Tag: Virus

UK researchers aim to infect volunteers to study Covid exposure

  LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — British researchers on Tuesday said they hope to expose healthy volunteers to the virus that causes Covid-19 in a groundbreaking study to discover the amount needed for people to become infected. The Human Challenge Programme — a partnership that includes Imperial College London — hopes the work will ultimately help to “reduce the spread of the coronavirus, mitigate its impact and reduce deaths”. In what researchers called a world […]

Italy’s Lombardy region to impose virus curfew

ROME, Italy (AFP) — Italy’s northern Lombardy region prepared Tuesday to impose a nighttime curfew, the most restrictive anti-coronavirus measure the country has seen since emerging from a national lockdown in the spring. The curfew from 11 pm (2100GMT) to 5 am is expected to begin on Thursday night and last to November 13. Health Minister Roberto Speranza gave his consent late Monday to the more restrictive measure proposed by the regional government, after an […]

Europe tightens virus curbs as global cases top 40 million

  by Agence France Presse bureaus DUBLIN, Ireland (AFP) — A number of European countries took urgent new measures on Monday to combat a second wave of coronavirus infections, as the World Health Organization blamed the surge in worldwide cases — now more than 40 million — on countries’ failure to quarantine infected people properly. Ireland and Wales became the first countries on the continent to re-enter lockdown as the number of people who have […]

China’s super rich got $1.5 trillion richer during pandemic: report

BEIJING, China (AFP) — China’s super wealthy have earned a record $1.5 trillion in 2020, more than the past five years combined, as e-commerce and gaming boomed during pandemic lockdowns, an annual rich list said Tuesday. An extra 257 people also joined the billionaires club in the world’s number-two economy by August, following two years of shrinking membership, according to the closely watched Hurun Report. The country now has a total of 878 billionaires. The […]

Canada tops 200,000 Covid-19 cases

OTTAWA, Canada (AFP) — Canada, in the midst of the second wave of Covid-19 illnesses, topped 200,000 cases and inched closer to 10,000 deaths Monday, according to official data compiled by Canadian broadcasters CBC and CTV. About 80 percent of these cases and more than 90 percent of the deaths were recorded in the country’s two most populous provinces, Ontario and Quebec, which has been the epicenter of the country’s epidemic since it broke out […]

Madrid hospital struggles with surge in virus cases

by Thomas PERROTEAU LAGANES, Spain (AFP) — At Severo Ochoa hospital in a Madrid suburb badly-hit during the pandemic’s first wave, the intensive care unit is once again full and exhausted medics dread a repeat of the same “horror”. “We’re swamped,” admits Ricardo Diaz Abad, head of intensive care at this hospital in Leganes, south-west of Madrid, standing in front of the unit’s 12 beds, all filled with gravely ill Covid-19 patients. “Unfortunately we lost […]

Pres. Duterte assures Red Cross that gov’t to pay Philhealth’s P930-M debt for COVID tests

  (Eagle News) – President Rodrigo Duterte made the assurance that the Philippine government will pay the Philippine Red Cross (PRC) which is owed by Philhealth. In his regular address to the nation on Monday night, Oct. 20, President Duterte said that the government will look for the money that will be paid to the Red Cross. The President said that they are still “looking for a way to present the solution” to the Commission […]

New restrictions as Europe surges past 250,000 virus deaths

  by Agence France Presse Bureaus BRUSSELS, Belgium (AFP) — Belgium imposed a nationwide overnight curfew on Monday as Switzerland made wearing face masks compulsory in indoor public spaces, the latest desperate measures by European governments to fight a powerful second coronavirus wave. More than 250,000 people have died of the virus in Europe but the deepening crisis there stands in contrast to Australia, where the nation’s second-biggest city began easing a lockdown that kept […]

Italian PM announces stricter measures to counter virus

ROME, Italy (AFP) — Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on Sunday announced a new series of measures to tackle the rising number of virus cases, with restrictions placed on bars and restaurants and push to increase working from home. Restaurants will have to display their maximum capacity, close at midnight at the latest and limit the number of people per table to six, while bars will have to close at 6pm unless they can offer […]

Coronavirus survives on skin five times longer than flu: study

TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — The coronavirus remains active on human skin for nine hours, Japanese researchers have found, in a discovery they said showed the need for frequent hand washing to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. The pathogen that causes the flu survives on human skin for about 1.8 hours by comparison, said the study published this month in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal. “The nine-hour survival of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus strain that causes Covid-19) on […]

Australia’s second-biggest city eases lockdown as virus cases fall

  MELBOURNE, Australia (AFP) — Lockdown restrictions in Australia’s second-biggest city were eased slightly Sunday following a steady decline in new coronavirus cases, but officials stopped short of ending a controversial “stay-at-home” rule. More than 100 days after the lockdown was imposed on Melbourne’s five million residents to fight an out-of-control surge of Covid-19 cases, authorities said that as of midnight they were lifting a two-hour limit on the time people could spend outside their […]

South Africa passes 700,000 coronavirus cases

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AFP) — The number of people in South Africa who have tested positive for coronavirus has topped 700,000, official figures showed overnight, another grim milestone for the continent’s worst-hit country. Statistics released by the health ministry showed 2,019 new Covid-19 cases on Friday, taking the country’s total to 700,203. Its total number of coronavirus-related deaths rose to 18,370 after 61 more were registered over the 24-hour reporting period. South Africa accounts for […]