Health workers screen visitors for COVID-19 symptoms at the Tembisa Hospital in Tembisa, South Africa on March 1, 2021. (GUILLEM SARTORIO / AFP)
ADDIS ABABA / GENEVA / BUENOS AIRES / BRUSSELS / SAO PAULO / OTTAWA / HAVANA / BERLIN / ATHENS / NAIROBI / RABAT / WARSAW / BUCHAREST / TUNIS / LONDON / KIEV – Africa is facing significant challenges in gaining access to COVID-19 vaccines, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said Friday.
Poor access to vaccines has hindered the continent from achieving its goal of vaccinating at least 60 percent of its population, the public health agency said in a statement.
About 23.6 million doses of vaccine have been distributed across Africa by Monday, which corresponds to a continental coverage of only 1.7 percent, showed the Africa CDC figures.
The agency called on African countries to facilitate rapid access to safe and effective vaccines for preventing severe cases and related deaths.
"This is strategic for the control of the epidemic and the rapid return of the growth and development of the continent," the Africa CDC said.
As of Friday evening, COVID-19 cases have reached 4,076,147 in Africa, while the death toll from the pandemic stood at 108,998, it said.
Nine African countries have reported more than 100,000 cases, and South Africa, with 1,532,497 infections, remains the hardest hit.
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WHO
The World Health Organization (WHO) exhorted the world to keep administering AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 shots on Friday, adding its endorsement to that of European and British regulators after concerns over blood clotting.
“We urge countries to continue using this important COVID-19 vaccine,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference in