Day: January 3, 2021

Vaccinations against the coronavirus are off to a slow and chaotic start in the United States, but the country’s top infectious disease expert held out hope Sunday that the pace will soon pick up. “We are not where we want to be, no doubt about it,” Dr. Anthony Fauci told ABC News’ “This Week” show. “We need to catch up.” So far, the U.S. has distributed 13 million doses of two vaccines produced by drug makers Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna throughout the country but only 4.2 million shots have ended up in the arms of Americans. “The vaccines are being delivered to the states by the federal government far faster than they can be administered!” President Donald Trump said on Twitter. But Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the chief medical adviser to President-elect Joe Biden, said that the pace of inoculating people – chiefly health care workers and elderly people in nursing homes in the initial stages of the vaccination campaign – is picking up. “There is a glimmer of hope,” Fauci said, with 1.5 million shots administered in the last three days. He added, “We’ve got to get interaction between the federal government and the (country’s 50) states, a real partnership.” Florida Department of Health medical workers prepare to administer a COVID-19 vaccine to seniors in the parking lot of the Gulf View Square Mall in New Port Richey near Tampa, Florida, Dec. 31, 2020.In some states, long lines of people waiting for shots have formed on sidewalks leading to health centers. In the city of Houston, Texas, officials had 750 shots available, but 250,000 people called a registration line in hopes of scheduling a vaccination. Biden has called for 100 million vaccinations in the first 100 days of his administration that starts with his inauguration January 20. Fauci said the stepped-up pace of inoculations can be met. “It’s realistic,” he said. “We can do a million a day.” Fauci said that if 70% to 85% of Americans are vaccinated in the coming months the United States can return to some sense of normality by next September or October. Fauci was for a while the face of the Trump’s administration’s response to the pandemic that has killed more than 350,000 Americans and left more than 20.4 million infected. Both figures surpass those of any other country, according to the Johns Hopkins University.  With the U.S. coronavirus caseload growing by tens of thousands a day and Trump preoccupied with a November reelection bid he lost, the White House mostly sidelined Fauci in favor of a more favorable commentary on the development of the vaccines. In a tweet Sunday, Trump indicated he was still upset about Fauci’s standing in the court of public opinion. “Something how Dr. Fauci is revered by the LameStream Media as such a great professional, having done, they say, such an incredible job, yet he works for me and the Trump Administration, and I am in no way given any credit for my work,” Trump said. “Gee, could this just be more Fake News?” Something how Dr. Fauci is revered by the LameStream Media as such a great professional, having done, they say, such an incredible job, yet he works for me and the Trump Administration, and I am in no way given any credit for my work. Gee, could this just be more Fake News?— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2021
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Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned Sunday of new lockdowns to be issued across the country as cases of the coronavirus surge, particularly with a new variant spreading.Britain has been seeing upwards of 50,000 new cases daily as health experts note that the variant is up to 70 percent more contagious.“We are entirely reconciled to do what it takes to get the virus under control that may involve tougher measures in the weeks ahead,” Johnson told the BBC.A health worker engages in a COVID-19 vaccine delivery system trial in New Delhi, India, Jan. 2, 2021.Also, on Sunday, Travellers walk with their luggage at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, Jan. 2, 2021.Ban on US travelers, tighter lockdowns The Philippines said it would prohibit the entry of foreign travelers from the U.S. until at least January 15 after the new coronavirus variant was detected.In Bangkok, Thai officials shuttered the city’s nightlife with a ban on bar, nightclub and restaurant alcohol sales, among a raft of restrictions aimed at curbing the kingdom’s rising toll. Elsewhere, Tokyo’s governor on Saturday asked Japan’s government to declare a new state of emergency as the country battles a third wave of infections, with record numbers of new cases.France, which recently lengthened an overnight curfew by two hours in parts of the country, has the highest case count in western Europe with more than 2.7 million, according to Johns Hopkins.Spanish police broke up a gathering Saturday near Barcelona, where 300 people had been partying for more than 40 hours.Ireland on Saturday reported 3,394 cases of the outbreak nearly doubling its record for a single day. Irish officials Friday said they had underreported coronavirus cases in recent days by more than 9,000, as its reporting system came under strain. Italy, which has the highest coronavirus death toll in Europe at nearly 75,000, Saturday reported 364 more people had died from the virus, a drop compared with Friday’s total of 462. The Guardian reported that new cases had also decreased, from 22,211 to 11,831.Norway, with one of the lowest infection rates in Europe, Saturday began requiring COVID-19 tests upon arrival into the country, after finding five cases of the British variant. Denmark discovered 86 cases of that new, more contagious strain.Greece has extended until January 10 its strict two-month lockdown measures, ending an easing of the restrictions for the holidays.In Zimbabwe, where recorded cases have almost doubled since the beginning of November, government officials ordered a new containment Saturday evening. The country has recorded nearly 14,500 cases to date, including 377 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.Zimbabwe Reintroduces Dusk-to-Dawn Curfew to Contain Rising COVID-19 Cases Besides the curfew, other measures include limiting the number of mourners at funerals to 30 people, while all other gatherings at weddings, churches, bars, bottle stores, gyms and restaurants are bannedIn South Africa, government-backed security forces stepped up a “zero-tolerance approach” to enforcing a mask mandate, and President Cyril Ramaphosa banned alcohol sales, calling it a root cause of accidents and violence that strain hospital resources.
