MPs and ministers criticise display of ‘self-interest’ and accuse US president of electioneering

Factory production plummets at the fastest pace seen in three decades, as first-quarter figures emerge

Exclusive: Medical body points to ‘very variable stocking’ of the critical reagent across different states and territoriesDoctors are warning that Australia’s failure to stockpile a commonly-used chemical reagent needed for coronavirus testing is contributing to shortages in the midst of the current pandemic.The Australian Medical Association has warned a common reagent that is critical in the testing of coronavirus is facing supply issues because of the huge demand on Australian laboratories due to Covid-19. Continue reading...

To question Boris Johnson’s coronavirus plan is not ‘politicisation’; with lives at stake, it’s right to ask for evidence

New advice from CDC comes as some states close schools and restaurants and Donald Trump says: ‘Relax, we’re doing great’

Peak Indigenous body calls for urgent response to protect at-risk communitiesAustralia’s peak Aboriginal health group, representing hundreds of health care services, wants state and territory governments to make urgent arrangements to protect Aboriginal people in remote areas who are highly vulnerable to Covid-19.The National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (Naccho) said governments should consider deploying the army in remote areas, where health workers face major challenges in containing any outbreak, including a lack of access to equipment, testing and urgent emergency care. Continue reading...

Early risers in the northern hemisphere can see the crescent moon in the south-east in close conjunction with Mars, Jupiter and SaturnA nice grouping of three planets will grace the pre-dawn sky this week. Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will all rise in the south-east about an hour before the sun. The chart shows the view looking in that direction at 05:15 GMT on 18 March. On that morning, the planets will be joined by a waning crescent moon. Just 32% of the moon’s near-side will be illuminated at that time. If you can find a horizon low enough, the planets will be unmistakeable, partly because they are clustered together and partly because there are no bright stars close to them. The only conspicuous stars in that broad region of the sky will be Altair in Aquila, the Eagle, and Antares in Scorpius, the scorpion. Observers in the southern hemisphere have a much easier time for seeing this conjunction. By the early hours of the morning, the planets will be nicely placed in the eastern sky. They will be easily visible in complete darkness. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Public Health England document seen by Guardian says four in five ‘expected’ to contract virus

Britain’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak carries a risk to the public and to politicians. Time to get a gripBoris Johnson’s decision to go it alone, in global policy terms, over the UK’s Covid-19 outbreak is being challenged every day – and there is a sense of foreboding that the government is coming up short with its answers. Unlike our nearest neighbours, ministers said there would be no imminent ban on mass events because such a prohibition would do no good. On Friday night it was announced that there would be such a proscription. The government then had to make a U-turn this weekend over its message that the UK is pursuing a policy of “herd immunity”. It was troubling – and reflects badly on ministers – that an epidemiological outcome of mass infection was confused with the dubious policy aim of building resistance in the population.The muddled thinking at the heart of government will not engender public confidence. The spectre of mass deaths and possible chaos in an under-funded NHS hangs over ministerial indecision. This is the worst public health crisis for a generation and the government must respond to a level of scrutiny of its policies that some ministers have been, perhaps, unaccustomed to. This is especially true of senior figures who had got used to dismissing criticism as unpatriotic. The buck stops in Downing Street and the prime minister must take a lead. Britain has some simple lessons to learn if it is to avoid fatalities. It should follow some basic principles of transparency in keeping the public informed. Publishing the appropriately anonymised scientific advice and data sets that inform government decisions must be a priority. Continue reading...

Doctors and scientists urge government to stop ignoring strategies from countries that have brought cases down

Restrictions on travel and commerce across continent as countries scramble to contain threat

Covid-19 essential guide: can it be caught on public transport, how is it different from the flu, and how sick will I get?

German government tries to fight off aggressive takeover bid by US, say reports

Vulnerable people should not be exposed to Covid-19 right now in the service of a hypothetical future

What is Covid-19, how does it spread, what are the symptoms, and at what point should you call a doctor?

Plans of action to combat the Covid-19 outbreak around the world show huge differences

The government’s strategy comes with risks, but so do all the alternativesA pandemic is testing global leadership and its capacity to rise to the challenge of “the worst public health crisis for a generation”. To some surprise, the man who said that is addressing the emergency in a more mature fashion than many anticipated when it first began to unfold. Boris Johnson has abandoned the “invisible man” act for which I mocked him a fortnight ago and located the serious side of his character. The pantomime Johnson has been retired from public spectacle and replaced with the sombre Johnson we now see at news conferences. At his most recent, he struck an appropriately sober tone when he warned: “I must level with the British public: many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time”, words prime ministers usually don’t expect to utter outside wartime. Candour, not a quality always associated with this prime minister, is essential. Fear, panic and conspiracy theories are fomented when people suspect that their leaders are not telling them the truth. The Opinium poll that we publish today suggests that more people than not have confidence in the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, but the margin is not a very solid one.The prime minister has been flattered by comparison with Donald Trump. His multiple flaws are being pitilessly highlighted by a crisis that a man who does not believe in scientific evidence or international cooperation is hopelessly ill-equipped to handle. Variously dismissing the coronavirus as “a hoax” cooked up by his opponents to deny him re-election or no worse than the flu, he has swung from juvenile denialism to blaming it on foreigners and Democrats. Then he suddenly announced travel bans and declared a “national emergency”. Continue reading...

