Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London, has disagreed with the argument that asymptomatic schoolchildren should be exempt from coronavirus testing to prevent them from missing out on lesson time.

He told Times Radio: “From a medical scientific point of view, I’d say there’s nothing special about the virus in their lungs that can’t transmit through to their families, through to their school teachers, through to their colleagues.

“What’s special about an asymptomatic child? They’re as dangerous to the spread as anybody else.”

Professor Adam Finn, who sits on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said the body advised the Government that children aged 16 and 17 would need the jab after seeing a small number of serious cases in the age group.

He told BBC Breakfast that such cases merited giving the age group “just a first dose.” He said the committee would advise “when and what” the second dose for 16 and 17-year-olds would be after assessing more data.

He said: “Most young people who get this virus get it mildly or even without any symptoms at all.

“But we are seeing cases in hospital even into this age group – we’ve had a couple of 17-year-olds here in Bristol admitted and needing intensive care over the course of the last four to six weeks – and so we are beginning to see a small number of serious cases.

“What we know for sure is that these vaccines are very effective at preventing those kind of serious cases from occurring.”

Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London, told Times Radio this morning that it “would be a good thing” for children over 12 years old to be vaccinated.

When asked whether children over 12 years old should be vaccinated, he said: “I think so, we’ll look across and see it being done very successfully in other countries, as is happening, and we’ll give way to that as well. I think that would be a good thing.”

Labour MP Ben Bradshaw has criticised the travel testing programme saying that blanket PCR tests on fully-vaccinated people returning from countries with lower Covid-19 rates than the UK were “a complete scam and completely unacceptable”.

Travellers dropping off their tests after returning from holiday have reported public drop boxes overflowing with unsecured Covid-19 tests and the programme looks set to be overwhelmed as Brits return from their August getaways.

The Independent looked into the latest issues with the testing programme here:

Herd immunity is “not a possibility” due to the prevalence of the Delta variant, a scientist behind the Oxford vaccine has warned.

Mounting evidence that the highly transmissible Delta variant can infect those who have been vaccinated suggests that it’s unlikely that herd immunity will ever be reached, said Dr Sir Andrew Pollard, meaning infections will continue to bubble away throughout the population.

He said: “The Delta variant will still infect people who have been vaccinated,” he told MPs. “And that does mean that anyone who’s still unvaccinated at some point will meet the virus.”

Samuel Lovett has the full story:

In the US, Florida governor Ron DeSantis has said that the state can withhold salaries of school leaders who enact mask mandates.

Several school unions had favoured mask and vaccine mandates for teaching and non-teaching staff in schools.

In a statement on Monday, the Republican governor said the state board of education “could move to withhold the salary of the district superintendent or school board members” if they issue rules requiring children to wear face masks.

He added that teachers or other school staff would not be affected.

Earlier, Mr DeSantis had said that forcing masks on students would encroach on parents’ rights.

Health experts have been saying that masks are required in order to slow the spread of the Delta variant, especially as vaccines for children under the age of 12 are not yet approved.

The US Centers for Disease Control also says that students above the age of two and all staff should wear a mask indoors even if they are vaccinated.

In China, coronavirus cases hit a seven-month high on Tuesday amid the rise of the Delta variant in the country.

The government has described this current outbreak — which has sparked local lockdowns, mass testing and travel restrictions — as the most severe since the virus emerged in Wuhan.

On Tuesday, Chinese health authorities registered 143 fresh coronavirus infections. Out of these, 108 were locally transmitted.

The Tuesday numbers are believed to be the highest since January, when the country registered 144 new Covid cases and 126 domestic infections, mostly in the northern regions.

The state-controlled Xinhua news agency quoted Zhang Wenhong, an infectious diseases expert in the country, as saying: “We have successfully contained the epidemic in Guangzhou, and the epidemic in Nanjing is gradually being put under control.”

In spite of the growing number of Covid-19 infections in the state, Kerala is allowing the reopening of malls from today.

According to the government order, Covid safety protocols must be followed at the entry points of malls.

Shops, markets, banks, offices, factories, tourist spaces, and other financial, commercial, and industrial establishments in Kerala are currently open six days a week from Monday to Saturday.

The weekend lockdown has been restricted only to Sundays, the state health minister Veena George told the media.

Kerala is the only state in the country that has more than 100,000 active Covid-19 cases. And fresh data revealed on Tuesday that the positivity rate in the state reached its level in almost three months.

The union health minister has announced that there are “37 districts of concern” across India that are driving the country’s surge in Covid-19 numbers.

At least 37 districts across nine states — Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Meghalaya and Mizoram — are a matter of “concern” according to the Indian health ministry. These districts are showing a rising trend in daily coronavirus cases over the last two weeks.

Overall, there are 44 districts across India that have been reporting more than a 10 per cent weekly positivity rate, the data says.

Kerala in the south is the only state that has more than 100,000 active Covid-19 cases.

India registered 38,353 fresh Covid-19 infections on Tuesday — 36 per cent higher than on Monday.

Signs of a third Covid-19 wave have emerged in India with at least 10 states reporting a rise in the R-value — that indicates that each infected person is transmitting the coronavirus to more people than in the past three months.

States including Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala are reporting a rise in R-value, experts said.

Currently, the average R-value — or Reproduction factor — in India is 1.01. Experts say that this means that every infected person is transmitting the virus to more than one other person.

During the deadly second wave in the country, the R-value was around 1.4 and almost a month ago, it dropped to 0.9.

Experts are worried that the rise of the reproduction value above 1 signals a growing infection rate in the country. Dr Samiran Panda, head epidemiologist at the Indian Council of Medical Research, was quoted as saying: “The R-value going up could be early warning signals of the beginning of a third wave.”

Good morning and welcome to The Independent’s live blog on the coronavirus pandemic for Wednesday 11 August 2021.