Coronavirus News: Government advisers say that Covid is unlikely to be a seasonal and true herd immunity

Despite the lifting of the blockade, Deliveroo doubled the number of orders received through its app in the first six months of this year.

The company said it received 148.8 million orders in the first half of the year, up from 74.5 million in the same period in 2020. It also reported that the total transaction value doubled to nearly 3.4 billion pounds.

Asymptomatic coronavirus testing programs are being launched in more workplaces in Scotland.

According to the latest plan of the Scottish government, companies with 10 or more employees can now register for a free horizontal mobility kit.

The testing system will be voluntary, and organizations can distribute toolkits among employees or use them in the workplace.

Public Health Minister Maree Todd said: “Testing can play a vital role in our safe lifting of the lockdown. The workplace test launched this time will cover all companies with 10 or more employees. On top of our strategy to deal with Covid-19.

“The vaccination program has been a great success, but even if you have been fully vaccinated, there is no guarantee that you will not catch the virus and spread it without knowing that you are infected.

“Asymptomatic testing will still be an important tool to break the chain of transmission in the future.”

Studies have shown that one in four employers does not give employees paid time off to get the Covid vaccine.

Acas, the mediation service, said its research also shows that many bosses do not plan to allow employees to be inspected during working hours and get paid for missed time.

Susan Clews, CEO of Acas, said: “The vaccine rollout plan is progressing well. Our survey shows that most employers allow employees to take paid leave for vaccination, but a quarter of them do not.

“Our research also shows that a similar number of bosses did not pay full company sick pay to employees who were unable to work due to side effects of the vaccine.

“It is in the best interest of the company to develop a vaccine policy that supports employees’ vacations, because fully vaccinated employees are unlikely to need longer vacations to recover from Covid 19.”

The report is based on a survey of 2,000 companies.

Morrisons employees will take a holiday on Boxing Day this year to thank them for their hard work during the pandemic.

This will be the first time this grocery store closes in its memory on December 26.

The supermarket notified its 111,000 employees on Tuesday.

Last year, after the most difficult year in the retail industry, several competitors agreed to let employees take a day off to spend time with their families and loved ones.

Asda, Marks & Spencer, Pets At Home, Aldi, Lidl and The Entertainer have all stated that they will close on December 26, even though they have opened in previous years.

Morrisons, Tesco, and Sainsbury’s are open on Boxing Day, but some provide incentives for employees to work.

Joanne McGuiness, a national official at the store workers’ union Usdaw, said: “The past year and a half have been different.

“The pandemic means that store staff are stepping up their work and keeping basic services running. We welcome Morrison to have their employees do the right thing if the supermarket is closed on Boxing Day.”

A committee member advising Jabs said that the number of young people infected with the coronavirus “severely ill” has led to the expansion of vaccination coverage to 16 and 17 years of age.

Adam Finn, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Bristol, said that in recent weeks, a “pair” of 17-year-olds in the area needed intensive care in the hospital.

Mr. Finn is a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI). He added that although most young people will only be infected with mild viruses, vaccines can effectively prevent severe cases.

He told the BBC breakfast: “We are now cautiously entering childhood from all age groups. It is clear that the number of cases and the number of young people in the age group-16, 17-are seriously ill and worth moving on and only giving them the first dose. .”

Australian athletes returning from the Tokyo Olympics were told to quarantine for 28 days.

The Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) called the South Australian government’s two additional weeks of self-isolation “cruel and indifferent.”

As part of the Covid-19 restrictions aimed at preventing the spread of delta variants, international travelers arriving in Australia must be quarantined in quarantined hotels or other special facilities for 14 days.

However, South Australia has imposed an additional 14-day home quarantine requirement for immigrants from the eastern Australian states of Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales who are battling the Covid-19 outbreak.

AOC stated that its request for athletes to be exempted from an additional quarantine period has been rejected.

“Although other countries are celebrating the return of their athletes, we are allowing our athletes to be treated the most cruelly and ruthlessly,” said AOC CEO Matt Carroll.

“They were punished for representing their country proudly at the Olympics.”

Facebook closed hundreds of accounts related to a Russian advertising company that targeted influencers to smear the Covid-19 vaccine.

The social media company said that these 65 Facebook pages and 243 Instagram accounts are all peddling conspiracy theories and trying to pay influential people to promote the unsafe vaccines of Pfizer and AstraZeneca.

The tech giant said a network of accounts can be traced back to Fazze, an advertising and marketing company working in Russia on behalf of an unknown client.

Read the full text here.

Melbourne has extended its recent lockdown period to contain the Covid-19 outbreak.

The Victorian government said on Wednesday that Australia’s second largest city will continue to implement restrictions until August 19, and 20 new cases of infection have been reported at the same time.

Sydney authorities said that although the delta virus continues to spread, they are considering relaxing restrictions on vaccinated residents.

The New South Wales government has reported 344 new infections and stated that it can relax some restrictions on vaccinated Sydney residents from September.

Australia used lockdown measures to successfully end the coronavirus outbreak throughout the pandemic. But the highly contagious delta variant brings new challenges.

Last night, the gorillas returned to the stage and held a free concert for NHS staff. This was the first time they performed in front of a live audience in the past three years.

This virtual band performed in the O2 Arena, and concert audiences need to show a negative Covid-19 test to enter the O2 live event for the first time since March 2020.

As the government eased travel restrictions, the number of passengers at Heathrow Airport surged in July, but warned that the overall number was still 80% lower than pre-pandemic levels.

The airport received more than 1.5 million passengers in July, making it the busiest month since March 2020, just before the Covid-19 lockdown began in Europe and travel basically stopped.