Covid live: England’s travel ‘red list’ cut to seven countries; Italy relaxes coronavirus restrictions

We have closed the blog for today but you can catch up with the latest coronavirus coverage here.

Thanks for following along, here is a recap of some of the main developments so far today.

• A Covid vaccine for children aged five to 11 is another step closer to authorisation, with Pfizer-BioNTech announcing on Twitter that the full application has been submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
• Coronavirus report warned of impact on UK four years before pandemic. Senior health officials who war-gamed the impact of a coronavirus hitting the UK, warned four years before the onset of Covid-19 of the need for stockpiles of PPE, a computerised contact tracing system and screening for foreign travellers, the Guardian can reveal.
• Italy loosens Covid restrictions. Italy increased the maximum attendance capacity allowed at cultural and sporting venues on Thursday, continuing its progressive easing of Covid-19 curbs for those who can show documents of immunity from the disease.
• England’s travel ‘red list’ cut to seven countries. England will scrap coronavirus quarantine travel rules for 47 destinations including South Africa on Monday.
• Spain case rate ‘low risk’ for first time in over a year. Spain’s coronavirus rate dropped below 50 cases per 100,000 people on Thursday, reaching the threshold considered “low risk” by the country’s health ministry for the first time in over a year.
• England’s Covid travel ‘red list’ to be cut from 54 countries to seven. Strict hotel quarantine requirements will be dropped for travellers from dozens of countries after ministers approved plans to cut England’s travel “red list” from 54 to just seven. Brazil, South Africa and Thailand will be among those removed from the list from 4am next Monday.
• UK registers 122 Covid deaths and 40,701 new cases.
• Pfizer seeks US approval for emergency use of vaccine for children aged five to 11.
• Finland has announced that it will pause the use of Moderna’s vaccine for men under-30 due to reports of a rare cardiovascular side effect. It follows similar moves by Swedish and Danish health officials after a pan-Nordic study.

Brazil registered 15,591 new cases of coronavirus and 451 further deaths on Thursday, according to data released by the country’s health ministry.

In total, registered Covid-19 deaths in Brazil have reached 599,810.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said it has approved US drugmaker Merck & Co Inc’s manufacturing site in West Point, Pennsylvania to make Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine, Reuters reports.

Earlier this year, Merck agreed to make its rival’s shot after scrapping two of its own experimental vaccines.

The US government at that time invoked the Defense Production Act to help equip two Merck plants to make the J&J vaccine.

The EMA said Merck’s site, to become operational immediately, was expected to support the continued supply of J&J’s Covid-19 vaccine in the European Union.

Wales is to remain on Covid-19 alert level 0 for the next three weeks despite the first minister warning of a “challenging” winter ahead.

Mark Drakeford will announce his plans on how to control the spread of the virus over the next few months in a press conference on Friday.

A Covid vaccine for kids aged five to 11 just got another step closer to authorisation, with Pfizer-BioNTech announcing on Twitter that the full application has been submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Experts say authorization of the vaccine for children will be key to controlling the pandemic. Nearly 850,000 cases were confirmed among US children in the past four weeks, and kids still account for a disproportionate share of weekly cases.

More than 500 children in the US have died from confirmed cases of Covid-19, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. And they have suffered particularly from the Delta variant, with 35% of all deaths coming in the past three months.

7 Oct 202115.56 EDT

Robert Booth

Senior health officials who war-gamed the impact of a coronavirus hitting the UK warned four years before the onset of Covid-19 of the need for stockpiles of PPE, a computerised contact tracing system and screening for foreign travellers, the Guardian can reveal.

The calls to step up preparations in areas already identified as shortcomings in the government’s response to Covid emerged from a previously unpublished report of a health planning exercise in February 2016 that imagined a coronavirus outbreak.

It was commissioned by Dame Sally Davies, then chief medical officer, who attended alongside officials from NHS England, the Department of Health, Public Health England, and observers from the devolved administrations.

Following the UK government’s decision to replace the day 2 test for incoming travellers with an unverified lateral flow test, a spokesperson for the Laboratory and Testing Industry Organisation, the trade association for Covid testing companies and laboratories, said: “We are deeply concerned by the government’s announcement to end the PCR testing requirement for international travel, and replace it with an unsupervised lateral flow regime.

Unless these tests are monitored, the government is significantly reducing the country’s ability to detect new variants.

“The LTIO understands the need to reduce the barriers to travel, but the risk of further lockdowns as we enter the critical Winter period is simply too great allow passengers to mark their own homework.”

The US administered 399,552,444 doses of Covid-19 vaccines in the country as of Thursday morning and distributed 482,326,275 doses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Those figures are up from the 398,675,414 vaccine doses the CDC said had gone into arms by Wednesday, out of 480,427,985 doses delivered.

The agency said 216,268,034 people had received at least one dose, while 186,618,184 people were fully vaccinated as of 6:00 a.m. ET on Thursday, Reuters reports.

Italy increased the maximum attendance capacity allowed at cultural and sporting venues on Thursday, continuing its progressive easing of Covid-19 curbs for those who can show documents of immunity from the disease.

As of October 11th, cinemas, theatres and concert venues will be able to fill all their seats, scrapping the current limit of 50%, the government said, following advice from its panel of public health advisors, Reuters reports.

The maximum capacity of sports stadiums will be raised to 60% from 35% for indoor venues and to 75% from 50% outdoors.

Limits will be slightly stricter on discos and nightclubs, at 50% indoors and 75% outdoors.

There will be no restrictions on museums, where only social distancing rules will remain in place.

However, only those carrying the so-called Green Pass - a certificate that shows if someone has received at least one jab, has tested negative or has recently recovered from coronavirus- will be allowed entry, and masks will remain obligatory.