Home news in brief
Surge testing for South African variant begins in Barnet
People living in the London borough of Barnet are being urged to undergo coronavirus testing after a case of the South African variant of Covid-19 was detected. Officials will visit residents door-to-door in areas under the N3 postcode to deliver PCR test kits and a mobile testing unit will be set up in the car park of Finchley Central Station. It comes as thousands of people queued to take coronavirus tests across London, after new cases of the variant were found in several boroughs. Wandsworth Council in south London called the testing operation a “mammoth task” but urged all adults in the area to get tested even if they are not displaying any symptoms. People in Lambeth and an area of Southwark have also been asked to do the same.
Every adult on remote Fair Isle fully vaccinated
All 35 adults on one of the UK’s most remote inhabited islands have now been vaccinated against Covid-19. Fair Isle, home to around 60 people, lies between Orkney and Shetland and is renowned for its knitwear and migratory birds. NHS Shetland said all adults on the island were given their second dose on Monday after a small plane flew in vials of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine encased in a cool box. There have been no reported cases on the island, which is three miles long and around 1.5 miles wide. Edna Mary Watson, NHS Shetland’s chief community nurse, said travelling to some remote islands by air could be challenging with unpredictable weather.
Teenager’s hand chopped off in machete attack in Leeds
A teenager’s hand has been chopped off by an attacker armed with a machete in Leeds, police have said. West Yorkshire Police were called to an incident in the Swarcliffe area of the city just after 9.30pm on Tuesday night. They found an 18-year-old man whose hand had been “completely severed”. Officers said yesterday that the teenager had been receiving treatment in hospital but his condition was not thought to be life-threatening. A wide police cordon in place at the scene as forensics officers search the area and detectives investigate the attack.
Collapsed airline Flybe to return to the skies
Flybe will return to the skies after administrators said they had completed the sale of the collapsed airline. Thyme Opco has bought Flybe’s business and assets, and plans to resume flights this summer, although on a smaller scale than before. Having struggled for years, the Exeter-based carrier was pushed into administration in March 2020 with the loss of 2,400 jobs as the Covid-19 pandemic destroyed large parts of the travel market. The new owners are linked to Cyrus Capital, which teamed up with Virgin Atlantic and Stobart Group in a rescue deal in February 2019 which kept what was Europe’s largest regional airline afloat for 13 months. Thyme Opco will be renamed Flybe Limited. It is unclear how many jobs will be rescued under the purchase.