Tag: Virus

Heavy rains force evacuations, trap motorists in Canada

OTTAWA, Canada (AFP) — Relentless rain battered Canada’s Pacific coast on Monday, forcing a town’s evacuation and trapping motorists as mudslides, rocks and debris were washed across major highways. “Heavy rains and subsequent mudslides/flooding have impacted various highways in the BC interior,” British Columbia’s transportation ministry said on Twitter. Rescuers were deployed to free people trapped for hours in 80-100 cars and trucks between two mudslides near the town of Agassiz, the province’s safety minister, […]

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Austria locks down unvaccinated as Europe fights fresh Covid wave

by Julia ZAPPEI and Blaise GAUQUELIN VIENNA, Austria (AFP) — Austria on Monday became the first country in the European Union to impose a lockdown on the unvaccinated and start inoculating children as young as five after coronavirus cases surged across the continent. Infection rates have surged, placing Western Europe once again at the heart of the global epidemic and governments are being forced to take action, with the Netherlands already announcing the region’s first […]

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Israel greenlights vaccinations for 5-11 year olds

JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel gave the green light Sunday to start vaccinating children aged between five and 11 against Covid-19 using Pfizer/BioNTech jabs, following the example of the United States. “The director general of the ministry of health… authorised the vaccination of children aged five to 11 years,” the health ministry said in a statement. Israel was one of the first countries to launch a vaccination campaign last year using the jabs thanks to a […]

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Three dead in fire on coronavirus ward in Bulgaria

  SOFIA, Bulgaria (AFP) — Three patients died in a fire that broke out early Sunday on a coronavirus ward in a hospital in southeast Bulgaria, the rescue services said. The three male patients, aged 66, 70 and 81, were all ill with Covid-19 and died on the fourth floor of a hospital in the city of Sliven, the head of the local rescue services, Vladimir Demirev, told Bulgarian television. Six other patients on neighbouring […]

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WHO urges more targeted vaccination as Covid cases surge in Europe

  GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — As Covid-19 cases balloon again in Europe, the World Health Organization called Friday for more targeted vaccination efforts to ensure the most vulnerable worldwide get the jabs. The UN health agency said Europe, once again at the epicentre of the pandemic, registered nearly two million Covid cases last week. That is “the most in a single week in the region since the pandemic started,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told […]

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Israel holds ‘war drill’ in case of new Covid strain

JERUSALEM, Undefined (AFP) — In what it called a world first, Israel on Thursday held a “war game drill” in case of an outbreak of a new lethal variant of Covid-19. Civilian and military officials took part in the exercises, named “Omega” after the supposed strain, held at Jerusalem’s nuclear blast-proof National Management Center. The simulation covered different aspects of a crisis, including mass inoculation, ordering curfews and imposing a flight ban, Prime Minister Naftali […]

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Indian Covid vaccine ‘highly efficacious’: study

PARIS, France (AFP) — Covaxin, the first Covid-19 vaccine developed in India, is “highly efficacious” and presents no safety concerns, according to a study published in the Lancet on Thursday. Covaxin, developed by Bharat Biotech, gained emergency approval from the World Health Organization last week and has already been cleared for use in 17 countries. The UN body has described it as “extremely suitable for low- and middle-income countries due to easy storage requirements”. Some […]

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Germany hits record new Covid cases in 24 hours

BERLIN, Germany (AFP) — Germany registered a record 50,196 new Covid-19 infections Thursday, according to health authorities. It is the first time Germany has exceeded 50,000 cases since the beginning of the pandemic, and comes as infections and deaths have soared since mid-October. Outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel has described the rise in infections as “dramatic”. “The pandemic is returning in a new spectacular fashion,” her spokesperson said, calling on regional authorities to take further steps […]

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Beijing seals off mall, housing compounds after virus cases found

BEIJING, China,Beijing sealed off a large downtown mall and locked down several residential communities Thursday in response to a recent Covid flare-up, as the latest nationwide wave spread to the capital’s central districts. The latest spike occurred as a sensitive three-day meeting of top Communist Party leaders wraps up in the capital. China has largely curbed widespread transmission of Covid-19 through snap lockdowns, mass testing and travel restrictions, but authorities remain on high alert after […]

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Parents targeted with misleading warnings on Covid-19 vaccination

by Marisha GOLDHAMER WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Registered nurse Melody Butler seeks to provide science-based answers to American parents as she urges them to vaccinate their children against Covid-19. But her efforts to do so on social media through Nurses Who Vaccinate — a volunteer group she founded — is up against a deluge of claims that the shots are dangerous. The claims are designed to evoke fear: a 16-year-old girl said to have […]

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900,000 US kids aged 5-11 get Covid vaccine in a week

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The United States immunized around 900,000 children aged five-to-11 against Covid in the first week the Pfizer vaccine was authorized for them, a White House official said Wednesday. Roughly 700,000 more have made appointments at pharmacies, White House Covid coordinator Jeff Zients told reporters. “The program is just getting up to full strength,” he said, adding most of the shots were given in the last couple of days alone. There […]

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Merck expects Covid pill to reach rich and poor countries simultaneously

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US pharmaceutical giant Merck has vowed to avoid the pitfalls of the global Covid vaccine rollout by ensuring its new anti-coronavirus pill is made available in wealthy and poor countries at almost the same time. Paul Schaper, the company’s executive director of global public policy, told AFP that Merck, known as MSD outside the US and Canada, began working on its access strategy from July 2020, long before the efficacy […]

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