Berlin (AFP)
Germany, faced with an “exponential” rise in contamination and a new “much more lethal” variant of Covid will be placed in reinforced lockdown throughout the Easter weekend, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced early Tuesday.
The day should also see Russian President Vladimir Putin finally vaccinated and the United Kingdom paying tribute to the victims of the disease.
After nearly twelve hours of negotiations between the Chancellor and the representatives of the States-regions, the verdict has finally fallen in Berlin: most shops will be closed and religious services canceled on Easter weekend, from April 1 to 5, and gatherings, such as outdoor dining, will be banned.
“The situation is serious. The number of cases is increasing exponentially and intensive care beds are filling again,” Merkel said.
Worse, Germany has entered a “new pandemic” due to the spread of the new variants. “We have a new virus (…) it is much more lethal, much more infectious and contagious for a lot longer,” she warned.
– Putin vaccinated in Sputnik? –
The controversy over an approval of the Russian vaccine Sputnik-V in the European Union also continued on Monday, President Vladimir Putin denouncing the “strange” statements by European Commissioner Thierry Breton, who had said that Europe had no need for this serum.
The Russian president, 68, said he “intended” to be vaccinated on Tuesday, an announcement long awaited after he had made a promise to that effect in December.
However, he did not say whether he would be injected with Sputnik V, the first vaccine developed by Russia, which has meanwhile announced that it has developed two others.
The European Union also remains divided on a tightening of export conditions for vaccines manufactured on its territory, a measure which should target AstraZeneca and which is fueling tensions with London, much further ahead in its vaccination campaign.
The Twenty-Seven, in conflict with the Swedish-British group for deliveries well below forecasts, meet at the top Thursday and Friday.
Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin has expressed strong opposition to a possible blockage, saying “it would be a very retrograde measure”.
London, for its part, said it was confident that this threat would not be carried out.
– Tribute and reflection –
The most bereaved country in Europe, the United Kingdom will pay tribute on Tuesday to the victims of the pandemic, one year to the day after the establishment of the first containment in the country, by observing a minute of silence at noon in Parliament.
On the evening of March 23, 2020, Prime Minister Boris Johnson resolved to announce, in the wake of other European countries, the immediate containment of the United Kingdom.
A year later, the country is in its third confinement and has more than 126,000 dead, the heaviest toll in Europe, and more than 4.3 million infections.
Boris Johnson called on the British to take advantage of this anniversary to “reflect on the past year, one of the most difficult in the history of our country”.
– Hostages for several years? –
Elsewhere in the world, efforts are continuing, with varying degrees of success, to try to stem the pandemic, which has killed more than 2.716 million people to date, according to a report established on Monday by AFP from official sources.
In Italy, the vaccination campaign is turning into a “disaster” due to a faulty reservation system in Lombardy (north), the Italian region most affected by the coronavirus pandemic, local politicians admitted on Monday.
Lombardy was the epicenter of the outbreak 13 months ago and remains the region with the highest number of cases today.
In Brazil, governors, mayors and President Jair Bolsonaro are scrambling over what to do in the face of the pandemic.
“I am currently facing the worst challenge of my life,” said Joao Doria, governor of the state of Sao Paulo, where the intensive care occupancy rate exceeds 91%.
“We are going through one of those tragic periods in history when millions of people are paying the price for having a psychopathic and unprepared leader to lead the nation,” he said.
The confusion is further compounded by the coexistence of two health ministers in Brazil: an outgoing and his successor who has still not been able to take office a week after his appointment.
In France, doubts persist about the effectiveness of the new measures put in place on Saturday, which are akin to “confinement in the open air”.
“We must not dream, we will not have a rapid drop in the epidemic and allow us to breathe quickly,” lamented the Parisian epidemiologist Renaud Piarroux. The government is now also relying on the opening of large centers “to massively vaccinate the French” from April.
Cuba for its part began on Monday the vaccination of 150,000 health workers with its vaccine candidate Soberana 2, and 48,000 volunteers with another, Abdala. Both are in phase 3, the last step before approval.
But globally, the inequality of access to anti-Covid vaccines between rich and poor countries “is widening” and becoming “grotesque”, accused WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Monday, who said he feared that the virus won’t take the world hostage for several more years.
“In January, I declared that the world was on the brink of catastrophic moral failure (…). We have the means to avoid this failure, but it is shocking how little has been made to avoid it, ”he lamented.
burs-ahe / roc
© 2021 AFP
–