We think we’re learning more about the brain, but are we just replacing one story with another?The selfish gene. The Big Bang. The greenhouse effect. Metaphors are at the heart of scientific thinking. They provide the means for both scientists and non-scientists to understand, think through and talk about abstract ideas in terms of more familiar objects or phenomena.But if metaphors can illuminate, they can also constrain. In his new book, The Idea of the Brain, zoologist and historian Matthew Cobb tells the story of how scientists and philosophers have tried to understand the brain and how it works. In every age, Cobb shows, people have thought about the brain largely in terms of metaphors, drawn usually from the most exciting technology of the day, whether clocks or telephone exchanges or the contemporary obsession with computers. The brain, Cobb observes, “is more like a computer than like a clock”, but “even the simplest animal brain is not a computer like anything we have built, nor one we can yet envisage”. Continue reading...

A senior consultant at a leading hospital for respiratory conditions such as pneumonia and cystic fibrosis talks to the Observer

Major airlines are now battling for survival – and those staying at home may start to question their need to travelAs coronavirus grew from a Chinese outbreak to a global pandemic, the aviation industry was at the leading edge of the accompanying financial crisis. Since the extraordinary intercontinental travel ban imposed by President Trump last week, the disastrous potential extent of the crisis for airlines has become clear.A drop-off in demand, as businesses cut back on travel and passengers deferred holidays, is being replaced by government decrees and mandatory public health measures. If much lost trade has so far come in the quiet months for western carriers in the northern hemisphere, the prospect of losing spring and summer bookings is another scale of financial loss altogether. Continue reading...

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Ten more people in the UK die as hundreds of scientists warn that government’s ‘herd immunity’ strategy is risking too many lives

Hundreds of scientists have supported an open letter pressing for ‘more restrictive measures’ to contain coronavirus

And it will cost more here because of the UK pulling out of the European Medicines Agency on 30 December

Andy Slavitt, formerly Medicare and Medicaid administrator, tweets outline of threat after ‘Trump’s months-long denial’

The coronavirus should remind us of just why international cooperation is so important in reducing the threat of infectious disease

The WHO has declared the Covid-19 outbreak to be a pandemic. But what does that mean?

It’s only when we run out of luck that we comprehend how precarious life can beSpeaking to parliament in 1855 as the carnage of the Crimean war grew, the radical MP John Bright produced an imperishable image. “The angel of death has been abroad throughout the land, you may almost hear the beating of his wings.”Death’s wings are beating countless millions towards the world of the sick today. You may enter full of confidence. You may think good health is like a car, and a hospital is a garage where you can park your malfunctioning body for the professionals to fix. Your confidence comes from the luck of living in an advanced scientific society with history’s longest life expectancy and highest living standards. The world of the sick teaches you to dispense with certainties. You discover that your condition, or in my case the condition of someone you love, which seemed a temporary malfunction, is incurable or is possibly incurable, for no one really knows. Continue reading...

Charlotte Amelia Poe grew up knowing she was different. Now it’s her mission – through her art and writing – to bring about changeFor artist and writer Charlotte Amelia Poe, 30, every day feels like a walk across a frozen pond. “It’s how it’s always been,” she explains. “You’re trying to navigate it and stay safe, but you’re aware that at any moment the ice is likely to crack, and at that point you will sink into the water.”The worst of it is that, when she feels that way, she has no idea how she can avoid going under. “You think you’re doing fine and you’re treading carefully enough not to crack the ice. But suddenly you’ve gone under. You’ve got it completely wrong – and you’ve no idea why.” Continue reading...

We’re fighting an ‘infodemic’ as well as a pandemic. A bit of online self-discipline is urgently requiredOn 15 February the director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, addressed the Munich Security conference. At that moment, there were 66,000 cases of Covid-19 in China, and only 505 in the rest of the world. So most of us were probably still assuming that this was predominately a Chinese problem. This view was not shared by the WHO director-general. He was also concerned about: the lack of urgency in the international community; the severe disruption in the market for personal protective equipment, which was putting health workers at risk; the levels of rumours and misinformation that were hampering the response; and the havoc the virus could wreak in countries with weaker health systems.The part of his speech that made me sit up, though, was this: “We’re not just fighting an epidemic; we’re fighting an infodemic. Fake news spreads faster and more easily than this virus, and is just as dangerous.” And if we don’t tackle this, he went on, “we are headed down a dark path that leads nowhere but division and disharmony”. Continue reading...