The coronavirus has killed more than 1.8 million people globally since emerging in China in December 2019, according to Johns Hopkins.Experts fear the worst is yet to come, predicting a sharp rise in cases and deaths after weeks of holiday gatherings.  
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Israel said Sunday two million people will have received a two-dose Covid-19 vaccination by the end of January, a pace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasts is the world’s fastest.Starting on December 19, when Netanyahu got his first jab, Israel launched an aggressive push to administer the vaccine made by U.S.-German pharma alliance Pfizer-BioNTech.Health Ministry Director General Hezi Levy said that because of the enthusiastic takeup, Israel would be easing the speed of vaccination to eke out stocks.The vaccine must be given in two separate jabs, administered three weeks apart.”We are slowing the pace of vaccinations of the first dose, so that we can keep reserved stock for a second dose for all those who got a first shot,” Levy told public broadcaster KAN.But he added that around a fifth of Israel’s people, starting with health workers and those over 60, would have had both shots by the end of this month. “By the end of January, we shall have inoculated two million residents, most of them elderly,” he said.As of Friday, one million people had received their first injection.”We are breaking all the records,” Netanyahu said Friday, during a visit to the Israeli Arab city of Umm Al-Fahm, where the millionth jab was reported administered.”We are ahead of the entire world,” the premier said.The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics said in a year-end statement that Israel’s population stood at 9.29 million.The figure includes annexed east Jerusalem, where Israeli sovereignty is not recognized by most of the international community.The health ministry said on Sunday that 435,866 people in Israel had so far tested positive for the virus since the first confirmed case was reported in February. Almost 3,400 people have died, it said.The ministry said on Friday that it had confirmed 18 local cases of a new strain of coronavirus first detected in Britain. 
 
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As richer countries race to distribute COVID-19 vaccines, Somalia remains the rare place where much of the population hasn’t taken the coronavirus seriously. Some fear that’s proven to be deadlier than anyone knows.“Certainly, our people don’t use any form of protective measures, neither masks nor social distancing,” Abdirizak Yusuf Hirabeh, the government’s COVID-19 incident manager, said in an interview. “If you move around the city (of Mogadishu) or countrywide, nobody even talks about it.” And yet infections are rising, he said.It is places like Somalia, the Horn of Africa nation torn apart by three decades of conflict, that will be last to see COVID-19 vaccines in any significant quantity. With part of the country still held by the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab extremist group, the risk of the virus becoming endemic in some hard-to-reach areas is strong — a fear for parts of Africa amid the slow arrival of vaccines.“There is no real or practical investigation into the matter,” said Hirabeh, who is also the director of the Martini hospital in Mogadishu, the largest treating COVID-19 patients, which saw seven new patients the day he spoke. He acknowledged that neither facilities nor equipment are adequate in Somalia to tackle the virus.Fewer than 27,000 tests for the virus have been conducted in Somalia, a country of more than 15 million people, one of the lowest rates in the world. Fewer than 4,800 cases have been confirmed, including at least 130 deaths.Some worry the virus will sink into the population as yet another poorly diagnosed but deadly fever.For 45-year-old street beggar Hassan Mohamed Yusuf, that fear has turned into near-certainty. “In the beginning we saw this virus as just another form of the flu,” he said.Then three of his young children died after having a cough and high fever. As residents of a makeshift camp for people displaced by conflict or drought, they had no access to coronavirus testing or proper care.At the same time, Yusuf said, the virus hurt his efforts to find money to treat his family as “we can’t get close enough” to people to beg.Early in the pandemic, Somalia’s government did attempt some measures to limit the spread of the virus, closing all schools and shutting down all domestic and international flights. Mobile phones rang with messages about the virus. But social distancing has long disappeared in the country’s streets, markets or restaurants. On Thursday, some 30,000 people crammed into a stadium in Mogadishu for a regional football match with no face masks or other anti-virus measures in sight.Mosques in the Muslim nation never faced restrictions, for fear of the reactions.