateral affairs, Martha Delgado, said that since the US had not yet approved the AstraZeneca vaccine, it would be a good candidate to offer to Mexico, which has started using it already. The nominee for Brazil’s health minister, who will represent the ministry’s third change of leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic, said he plans to continue the controversial policies of far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro. The initial comments by cardiologist Marcelo Queiroga dashed hopes for a change in course to curb a worsening pandemic that has killed over 270,000 people in Brazil, which had the worst weekly death toll in the world last week. Outgoing health minister Eduardo Pazuello, an active duty army general, was under pressure as fatalities surged, even though he toed Bolsonaro’s line against lockdowns. He also backed the president’s endorsement of anti-malarial drugs to treat Covid-19, the effectiveness of which is disputed by many healthcare providers. “Minister Pazuello has been working hard to improve health conditions in Brazil and I was called upon by President Bolsonaro to continue this work,” Queiroga told reporters as he arrived for his first meeting at the ministry. He said health policy is set by the president and the minister is there to implement it, Reuters reports.