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Retrieved from: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Health protection info sign is seen at a church entrance, during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in Salzburg, Austria October 21, 2020. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
Austria's latest measures to tackle the spread of coronavirus will likely stay in force over Christmas and New Year, Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg was quoted as saying on Sunday, as the country posted a record number of infections.
The country reported 9,943 new infections within a 24 hour period on Saturday, surpassing the previous worst day of Nov. 13 2020 when 9,586 cases were recorded.
To stem the virus, the government said on Friday that it will bar those not fully vaccinated against COVID-19 from cafes, restaurants and hairdressers, effective Monday. read more
The '2G' rule, which requires proof of full vaccination or recovery, will also be in place for hotel and cinema visits or events for more than 25 people.
2G takes its name from the German words for immunised and recovered. In workplaces a 3G rule has applied since Nov. 1 which means that employees must be vaccinated, recovered or tested (geimpft, genesen, getestet).
"I am not assuming that in six weeks the situation will be such that we can take the measures back. So it will probably be a 2G Christmas," Schallenberg told Kronen Zeitung in an article published on Sunday.
"Most likely we will still have 2G for Christmas and New Year's Eve," Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler told the newspaper.
New infections on Sunday declined slightly to 8,554 according to data from the Interior Ministry. Austria, which has a population of 8.9 million people, has reported 883,887 COVID-19 cases and 11,502 deaths since the pandemic broke out last year.
Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/austrian-chancellor-expects-tighter-covid-rules-remain-past-christmas-newspaper-2021-11-07/
People walk at a crossing in Shibuya shopping area, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Tokyo, Japan August 7, 2021. REUTERS/Androniki Christodoulou/File Photo
Japan recorded no daily deaths from COVID-19 for the first time in more than a year on Sunday, according to local media.
Prior to Sunday, there hadn't been a day without a COVID-19 death since Aug. 2, 2020, according to a tally by national broadcaster NHK. The latest figures from the health ministry showed three deaths on Saturday.
COVID-19 cases and deaths have fallen dramatically throughout Japan as vaccinations have increased to cover more than 70% of the population.
New daily infections peaked at more than 25,000 during an August wave driven by the infectious Delta variant. The country has had more than 18,000 deaths from the disease during the course of the pandemic.
To gird against a possible rebound this winter, the government plans to start booster vaccine shots next month and is working to secure pill-based treatments for milder cases to reduce hospitalisations.
Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-has-zero-daily-covid-19-deaths-first-time-15-months-media-2021-11-08/
A staff member gestures to a person to enter a booth to get a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine at a vaccination center, during a government-organized visit, in Beijing, China, April 15, 2021. REUTERS/Thomas Peter
China had given 1.072 billion people complete COVID-19 vaccine doses by Nov. 5, Mi Feng, spokesman at the National Health Commission, told a briefing on Saturday.
That accounts for 75.96% of the nation's 1.41 billion people, Reuters calculation showed.
A total of 37.97 million people in China had received a booster shot as of Friday, commission official Wu Liangyou said at the briefing.
The commission said in a bulletin that China had administered 2.312 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines by the end of Nov. 5, an increase of about 8.9 million from the previous day.
Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-gives-107-bln-people-complete-covid-19-vaccine-doses-by-nov-5-official-2021-11-06/
Police officers sprayed water jets at protesters blocking a gate in the port of Trieste last month during a demonstration against the country’s new health pass. Credit...Paolo Giovannini/EPA, via Shutterstock
TRIESTE, Italy — When Italy introduced Europe’s toughest and most expansive health pass last month, the northeastern port city of Trieste became the epicenter of protests as vaccine skeptics marched alongside dock workers who shouted that the measure infringed on their right to work.
Now, two weeks later, Trieste has emerged as a center of something else: a Covid outbreak linked directly to those protests that threatens to burden intensive care units and mar the reputation of a city that was once a cosmopolitan hub of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and today has vast ambitions to revitalize its port.
“The situation in Trieste is particularly worrisome,” said Dr. Fabio Barbone, the epidemiologist leading the effort against the spread of Covid in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, where Trieste is the capital.
The region’s president, Massimiliano Fedriga, was more blunt, saying, “It is the moment to say with clarity: Enough idiocy.”
Throughout Europe, which last week accounted for nearly 60 percent of the world’s new coronavirus infections, contagion levels are becoming so high that the World Health Organization on Thursday warned of the possibility of half a million deaths in the next three months.
Under the leadership of Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Italy has mostly succeeded in containing Covid cases after being devastated early in the pandemic, a fact that drew praise at the G20 summit he hosted last weekend in Rome.
But the Trieste outbreak shows how an unvaccinated minority — whether motivated by concerns about freedom, the right to work or unfounded conspiracy theories — can still threaten the greater public health and how difficult it can be to bring vaccine resisters into the fold.
Italy is not alone. In Germany, a spike in cases and hospitalizations has led the health minister, Jens Spahn, to warn of “a pandemic mainly among the unvaccinated and it is massive.” Unvaccinated patients are overwhelming beds in intensive care units and have prompted calls to keep them out of certain public indoor spaces.
Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/04/world/europe/italy-trieste-covid-protests.html
A line for vaccinations in Berlin on Wednesday. Only 67 percent of Germans are fully inoculated, a rate that lags behind that of several European neighbors.Credit...Markus Schreiber/Associated Press
Germany recorded 33,949 new coronavirus cases over a 24-hour period on Wednesday, surpassing a record set in mid-December 2020, when the country was in the throes of its second Covid wave.
During the same 24 hours last year, 165 people died of the disease.
“We’re currently experiencing a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Jens Spahn, the German health minister, said at a news conference on Wednesday.