“Our religion taught us hundreds of years ago that we should wash our hands, faces and even legs five times every day and our women should take face veils as they’re often weaker. So that’s the whole prevention of the disease, if it really exists,” said Abdulkadir Sheikh Mohamud, an imam in Mogadishu.“I left the matter to Allah to protect us,” said Ahmed Abdulle Ali, a shop owner in the capital. He attributed the rise in coughing during prayers to the changing of seasons.A more important protective factor is the relative youth of Somalia’s people, said Dr. Abdurahman Abdullahi Abdi Bilaal, who works in a clinic in the capital. More than 80% of the country’s population is under age 30.“The virus is here, absolutely, but the resilience of people is owing to age,” he said.It’s the lack of post-mortem investigations in the country that are allowing the true extent of the virus to go undetected, he said.The next challenge in Somalia is not simply obtaining COVID-19 vaccines but also persuading the population to accept them.That will take time, “just the same as what it took for our people to believe in the polio or measles vaccines,” a concerned Bilaal said.Hirabeh, in charge of Somalia’s virus response, agreed that “our people have little confidence in the vaccines,” saying that many Somalis hate the needles. He called for serious awareness campaigns to change minds.The logistics of any COVID-19 vaccine rollout are another major concern. Hirabeh said Somalia is expecting the first vaccines in the first quarter of 2021, but he worries that the country has no way to handle a vaccine like the Pfizer one that requires being kept at a temperature of minus 70 degrees Celsius.“One that could be kept between minus 10 and minus 20 might suit the Third World like our country,” he said. 
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The U.S. continues its run at the top of the list as the country with the most COVID-19 infections, the disease caused by the coronavirus.  Early Sunday, the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported the U.S. has 20.4 million of the world’s 84.3 million COVID infections.  India, the country with the second-largest number of cases has about half as many cases as the U.S. with 10.3 million.  Public health officials warn, however, that India’s caseload may be undercounted. The U.S. has recorded more than 350,000 deaths related to the coronavirus. Funeral homes across the country are finding it difficult to keep up with the demand for their services.   A surge of cases in the coming weeks is expected, following the holiday season, public health officials say. The CDC Data Tracker says more than 13 million coronavirus vaccines have been distributed in the U.S. but only 4.2 million people have been inoculated.  States have been overwhelmed by the process and have received little, if any, direction from the federal government about how best to deliver the vaccines to the public. Twenty-five prisons in California have individually recorded more than 1,000 coronavirus infections, according to a New York Times report, and none of the prisons with the high infection rate is scheduled to participate in the state’s prison vaccination program.  Avenal, the prison with the most infections, has reported more than 3,500 cases, according to The Times.  A spokeswoman for the court-appointed official who oversees California’s prison health told the newspaper that California was instead focusing its prison vaccination program on locations where “people are at significant risk of becoming infected or severely ill from the coronavirus.” Former CNN talk show host Larry King is undergoing treatment for COVID-19 in a hospital in Los Angeles.  CNN said Saturday King has been in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for more than a week.  
