Coronavirus live news: North Korea rejects Covax offer; Australia secures vaccine swap with UK | World news

Parents consent could be required for 12-15’s to have jab

The Times is reporting this morning that parents will need to give their written permission for under 15’s to get the Covid vaccination. Previous suggestions had been that children would be able to decide for themselves if they wanted the jab.

The development is reported to be part of attempts to bring parents on board with the plans to vaccinate younger teens. Sajid Javid, the health secretary is said to wants schools to follow procedures used for routine childhood immunisation programmes. This would mean schools sending out consent forms and not vaccinating unless they are returned.

The Times quotes Professor Helen Bedford of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health saying that this was likely to defuse the potential for rows, with nurses phoning parents who did not return forms to discuss concerns. She says: “In practice, most [vaccinations] are given by school nurses and it’s very unlikely, if you know for certain the parent doesn’t want it, that you would go ahead.”

A decision is yet to be made by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) on whether children aged 12-15 will be vaccinated.

That’s it from me, Helen Livingstone for today. I’m handing over to my UK colleague, Harriet Grant.

Before I go, here’s a brief roundup of Covid-related news from the past 24 hours:

• Australia has secured 4m doses of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccines in a swap deal with Britain, the prime minister Scott Morrison has said, as he attempts to convince states and territories to stick to a national reopening plan.

• New Zealand has reported 28 new cases of coronavirus in the community, a drop of 21 compared with the previous day, in an “encouraging” sign that the country’s lockdown is working, deputy prime minister Grant Robertson has said.

• The US plans to invest $3bn (£2.2bn) in the vaccine supply chain as it continues to work to position the United States as a leading supplier of vaccines for the world, Reuters reports.

• The European Union has agreed to send millions of coronavirus vaccine doses made in South Africa back to the continent, AFP reports.

• Schoolchildren in France returned from their summer holidays to be told to get vaccinated by headteachers and the French president Emmanuel Macron.

India has reported 45,352 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said on Friday, with 366 deaths.

Total infections have now risen to 32.9 million and deaths to 439,895.

In case you missed it, Guardian Australia has been running a new series that aims to give a voice to people from all walks of life who are adapting to changing circumstances in the coronavirus pandemic. In this latest dispatch, reporter Mostafa Rachwani spoke to a supermarket manager and a postman:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered officials to wage a tougher epidemic prevention campaign in “our style” after he turned down some foreign Covid-19 vaccines offered via the UN-backed immunisation program, according to the Associated Press.

During a Politburo meeting on Thursday, Kim said officials must “bear in mind that tightening epidemic prevention is the task of paramount importance which must not be loosened even a moment”, the official Korean Central News Agency reported on Friday.

KCNA said Kim “called for fully providing material and technical means necessary for strengthening epidemic prevention, enhancing the professional qualifications and roles of the officials in the field of epidemic prevention and further rounding off our style epidemic prevention system.”

Kim had previously called for North Koreans to brace for prolonged Covid-19 restrictions, indicating the nation’s borders would stay closed despite worsening economic and food conditions.

Since the start of the pandemic, North Korea has used tough quarantines and border closures to prevent outbreaks, though its claim to be entirely virus-free is widely doubted.

Australia has secured 4m doses of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccines in a swap deal with Britain, prime minister Scott Morrison has said, as he tries to speed up the country’s re-opening efforts.

“The plane is on the tarmac now. It will be leaving tomorrow … this will enable us to bring forward significantly the opportunity for Australia to open up again,” Morrison told reporters in Canberra, days after announcing a smaller vaccine swap agreement with Singapore.

Morrison has been criticised for failing to initially secure an adequate supply of vaccines and for a slow roll out which has seen initial vaccination targets delayed by months.

State governments say their vaccination programmes are being hindered by a lack of supply of the Pfizer vaccine needed to inoculate the younger population.

The announcement came as the state of New South Wales, of which Sydney is the capital, reported its worst day of the pandemic, with a record 1,431 cases and 12 new deaths.

State premier Gladys Berejiklian warned residents to brace for a spike in numbers as the next two weeks would “likely to be our worst in terms of the number of cases”.

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s rolling coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Livingstone.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered officials to wage a tougher epidemic prevention campaign in “our style” after he turned down some foreign Covid-19 vaccines offered via the UN-backed immunisation program.

Australia has secured 4m doses of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccines in a swap deal with Britain, the prime minister Scott Morrison has said, as he attempts to convince states and territories to stick to a national reopening plan.

Here’s what else has been happening over the past 24 hours:

• New Zealand has reported 28 new cases of coronavirus in the community, a drop of 21 compared with the previous day, in an “encouraging” sign that the country’s lockdown is working, deputy prime minister Grant Robertson has said.

• The US plans to invest $3bn (£2.2bn) in the vaccine supply chain as it continues to work to position the United States as a leading supplier of vaccines for the world, Reuters reports.

• The European Union has agreed to send millions of coronavirus vaccine doses made in South Africa back to the continent, AFP reports.

• Schoolchildren in France returned from their summer holidays to be told to get vaccinated by headteachers and the French president Emmanuel Macron.