Breaking News, Latest Philippines Headlines, World, Entertainment, Politics, Weather & Video News
by Joseph Schmid PARIS, France (AFP) — French authorities may place Paris on maximum virus alert as soon as Monday, potentially requiring all bars to close and other new restrictions as Covid-19 cases surge, Health Minister Olivier Veran said Thursday. The capital and its closest suburbs, comprising nearly seven million inhabitants, have already breached the maximum alert thresholds, Veran told a press conference. “We need a few days to confirm the trends, but if they […]
MONTREAL, Canada (AFP) — A second wave of Covid-19 in Canada is on its way to topping the average number of new daily cases from the outbreak’s May peak, with the situation in hardest-hit Quebec province reaching a “critical” point, authorities warned Thursday. “The situation is critical in Quebec,” the province’s Premier Francois Legault said, reporting 16 new deaths in recent days, a figure unmatched since the end of the first wave of the epidemic […]
SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) — Amazon on Thursday said that slightly more than 19,800 of its employees have tested positive for Covid-19 since the start of March. Data on the e-commerce giant’s 1.37 million frontline workers, including those at its Whole Foods Market grocery stores in the United States, showed a lower infection rate than expected, Amazon said. The release of the figure comes as some workers in logistics centers have criticized the company’s […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — One of President Donald Trump’s closest advisors, Hope Hicks, has tested positive for Covid-19, US media reported Thursday. The White House would not officially confirm the reports from The New York Times, Bloomberg and other outlets that Hicks has the virus. The spotlight will immediately turn to Trump himself, since Hicks was traveling with him on Air Force One just this Tuesday to fly to Cleveland for the first presidential […]
LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Emergency responders and engineers in Britain said on Tuesday they have successfully tested “the world’s first jet suit paramedic”, which could transform how life-savers reach isolated casualty sites. The Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS), which provides emergency air response across swathes of northern England, said it had helped flight-test the 1,050 bhp (brake horsepower) jet suit in the Lake District National Park. The trial saw Richard Browning, the founder […]
NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — New York’s daily rate of positive coronavirus tests climbed to 3.25 percent over the last 24 hours, with a sharp increase in cases among Orthodox Jewish communities, authorities said Tuesday. The elevated rate, which was at 1.93 percent just the day before, marks a worrisome step for a city that has made drastic progress in fighting the coronavirus. New York City, where more than 23,800 people have died of […]
by Paul RICARD Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Do 5G mobile telephones and networks pose health risks? Worries about the effect the technology has on humans and the environment have persisted as it has been deployed in various countries. What do scientists have to say about it? – What is 5G? – 5G networks are touted as promising an exponential leap in the amount and speed of wireless data, enabling advances in […]
by Ludovic EHRET Agence France Presse BEIJING, China (AFP) — A Chinese company is entering the global race to help defeat the coronavirus, promising its testing machine will return results faster than a lab and more reliably than at-home screening kits. The Flash 20 “is currently the fastest machine in the world for PCR tests for the new coronavirus”, says Sabrina Li, founder of the company Coyote. PCR tests are the industry standard and […]
GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — Up to 100 million additional doses of any eventual safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines will be secured for delivery to poorer countries in 2021, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance announced Tuesday. The announcement means 200 million doses have been secured from the Serum Institute of India, following a previous announcement in August from Gavi and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that they had secured an initial 100 million doses from SII, […]
NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — The rate of positive coronavirus tests is ticking up in New York, especially in neighborhoods with large Orthodox Jewish populations, the state’s governor Andrew Cuomo said Monday. Of the 52,936 tests reported Sunday, 834 were positive, or 1.5 percent of the total, tweeted Cuomo. The positive rate had previously been at one percent for several days. New York became the global epicenter of the pandemic in spring, recording 23,800 […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — The Tokyo 2020 torch relay, which was put on hold when the Olympics were delayed over the coronavirus, will start next March from Japan’s Fukushima region, organizers said Monday. The Olympic flame had already arrived in Japan from Greece and the relay was days from beginning earlier this year when organizers and Olympic officials took the historic decision to postpone the Games by 12 months. The flame is currently on […]
by Aishwarya KUMAR Agence France Presse NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — India on Monday reported the number of coronavirus cases in the country had passed six million, as the pandemic rages across the vast South Asian nation. With 6.1 million infections according to the health ministry, India is on course to pass the United States in the coming weeks as the country with the most cases. It has also recorded close to 100,000 deaths. […]