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The news came during a hopeful time on the largest Native American reservation.Daily coronavirus cases were in the single digits, down from a springtime peak of 238 that made the Navajo Nation a U.S. hot spot. The tribe, wanting to ensure a COVID-19 vaccine would be effective for its people, said it would welcome Pfizer clinical trials on its reservation spanning Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.Right away, tribal members accused their government of allowing them to be guinea pigs, pointing to painful times in the past when Native Americans didn’t consent to medical testing or weren’t fully informed about procedures.A Navajo Nation review board gave the study quicker approval than normal after researchers with Johns Hopkins University’s Center for American Indian Health made the case for diversity. Without Native volunteers, how would they know if tribal members responded to vaccines the same as others?“Unfortunately, Native Americans have effectively been denied the opportunity to participate in these clinical trials because almost all of the study sites are in large, urban areas that have not done effective outreach to Native Americans,” said Dr. Laura Hammitt of Johns Hopkins.Suspicion and distrustAbout 460 Native Americans participated in the trials for the vaccine by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, including Navajos. The enrollment reflects a growing understanding of the role that people of color play in vaccine development and the push to rapidly deploy it to curb infections among populations that have been disproportionately affected by the virus.Yet, few of the country’s 574 federally recognized tribes have signed on for the studies, a hesitation often rooted in suspicion and distrust. Many tribes also require several layers of approval for clinical trials, a challenge researchers aren’t always willing to overcome and don’t face in the states.While vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna Inc. roll out across Indian Country, others are being studied.In the Pacific Northwest, the Lummi Nation and the Nooksack Indian Tribe plan to participate in a vaccine trial from another company, Novavax Inc. A Cheyenne River Sioux researcher plans to enroll Native Americans and others in South Dakota in the Novavax trial and another by Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline.On the Navajo Nation, Arvena Peshlakai, her husband, Melvin, and their daughter Quortnii volunteered for the Pfizer trials.Arvena Peshlakai said the rumors were rampant: Navajos would be injected with the virus, and researchers would use plasma from people who got COVID-19.She was assured that wasn’t happening and let the words of her parents and grandparents guide her: Don’t let our struggles be your struggles, begin with our triumphs.“What else am I supposed to do? Just sit back and say, ‘No, I don’t trust them’ and not try something new to see if we can find a breakthrough?” Peshlakai said. “We have to do something; we can’t just sit by and wait and hope and pray.”She overcame her fear of needles to get the doses and keeps track of her well-being daily on an app. As trial participants, the family can get the vaccine if they initially received a placebo.The Pfizer trials among the Navajo and White Mountain Apache tribes enrolled 275 people, about 80% of them Native American, Hammitt said. It wasn’t as many as researchers had hoped for, but she said it’s enough to compare immune and antibody responses in Native patients to others.Vaccine trials nationwide have been moving quickly, which doesn’t always align with tribal guidelines on considering research proposals.“It must be done with respect for tribal sovereignty and knowing that each individual has truly been given informed consent,” said Abigail Echo-Hawk, director of the Urban Indian Health Institute in Seattle.It helped that Johns Hopkins has a decades-long history with the Navajos and Apaches, including other clinical trials. Hammitt said the Navajo Human Research Review Board was receptive to a quick review of the vaccine trials because of the devastating impact of the pandemic.’A few brave people’In South Dakota, the Cheyenne River Sioux tribal health committee initially pushed back on Dr. Jeffrey Henderson’s proposal for trials of the Novavax vaccine. Henderson, a tribal member, was sent into the community to gauge support.He expects to get approval from a newly seated tribal council but for now, plans to set up a mobile unit outside the reservation.“We refuse to do this type of research or any research within the boundaries of a tribe without having explicit approval from the tribe,” Henderson said.In Washington state, the Nooksack tribe is set to begin enrolling volunteers in the Novavax trials Monday, said Dr. Frank James, the tribe’s health officer.“I expect a slow start to it, and we have to get a few brave people who are comfortable with it and then people to follow,” he said.The nearby Lummi Nation is moving forward with a three-part review and approval process for the Novavax trials.Initial hesitation among the tribe stemmed from a researcher who took photos of Lummi children years ago to develop a tool to diagnose fetal alcohol syndrome but didn’t offer any ways to address it, said Dr. Dakotah Lane, executive medical director of the Lummi Tribal Health Clinic.