The study was conducted by a team at Northwell Health, the largest health provider in New York state.
 

“We found in the first 5,449 patients admitted, 36.6 per cent developed acute kidney injury,” said study co-author Dr Kenar Jhaveri, associated chief of nephrology at Hofstra/Northwell in Great Neck, New York.
 

Acute kidney injury occurs when the kidneys fail and become unable to filter out waste.
 

Of those patients with kidney failure, 14.3 per cent required dialysis.
 

The study is the largest to date to look at kidney injury in COVID-19 patients. It may be helpful, Dr Jhaveri said, as other hospitals face new waves of patients with the disease caused by the coronavirus that has infected more than 4.3 million people and killed over 295,000 globally.

‘The coronavirus pandemic has sparked many crazy conspiracy theories on social media. One of these is the notion that doctors issuing death certificates are either writing Covid-19 to inflate the overall numbers of deaths, or deliberately omitting it to play the numbers down.’

‘All of this is nonsense. As an NHS doctor, 31 years in the job, who has completed or supervised hundreds of death certificates let me explain why,’ writes Professor David Oliver, an experienced NHS consultant physician treating many patients with Covid-19.
 

This includes NHS professionals, such as nurses and doctors, as well as social care workers, such as nursing home or home care workers.
 

For those reporting not working in these roles, 0.22 per cent tested positive.
 

The figures published by the ONS are based on 10,705 swab tests collected from people participating in the recently-launched Coronavirus (Covid-19) infection survey, which is being produced by the ONS in partnership with the University of Oxford, the University of Manchester, Public Health England and the Wellcome Trust.
 

The survey is designed to help track the current extent of infection and transmission of Covid-19 among the community population – specifically private households.
 

As such, the survey excludes infections reported in hospitals, care homes or other institutional settings.

Antibody test will ‘certainly’ be available on NHS, government claims

Number 10 said the new antibody test would “certainly” be available on the NHS but commercial discussions with Roche are ongoing.

The test could pave the way for people who have antibodies to be issued with a certificate showing their Covid-19 status and potential immunity.

Boris Johnson’s official spokesman said: “We have talked about, in the future, the potential for some kind of health certificate related to whether or not you have antibodies.

“But we need a better understanding of how the immune system responds to the virus and the length and level of immunity following infection to better understand the potential of the test.”

The spokesman echoed the prime minister’s claim that widespread antibody testing could be a “game changer”.

“We still need to work to understand its full potential but this is clearly an important step forward and it does continue to have the potential to be a game changer, as the PM set out.”

Government in discussion with mayor of London on ‘funding and finance package’ for TfL

The government is in discussions with the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, over a “funding and finance package” for Transport for London (TfL), Downing Street has said.

The prime minister’s official spokesman said Cabinet was briefed on Thursday about the negotiations, which were at an “advanced stage”.

Mr Khan has warned TfL will have to reduce services if it does not receive further funding by the end of today.

The Number 10 spokesman said: “It is a commercial discussion. We remain in close contact with the mayor and TfL to look at how we can support them.

“Our priority is on reaching an agreement which keeps critical services running for those passengers who must use public transport to get work, ensuring we keep London moving safely.

“That means protecting key routes, rapidly increasing the number of services available and protecting the interests of taxpayers in the long term.”

Poland extends school closures until late June

Poland will close schools until the end of the school year on 26 June, a deputy education minister has said, as part of its efforts to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, according to Polish state news agency PAP.

In recent weeks, Poland, the largest economy among the EU’s eastern states, has sought to loosen some restrictions put in place due to the coronavirus. Restaurants and hairdressers will reopen on Monday.

Poland’s education ministry was not immediately available for comment.

Scotland launches service to help Scots in midst of ‘economic uncertainty’

Nicola Sturgeon said a new telephone and online service had been launched to help Scots in the midst of the “economic uncertainty” caused by coronavirus.

She said Covid-19 had caused “very many people to worry about future job prospects”, as she spoke about the new services being provided by Skills Development Scotland.

“The phone line and web resources will provide people with access to a range of services that SDS has available,” Ms Sturgeon said.

“This will help individuals who are thinking about future job and career options, for example if you are currently on furlough, if you have been made redundant and are seeking employment, or if you are a school pupil or parent or carer who is thinking right now about what you might want to do after school.”

Keep a diary to help trace Covid-19 contacts, peer suggests

People have been urged to keep a diary of who they meet so that if they fall ill with Covid-19 it will be easier to trace contacts.

The idea came from Tory Baroness Rawlings in a Lords question time session taken virtually online.

It was endorsed by Health minister Lord Bethell who said personal tracing had a “powerful role” to play in isolating those with coronavirus.

Lady Rawlings, a former nurse and ex-chairman of King’s College, London, said testing and tracking were vital towards the lifting of restrictions.

Ms Sturgeon sought to reassure this group, telling them they would “not be forgotten about as we think about our next steps in tackling this virus and how we adapt to living with a new normal where this virus will be present for a long time”.
 

She stated: “We will set out steps over the days and weeks to come over how we do emerge from the lockdown, but I don’t want anybody in the shielding group to think you are being left behind.”

