Washington. The United States registered a record number of coronavirus cases in 24 hours this weekend for the third day in a row, while the British press assured that Queen Elizabeth of England could receive the vaccine in the coming weeks.
According to a balance by Johns Hopkins University, the country most affected in the world in absolute terms by the pandemic – where the virus has resurfaced in recent weeks – registered a record of almost 230,000 new cases and 2,527 deaths related to it on Saturday. Covid-19.
In the past two weeks, the United States has frequently exceeded 2,000 deaths a day, as at the beginning of the year, at the height of the first wave.
President Donald Trump announced Sunday that his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, has tested positive for Covid-19.
Health officials warned of the increase in cases after millions of Americans traveled to celebrate Thanksgiving last week, despite pleas from authorities to stay home.
The coronavirus has killed more than 1.5 million people and infected 66 million worldwide since it appeared in China last year, according to an AFP tally.
In Latin America and the Caribbean there was an 18 percent increase in cases in one week.
– Vaccine for the queen –
In the United Kingdom, the press reported that Queen Elizabeth II of England will receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in the coming weeks, which has just received the green light from the British health authorities.
The 94-year-old sovereign and her husband, Prince Philip, 99, will be vaccinated soon because of their age and not because of preferential treatment, the Mail on Sunday claimed.
According to the newspaper, both will report when they are inoculated to “encourage as many people as possible to get vaccinated,” amid the fears that anti-vaccine activists sow among the population.
Nursing homes and staff at these centers will be the first to be vaccinated, followed by people aged 80 and over and health workers and caregivers on the front lines of the fight against coronavirus.
The UK reserved a total of 40 million doses and plans to receive an initial batch of 800,000 to begin the vaccination campaign next week.
-Without miracles-
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that vaccines are not the panacea for ending the coronavirus crisis, as Russia began immunizing its high-risk workers and several countries prepare to launch their campaigns.
“Vaccines do not mean zero covid,” said WHO Emergency Director Michael Ryan, who assured that not everyone will be able to receive a dose at the beginning of the year.
“Vaccination will add a very, very important and powerful tool to the set of tools that we have, but by itself it will not do the job,” he added.
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also warned against the “growing perception that the pandemic is over” as the virus continues to spread rapidly.
Moscow health authorities reported that they have already opened 70 vaccination centers against the coronavirus in the Russian capital, where doses will initially be offered for employees of health, education and social workers.
According to the WHO, there are 51 vaccine candidates that are being tested in humans, 13 of them in the final stage of massive trials.
The United States is expected to give the green light to vaccines by the end of the month, while Belgium, France and Spain are planning inoculation campaigns for January, focusing first on the most vulnerable.
– Some make flexible, others restrict –
In Peru, cinemas, theaters, gyms and casinos will reopen – with reduced capacity – as of Monday, after lifting the ban imposed on businesses considered non-essential nine months ago due to the pandemic amid a reduction in infections Covid-19, the government announced.
Meanwhile, South Korea raised the alert for the coronavirus to the second highest level in Seoul and adjacent areas, at a time when authorities are struggling to contain a new outbreak, after infections in recent weeks went from 100 to more than 500 daily.
The German region of Bavaria also announced stricter rules including local curfews and partial school closings due to the high number of cases the country continues to record despite five weeks of national restrictions.
Tunisia, for its part, extended the night curfew until the end of the year, amid growing discontent and anti-government protests in this North African country.
Other nations are announcing restrictions on the end of the year parties, such as Switzerland, which will ban Christmas carols in the streets, and Spain, whose capital, Madrid, canceled the traditional New Year’s Eve celebration in the city center.
Italy, for its part, reached this Sunday the figure of 60,000 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic, while the country registers a significant upturn in cases after having quelled another previous outbreak with strict confinement.
Thanks to this decrease in pressure on hospitals, several regions such as Tuscany (center) or Campania (south) began to relax restrictions.
The second wave in Portugal also began to decline, but authorities said they decided to keep the limitations in order to ease them closer to the holiday period.
In Pakistan, however, a provincial Health Minister denounced “criminal negligence”, after the delay in the supply of oxygen in a hospital in the northwest of the country caused the death of at least six patients with Covid-19.
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