“I had already known and was aware of certainly some distrust with any kind of research within our community,” Lane said. “But I also knew the only way out of this pandemic was with access to vaccines.”Other stories about the sterilization of Native American women, noted in a 1976 federal report, and military testing of radioactive iodine on Alaska Natives have bred distrust.The Havasupai Tribe also settled a lawsuit a decade ago that accused Arizona State University scientists of misusing blood samples meant for diabetes research to study schizophrenia, inbreeding and ancient population migration without the tribe’s permission.That case came to mind when Annette Brown, a Navajo woman, heard about her tribe’s willingness to participate in COVID-19 vaccine trials.“There’s this historical distrust when it comes to any type of experimenting,” she said. “It’s just experience, I don’t know that there are many families out there who haven’t been touched by some sort of experimentation (or) biological attacks on tribal communities.”Brown has mixed feelings because she previously participated in a vaccine trial with Johns Hopkins.It was related to research that determined the first generation of vaccines for bacterial meningitis was less effective among Navajo and Apache children 6 months and younger, Hammitt said. The rate of the disease used to be five to 10 times higher among those children than the general population.Researchers and doctors in Native American communities also have found that standard doses for medications like blood thinners weren’t always the best fit for tribal members.For Marcia O’Leary, helping with a study that indirectly discovered HPV vaccines don’t protect against a strain that’s a leading cause of cancer among Native American women in the Great Plains shows the importance of having more Native researchers and being involved in clinical trials.“We can’t wait for this to trickle down,” said O’Leary, director of Missouri Breaks, a small Native American-owned research group on the Cheyenne River Sioux reservation. “It seems like in Indian Country, we keep chasing the ball of health and we never get ahead of it.”
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India said Sunday it has given final approval for the emergency use of two coronavirus vaccines. One of the vaccines was developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University. Bharat Biotech, an Indian company, developed the other vaccine. Both vaccines are being produced in India.“It would make every Indian proud that the two vaccines that have been given emergency use approval are made in India!” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on Twitter.The news of the approvals comes as India is poised to launch one of the world’s largest coronavirus vaccination programs. Nationwide drills, ahead of the launch, were staged Saturday.India’s approval of the British-developed vaccine follows Britain’s recent approval of the vaccine.India’s Drugs Controller General V.G. Somani said Sunday that the efficacy of the British-developed AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine is 70.42%.Somani, however, described the Indian-developed vaccine as “safe and provides a robust immune response.” He added that the Indian vaccine was approved “in public interest as an abundant precaution, in clinical trial mode, to have more options for vaccinations, especially in case of infection by mutant strains.”Only the United States surpasses India in the number of COVID-19 cases. The U.S. has 20.4 million infections, while India has 10.3 million.In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday said the country had administered more than 4.2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines nationwide and had distributed more than 13 million doses.The U.S. continues to lead the world with more than 350,000 COVID-19 deaths and 20 million infections, about one-fourth of the 84.5 million COVID-19 cases globally, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.In Russia, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said that more than 800,000 people had received the domestically produced Sputnik V vaccine and that 1.5 million doses had been distributed throughout the country of 147 million.The Kremlin is pinning its hopes on mass vaccinations, not nationwide restrictions, to stop the spread of the virus and save its struggling economy from the hit of another lockdown.Officials in Brazil, home to the third-highest number of cases globally at 7.7 million, recently told the Associated Press it was at least three weeks away from launching any formal immunization campaign.European Union leaders on Saturday offered to help any drug companies expand vaccine production and improve “distribution bottlenecks.””The bottleneck at the moment is … the worldwide shortage of production capacity,” said EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides, adding the bloc would help drug companies develop candidate vaccines.New strainBritish health officials Saturday reported another infection record — more than 57,700 in a single day. It was the fifth day in a row that new infections exceeded 50,000 cases as the country struggles with the spread of a more infectious variant of the virus.A spokesperson for