Covid live news: UK cases of Indian variant more than double; Philippines to ease curbs

Figures show 1,313 cases in the past week, up from 520; United Arab Emirates approves emergency use of Pfizer vaccine for 12-15 year olds; daily infections down from a peak six weeks ago in Philippines

• India Covid variant: is it a threat to the UK’s reopening plans?
• What do we know about the India variants? – podcast
• Great day for America, says Biden as mask rule lifted for vaccinated
• Thai prisons holding democracy activists drive record Covid figures
• ‘Increasing concern’ over India variant in UK says Boris Johnson
• See all our coronavirus coverage
  

12.05am BST

We’re closing this blog shortly but thanks very much for reading. Here is a summary of the main developments over the past 18 hours or so.

11.38pm BST

Australia has for the World Health Organization to be given greater powers to investigate outbreaks after an independent panel found dithering and poor coordination when Covid-19 emerged in China.

AFP reports:

Australia has been in the firing line from China, its largest trading partner, over steps including backing US-led calls for a probe into Covid’s origins, with Beijing imposing tariffs on key products including wine and cutting off diplomatic and trade talks.

Israel’s military says ground troops have begun to attack in Gaza – follow updates

Latest news as IDF confirm ground troops attacking in Gaza Strip. It is not yet clear whether the operation is a full-scale invasion

• Israel’s army drafts Gaza ground operation plan as mob violence escalates
• ‘All I saw was fire’: rockets fracture the sense of safety in Tel Aviv
• Gaza weapons boast may come back to haunt Hamas

12.05am BST

Again, there is still confusion over whether this escalation signals the launch of a full-scale ground invasion of Gaza by Israel.

Journalist Anshel Pfeffer, who reports for Haaretz and the Economist, tweeted:

Some kind of Israeli ground offensive has began in the last hour in the Gaza Strip. It’s unclear at present what scale of forces, whether it’s the four brigades that were in staging-areas or a smaller force.

No confirmed details yet but this doesn’t like a large-scale incursion in to Gaza quite yet but something smaller.

Conflicting reports from different sources right now over whether the “ground attack” is actual boots on the ground or just ground forces (tanks, artillery) firing in to the Gaza Strip. We should know soon enough

11.56pm BST

This week’s violence between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers has killed 103 Palestinians, including 27 children, and wounded 530 people in the impoverished territory. Israeli airstrikes have pounded apartments, blown up cars and toppled buildings, the Associated Press reports.

And Gaza’s hospitals were already struggling:

“Before the military attacks, we had major shortages and could barely manage with the second (virus) wave,” said Gaza Health Ministry official Abdelatif al-Hajj by phone as bombs thundered in the background. “Now casualties are coming from all directions, really critical casualties. I fear a total collapse.”

Gutted by years of conflict, the impoverished health care system in the territory of more than 2 million people has always been vulnerable. Bitter division between Hamas and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority and a nearly 14-year blockade imposed by Israel with Egypt’s help also has strangled the infrastructure. There are shortages of equipment and supplies such as blood bags, surgical lamps, anaesthesia and antibiotics.

Personal protection gear, breathing machines and oxygen tanks remain even scarcer.
Last month, Gaza’s daily coronavirus cases and deaths hit record highs, fuelled by the spread of a variant that first appeared in Britain, relaxation of movement restrictions during Ramadan, and deepening public apathy and intransigence.

Delay in giving second jabs of Pfizer vaccine improves immunity

Study finds antibodies against Sars-CoV-2 three-and-a-half times higher in people vaccinated again after 12 weeks rather than three

• Coronavirus – latest updates
• See all our coronavirus coverage

The UK’s decision to delay second doses of coronavirus vaccines has received fresh support from research on the over-80s which found that giving the Pfizer/BioNTech booster after 12 weeks rather than three produced a much stronger antibody response.

A study led by the University of Birmingham in collaboration with Public Health England found that antibodies against the virus were three-and-a-half times higher in those who had the second shot after 12 weeks compared with those who had it after a three-week interval.

Would you pay £99,000 for this self-lacing Nike? Sneakers Unboxed review

Design Museum, London
From battered Vans to box-fresh Adidas, how did sneakers become an $80bn-a-year global industry? This fun show has all the answers – including how to get really fat laces

‘It was all about being the freshest,” says Koe Rodriguez, toothbrush in hand. “That’s how you pulled honeys, how you got respect from the hard rocks. That’s how you laid your game down. It was all about being fresh.” The hip-hop historian’s not talking about his teeth, though, but his sneakers.

Rodriguez appears in Just for Kicks, a 2005 documentary about sneaker culture that also features an MC explaining his painstaking monthly shoelace-cleaning ritual. Treating his precious laces as if they were the finest cashmere, he would carefully scrub them between his clenched knuckles, then pinch out the water, squeeze them with a towel, and press them with the tip of a hot iron, to make them as wide as possible. “They gotta be fat,” he insists.

Helping pupils in England catch up on lost learning will cost £13.5bn – report

‘Significant investment’ beyond existing £1.7bn needed to deliver on PM’s promise that ‘no child is left behind’ after pandemic

The government will need to spend £13.5bn in England to plug gaps in pupils’ learning caused by disruption to their education over the pandemic, according to research.

The report also warns that the government’s forthcoming long-term education recovery plan will need “significant investment” more than three years beyond the existing £1.7bn in short-term catch-up funding if the government is to deliver on the prime minister’s promise that “no child is left behind”.