The number of infections fell by 16% last week in the world, according to the WHO, while a Dutch appeals court maintained in extremis on Tuesday the curfew against covid-19, in a Europe increasingly fed up by the restrictions , despite the fact that vaccination progresses slowly and unevenly in the world.
The number of new cases of covid-19 registered in the world decreased by 16% last week, to stand at 2.7 million, and the number of deaths fell by 10%, announced Tuesday night the World Health Organization (WHO), which warns, despite the need to maintain measures to fight the coronavirus.
The fall in infections, for the fifth consecutive week, “shows that simple public health measures work, even with the presence of variants”, declared the director general of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who warned that “if we stop fighting fire from some of the fronts will come back with force ”.
This is precisely what the Dutch appeals court intends to do, which suspended the ruling of another court that had ordered the immediate lifting of the curfew imposed on January 23 by the Dutch government to curb the covid-19 epidemic.
The curfew, the first in the Netherlands since World War II, has sparked, as in other countries, massive protests, with dozens of arrests. The court that early ordered its removal considered it to be a “profound violation of the right to freedom of movement and privacy.”
In other European countries, frustration, anger and boredom are also felt. Last week, the Czech parliament refused to extend the state of emergency as requested by the government and in Vienna there have been protests against the measures.
“I’ve lost my job, I’m a nurse and I didn’t want to wear this shit mask anymore!” Sigrid said, at a demonstration calling for the resignation of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.
In Europe, Oceania and Asia, starting with China – where the virus was detected in December 2019 – authorities take strict measures in areas where outbreaks are detected and combine them with mass diagnoses.
In just over a year, the coronavirus pandemic has killed 2.4 million people worldwide and infected nearly 110 million. At the moment there are restrictions in place in practically all of Europe, while vaccination progresses much more slowly than anticipated.
The US pharmaceutical Johnson & Johnson (J&J) requested authorization for its vaccine in the European Union, the European health agency EMA reported on Tuesday, which could make a decision by mid-March.
The European Commission “is ready” to authorize it as soon as the EMA scientifically approves it, said its president, Ursula von der Leyen.
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Inequality
More than 180 million doses of covid vaccines were administered in at least 96 countries or territories, according to a count carried out by AFP from official sources on Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. GMT.
On a global scale, “high” and “upper middle” income countries (according to the World Bank) concentrate more than nine out of ten doses (93%), while they only house half (53%) of the world population .
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In Latin America, where the pandemic has killed more than 642,000 people and infected 20 million, vaccination is progressing unevenly and in some cases with irregularities, such as in Peru, where members of the government were vaccinated before the start of the campaign.
Brazil, the second country in the world with the most deaths from coronavirus -after the United States-, with almost 240,000 deaths, has only vaccinated 2% of its 212 million inhabitants, due to the absence of clear guidelines from the government of Jair Bolsonaro. lack of dose.
Endowed with a world-famous mass vaccination capacity that it has used before, Brazil cannot activate it due to the lack of vaccines. The government expects to have more than 210 million AstraZeneca vaccines by the end of the year and 100 million from China’s CoronaVac by August.
Mexico will report the situation to the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday. “We are going to present the position of Mexico and Latin America (…) regarding what is happening in the world, inequality, the inequity that exists in access to vaccines,” said the Foreign Minister, Marcelo Ebrard.
In that country, the third most mourning with more than 174,000 deaths, the vaccine will reach those over 60 years of age, which number about 15 million, who the government hopes to have vaccinated by mid-April.
South Africa announced on Tuesday that it offered the African Union (AU) one million vaccines it has from AstraZeneca, after postponing its vaccination campaign with that drug because its efficacy against the local variant of the virus is in doubt.
However, the WHO granted its emergency approval to the AstraZeneca vaccine, to boost the distribution of hundreds of millions of doses in disadvantaged countries.
And as for the Pfizer vaccine, the South Korean intelligence services, quoted by the press, assured this Tuesday that North Korean hackers tried to enter the systems of the pharmaceutical giant in search of information about its vaccine and the treatment against the coronavirus.
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