Breaking News, Latest Philippines Headlines, World, Entertainment, Politics, Weather & Video News
by Shaun Tandon with James Pheby in London and AFP bureaus Agence France Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — A worrying new variant of Covid-19 was detected for the first time Tuesday in the United States and Latin America as President-elect Joe Biden vowed he will significantly ramp up a fledging vaccination drive. The new strain, which first emerged in the UK, pushed Britain to a new daily record of coronavirus infections and led […]
MONTREAL, Canada (AFP) — The first two cases of a particularly infectious coronavirus variant that recently emerged in Britain have been confirmed in Canada, health authorities said Saturday. “The cases are a couple from Durham with no known travel history, exposure or high-risk contacts,” Barbara Yaffe, acting chief medical officer for Ontario, said in a statement. The couple have been placed in isolation, according to the statement, the same day that Ontario reimposed a […]
Swab samples taken: 53 test negative; 1 test positive; 23 more awaiting results (Eagle News) – At least 77 travelers from the United Kingdom were able to enter the country before the Philippines imposed a travel ban of UK flights on December 24 after news of a highly infectious virus variant, B.1.1.7, that was first detected in Britain. Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said that the Department of Health is now closely monitoring these […]
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 […]
MADRID, Spain (AFP) — Four cases of a coronavirus variant believed to be particularly infectious that recently emerged in Britain have been confirmed in Madrid, the regional government said Saturday, the first cases detected in Spain. All four cases involved people who recently arrived from the UK, the Madrid regional government’s deputy health chief Antonio Zapatero told a news conference. “The patients are not seriously ill, we know that this strain is more transmissible, […]
Says any face-to-face activity for schoolchildren also suspended (Eagle News) – President Rodrigo Duterte recalled his previous order for a pilot testing of face-to-face classes all over the country because of the emergence of the new COVID-19 virus variant from the United Kingdom that is more infectious than previous strains. “Prudence tells us that we should confront this emerging infectious disease,” Duterte said in a meeting with the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious […]
But UK variant not yet observed in present COVID virus samples in PHL, says PGC (Eagle News) – Philippine scientists are monitoring and checking if the reported virus strain in the United Kingdom, variant B.1.1.7, — said to be more infectious than previous COVID-19 mutations — has already reached the country. The scientists at the Philippine Genome Center (PGC) are tracing if the current variants of the COVID-19 virus include that of the UK […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — France has confirmed the first case of a new coronavirus variant that recently emerged in Britain, its health ministry said. The new strain of the virus, which experts fear is more contagious, has prompted more than 50 countries to impose travel restrictions on the UK. The first French case — found in a citizen living in Britain who arrived from London on December 19 — is asymptomatic and self-isolating at […]
by Agence France Presse bureaus PARIS, France (AFP) — The European Union began a vaccine rollout Saturday, even as countries in the bloc were forced back into lockdown by a new strain of the virus, believed to be more infectious, that continues to spread from Britain. The pandemic has claimed more than 1.7 million lives and is still running rampant in much of the world, but the recent launching of innoculation campaigns has boosted […]
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 […]
