WHO says two-dose vaccine is ‘safe, effective, and quality-assured’; Malaysia begins tough nationwide lockdown; Melbourne restrictions extended
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- Melbourne lockdown extended as state seeks federal payments for workers
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Today’s WorldView email from the Washington Post by Ishaan Tharoor makes for quite bleak reading. He writes that while in the United States, life is returning to normal, the pandemic is getting worse, even when it seems like it’s getting better:
The pandemic is hardly in retreat elsewhere. The emergence of more virulent variants and the slowness of vaccination efforts in many places outside the West have contributed to deadly new waves. Coronavirus case counts worldwide are already higher in 2021 than they were in 2020.
Southeast Asia, once a bastion of resistance to the virus, is in the grip of a harrowing spike in infections. Cases in Thailand and Vietnam rose dramatically over the past month. Malaysia is now registering more new infections per million people than any medium- or large-size country in Asia, surpassing India.
Neil Lancefield, PA’s transport correspondent, has some quotes from Tom Bartosak-Harlow from the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) this morning. He’s worried that if face coverings and social distancing requirements continue on public transport in England after they have been dropped in other settings, it will stigmatise the use of buses and trains. He said:
We need to see public transport moving at the same pace as the rest of the country. If you no longer have to wear a face covering in certain situations such as hospitality and retail but you do on public transport, we think that would undermine confidence in public transport. If people have this view that going on a bus or a coach carries a greater risk of catching Covid, in the longer term that will encourage people to use their car.
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