Britain’s National Health Service said health workers were preparing to reopen London’s Nightingale hospitals, according to the Reuters news agency. The temporary Nightingale hospitals were set up by the military around the city and have remained on standby after receiving little use during the first wave of the pandemic.The new strain has led to renewed lockdowns in Britain as well as global restrictions on travelers from Britain.The New York Times reported Friday that at least 33 countries had detected the new coronavirus variant and more than 40 countries had barred travelers arriving from Britain. Florida on Friday was the third U.S. state to detect the new variant, after Colorado and California.On Friday, Turkey began banning Britons from entering the country after detecting 15 cases of the new coronavirus variant. Turkey said all those affected were recent arrivals from Britain.Ban on US travelers, tighter lockdownsThe Philippines said it would prohibit the entry of foreign travelers from the United States until at least Jan. 15 after the new coronavirus variant was detected.In Bangkok, Thai officials shuttered the city’s nightlife with a ban on bar, nightclub and restaurant alcohol sales, among a raft of restrictions aimed at curbing the kingdom’s rising coronavirus toll. In Tokyo, the city’s governor on Saturday asked Japan’s government to declare a new state of emergency as the country battles a third wave of infections, with record numbers of new cases.France, which recently lengthened an overnight curfew by two hours in parts of the country, has the highest COVID-19 case count in Western Europe with more than 2.7 million, according to Johns Hopkins.France deployed more than 100,000 police to stop end-of-the-year celebrations, but partygoers in northwestern France, near Rennes, staged a massive illegal rave, leading to hundreds of arrests.Spanish police broke up another gathering Saturday near Barcelona, where 300 people had been partying for more than 40 hours.Ireland on Saturday reported 3,394 cases of COVID-19, nearly doubling its record for a single day. Irish officials Friday said they had underreported coronavirus cases in recent days by more than 9,000, as its reporting system came under strain.Italy, which has the highest coronavirus death toll in Europe at nearly 75,000, Saturday reported 364 more people had died from the virus, a drop compared with Friday’s total of 462. The Guardian reported that new cases had also decreased, from 22,211 to 11,831.Norway, with one of the lowest infection rates in Europe, Saturday began requiring COVID-19 tests upon arrival into the country, after finding five cases of the British variant of the virus. Denmark discovered 86 cases of that new, more contagious strain.Greece has extended until Jan. 10 its strict two-month lockdown measures, ending an easing of the restrictions for the holidays.In Zimbabwe, where recorded cases have almost doubled since the beginning of November, government officials ordered a new containment Saturday evening. The country has recorded nearly 14,500 cases to date, including 377 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.In South Africa, government-backed security forces stepped up a “zero-tolerance approach” to enforcing a mask mandate, and President Cyril Ramaphosa banned alcohol sales, calling it a root cause of accidents and violence that strain hospital resources.The coronavirus has killed more than 1.8 million people globally since emerging in China in December 2019, according to Johns Hopkins.But experts fear the worst is yet to come, predicting a sharp rise in cases and deaths after weeks of holiday gatherings.
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The United States has passed the milestone of 350,000 COVID-19 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data, even as vaccinations against the coronavirus-caused disease get off to a slow start.As countries around the world tighten lockdowns, impose curfews, ban large get-togethers and even halt alcohol sales to tackle a surge in coronavirus cases, officials in India and the U.S. announced some progress toward expanded immunization campaigns as infections rates continued to climb on multiple continents.New Delhi staged nationwide drills Saturday to launch one of the world’s biggest coronavirus vaccination programs as the country’s drug regulator approved two vaccines — one developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, the other by Bharat Biotech and the state-run Indian Council of Medical Research — for emergency use.India, the world’s second most populous country, has more than 10.3 million confirmed COVID-19 infections, second only to the United States. Reuters reported Friday that little was known about the clinical trials that informed the emergency use authorization and that Indian officials said approval of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine was “subject to multiple regulatory conditionalities,” without providing details.In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday said the country had administered more than 4.2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines nationwide and had distributed more than 13 million doses.The U.S. continues to lead the world with more than 20 million infections, about one-fourth of the 84.5 million COVID-19 