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By Dr. Ma. Angela Leonor Aguinaldo Contributor/columnist I lost a close relative to Covid-19 this past week. It was unexpected. His family thought that he would make it but he did not. Sadly, this occurrence is not anything new. There is this stark reality that even with a sliver of hope, Covid-19 hits us where it hurts the most. Indeed, the news of my relative came along with other posts from close friends, […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Australian authorities ordered a snap, three-day lockdown in the western city of Perth Friday after the coronavirus escaped from a quarantine hotel housing infected international travellers. Western Australia state Premier Mark McGowan said a man who was allowed to leave the hotel on April 17 after testing negative for the virus at the end of the standard 14-day quarantine period tested positive several days later. One of his close contacts in […]
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AFP) — The United Arab Emirates on Thursday suspended all flights from India, including transit passengers, as coronavirus cases in the country spiked to global records. Some 300 flights a week were operating between the UAE and India before the ban was announced, according to local media, making the air corridor one of the busiest in the world. “The decision to suspend flights came after studying and evaluating the epidemiological situation […]
SINGAPORE, Singapore (AFP) — Singapore has quarantined about 1,200 migrant workers from a dormitory after coronavirus cases were discovered among men thought to have already recovered from infections, officials said. Vast dormitories housing mostly South Asian workers were at the centre of Singapore’s initial outbreak last year, with the majority of the city-state’s cases in the self-contained complexes. The country’s outbreak has largely been brought under control with just a handful of infections detected daily, […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan’s government is to declare virus states of emergencies in Tokyo and three other regions on Friday, exactly three months before the Olympic opening ceremony, as new infections surge. The measures will be stricter than Japan’s last state of emergency, imposed in parts of the country from January, but still fall short of the harsh lockdowns seen in some parts of the world. “We have a strong sense of crisis,” Japan’s […]
by Bhuvan Bagga with Ammu Kannampilly in Mumbai NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — Delhi hospitals issued desperate appeals for oxygen on Friday and 13 Covid patients died in a fire, as India’s healthcare system buckles under a new wave of infections. The surge in cases, blamed on a new virus variant and the government allowing “super spreader” public events to go ahead, saw another 330,000 new infections and 2,000 deaths reported in the past 24 […]
DAMASCUS, Syria (AFP) — The Syrian government received more than 200,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine via the Covax programme Thursday, state media said, in the first such shipment to government-held territory. The delivery comes as Syria’s war-ravaged medical sector grapples with a Covid-19 outbreak that has accelerated rapidly in recent months. The health ministry “received the first batch of vaccines provided by the Covax platform, which consist of 203,000 doses,” the official SANA news […]
BERLIN, Germany (AFP) — Germany is expecting to open up Covid-19 vaccinations to all adults in June at the latest, German Health Minister Jens Spahn said Thursday. Spahn told the Bundesrat upper house of parliament he expected Europe’s biggest economy to be able to “lift the prioritisation in June”, referring to current lists deciding who gets the jabs first. He added that the move may be possible even earlier. After a sluggish start to its […]
by Paavan MATHEMA KATHMANDU, Nepal (AFP) — A Norwegian climber hoping to summit Everest confirmed Thursday that he has tested positive for Covid-19, in a blow to Nepal’s hopes for a bumper mountaineering season on the world’s highest peak. The pandemic wiped out last year’s season but Nepal has eased quarantine rules in an effort to attract more climbers despite the difficulties of treating them if they contract the virus. “My diagnosis is Covid-19,” Erlend […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — The peak of the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in France “appears to be behind us”, Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Thursday, announcing that travel restrictions will be relaxed from early next month. He told reporters there had been a “genuine fall in the circulation of the virus over the last 10 days”, confirming that restrictions confining people to a 10-kilometre (six-mile) radius of their homes would be dropped […]
by Robin MILLARD Agence France Presse GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — The World Health Organization’s vaccine advisors called Thursday for more data on the incidence of blood clots in people who received the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine outside Europe. The WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunisation updated their guidance on the use of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus jab, rewriting the section on precautions in light of data from Europe on clotting. “WHO continues to support the […]
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AFP) — The UAE announced Wednesday it had given nearly 10 million vaccine doses, equal to one for every resident, after warning that those who remained unvaccinated would face restrictions on their movement. The United Arab Emirates has mounted an energetic coronavirus vaccination campaign for its citizens as well as the foreigners who make up the majority of the population. However, daily infection rates remain high after it became one of […]
