Coronavirus live news: Mississippi hospitals overwhelmed; New Zealand eases restrictions outside Auckland

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has accused Cepheid, a company that produces tests for Covid-19 as well as TB and HIV, of profiting from the pandemic.

MSF said Cepheid should reduce the price of its Covid-19 testing kits for low and middle-income countries, claiming the current price, despite already being reduced, makes 200% profit.

“In this pandemic, where testing as many people as possible is critical, Cepheid’s pricing costs lives. There have been multiple alarms from countries that the unaffordable price of Cepheid’s test is hindering their COVID-19 response,” said Stijn Deborggraeve, Diagnostics Advisor at the MSF Access campaign.

Deborggraeve said the price should should be dropped from $15 to $5 or that Cepheid should open the books to show their costs.

MSF said Cepheid received $250m in public funding to develop its GeneXpert testing system while its annual revenues doubled during the pandemic and its parent company paid no federal tax in 2020.

Cepheid expects to sell 45 million tests in 2021.

The Philippines recorded a record-high 22,415 new infections on Monday.

The health ministry also said a further 103 people had been killed by the virus, taking the total number who have died during the pandemic to 34,337.

Our community team is looking to hear from those who work in care homes and if they have been fully vaccinated. Under a new law, staff who work in CQC-registered care homes in England must have received their first jab by 16 September and their second by 11 November. With the deadline approaching, they would like to hear from managers and staff about their experiences of being vaccinated. You can find out more here …

RDIF, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, which has backed the development of the nation’s Sputnik V vaccine, has this morning announced that the single-component Sputnik Light vaccine against coronavirus has been approved for use in Armenia.

The clinical lead for Covid services at the Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Foundation Trust, Dr David Strain, has also been doing the media round in the UK this morning. PA Media reports he told Good Morning Britain:

My 16-year-old has already had the vaccine; our 12-year-old, who’s actually starting school tomorrow, will be desperately keen to get the vaccine. We have weighed up the evidence and fully accept there is this very small risk of myocarditis after the first jab, but actually the risk of myocarditis after getting Covid is about the same, if not slightly higher. These are the factors, so I would have no hesitation at all to allow my children to have the vaccine.

Parliament is back in the UK today, and so is our Andrew Sparrow. He’s just launched his live blog. With Afghanistan and social care dominating the scene today, he’ll most likely have a focus on that, and so I’ll carry on reporting any major UK Covid lines in this blog. But if you fancy your politics with my colleague Andrew, you’ll find him over here …

Slovakia has widened registration for public events planned during a visit by Pope Francis that begins on Sunday to allow some people not vaccinated against Covid-19 to also attend.

Reuters reports that Pope Francis is due to arrive in Slovakia on 12 September for a visit culminating in an open-air mass at the Sastin pilgrimage site in western Slovakia on Wednesday 15 September.

Forty-three per cent of people in the country of 5.5 million have so far been fully vaccinated or have received their first shot against Covid-19.

The Conference of Slovak Bishops said non-vaccinated people who have tested negative or who have recovered from Covid-19 in the past 180 days would also be allowed to register for the papal events.

About 30,000 people have so far registered for the mass to celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows at Sastin, a site dedicated to the main patron saint of Slovakia. Francis will be the first pope to visit Slovakia since John Paul II in 2003.

The pontiff recently urged people to get vaccinated, describing doing so as “an act of love”.

Madeline Holcombe at CNN has some quotes from the Kentucky governor Andy Beshear about the crisis in the state where a federal medical team arrived this weekend to try to help increase hospital capacity. Holcombe quotes Beshear saying:

Our situation is dire. We are hit very, very hard, but we are going to continue to fight. When you’re at war, you don’t get to cry about what you can or can’t do. You’ve got to do your very best every day because this is a battle of life versus death.

Today’s official Covid figures from Russia are being reported by Reuters. The latest number of deaths is 790, and there have been 17,856 new cases reported in the last 24 hours.

PA Media reports that an expert advising the UK government has said the decision on offering coronavirus vaccinations to healthy 12- to 15-year-olds is a “finely balanced” one.

Prof Anthony Harnden, the deputy chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), acknowledged the “uncomfortableness” if the committee says no but the government then says yes to jabbing this age group.

He told Good Morning Britain: “It is very finely balanced. It’s marginally in favour, actually if you look at all the figures – and we have published those – in favour of vaccination, but I do understand it from a parental viewpoint and I understand it from a teenager’s viewpoint.

“This is not an easy decision. And, to a certain extent, by us coming out and saying no, if the government say yes that does create a lot of uncomfortableness, and I fully understand that.”

He said they want to provide the data for everyone to look at and, should the chief medical officers decide healthy children in this age group should be offered a jab, they are “giving choice”.

He added: “It is up to then parents and teenagers to decide whether they go ahead or not. There isn’t a right or wrong answer to this.”

Harnden said “we don’t live in a clear world” when it was suggested to him that parents will want a clear answer on Covid vaccinations for healthy 12- to 15-year-olds.

Agence France-Presse has this despatch from the Philippines. It reports an official stating that the country will lift a stay-at-home order in the capital Manila this week as it trials “granular lockdowns” in a bid to rein in coronavirus cases and revive the economy.

More than 13 million people in the national capital region – the country’s economic heartland – have been in lockdown since 6 August amid record infections.

The move to ease restrictions from Wednesday comes after nationwide daily cases exceeded 20,000 for the past three days – double the number at the start of the latest lockdown – straining hospitals as they grapple with a nurses shortage.

“Localised lockdowns will be piloted in Metro Manila,” said the presidential spokesman Harry Roque, explaining that a household, building or street could be targeted. “It will be literally a complete lockdown if you are subject to granular lockdown – even the food will be delivered to you.”

AFP reports that there were no further details about how the more targeted measures would be enforced.