From 23 March to 15 June 2020, which corresponds with the UK’s first lockdown, just over seven in 10 of the participants reported having more vivid dreams, compared with pre-pandemic. Being infected during the pandemic’s first wave, in early 2020, was also linked to a raised risk of clots. The roll-out of vaccines and improved covid-19 treatments later in the pandemic probably protected against clots, according to the researchers.

These figures are expected to be considerably less useful for tracking the pandemic’s progress since England scrapped free universal testing on 1 April. If Israel hadn’t initiated its booster campaign, officials would have “needed to apply extensive non-pharmaceutical interventions to prevent a destructive epidemic wave”, the analysis concluded. The researchers, from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, also found vaccinating younger age groups, who are less likely to become seriously ill with covid-19, is key to preventing transmission. Experts have warned a lack of testing infrastructure worldwide means the global case number is probably much higher than is being reported, particularly in poorer countries.

WHO researchers analysed 151 previous studies on the proportion of people in Africa with covid-19 antibodies. They estimate about 800 million people had been infected by September 2021, but just 8.2 million cases were reported. More than two-thirds of people living in Africa have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus since the pandemic began – 97 times more than the continent’s officially reported cases, according to a World Health Organization study.

More than 7000 primary and secondary students from 150 schools were tested for antibodies in January and February. Extrapolating the results out across England, an estimated 96.6 per cent of secondary school students and 62.4 per cent of primary school pupils had SARS-Cov-2 antibodies at the beginning of the year. England is due to roll out a low-dose Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for five- to 11-year-olds this month, which will include most primary pupils. The pre-existing antibodies among younger children therefore came about via a natural infection. On 31 March, the city reported 4144 new asymptomatic cases and 358 new symptomatic cases, compared with 5298 asymptomatic cases and 355 symptomatic cases the day before.

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One third of the participants said they are concerned about catching covid-19, down from 40 per cent in January. BA.4 has been identified in South Africa, Denmark, Botswana, Scotland and England, the UK’s Health Security Agency said last week. BA.5 had exclusively been found in South Africa, however, Botswana’s health ministry reported cases of both BA.4 and BA.5 yesterday. Graham Cooke at Imperial College London has said exposure to a circulating virus after the lifting of restrictions could be behind the surge. The number of reported cases in England has fallen 26 per cent week-on-week, dropping from 51,253 on 6 April to 37,819 on 12 April.

A WHO analysis estimates Africa’s true case number is 100 times higher than that which is being reported. Under British takeover rules, AstraZeneca could reach out to Pfizer in three months and Pfizer could take another run at its smaller British rival in six months’ time, whether it is invited back or not. People are instructed not to leave their homes, even to dispose of rubbish or walk their dogs, Reuters reported.

China’s largest city was initially placed in a two-stage 10-day lockdown, affecting its eastern districts for five days, followed by an additional five days of restrictions in its western districts. On 28 March, China’s largest city introduced a two-stage, 10-day lockdown in a bid to control its omicron outbreak. Initially, the lockdown was planned to affect eastern Shanghai for five days, followed by an additional five days of restrictions in the city’s western districts. Covid-19 vaccines provide significantly more protection among people who have previously been infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus, according to two studies published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases. The studies did not look at the level of protection among people who fought off covid-19 after catching it post-vaccination.

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This is compared with an average 4.4-day symptom duration when omicron was dominant, defined as the end of December 2021 to mid-January 2022, when the study completed. Cristina Menni at King’s College London and her colleagues analysed more than 63,000 people who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 virus between June 2021 and January 2022. The participants, who had all received at least two doses of any covid-19 vaccine, self-reported their positive test result and symptoms via the Zoe COVID app. Aligning with past research, the study found men and people under 30 were more likely to develop heart inflammation. The risk was also higher in those who had an mRNA vaccine as opposed to a jab based on different technology, such as the Oxford/AstraZeneca or Janssen vaccines, and after a second dose of any covid-19 jab.

The mRNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech have to be stored at no more than -20°C, for a maximum of six months. Once thawed, the Moderna jab lasts up to 30 days in a standard fridge, while the Pfizer/BioNTech https://xcritical.com/ vaccine can be kept for just five days. Nearly all secondary school students in England have antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, according to the Office for National Statistics’ Covid-19 Schools Infection Survey.