Only 67 percent of the population is fully inoculated, putting Germany behind other European Union members like Italy, Portugal and Spain, according to the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford.
And in the eastern and southern parts of Germany, where vaccine skepticism runs high, the inoculation rate is significantly lower than the national average.
Vaccine refusal appears to have fueled infection hot spots in several districts this week, like in Dresden, in the east, and Munich, in the south, where the case rate has climbed to more than 500 cases per 100,000 people per week.
The federal government, which, under Chancellor Angela Merkel’s leadership tightly managed the pandemic in its early stages, now appears to be struggling to control the situation. Mr. Spahn was scheduled to meet with state-level health ministers on Thursday and Friday in an effort to persuade them to reopen vaccination centers that were closed in the summer after demand waned.
Elections to replace Ms. Merkel were held in September. Lawmakers who will likely form the new government announced last week that they would not extend a federal state of emergency that would allow Berlin to set Covid rules for the country, and will leave it to states to manage their own virus policies.
On Friday, the government of the hard-hit eastern state of Saxony, which includes Dresden, is expected to pass laws that will require that visitors to public places, such as hairdressers and museums, show proof of vaccination or proof of past infection. On Wednesday, the Bavarian government, which includes Munich, also tightened its rules around testing and mask requirements.
Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/04/world/europe/germany-covid-surge-daily-case-record.html
By John Yoon
A fist-bump from President Carlos Alvarado Quesada at a vaccination site in San Jose, Costa Rica, last month.Credit...Mayela Lopez/Reuters
Costa Rican officials said on Friday that they would require Covid-19 vaccinations for people under 18 “to safeguard the best interests” of children, becoming one of the first countries to implement such a mandate.
Costa Rica, which has authorized Covid shots for those 12 and over since Oct. 25, will procure vaccines for children under 12 by next year, the Health Ministry said in a statement on Friday. The statement did not mention a minimum age for vaccination and the ministry did not immediately respond to an emailed request seeking comment.
Fifty-five percent of Costa Rica’s population has been fully vaccinated, higher than the global average of 40 percent, according to a University of Oxford data set. Its vaccination rate also exceeds those of several of its neighbors in Latin America, where vaccine access has been unequal. About 73 percent of Costa Ricans between 12 and 19 were fully vaccinated as of Tuesday, the government’s statement said, following the start of that vaccination effort since Oct. 25.
Since a surge of cases in September, when Costa Rican officials recorded 17,667 cases in one week, weekly cases have dropped steadily, reaching 3,411 last week, according to government data. Officials reported 291 new hospitalizations last week, a decrease of 21 percent from the week prior.
This is not the first time Costa Rica has required a large number of its residents to get vaccinated. In February, health care workerswere ordered to get shots. Two months ago, Costa Rica mandated them for all public sector workers. It has also empowered private companies to require their employees to get vaccinated.
Starting Jan. 8, the country will require proof of vaccination to enter places like hotels, restaurants, bars, casinos, museums and gyms, according to President Carlos Alvarado Quesada’s office. Currently, those establishments can either operate at 50 percent capacity without a vaccination requirement for customers, or operate at full capacity with one.
Costa Rica, whose economy relies on tourism, has opened its borders to visitors regardless of vaccination status, according to the government’s official tourism website. Unvaccinated tourists must purchase insurance that covers medical expenses and lodging expenses for quarantine in case of a coronavirus infection.
The health ministry said Covid vaccines were joining a list of other shots that were already mandatory for children in Costa Rica, including vaccines against chickenpox, polio and the human papillomavirus.
The country has acquired about nine million doses of Covid vaccines, according to the Costa Rican National Emergency Commission. About 998,000 of those came through donations from the United States, Canada, Spain, Austria and the Dominican Republic, the commission said. An additional 259,000 are from Covax, the global vaccine-sharing program backed by the United Nations, it said.
Parents or legal guardians, as well as the public education system and children’s advocacy agencies, are responsible for making sure children get vaccinated, health officials said. But children over 15 can receive a Covid-19 shot without being accompanied by an adult, they added.
Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/06/world/americas/costa-rica-covid-vaccine-children.html
Here’s a round-up of the day’s leading Covid stories:
· US lifts bans on travel from 33 countries from Monday, allowing in international travellers, but they must be vaccinated. The US is also reopening the land borders with Canada and Mexico for vaccinated people.
· Germany reports 15,513 new Covid cases in the past 24 hours, a decrease from yesterday’s 23,543 reported cases, the Robert Koch Institute reports.
· India’s daily Covid cases rose by 11,451 to reach a total of 34.37m and deaths rose by 266 for a total death toll of 461,057 the health ministry reports.
· Russia and Ukraine hit record Covid numbers. Low vaccination rates are a major factor in the sharp rise in cases.
· Australia will begin administering booster shots of Pfizer’sCovid vaccine from Monday amid an accelerating immunisation drive against the coronavirus.
· More than 10 million people have had Covid booster jabs in the UK, according to figures, as people were told to get their top-up to help prevent restrictions this Christmas.
· Northern Ireland’s health minister is suing Van Morrison after the singer accused him of being “very dangerous” over his handling of Covid restrictions.
· UK government could restrict travel for people who refuse Covid boosters as government sources confirmed they are looking at plans for travel restrictions on people who do not take up the booster offer.
· The UK will start to roll out Merck’s molnupiravir Covid-19 antiviral pill through a drug trial later this month, Dr Susan Hopkins, the chief medical adviser at the UK Health Security Agency said on Sunday.
· US president Joe Biden is pushing forward with an ambitious plan to require millions of private sector employees to get vaccinated by early next year, while simultaneously battling to convince workers in his own federal government to get the shot.
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