By Marc BASTIAN
The first doses of vaccine arrived in the European Union on Saturday on the eve of the start in the 27 Member States of vaccination campaigns against Covid-19, whose British variant is detected in more and more countries around the world. The pandemic has killed at least 1,750,780 and infected almost 80 million people, according to the latest official data compiled by AFP on Saturday. More than 25 million cases (543,993 deaths) have been recorded in Europe, the most affected area, and the one where the virus is spreading the fastest (250,000 new infections daily). Russia, the fourth most affected country, passed the three million case mark on Saturday. The authorities exclude for the moment any national confinement. The United States remains the country most affected, both in terms of death toll (330,279) and cases (18,761,363).
First vaccines in the EU
After the United Kingdom, the United States, Mexico and many other countries, vaccination will begin Sunday in the EU, whose regulators authorized the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine on Monday. In Italy, the most bereaved European country (more than 71,000 dead), 9,750 vaccines escorted by the riflemen were delivered to the Spallanzani hospital in Rome on Saturday morning. The first person vaccinated in Italy will be a nurse from this establishment, Claudia Alivernini, 29 years old. “We will regain our freedom and we will be able to start kissing again,” said Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio.
Faced with an outbreak of contaminations, Italy had reconfigured itself even before the Christmas holidays, like Ireland. In France, 19,500 doses have arrived at the central pharmacy of the Hospitals of Paris, in the Paris suburbs. Masked employees wearing special protective gloves against the cold (the remedy is stored at -70 ° C) transferred the boxes to special refrigerators. “It’s historic, these are the very first doses”, rejoiced the head of the hospital pharmacy pole of the Hospitals of Paris, Franck Huet. In Germany, the Minister of Health Jens Spahn greeted “a day full of hope” for his country “and also for Europe”, because this vaccine “is the key which will allow us to reclaim our lives”. “Autumn, winter and Christmas next year should no longer be placed under the sign of this pandemic”, he hoped.
Reconfinements in series
Like Italy, Austria confined its population on Saturday, Boxing Day. Non-essential businesses, hotels and restaurants will be closed and the population subject to a “curfew” which will apply “all day” until January 24, according to the government. In the United Kingdom, which passed 70,000 dead on Friday, local lockdowns or binding restrictions have entered into force for millions of people. Mainland Scotland goes entirely to the maximum alert level, returning to virtual containment (non-essential shops closed, non-essential travel prohibited), like Northern Ireland.
In England, six million people in the South and East are also returning to containment, which now affects 24 million people in total. The country has seen contamination soar in recent weeks, with the appearance of a new strain that the authorities say “out of control”. According to a study from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), this new variant of the coronavirus is “50% to 74%” more contagious than its predecessors, raising fears more hospitalizations and deaths in 2021 than in 2020 Confirmed cases of the British variant have been reported in Spain (four cases) and Japan (seven cases), after the announcement on Friday of people infected in France, Germany and Lebanon. After the news of the discovery of this variant, concern had pushed dozens of countries – many of them still applying the measure – to cut their air, sea or land links with the United Kingdom, sowing chaos in its supply.
In China, where the WHO first reported the new coronavirus a year ago, the Communist Party congratulated itself on Friday evening for its “decisive role (…) which allowed an extremely extraordinary glorious victory in this year extremely unusual, ”according to the New China National Agency. This Chinese self-congratulation precedes the arrival in the country of a WHO team to investigate the origins of the virus, and in particular to try to understand how it passed from animals to humans. Asia (nearly 215,000 deaths and 13.7 million cases) remains far from European or American records, but several countries are experiencing a resurgence of contaminations.
Japan reported on Saturday a new daily record for contamination in Tokyo, at almost a thousand. And in Thailand, an outbreak of cases that started 10 days ago from a seafood market near Bangkok – the first in several months – affected 1,500 people on Saturday and 33 of the country’s 76 provinces, according to the authorities.
In Turkmenistan, a reclusive and authoritarian country in Central Asia which claims to be spared by the pandemic, the fantastic President Gourbangouly Berdymoukhamedov assured that liquorice could serve as a remedy against the coronavirus. Turkmenistan has “sufficient reserves” of liquorice, according to the president. not
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