France 24
Covid-19: the United States buys 200 million vaccines, Europe remains “vulnerable”
US President Joe Biden announced Thursday that the United States has purchased 200 million doses of additional Covid-19 vaccine. The country aims to immunize almost the entire population by the end of July. According to the WHO, “the overwhelming majority of European countries remain vulnerable” to the virus. The United States has purchased 200 million additional doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, President Biden announced Thursday, February 11. “We are now on track to have enough doses for 300 million Americans by the end of July,” Joe Biden said Thursday, the figure for the entire US adult population. These 200 million additional doses – 100 million to Moderna and 100 million to Pfizer – are added to the 200 million doses already ordered from each company. Nearly 45 million doses have already been administered since December, and at least 33.8 million people have received one or two doses, or about 10% of the population. Americans will be able to get vaccinated in pharmacies nationwide as of Thursday. . In New York state, major performance venues and stadiums could partially reopen from February 23, a first after almost a year of closure. Vaccine shortages, however, have led some cities, such as Los Angeles, to temporarily close vaccination centers. The Old Continent is not out of the woods The United States is the country most affected by the pandemic, with more than 470,000 deaths for more than 27 million recorded cases, according to the count from Johns Hopkins University. The most affected continent remains Europe, which deplores more than 790,287 deaths (for about 35 million cases), according to official figures compiled by AFP, which show more than 2.35 million deaths on the And if the vaccination continues, the Old Continent is not out of the woods. “The overwhelming majority of European countries remain vulnerable,” said WHO’s European director, for whom “at present, there is a fine line between the hope” raised by vaccines and “a false sense of security”. Because the question of variants of the coronavirus has shaken the optimism born of the development of vaccines, and leads to new restrictions. Germany thus decided on Thursday to close its border with the Czech Republic and the Austrian Tyrol. German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer indicated that this measure would take effect on Sunday evening, and that Tyrol and the Czech regions bordering Germany would be included in the list of territories highly affected by mutations of the virus. This list already includes several countries such as Great Britain, South Africa, Brazil and Portugal with which Germany banned most travel at the end of January. The Czech government announced Thursday to isolate three cantons, including two in the border with Germany due to the prevalence of the British variant of the coronavirus. Residents are not allowed to leave these territories, and no one will be able to enter them with exceptions, Prague said. The trend is improving German Chancellor Angela Merkel had already announced on Wednesday evening the extension until March 7 of most of the restrictions in place in the country. Greece will tighten its national containment from Thursday, and containment in Ireland will be extended until early April, probably until Easter. The EU has however seen the trend improve in recent days, with contaminations and daily deaths down slightly. In the EU, 3% of the population has received at least one dose of the anti-Covid vaccine, according to an AFP count on Thursday. The EU has also said it wants to beef up its vaccine production, acknowledging that it was “probably too confident about the timely delivery of the doses ordered”, according to the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. of 155.7 million doses were administered in 91 countries or territories. Israel leads by far, in proportion of vaccinated in relation to its population (42%). The importance of equitable access to vaccines The rich countries of the planet concentrate nearly six doses injected out of ten (59%), so that they only house 16% of the world’s population. This “inequitable access to vaccines can backfire on us,” WHO once again warned on Thursday: “The longer the virus persists, the greater the risk of dangerous mutations.” The G7 countries will meet at a summit on Friday to discuss “the health situation”, “the situation of low-income countries” and the possibility of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) coming to their aid. In Dubai, faced with a resurgence of the epidemic, authorities have decided to increase the emirate’s health capacities, recruit foreign workers and add hospital beds. The Middle East has crossed the 100,000 mark as a result of Covid-19, according to the latest AFP count.
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