cases globally, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, which also reported a total of more than 350,000 deaths since the pandemic began.In Russia, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said that more than 800,000 people had received the domestically produced Sputnik V vaccine and that 1.5 million doses had been distributed throughout the country of 147 million.The Kremlin is pinning its hopes on mass vaccinations, not nationwide restrictions, to stop the spread of the virus and save its struggling economy from the hit of another lockdown.Officials in Brazil, home to the third-highest number of cases globally (7.7 million), recently told The Associated Press it was at least three weeks away from launching any formal immunization campaign.European Union leaders on Saturday offered to help any drug companies expand vaccine production and improve “distribution bottlenecks.””The bottleneck at the moment is … the worldwide shortage of production capacity,” said EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides, adding the bloc would help drug companies develop candidate vaccines.New strainBritish health officials Saturday reported another infection record — more than 57,700 in a single day. It was the fifth day in a row that new infections exceeded 50,000 cases as the country struggles with the spread of a more infectious variant of the virus.A spokesperson for Britain’s National Health Service said health workers were preparing to reopen London’s Nightingale hospitals, according to the Reuters news agency. The temporary Nightingale hospitals were set up by the military around the city and have remained on standby after receiving little use during the first wave of the pandemic.The new strain has led to renewed lockdowns in Britain as well as global travel restrictions on travelers from Britain.The New York Times reported Friday that at least 33 countries had detected the new coronavirus variant and more than 40 countries had barred travelers arriving from Britain. Florida on Friday was the third U.S. state to detect the new variant, after Colorado and California.On Friday, Turkey began banning Britons from entering the country after detecting 15 cases of the new coronavirus variant. Turkey said all those affected were recent arrivals from Britain.Ban on US travelers, tighter lockdownsThe Philippines said it would prohibit the entry of foreign travelers from the United States until at least Jan. 15 after the new coronavirus variant was detected.In Bangkok, Thai officials shuttered the city’s nightlife with a ban on bar, nightclub and restaurant alcohol sales, among a raft of restrictions aimed at curbing the kingdom’s rising coronavirus toll. In Tokyo, the city’s governor on Saturday asked Japan’s government to declare a new state of emergency as the country battles a third wave of infections, with record numbers of new cases.France, which recently lengthened an overnight curfew by two hours in parts of the country, has the highest COVID-19 case count in Western Europe with more than 2.7 million, according to Johns Hopkins.France deployed more than 100,000 police to stop end-of-the-year celebrations, but partygoers in northwestern France, near Rennes, staged a massive illegal rave, leading to hundreds of arrests.Spanish police broke up another gathering Saturday near Barcelona, where 300 people had been partying for more than 40 hours.Ireland on Saturday reported 3,394 cases of COVID-19, nearly doubling its record for a single day. Irish officials Friday said they had underreported coronavirus cases in recent days by more than 9,000, as its reporting system came under strain.Italy, which has the highest coronavirus death toll in Europe at nearly 75,000, Saturday reported 364 more people had died from the virus, a drop compared with Friday’s total of 462. The Guardian reported that new cases had also decreased, from 22,211 to 11,831.Norway, with one of the lowest infection rates in Europe, Saturday began requiring COVID-19 tests upon arrival into the country, after finding five cases of the British variant of the virus. Denmark discovered 86 cases of that new, more contagious strain.Greece has extended until Jan. 10 its strict two-month lockdown measures, ending an easing of the restrictions for the holidays.But in Australia, the finishing touches were being put on a glitzy show at the Sydney Opera House on Saturday, as the venue prepared to host an opera crowd for the first time since March.In Zimbabwe, where recorded cases have almost doubled since the beginning of November, government officials ordered a new containment Saturday evening. The southern African country has recorded nearly 14,500 cases to date, including 377 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.In South Africa, government-backed security forces stepped up a “zero-tolerance approach” to enforcing a mask mandate, and President Cyril Ramaphosa banned alcohol sales, calling it a root cause of accidents and violence that strain hospital resources.The coronavirus has killed more than 1.8 million people globally since emerging in China in December 2019, according to Johns Hopkins.But experts fear the worst is yet to come, predicting a sharp rise in cases and deaths after weeks of holiday gatherings.The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report.
