Breaking News, Latest Philippines Headlines, World, Entertainment, Politics, Weather & Video News
BEIJING, China (AFP) — A Chinese citizen journalist held since May for her livestream reporting from Wuhan as the Covid-19 outbreak unfurled was set for trial Monday, almost a year after details of an “unknown viral pneumonia” surfaced in the central China city. Zhang Zhan, a former lawyer, could face up to five years in jail if convicted of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” for her reporting in the chaotic initial stages of the outbreak. […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — Three cases of a particularly infectious coronavirus variant that recently emerged in Britain have been confirmed in South Korea, health authorities said Monday. The three individuals are members of a London-based family who arrived in the country on December 22, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. They have been placed in isolation since testing positive for Covid-19 on arrival, the KDCA statement said. The new strain of […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — More than 80 million confirmed cases of coronavirus have been detected worldwide since the pandemic began a year ago and 1.76 million deaths, according to an AFP tally based on official figures at 0800 GMT Sunday. In total, 80,145,185 cases and 1,756,060 deaths have been recorded. Last week, an average of 580,000 new cases were registered every day. Europe is the world’s hardest-hit region, passing the 25-million-case mark on Friday […]
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 […]
by Hui Min NEO with Yannick PASQUET in Hamburg and Michelle FITZPATRICK and Yann SCHREIBER in Mainz Agence France Presse BERLIN, Germany (AFP) — It was over breakfast on the wintry morning of January 24 that Ozlem Tureci and her husband Ugur Sahin decided, “we need to fire the starting gun on this”. Sahin “had concluded from a publication describing coronavirus cases in Wuhan… that there was a high probability that a pandemic could be […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US President-elect Joe Biden warned Saturday of “devastating consequences” if President Donald Trump continues to delay signing a Covid-19 economic relief bill passed by Congress. Biden spoke out as millions of Americans saw their jobless benefits expire after Trump threw a long-awaited pandemic aid package into doubt — demanding lawmakers more than triple the $600 direct payments to US taxpayers. “This abdication of responsibility has devastating consequences. Today, about […]
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 […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — France’s first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine were delivered early Saturday to the Paris hospital system’s central pharmacy outside the capital, an AFP journalist saw. After more than 62,000 Covid-19 deaths in France, shots are set to begin with people in two elderly care homes on Sunday, the same day the rest of the EU begins injections. A refrigerated truck brought the roughly 19,500 doses from the Pfizer factory […]
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 […]