The airline industry has been turned inside out and overhauled as authorities work to contain the spread of Covid-19. Travellers arriving into new countries pose a significant risk – but what exactly is being done to ensure that these people are kept safe while in transit. Similarly, what procedures and measures have been introduced for when they arrive at their destinations?
 

Journalist and photographer Laurel Chor has some of the answers. She’s been tweeting about her experiences after flying from Paris to Hong Kong, via London.
 

Check out her Twitter thread below:

 

‘The first steps to reawaken our economy will be done in a slow and gradual way’

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said the Government is “increasingly confident” that Ireland will be able to move to phase one of its coronavirus lockdown measures on Monday.

“We are seeing what we can achieve when we put the needs of the many above the needs of the few,” he told the Dail.

“The first steps to reawaken our economy will be done in a slow and gradual way.

“As we are seeing around the world, it is not a straight path. Sometimes progress is halted and there are setbacks.

“Whilst every death is of concern, in the last seven days we’ve seen the lowest daily number of deaths and cases since March.”

The body, whose members are known as “the immortals” and which advises on all matters related to the French language, said acronyms take the gender of the key word of the abbreviated phrase.

Read more below:
 

It will take months for NHS services to resume, health experts warn

It will be months before the NHS is able to fully restart services in the face of Covid-19, health leaders have warned.

Experts from the Health Foundation, the King’s Fund and the Nuffield Trust will tell MPs on Thursday of the significant challenges facing the health service as it tries to create a “new normal”.

A separate report from NHS Providers, which represents NHS organisations, warns there are challenges to ramping up care for people with non-Covid conditions while still caring for Covid patients.
 

The organisations also said more personal protective equipment (PPE) will be needed as non-Covid services resume, more space must be allocated so patients and staff can socially distance, and there is a need for greater levels of testing.
 

These factors, together with the extra time needed for cleaning equipment and facilities, will “severely limit capacity for many months until the infection has been brought under control in the community,” they said.

The groups warned that the pandemic has exposed “pre-existing weaknesses”, most obviously a long-term under-investment in health and care services and a “precarious” social care system.

The compulsory quarantine, one of a series of measures taken by Slovakia to curb the spread of the coronavirus, has been criticised by Slovaks living abroad as well as by the state ombudswoman, who has said it potentially breaches basic human rights.
 

Health minister Marek Krajci said the launch of the application allowing a “smart” quarantine could be launched next Monday after it is approved by parliament.
 

“This smart solution will allow returnees to self-isolate at home if they agree to install the application after crossing the border,” he said.
 

Details on how the app will work are expected to be announced on Monday but one of the options is that it would use face-identification technology.

UK quarantine plans and minister comments hurting travel recovery, says industry chief

British government quarantine plans and a minister’s comments that international holidays were not likely this year are hampering any travel recovery, the CEO of British Airways parent company IAG has said.

Airlines have been crushed by the coronavirus pandemic and are making thousands of job cuts to try to survive. They had been hoping for a recovery to begin in July, but William Walsh said the British government was damaging the chances of this.

“The Prime Minister’s decision to quarantine people arriving in the UK, by air, and the Health Secretary’s comments that it was unlikely that ‘big, lavish international holidays’ were going to be possible this summer, have seriously set back recovery plans for our industry,” Mr Walsh said in a letter to parliament’s transport committee on Thursday.

Vietnam battles to save life of British pilot and prevent first Covid-19 death

Vietnam has mounted an all-out effort to save the life of its most critically ill coronavirus patient, a British pilot who works for Vietnam Airlines.

Little expense has been spared to try save the life of the 43-year-old man, identified only as “Patient 91”, who caught the virus at a bar in the southern business hub of Ho Chi Minh City in mid-March, state media reported.

More than 4,000 people connected to the cluster were tested, with 18 of them found to be infected with the coronavirus. While most have recovered, the British pilot is on life support and his condition has deteriorated significantly.

On Tuesday, the health ministry held a meeting with experts from top hospitals and decided that the only way to save the man’s life was a lung transplant.

The patient has just 10 per cent of his lung capacity left and has been on life support for more than 30 days, according to the Vietnam National Coordinating Centre for Human Organ Transplantation.

Authorities have spent more than 5 billion dong (£163,000) trying to save him, the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported.

Through aggressive testing and a mass, centralised quarantine programme, the Southeast Asian country has kept its tally of coronavirus cases to just 288 and has reported no deaths.

Spain’s daily coronavirus death toll rose on Thursday above 200 for the first time since 8 May, the health ministry has reported.

A total of 217 people reportedly died overnight, bringing the country’s overall death toll to 27,321. The number of confirmed infections has risen to 229,540.

In Germany, the reported death toll rose by 89 to 7,723, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases increased by 933 on Thursday, a similar number to Wednesday, to stand at 172,239.

“What is good for the tourism industry, is often good for the whole of France,” said Prime minister Edouard Philippe.
 

Nearly 90 million foreign tourists visited France in 2018, making it the most visited country in the world, according to government data. Tourism accounts for about 7 per cent of France’s 2.3 trillion euro economy.