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Coronavirus live news: Calls grow for Hancock to resign; greater Sydney under lockdown after Delta variant outbreak

UK health secretary Matt Hancock is facing mounting pressure to quit over a tryst with a colleague

As virus cases surge in Uganda, making scarce hospital beds even more expensive, concern is growing over the alleged exploitation of patients by private hospitals accused of demanding payment up front and hiking fees.

The Associated Press reports:

Uganda is among African countries seeing a dramatic rise in the number of infections amid a severe vaccine shortage. The pandemic is resurging in 12 of Africa’s 54 countries, the World Health Organization reported Thursday, saying the current wave is “picking up speed, spreading faster, hitting harder.”

Africa’s top public health official, John Nkengasong of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Thursday that Africa’s third wave is “very devastating” as the delta variant drives infections in many countries.

My colleague Sarah Marsh has written a piece on why the UK health secretary, Matt Hancock, has been called a hypocrite for breaking guidelines while telling the public what to do, and has created a handy timeline of what Hancock told the public to do and when.

Hancock previously said he had been left “speechless” by Prof Neil Ferguson’s “extraordinary” behaviour, and that it was right for Ferguson to resign as a government Sage adviser after he was caught breaking social distancing rules to visit a woman he was seeing.

Related: ‘Follow the rules’: what Matt Hancock told us – and what he did

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3gZ7EJy

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