• The US has extended its covid-19 public health emergency status, which was initially declared in January 2020 and has been renewed every quarter since.
• A second booster dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine provides some protection against severe illness among people over 60 who are infected with omicron BA.1, according to a study of more than 1 million people in Israel.
• Now, the UK is the first in Europe to sign off on the jab, which can be stored for up to a year in a standard fridge.
• Shanghai will start loosening lockdown restrictions in some regions from today, according to city officials.

“Many people are no longer isolating when they have symptoms, either because they feel they don’t have to anymore or because they or their employers still don’t recognise symptoms like runny nose or sore throat as covid,” he said. This list more closely matches that of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which recognised many of these symptoms early in the pandemic. The more-transmissible omicron BA.2 sublineage made up an estimated 94.7 per cent of the March cases, up from just 0.8 per cent in January. A very small number of the infections were recombinants of the sublineages BA.1 and BA.2, including five incidences of the recombinant XE. Early tests suggest XE may be around 10 per cent more transmissible than BA.2, according to the World Health Organization.

Covid

Covid-19 infections remain high, with an estimated one in 16 people having the infection in Northern Ireland and one in 13 people in the rest of the UK over the first weekend of April, according to an Office for National Statistics survey. This is compared with people with a less than 10 per cent risk of developing heart disease, calculated according to factors like their body mass index, smoking status and blood pressure. Pfizer’s final offer was at a price that many analysts and investors had previously suggested would bring AstraZeneca to the table for serious negotiations. But in rejecting an earlier offer of £53.50 as undervaluing the company, the British group indicated that it needed a bid more than 10 per cent higher, or at least £58.85 per share, for its board to consider a recommendation.

An estimated 1.7 million people in the UK, about 2.7 per cent of the population, have long covid, according to an Office for National Statistics survey. The survey participants self-reported any long covid symptoms, defined as those that persist for more than four weeks after a suspected SARS-CoV-2 virus infection and cannot be explained by something else. A second booster dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine provides some protection against severe illness among people over 60 who are infected with omicron BA.1, according to a study of more than 1 million people in Israel. Severe illness aside, protection against infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus itself waned after four weeks. Regardless of the severity of a person’s covid-19 symptoms, the risk of deep vein thrombosis within 30 days of infection increased five-fold, persisting at this level for three months.

According to the Office for National Statistics, which uses a different method for estimating SARS-CoV-2 infection rates, one in 16 people in England had covid-19 on the week ending 19 March, rising to one in 13 seven days later. Of these, 1.1 million said their long covid symptoms adversely affect their day-to-day activities, with 322,000 saying their ability to perform daily activities has been “limited by a lot”. The ONS survey swabs thousands of random people for SARS-CoV-2 virus, regardless of whether they have symptoms, and is unaffected by the end of free universal testing in England. An analysis of Israel’s vaccine booster campaign has revealed the timing of booster roll-outs is crucial to preventing a surge in cases, particularly when infections are growing exponentially. Coronavirus, Explained on Netflix is a short documentary series examining the coronavirus pandemic, the efforts to fight it and ways to manage its mental health toll.

The study only compared the two vaccines against each other, not against people who did not receive any jab. Last month, Spector said the UK’s narrow symptom list was probably contributing to its infection surge. The NHS’ list stops short of some of the World Health Organization’s symptoms, however, which also considers skin rashes, red or irritated eyes, or discolouration of the fingers or toes to be less common signs of infection. Chest pain, confusion, or a loss of speech or mobility can occur in severe cases, according to WHO. Despite infections rising across all age groups, incidences appear to be declining in people aged 5 to 17 and plateauing among those aged 18 to 54. Males in the Bangladeshi ethnic group have the highest covid-19 mortality rate in England, according to ONS data.

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Most of the city’s public transport has also been suspended and all non-essential businesses are closed. One in 16 people in England is thought to have covid-19, the highest prevalence recorded by Imperial College London’s surveillance study React since it started in May 2020. People in the UK are more worried about their finances than catching covid-19, despite an estimated one in 13 people being infected across England, Wales and Scotland, while one in 16 are thought to have covid-19 in Northern Ireland. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at the WHO has warned we are still in an “acute phase of the pandemic”, as the more transmissible omicron variant and its sublineages spread across the world. The number of new worldwide cases appears to have been falling in recent weeks, with the daily case rate 41 per cent lower than it was two weeks ago, according to Johns Hopkins University. Reduced testing and a subsequent underreporting of cases probably contributed to this apparent fall in cases.

These males are 2.7 times more likely to die from covid-19 than their white British counterparts. Among females, people in the Pakistani ethnic group are 2.5 times more likely to die from covid-19 than their white British counterparts. Disparities in mortality rates between different ethnic groups may be down to varying vaccine uptake.

