Coronavirus live news: larger risk of hospitalisation with Delta variant, study says; Australia records 1,035 cases

Delta Covid cases likely to put strain on health services in areas with low vaccination rates, experts say; Australia suffers its worst daily total

It has shipped more than a billion doses, saved countless lives – and faced controversy over its safety and supply.

Oliver Franklin-Wallis speaks to some of those who created the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine to tell the story of their epic race against the virus.

Related: An oral history of Oxford/AstraZeneca: ‘Making a vaccine in a year is like landing a human on the moon’

September will be a key month for monitoring Covid-19 as pupils return to school in England, Dr Mike Tildesley, a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M) government advisory body has said.

Speaking on Times Radio this morning, Dr Tildesley said it “remains to be seen” how things might change when people start to mix more.

I think the key thing for me, actually, is what’s going to happen next month.

Children are going back to school, people are coming back off their summer vacations and I think monitoring what that does to the data – and not just cases but monitoring very carefully hospital admissions and deaths – will really dictate, I think, what’s going to happen in the autumn.

Obviously, we have the Delta variant, which is more transmissible – we have quite high prevalence, a lot of cases; but of course on the other side, we have a very good and effective vaccination campaign.

So I think it remains to be seen how they will trade off against each other and what that will do when September comes and people start to mix a little bit more.”

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3sTUhPf

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