New Zealand has reported its first case of Covid-19 outside of a quarantine facility in more than two months.

Health officials said a 56-year-old woman who had recently returned from Europe tested positive 10 days after completing a compulsory two-week period of managed isolation.

Will that convince the public to get serious about the continuing ongoing COVID pandemic to at long last get serious enough to put a stop to spreading it further?

"Since Christmas, I've not been able to get hold of anyone from the DVLA," she told BBC Radio Wales' Sunday Supplement.
"Last night I spent a long time trying to hold of the chief executive. "Some of the stuff that I am now reading, and some of the stuff I've had in over the last 24 hours, really worries me."

Pharmaceutical giant Merck* said Monday that it was discontinuing the development of its two Covid-19 vaccine candidates after early clinical trial data showed an "inferior" immune response.

Merck said in a statement posted on its website the decision to scrap the two vaccine candidates followed its review of findings from Phase 1 clinical studies. The studies showed that both candidates were generally well tolerated, but the immune responses were inferior to those seen following natural infection with Covid-19 and those reported for other Covid-19 vaccines.

President Joe Biden seeks to reset the nation’s inconsistent coronavirus testing efforts with a $50 billion plan and more federal oversight.

Biden’s plan calls for a newly created Pandemic Testing Board to coordinate a “clear, unified approach” to testing for COVID-19, a marked difference from the Trump administration’s policy of states establishing their own plans with federal support.

Laboratories have ramped up production to more than 2 million tests each day, but stubborn problems persist. Some labs struggle to complete timely tests – particularly when demand surges – because of shortages of critical supplies.

Public health labs largely are not equipped to detect new coronavirus variants such as ones first identified in the United Kingdom and South Africa. And there's debate among testing experts on whether wider use of cheaper but less sensitive rapid tests will be the smartest path out of the pandemic.

Biden issued a flurry of executive orders Thursday, from mask mandates on federal property to reopening schools and accelerating vaccine shipments. Fixing the nation’s disparate testing system "will be the most challenging" of all, said Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

... What has struck some is just how similar the mistakes have been in terms of locking down late. "It will take years to unpick why Covid has gone so badly in the UK," says University College London infectious diseases expert Dr Neil Stone. "But the failure to learn from wave one stands out."...

... Of course, all this is easier to judge with the benefit of hindsight. In a recent interview chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said: "The lesson is go earlier than you think you want to, go harder than you think you want to, and go a bit broader than you think you want to in terms of applying the restrictions."

In total, there have been 94,971 deaths involving COVID-19 registered in England and Wales since the start of the pandemic (up to 15 January 2021). Around 75% of these have occurred among people aged 75 years and over.

How many deaths do we need for people to realize?...

UK Covid deaths: Why the 100,000 toll is so bad
... Of course, all this is easier to judge with the benefit of hindsight. In a recent interview chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said: "The lesson is go earlier than you think you want to, go harder than you think you want to, and go a bit broader than you think you want to in terms of applying the restrictions."

Unfortunately, the way the news and politics is going here in the UK, the deadly politics continue regardless of any scientific advice.

In response to the delays, the EU has said it might restrict exports of vaccines made in the bloc.
Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said companies making Covid vaccines in the bloc would have to "provide early notification whenever they want to export vaccines to third countries".
She said the 27-member EU bloc would "take any action required to protect its citizens".

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, addressing the virtual version of the annual World Economic Forum (WEF), usually held in Davos, said: "Europe invested billions to help develop the world's first Covid-19 vaccines. And now, the companies must deliver. They must honour their obligations."

Mr Soriot also said AstraZeneca was working on a vaccine with Oxford University that would target the South African variant of the coronavirus.
Scientists have warned there is a chance the South African variant may harm the effectiveness of current vaccines.

Government did all it could
The UK government sought to do "all we possibly could to shield people and to help the country through this period", Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick says, as he defends its handling of the Covid pandemic.
Asked by BBC Radio 4's Today programme whether some of the country's 100,000 deaths were avoidable, Jenrick says: "I'm sure that we could or would have done some things differently with the benefit of hindsight, almost certainly.

"But there wasn't a textbook. I was in many of those meetings with the prime minister and the health secretary and members of the cabinet and I can give you this assurance, that on each occasion they took the best possible scientific and medical advice, they took their responsibilities extremely seriously."
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, he admits that "when we look back" on the coronavirus pandemic he is "sure" there are "lessons to be learned" adding he regrets the early restrictions on people attending funerals.
But he says he is "proud" of how the government has "looked after the most vulnerable in society like the homeless and the shielded".

Litany of Errors
A “litany of errors” by the government led to the UK reaching 100,000 coronavirus deaths on Tuesday, Labour’s shadow health secretary says.
"I am really sorry to say this but I don't believe the prime minister and the government did do everything we could do. We have had mistakes, we have had a litany of errors, we didn't have to be in this situation today,” Jonathan Ashworth tells BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

He acknowledges "this is a completely difficult, extraordinary situation" but adds "other countries are not dealing with these huge levels of deaths that we are" and that a lack of financial support has meant people are not able to quarantine when they have coronavirus.
He blames the PM for being too lenient with coronavirus measures, adding: "He likes to deliver good news, he doesn't like to disappoint people... but the reality is that a lot of the time you should just be straight with people."

The biggest of which was the failure to establish a total lockdown once it became a pandemic.
Start to finish, air travel was still active. BIG mistake!