Yahoo Finance Your morning briefing: What you should know for Thursday, February 25
GCSE and A-level results to be decided by teachers
Teachers will be able to choose the evidence they want to use to determine their students’ GCSE and A-Level grades, it has been announced.
Teenagers’ grades will be decided by their teachers, it has been confirmed, after all exams were cancelled due to the pandemic.
Students will not be forced to sit “mini exams”, but exam boards will publish questions that teachers can set their pupils so they have evidence to base their grades on.
These will be optional and the questions will not have to be answered under exam conditions or within a time limit.
Pfizer jab produces ‘high level of Covid antibodies after two doses’
People of all ages who have had two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine produce high numbers of antibodies, new research suggests.
However, there is not enough data to say how protected someone may be from the virus based on a positive antibody test result, and it does not mean they are immune.
More than 154,000 participants tested themselves at home using a finger prick test between January 26 and February 8, showing 13.9 per cent of the population had antibodies either from infection or vaccination.
Covid visiting restrictions ‘may have contributed to deaths of new mothers’
Rules which banned partners from attending hospital with pregnant women could have contributed to delays in people seeking care, a new report into a series of maternal deaths suggests.
Meanwhile, public messaging about the Covid-19 pandemic may have also “caused delays” in new mothers and those who lost babies seeking care before they died, the report adds.
The Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) report details how some women died alone in hospital because of restrictions from the pandemic.
Investigators examined 19 maternal deaths in England in the early point of the pandemic.
Fauci: Anti-vaccine sentiment in UK and US ‘quite concerning’
Anti-vaccine sentiment in the UK and the US is a “self-amplifying problem that just keeps getting bigger and bigger”, according to US presidential medical adviser Anthony Fauci.
Dr Fauci said that a significantly widespread reluctance to be inoculated “would be terrible because it would mean we have a lingering of infections which we would never be able to completely suppress”.
Rugrats revival with original voice cast in the works
A revival of children’s cartoon Rugrats is in the works with the original voice cast set to return.
A trailer revealed characters Tommy, Chuckie, Angelica, Susie and twins Phil and Lil in an updated CG animation style.
Actors EG Daily, Nancy Cartwright, Cheryl Chase, Cree Summer and Kath Soucie will all be returning, network Nickelodeon said.
Nickelodeon Animation Studio said the revival will follow the toddlers as “they explore the world and beyond from their pint-sized and wildly imaginative point-of-view.”
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Your morning briefing: What you should know for Wednesday, February 24
Your morning briefing: What you should know for Tuesday, February 23
Your morning briefing: What you should know for Friday, February 19
