These are the UK coronavirus stories you need to know about today.
Call to Expand Symptoms List
The UK's COVID-19 symptoms list needs to be expanded, according to UCL experts writing in The BMJ.
The UK's advice for symptomatic testing covers high fever, a new continuous cough, or a loss or change to the sense of smell or taste.
However, the World Health Organisation lists nine symptoms, and the US CDC lists 11, including headache, weakness or tiredness, muscle aches, runny nose, appetite loss, and sore throat.
Biomedical researcher Alex Crozier and colleagues write: "To reopen society with greater speed and fairness, control of transmission must improve. This starts with an expanded and more context appropriate case definition and rests on adaptive, locally grounded, and information-led public health responses."
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said: "Since the start of the pandemic we have acknowledged COVID-19 has a much longer list of symptoms than the ones initially used in the case definition and our experts keep the list of symptoms under review."
Autumn Booster Planning
The Royal College of GPs called for urgent details of this autumn's combined COVID-19 booster and flu vaccination campaign.
Chair, Professor Martin Marshall, said: "General practice has demonstrated how central it is to a successful vaccination programme, but it is already under intense pressure delivering record numbers of patient consultations and this must be taken into account.
"A booster campaign will need to be accompanied by a sustainable workforce, perhaps using trained non-clinical staff as vaccinators alongside GPs and our teams, to ensure usual services can continue as we approach what is likely to be a very busy winter for general practice."
Latest Data
England's Test and Trace service reported 79,248 people testing positive for COVID-19 17-23 June. That's up 43% on the previous week and the highest figure since mid-February.
Public Health England surveillance data show increased COVID-19 activity.
Medical Director, Dr Yvonne Doyle, said: "Across all areas of the country cases are rising rapidly although it is encouraging to see that hospitalisations and deaths are not rising at the same rate.
"Case rates are currently highest in younger age groups, who are less likely to be hospitalised so the vaccine is working to reduce severe disease in more vulnerable groups. We continue to monitor the data closely, to ensure policy is well informed."
Prime Minister Boris Johnson acknowledged today that from England's planned lockdown easing date on 19 July, "there may be some things we have to do, extra precautions that we have to take, but I’ll be setting them out".
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that 1.5% of the population, or 962,000 people, are experiencing long COVID.
Of those self-reporting symptoms, 89% said they had COVID-19 at least 12 weeks previously, and it was at least a year earlier for 40%.
Day-to-day activities were affected for 65.9%, and activities were limited "a lot" for 18.5%.
The most common symptoms were fatigue, shortness of breath, muscle ache, and difficulty concentrating.
Long COVID prevalence was higher for 35 to 69 year olds, females, people in deprived areas, health or social care workers, and those with a disability or activity-limiting health condition.
Separate ONS school testing data for England in May show 0.65% of primary school pupils, and 0.05% of secondary school pupils tested positive for COVID-19.
Staff infections could not be reported due to low numbers testing positive.
Pregnancy Mental Health Support
The Royal College of Psychiatrists said 16,000 pregnant women and new mothers didn't get the mental health support they needed during the pandemic.
College Registrar, Dr Trudi Seneviratne, said: "Staff in perinatal mental healthcare have made every effort to support women in these extremely challenging times but services have been under unprecedented strain. Funding for mental health facilities is long overdue but is more urgent in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Gaps in local funding in certain areas in England should be urgently addressed so that the same standard of care is available to all women, no matter where they live."
Pet Risks
Two conference abstracts presented to the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) conference look at whether cats and dogs catch COVID-19 from their owners.
A study from the Netherlands of 156 dogs and 155 cats found 17.5% had antibodies for the virus.
A Canadian study suggested that cats that sleep on their owner's bed appear to be at particular risk of infection from their owners.
Commenting via the Science Media Centre, Professor James Wood, head of the Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge, said: "Cats and dogs may commonly be infected with the virus, but most reports are that this infection appears to be asymptomatic. It also seems that the virus does not normally transmit from dogs and cats to either other animals or their owners. These studies need to be differentiated from earlier work that has reported a very small number of individual cats and dogs to be unwell after they caught COVID-19 from their owners."
Apology to Whitty
One of the two men who accosted Professor Chris Whitty in a London park told The Sun: "I absolutely apologise for any upset I caused."
Lewis Hughes said he'd been sacked from his job as an estate agent after his boss saw a video of the incident online.
See more global coronavirus updates in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Centre.