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As countries around the world tighten lockdowns, impose curfews, ban large get-togethers and even halt alcohol sales to tackle a surge in coronavirus cases, officials in India and the U.S. announced some progress toward expanded immunization campaigns as infections rates continued to climb on multiple continents.New Delhi staged nationwide drills Saturday to launch one of the world’s biggest coronavirus vaccination programs as the country’s drug regulator approved two vaccines — one developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, the other by Bharat Biotech and the state-run Indian Council of Medical Research — for emergency use.India, the world’s second most populous country, has more than 10.3 million confirmed COVID-19 infections, second only to the United States. Reuters reported Friday that little was known about the clinical trials that informed the emergency use authorization and that Indian officials said approval of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine was “subject to multiple regulatory conditionalities,” without providing details.In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday said the country had administered more than 4.2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines nationwide and had distributed more than 13 million doses.The U.S. continues to lead the world with more than 20 million infections, about one-fourth of the 84.5 million COVID-19 cases globally, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, which also reported a total of nearly 350,000 deaths since the pandemic began.In Russia, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said that more than 800,000 people had received the domestically produced Sputnik V vaccine and that 1.5 million doses had been distributed throughout the country of 147 million.The Kremlin is pinning its hopes on mass vaccinations, not nationwide restrictions, to stop the spread of the virus and save its struggling economy from the hit of another lockdown.Officials in Brazil, home to the third-highest number of cases globally (7.7 million), recently told The Associated Press it was at least three weeks away from launching any formal immunization campaign.European Union leaders on Saturday offered to help any drug companies expand vaccine production and improve “distribution bottlenecks.””The bottleneck at the moment is … the worldwide shortage of production capacity,” said EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides, adding the bloc would help drug companies develop candidate vaccines.New strainBritish health officials Saturday reported another infection record — more than 57,700 in a single day. It was the fifth day in a row that new infections exceeded 50,000 cases as the country struggles with the spread of a more infectious variant of the virus.A spokesperson for Britain’s National Health Service said health workers were preparing to reopen London’s Nightingale hospitals, according to the Reuters news agency. The temporary Nightingale hospitals were set up by the military around the city and have remained on standby after receiving little use during the first wave of the pandemic.The new strain has led to renewed lockdowns in Britain as well as global travel restrictions on travelers from Britain.The New York Times reported Friday that at least 33 countries had detected the new coronavirus variant and more than 40 countries had barred travelers arriving from Britain. Florida on Friday was the third U.S. state to detect the new variant, after Colorado and California.On Friday, Turkey began banning Britons from entering the country after detecting 15 cases of the new coronavirus variant. Turkey said all those affected were recent arrivals from Britain.Ban on US travelers, tighter lockdownsThe Philippines said it would prohibit the entry of foreign travelers from the United States until at least Jan. 15 after the new coronavirus variant was detected.In Bangkok, Thai officials shuttered the city’s nightlife with a ban on bar, nightclub and restaurant alcohol sales, among a raft of restrictions aimed at curbing the kingdom’s rising coronavirus toll. In Tokyo, the city’s governor on Saturday asked Japan’s government to declare a new state of emergency as the country battles a third wave of infections, with record numbers of new cases.France, which recently lengthened an overnight curfew by two hours in parts of the country, has the highest COVID-19 case count in Western Europe with more than 2.7 million, according to Johns Hopkins.France deployed more than 100,000 police to stop end-of-the-year celebrations, but partygoers in northwestern France, near Rennes, staged a massive illegal rave, leading to hundreds of arrests.Spanish police broke up another gathering Saturday near Barcelona, where 300 people had been partying for more than 40 hours.Ireland on Saturday reported 3,394 cases of COVID-19, nearly doubling its record for a single day. Irish officials Friday said they had underreported coronavirus cases in recent days by more than 9,000, as its reporting system came under strain.Italy, which has the highest coronavirus death toll in Europe at nearly 75,000, Saturday reported 364 more people had died from the virus, a drop compared with Friday’s total of 462. The Guardian reported that new cases had also decreased, from 22,211 to 11,831.Norway, with one of the lowest infection rates in Europe, Saturday began requiring COVID-19 tests upon arrival into the country, after finding five cases of the British variant of the virus. Denmark discovered 86 cases of that new, more contagious strain.Greece has extended until Jan. 10 its strict two-month lockdown measures, ending an easing of the restrictions for the holidays.But in Australia, the finishing touches were being put on a glitzy show at the Sydney Opera House on Saturday, as the venue prepared to host an opera crowd for the first time since March.In Zimbabwe, where recorded cases have almost doubled since the beginning of November, government officials ordered a new containment Saturday evening. The southern African country has recorded nearly 14,500 cases to date, including 377 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.In South Africa, government-backed security forces stepped up a “zero-tolerance approach” to enforcing a mask mandate, and President Cyril Ramaphosa banned alcohol sales, calling it a root cause of accidents and violence that strain hospital resources.The coronavirus has killed more than 1.8 million people globally since emerging in China in December 2019, according to Johns Hopkins.But experts fear the worst is yet to come, predicting a sharp rise in cases and deaths after weeks of holiday gatherings.The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report.
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