Sunday 13 / October / 2024
Paris: France is preparing regional health agencies and hospitals to enter "crisis organisation" to deal with a possible surge in infections from the new coronavirus variants, Le Journal Du Dimanche has reported.
The move involves increasing the number of available hospital beds, delaying non-urgent surgery and mobilising all medical staff. It echoes measures taken in March and November last year, when the country went into lockdown.
"This crisis organisation must be implemented in each region, regardless of the level of hospital stress and must be operational from Thursday Feb. 18," the DGS health authority said in a memo cited by the publication Sunday.
France has the sixth-highest COVID-19 caseload in the world. The virus variant first detected in Britain accounted for 25% of confirmed new infections in France.
Europe
Europe aims to roll out vaccines to everyone who wants one by the end of the summer, EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said on Monday.
The EU vaccine roll-out has so far been marred by supply chain issues, resulting in a much lower vaccination rate than other places such as the UK and Israel.
Germany has partially closed its borders with the Czech Republic and Austria's Tyrol following a disturbing rise in coronavirus mutations. The decision comes despite protests from the EU.
Under the new rules, only Germans or non-German residents are allowed across the border. Exceptions have been made for essential workers in sectors like health and transport, and for urgent humanitarian reasons. The authorities also require a recent negative coronavirus test.
The border checks have led to long queues on Czech roads leading to German borders.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 4,426, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Monday. The reported death toll rose by 116, according to the latest tally.
Germany's Monday COVID tally is usually lower as some test centers do not submit their data during the weekend.
Austria announced plans to make home COVID testing kits freely available from March 1.
Austrians will be able to collect up to five testing kits a month from pharmacies in the country.
Italy has halted the reopening of several popular ski resorts that were set to open their doors to visitors on Monday. The existing ban on winter sports for recreational skiers has been extended in light of the risk posed by more infectious variants of the virus.
The Czech government has declared a state of emergency for the next two weeks as it attempts to tackle the pandemic. A nation of 10.7 million, the Czech Republic had more than 1 million confirmed cases. Over 18,000 people have died.
In a bid to reduce the spread of new variants, England has announced that passengers arriving from any of 33 "red list" countries, including South Africa and Brazil, will have to complete a 14-day hotel quarantine under new border restrictions.
"As this deadly virus evolves, so must our defences," Health Minister Matt Hancock said in a statement.
Under the quarantine package, almost 5,000 hotel rooms have been lined up by the government. Another 58,000 rooms are on standby.
Russia's Rosportrebnadzor agency announced they developed the world's first testing system for the UK coronavirus variant.
"The new testing system quickly detects the presence of the mutation," the government watchdog said on their website, adding that it was based on a special selection of oligonucleotides — short DNA or RNA molecules which are often used in genetic research or testing.
"This new technology can be used to develop reagents for any other SARS-Cov-2 mutations and also other infectious agents where rapid mass testing is required (pandemic infections)," they said.
Africa
Zimbabwe has taken delivery of its 200,000 vaccinations. They were donated by China.
A further 600,000 doses from China are set to arrive in early March, information minister Monica Mutsvangwa said last week. It is unclear how much the cash-strapped southern African nation will pay for the second batch of the vaccines from China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm).
Asia-Pacific
New Zealand’s largest city has been put under lockdown over cases involving the more transmissible UK variant of the virus, health officials have confirmed.
Auckland went into a new three-day lockdown on Monday after three new cases were detected in the city.
"We were absolutely right to make the decision to be extra cautious because we assumed it was going to be one of the more transmissible variants," Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said.
In light of the new cases, Australia has suspended the travel “bubble” with New Zealand, which allowed New Zealanders to enter Australia without completing a 14-day quarantine at a hotel.
Americas
The United States has seen average daily new coronavirus cases fall below 100,000 in recent days after months of skyrocketing numbers.
"It's encouraging to see these trends coming down, but they're coming down from an extraordinarily high place," Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
