Coronavirus digest: UK to test 'COVID status' certificates

People in the UK might soon be able to attend football matches and nightclubs with the appropriate documentation. Follow DW for the latest.

With UK vaccination numbers growing, the government is developing a plan that would allow some people to attend sports events or parties with large groups.

The authorities are to issue identification that would show if the carrier had been vaccinated or has antibodies or a recent negative test. Based on this, they would be allowed to visit various public events.

The "COVID status certification" project is set to be tested from mid-April, UK authorities said. The test would include events such as the final of England's FA Cup, a comedy show and the World Snooker Championships. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to provide more details on Monday.

Here is an overview of the latest coronavirus news from around the world.

Europe

Germany is considering giving more freedoms to fully vaccinated people, according to Health Minister Jens Spahn. Those people could soon be able to travel, visit shops or go to the hairdressers without following the anti-pandemic restrictions, Spahn told the mass-circulation Bild am Sonntag.

Separately, Germany's official Robert Koch Institute announced that the Netherlands would be classified as a high-risk zone. Travelers arriving from the Netherlands would have to show a negative virus test before entering Germany, and then go into quarantine. Exceptions could be made for people commuting to work.

Berlin police busted an illegal party with 47 guests. Some of the guests were reportedly hiding in a room that was separated from the main area by a "secret door" allegedly made to look like a closet.

In the Vatican, Pope Francis said it was "scandalous" that wars are continuing even during the coronavirus pandemic. In his Easter message, the head of the Catholic Church called on the international community to ensure that vaccines reach the poorest countries.

France expects its public debt to rise and deficit to deepen as the prolonged pandemic dashes hopes of a quick economic recovery, according to Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire.

A report about luxury Paris restaurants secretly violating lockdown rules prompted an official probe. TV channel M6 previously aired a story showing a party at a high-end venue with the attendees not wearing masks or following social distancing rules. Paris prosecutors said they aim to determine "who the organizers and participants may have been" as well as if the party was indeed held during lockdown. The Czech Republic will end its coronavirus state of emergency on April 11, as the lawmakers rejected the government's initiative to keep it in place until April 27. Taking to tn.cz news site, Prime Minister Andrej Babis said that restrictions on travelling between the country's regions and the nighttime curfew would not be enforced past next week.

Asia

India's richest state, Maharashtra, announced that it would impose strict restrictions after a jump in infections. Malls, cinemas, bars, restaurants, as well as temples and other places of worship, will all close and the authorities would impose a nighttime curfew.

Bollywood star Akshay Kumar became the latest celebrity to announce that he had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Africa-Middle East

Libya received its first shipment of COVID-19 vaccines. The country's interim prime minister, Abdulhamid Dbeibeh, described the shipment of over 101,000 doses of Sputnik V vaccines from Russia as "the first drop of rain."

"Thank God, we are able to supply the first batch," he wrote on Twitter.

In the Gaza Strip, officials reported a record jump in infections, with 1,628 cases registered in the previous 24 hours. The pandemic is exacerbating health risks in the densely populated area where some 2 million people live under poor economic conditions and insufficient medical care.

Americas

The US government put pharma giant Johnson & Johnson in charge of the Emergent BioSolutions plant in the state of Maryland, after the facility ruined 15 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine, a senior US official said. Johnson & Johnson confirmed it was "assuming full responsibility for the site."

According to media reports, the plant made a mistake, conflating ingredients for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and the jab made by Anglo-Swedish AstraZeneca. The change will reportedly see the plant make only the vaccine developed by the US company in the future.

dj/mm (AFP, AP, Reuters, dpa)

versed in that specialty. "There are various instruments and tests that help with the diagnosis and back it up. In appropriate centers, specialists can perform these tests," Ehrenreich said. It's just not enough to be a psychiatrist or neurologist. A great deal of experience and expertise is needed to determine whether autism is present and what form it takes.

"About half of the people who are sent to us with suspected autism don't have autism at all. That's where the diagnoses are simply wrong. In addition, autism has become a kind of fashionable diagnosis," Ehrenreich said.

While other conditions can be treated with medication, specific medications for autistic people with severe disorders do not exist. None of the potential medications have led to a breakthrough, such as the endogenous messenger oxytocin, which acts directly in the brain. "As a hormone, oxytocin enters the body through the bloodstream. It has been found to be able to improve social interaction in autistic people in the short term. It doesn't have a lasting effect, though. But through this new experience they're having, it might encourage autistic people to start behavioral psychotherapy." First, however, a diagnosis must be made that is as sound and clear as possible.

Diagnosing autism

Building on the observation that autistic people largely avoid eye contact, scientists have done eye-tracking experiments. This involves a camera recording eye movements. "With this eyetracking, you can see that the autistic person is not looking at the eyes or mouth of their counterpart, as most people do, but at facial regions that play little role in communication. They then look at the neck or cheek, for example," Ehrenreich said.

Another tool is thermography. It can provide information about the surface temperature of a person's face. "In doing so, you see very characteristic behavior of heat and cold in the face. We were able to show that social stimuli cause a change in the thermo response in the face. This allows us to distinguish social stimuli from purely cognitive stimuli, for example, those based on perception and thinking independent of social interaction," Ehrenreich explained.

"Such tests lead to a relatively objective measure of diagnosis, because they can show how much stress an autistic person experiences when interacting with others." Such a test can help medical professionals and researchers better understand the mechanisms and causes of autism.

Accumulated knowledge

There is now an extensive database available, which Ehrenreich started it in 2004. It registers not only autistic people but also people with schizophrenia. With the help of this database, scientists can identify and describe phenotypes. These describe the set of all characteristics that an organism has, including behavioral traits. Those in particular are essential to understanding autism.

"When I started this database, people didn't always take me very seriously. Many thought you could find just about anything with the help of genetic testing or blood analysis," said Ehrenreich, "today, however, it's known that we need to know quite a lot about a person in order to understand where certain disorders and problems originate."

The database is intended to help classify test subjects as correctly as possible. Among other things, this involves determining how severely individual subjects are affected and whether they can be grouped into groups with similar characteristics. "Our goal is to draw more information about autism and its biological causes from this vast heterogeneity."

For severe cases, that can also lead to more targeted therapies. "If I know what the biological cause of a disorder is, I can treat it better," Ehrenreich sums up. Genetic causes are a prime candidate for this. But environmental factors that act very early, for example infections during pregnancy, for example, in utero, can also play a role in the development of autism.

The autist in us

Ehrenreich said that autistic traits are a part of the normal human behavioral repertoire, and only in extreme cases do they result in a disorder.

"If we took the whole population and measured everyone's autistic traits, we would get a very broad spectrum," said Ehrenreich. "We would probably find quite a few people who have distinct autistic traits."

Walking through the hallways of the Max Planck Institute, for example, she repeatedly encounters people who stare fixedly at the floor, completely absorbed in their own data world and in no way eager to communicate. "But that does have its advantages. As a scientist, it's great when they're not partying but working intensively on their research."

Nearly 31.5 million people in the UK have so far received at least one vaccine dose