NHS Covid-19 app update blocked for privacy breaches April 12, 2021 An update to the NHS Covid-19 app has been blocked by Apple and Google for breaking the companies’ privacy terms. The app was due for a fresh reboot from today to coincide with the reopening of pubs, restaurants and non-essential shops, which would have allowed users to log venues they had checked into via a [...]
Pound sterling jumps as shops in England reopen and pubs start serving April 12, 2021 GBP started the week well, trading up against the dollar and euro today as shops, gyms, pubs and restaurants reopen across England
Banks start process to claw back billions from Covid loans April 12, 2021 Some of Britain’s biggest lenders have begun sending letters to customers, warning them that repayments for crisis loans will soon be expected. HSBC, Barclays, NatWest and Lloyds have each begun sending letters to customers, the Mail on Sunday first revealed, with the first set repayments due to start in just two weeks. Banks handed out [...]
German firm targets new era of Covid testing with three-minute smartphone eye scans April 12, 2021 A German company hopes to usher in a new era of Covid testing with an eye scan that takes just three minutes to identify carriers and has a 95 per cent success rate. Semic RF has developed its scanning app with colleagues in the US and hopes to start rolling it out by the end [...]
AstraZeneca diabetes drug tanks in Covid-19 trial April 12, 2021 AstraZeneca has confirmed this morning that its late-stage coronavirus study results, testing whether its diabetes drug could treat Covid-19, has tanked. Its diabetes drug Farxiga was being tested to see if it could treat patients hospitalised with Covid-19 who were at risk of complications and death. The drugmaker said that Farxiga failed to achieve ‘statistical [...]
Almost half of UK office workers ‘scared to return’ to workplace, research shows April 12, 2021 Around 40 per cent of UK office workers are worried about catching Covid from their colleagues by returning to the workplace, a new report has found. Over a third of workers also said they were fearful of contracting the virus through contaminated equipment such as computers and keyboards. The Supporting Your Remote Workforce in 2021 [...]
China considers mixing Covid-19 vaccines to increase protection rate April 12, 2021 China’s top disease control official has said the country is considering to mix Covid-19 vaccines as a way of further boosting vaccine efficacy. “Giving people doses of different vaccines is one way to improve vaccines that “don’t have very high rates of protection”, Gao Fu, the director of the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and [...]
Optimism over reopening of pubs and shops tempered by concerns over next month’s elections April 12, 2021 In a week that saw the FTSE100 close at its best levels in over a year, optimism over this week’s economic reopening of outdoor pubs, shops, gyms and hairdressers, appears to be being tempered by concerns over next month’s local and regional elections. There is particular focus on how well the SNP might do in [...]
Pub time: What Londoners and people across the UK can and cannot do from today April 12, 2021 Londoners can look forward to getting a round in for the first time in months today. Pub gardens and restaurants with outdoor dining are preparing for a surge of customers as lockdown eases, prompting Boris Johnson to urge the nation to “behave responsibly”. While the English are the only ones looking forward to a pub-pulled [...]
Johnson urges nation to ‘behave responsibly’ as lockdown eases April 12, 2021 Prime Minister Boris Johnson has urged the public to “behave responsibly” as England’s lockdown measures ease today. From today pub gardens, indoor gyms, hairdressers and non-essential retail are among businesses that can now reopen in England, most for the first time in 2021. The change marks the next major step in the easing of the [...]