Coronavirus live: global deaths pass 5m; UK care home workers refusing jab told to ‘get another job’

Health Secretary Sajid Javid has said care home workers who are not prepared to get the Covid vaccine should “get out and get another job”.

Javid said he is not prepared to “pause” the requirement for care home staff to be fully vaccinated by November 11, amid concerns significant numbers are reluctant to get the jab.

He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme:

If you work in a care home you are working with some of the most vulnerable people in our country and if you cannot be bothered to go and get vaccinated, then get out and go and get another job.

If you want to look after them (care home residents), if you want to cook for them, if you want to feed them, if you want to put them to bed, then you should get vaccinated.

If you are not going to get vaccinated then why are you working in care?

Vulnerable people with weakened immune systems feel “completely let down” by the rollout of third doses of Covid vaccines, according to charities.

Kidney Care UK and Blood Cancer UK say that immunosuppressed patients are still waiting for a third dose of the vaccine, a month after the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said they should be given an extra dose.

The BBC reports that the charities have both expressed concern at the high number of calls and emails they have received about the issue over the last few weeks.

Kidney Care UK has passed on the names of more than 80 GP practices to NHS England which it says were not helping vulnerable patients.

Fiona Loud, its policy director, told the BBC:

This lack of clarity is causing a huge amount of stress, anxiety and frustration amongst thousands of kidney patients.

This group are returning to work and public places with no specific national advice or support.

They feel completely let down and many have told us this is the most worried and anxious they have felt throughout the entire pandemic.

Around half a million people in the UK are immunosuppressed, with studies showing they are unlikely to be protected from Covid-19, even after two doses of vaccine.

NHS England says eligible patients should be offered the third doses by the end of next week.

An NHS spokesperson said:

While a decision on when to get a third jab remains a decision between a patient and their clinician who know about their ongoing care and treatment, all hospitals have been asked to identify and offer a jab to those who are eligible, by the end of next week.

Where vaccines cannot be administered at the same site, patients and their GP will be written to shortly so they can arrange their jab at their local practice or vaccine centre.

The number of people who have died across the globe as a result of coronavirus has passed more than 5 million, as the virulent Delta strain continues to ravage unvaccinated countries.

While it took just over a year for the Covid-19 death toll to hit 2.5 million, the next 2.5 million deaths were recorded in just under eight months.

An average of 8,000 deaths were reported daily across the world over the last week – about five deaths every minute. But the global death rate has been slowing in recent weeks, according to Reuters analysis.

It reports that more than half of all global deaths reported on a seven-day average were in the United States, Russia, Brazil, Mexico and India.

From Reuters:

There has been increasing focus in recent days on getting vaccines to poorer nations, where many people are yet to receive a first dose, even as their richer counterparts have begun giving booster shots.

More than half of the world has yet to receive at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to Our World in Data.

The World Health Organization this week said its Covax distribution programme would, for the first time, distribute shots only to countries with the lowest levels of coverage.

Co-led by the WHO, Covax has since January largely allocated doses proportionally among its 140-plus beneficiary states according to population size.

Mariangela Simao, WHO assistant director general for access to vaccines, said:

For the October supply we designed a different methodology, only covering participants with low sources of supply.

The Delta variant is now the dominant strain around the globe and has been reported in 187 out of 194 World Health Organization member countries.