April

DVT is a blood clot in a vein, usually in the leg, which can break off and travel to the lungs. China’s health officials announced on 31 March they will instead lift restrictions on the east side in stages. With western Shanghai starting its five-day restrictions today, these extended measures plunge the city’s 26-million-strong population into lockdown. For pulmonary embolism specifically, a positive covid-19 test was found to raise the risk of the condition 33-fold, persisting at this level for six months, compared with the participants who never tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 virus. From June to November 2021, when delta was the dominant variant in the UK, covid-19 symptoms lasted on average 7.7 days among the participants who were triple jabbed.

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The study, published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, found 18 cases of heart inflammation occur per 1 million covid-19 vaccine doses, compared with 56 cases per 1 million doses of non-covid vaccinations. The rate of heart inflammation was even found to be “significantly higher” after a smallpox jab than a covid-19 vaccine. Pregnant people who are vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 virus are almost twice as likely to get covid-19 compared with people who are vaccinated but not pregnant, according to an analysis of about 14 million hospital patients in the US. Pregnancy is the greatest risk factor for breakthrough covid-19 infections, above being an organ transplant recipient or having an immune system deficiency, the study found. The locked-down city in China recently extended its restrictions, despite initial signs that infections may be declining. On April 3, Shanghai reported 8581 new asymptomatic covid-19 cases and 425 symptomatic cases, compared with 7788 new asymptomatic cases and 438 symptomatic cases the day before.

The clot risk was highest among participants with severe covid-19, however, even those with mild covid-19 symptoms were three times more at risk of DVT and seven times more at risk of a pulmonary embolism. In rare cases, the mRNA-based Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna covid-19 vaccines in particular have been linked to heart inflammation. The risk is higher among younger people, which contributed to the UK’s delayed decision to roll-out covid-19 vaccines to 5-to-11 year olds. Bizarre lockdown dreams may have reflected our claustrophobia and sense of being out of control. University College London researchers analysed more than 850 dreams submitted online to the Lockdown Dreams project between March 2020 and March 2021.

The World Health Organisation tracker, which updates daily, is just shy of this grim milestone, reporting 497,960,492 cases as of 12 April. Humans of COVID-19 is a project highlighting the experiences of key workers on the frontline in the fight against coronavirus in the UK, through social media. Is a BBC documentary, which investigates what the high covid-19 death rates in ethnic minority patients reveal about health inequality in the UK. This comes as Pfizer’s chief executive said the firm could develop a covid-19 vaccine that protects against all known variants by the end of the year. Now, the UK is the first in Europe to sign off on the jab, which can be stored for up to a year in a standard fridge.

“While infections remain high, there are early signs in our latest data that they may no longer be increasing in some parts of the UK,” Sarah Crofts at ONS said in a statement. The World Health Organisation is tracking two new sublineages of the omicron variant to determine if they are more transmissible, virulent or better able to evade past immunity. According to Johns Hopkins University’s case tracker, more than 500,900,000 covid-19 cases have been reported worldwide.

Officials now plan to lift some restrictions in areas that have not had any positive cases for two consecutive weeks. This equates to just under 4.9 million people being infected across the UK – 25,000 fewer cases than AstraZeneca and Pfizer reviews the previous week’s record high. “These findings could suggest that our return to more ‘normal’ living has not had all the mental health benefits that people necessarily expected.” Daisy Fancourt at UCL told Sky News.

On 4 April, the city reported 13,086 new asymptomatic cases, after testing 25 million people in 24 hours. This is a relatively low number of infections compared with other nations, however, China is imposing strict restrictions as it pursues a “zero covid” policy. The survey also found that 49 per cent of people feel in control of their mental health, down from 54 per cent six months ago, and the number of people reporting anxiety or depression symptoms is at its highest level in 11 months.

The shares fell back to £42.29 by 9.20am British Time, still a premium to the undisturbed price of £37.82 before Pfizer’s bid interest was first reported in mid-April. Pfizer’s decision – announced on Monday during a public holiday – had been widely expected after a rejection by AstraZeneca’s board of its final offer of £55 a share. Shares in AstraZeneca fell 2.3 per cent yesterday after US drugmaker Pfizer said it would not make a formal bid to acquire its smaller British rival. Those who probably caught omicron were more likely to report a sore throat and hoarse voice than those with delta, however, the latter variant was more strongly linked to brain fog, headache and fever.