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Task Force to lead efforts to determine if variant B.1.1.7 has already entered PHL (Eagle News) – President Rodrigo Duterte directed the creation of another Task Force, this time, composed of medical experts and scientists directed at studying the new emerging COVID-19 virus strains or variants that are said to be more infectious than before. In his meeting with the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) Saturday night, Dec. 26, Duterte observed […]
MADRID, Spain (AFP) — Spain received its first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine on Saturday, a day before the country is set to begin its immunisation campaign. A refrigerated truck arrived at Pfizer’s warehouse in Guadalajara in central Spain with the shipment, three days after it left the company’s factory in Puurs in northeast Belgium, the health ministry said in a statement. After repackaging, the vaccines will be redistributed to Spain’s 17 autonomous […]
by Barnaby CHESTERMAN with AFP bureaus Agence France Presse MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AFP) — Three Latin American countries launched mass immunization programs on Thursday as fears grew in Europe over a variant coronavirus strain that is believed to be far more contagious than the original version. Frontline medical staff in Mexico and Chile were among the first to receive their vaccines while Costa Rica began its own immunization program, with President Carlos Alvarado hailing what “may […]
by Marc BURLEIGH Agence France Presse BRUSSELS, Belgium (AFP) — From January 1 British and EU citizens will be confronted with the reality of Brexit as the transition period ends and borders that were done away with decades ago return. From that date, Britons will be treated by the EU as “third country” nationals, no longer enjoying freedom of movement to work, study or retire across the European Union. Britain in turn will process […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — A mutated coronavirus strain spreading in Britain is on average 56 percent more contagious than the original version, scientists have warned in a study, urging a fast vaccine rollout to help prevent more deaths. The new variant, which emerged in southeast England in November and is spreading fast, is likely to boost hospitalisations and deaths from Covid next year, according to the study published Wednesday by the Centre for Mathematical […]
by Martine PAUWELS with Agence France Presse bureaus LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Europe on Wednesday began lifting travel bans on Britain put in place to contain a new fast-spreading Covid strain while WHO experts were set to meet on a response to it. Meanwhile, in the United States, President Donald Trump rejected a massive Covid economic relief package passed by Congress, branding it “a disgrace” as millions of Americans are suffering fallout from […]
by Marlowe HOOD Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — As dozens of countries blocked the flow of people and goods from Britain to avoid a new and more contagious strain of coronavirus, scientists raced to understand how it emerged and the scope of its threat. Here are some of the key questions they are asking, and the answers that have emerged so far. – How often do viruses mutate? – All the time, but […]
HANOI, Vietnam (AFP) — The father of one of the 39 Vietnamese migrants who suffocated in a truck in Britain said Tuesday he felt sorry for the two men convicted of manslaughter over the deaths. The bodies of the men and women were found inside a sealed container near London in October 2019, after they suffocated in sweltering temperatures. Lorry driver Eamonn Harrison, 24, from Northern Ireland, and Romanian national Gheorghe Nica, 43, were found […]
by James Pheby with Agence France Presse Bureaus LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Travellers were facing a nightmare holiday season on Monday with governments banning flights from Britain to contain a fast-spreading variant of the coronavirus, as the European Union approves its first vaccine and readies a mass rollout. More than two dozen countries from India to Argentina suspended flights from the UK offering a bleak reminder that the pandemic is far from over. […]
HONG KONG, China (AFP) — Hong Kong on Monday said it would ban all flights from Britain following the discovery of a new and highly infectious strain of the coronavirus there. “From midnight there will be no more passenger flights arriving in Hong Kong from the United Kingdom,” health secretary Sophia Chan told reporters. Anyone arriving in Hong Kong who has been the UK in the last 14 days will also have to undergo a […]
by Agence France Presse Bureaus LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — European countries started banning flights coming from the UK on Sunday as government in London warned that a potent new strain of the virus was “out of control”. Following the example of the Netherlands, where a ban on all UK passenger flights came into effect on Sunday, a German government source said Berlin, too, was considering a similar move as “a serious option” for […]
LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Sunday that the government has imposed a strict lockdown in London and southeast England because a new strain of the coronavirus was “out of control”. Hancock warned that the strict measures that affect almost a third of England’s population could stay in place until the virus vaccine is fully rolled out. “We acted very quickly and decisively,” Hancock told Sky News, justifying the […]