What is Covid-19, how does it spread, what are the symptoms, and at what point should you call a doctor?

French minister says patients should take paracetamol rather than ibuprofen or cortisone

Dr Tom Wingfield of Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine answers our questions on Covid-19

Writers from China, Italy and the UK explain how we are cooperating to produce measured reporting on a global crisisI have overseen our coverage of the coronavirus outbreak in China, from when there were just a few cases of “unknown pneumonia” in Wuhan in December to the lockdown of Wuhan and other cities in late January, and most recently as Beijing has begun to declare victory over the virus, which has claimed the lives of more than 3,000 people and infected more than 80,000here. Continue reading...

All major world religions are limiting large gatherings and physical contact to halt transmission of Covid-19Events to mark important religious festivals could be cancelled or curtailed in the coming weeks because of the coronavirus crisis.Next month, most of the world’s major religions have festivals involving large gatherings of people. Easter is on 12 April (a week later for Eastern Orthodox churches); Passover begins on 8 April; Rama Navami, an important Hindu festival, is on 2 April; while the Sikh festival of Vaisakhi is a few days later. The Islamic holy month of Ramadan begins around 23 April. Continue reading...

Saudi Arabia suspends all international flights, New Zealand introduces quarantine for almost all arrivals

Dating has always carried risks, but now the stakes for ‘putting yourself out there’ are higher than everIn opposition to the smug marrieds, we singletons have always liked to position ourselves on the frontline of life, squaring off against creeps and weirdos in our valiant search for love. Already shut out of the property market and two-for-one meal deals, we’re now unfairly burdened by coronavirus, confronted with a new dilemma: risk infection by going on dates, or remain for ever alone.Tinder, considered instrumental to a culture of casual sex and hook-ups, has warned users to “maintain social distance” – and carry hand sanitiser. OkCupid, meanwhile, has found that mentions of the virus on UK profiles are skyrocketing. Continue reading...

Concern over large gathering of potential jurors for empanelment sees chief justice announce drastic measureCourts across the state of Victoria in Australia will immediately suspend all future jury trials in a bid to contain the spread of Covid-19. The drastic measure will apply to the county and supreme courts.Supreme court chief justice Anne Ferguson said all new jury trials would be suspended but that trials in which a jury had already been empanelled would continue. Continue reading...

Neighbours from Naples to Tuscany make harmonies across empty streets to lift spirits and pass the time during quarantineItalians have been singing from their balconies across the country, in an effort to boost morale during its nationwide lockdown that began this week, due to Covid-19.Videos of Italian neighbours singing together have been appearing on social media after Italy’s prime minister Giuseppe Conte announced the restrictions that shut down virtually all daily life, and leftonly grocery stores, banks, and pharmacies open. Continue reading...

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Experts look at role of psychology in public responses to idea of quarantine

Europe now centre of pandemic, says WHO, as Spain prepares for state of emergency

Debris from thousands of disused satellites is in orbit around Earth. It can be buffeted around by space weather. We need better forecastsWhat’s the weather like in Earth’s upper atmosphere today? Most of us only care about how the weather feels on the Earth’s surface, but understanding “space weather” is becoming increasingly important. That’s because small changes in space weather can buffet satellites around, increasing the chances of a satellite pile-up.Currently there are nearly 5,000 satellites revolving around our planet, of which some 2,000 are operational and the remainder are space debris. With orbits between 100 and 1,000km above sea level, the upper atmosphere is now a crowded place. Both the weather down below and changes in the sun’s output influence the upper atmosphere, changing the density of the air. As satellites move through “thicker” and “thinner” air, the change in drag forces alters their orbital track, potentially putting them on a collision path. Continue reading...

Ministers look to have given up on containment in favour of a novel approach some experts are wary of

Now, more than ever, the NHS must prioritise care - not just for frail, elderly and vulnerable people but for staff too

The government is sticking to its cautious approach in dealing with the pandemic. But action on the ground may be overtaking this strategyFriday was the day when the coronavirus pandemic began to radically redraw the map of everyday life in Britain. Bill Shankly, Liverpool’s much-loved manager in the 1970s, is fondly remembered for suggesting that football was more important than matters of life and death. It would have been a joke, of course. But the decision to suspend the Premier League until 4 April is a potent symbol of the new abnormality that will characterise the weeks and months to come. Slowly but surely, Britain’s social life is being put on hold. The postponement of May’s local elections signals the end of politics-as-usual as well.Millions of people are now facing difficult dilemmas and painful decisions. Across the country, some care homes have begun to close their doors to relatives. Many people this weekend will be thinking twice about planned trips to see vulnerable elderly family members, whose wellbeing is intimately linked to such visits. Soon these may not be possible for an indefinite period. A kind of stasis, shadowed by deep anxiety, awaits us, and the scale of what is to come is unknowable. Continue reading...

What the statistics from the outbreak so far can tell us about infection and mortality rates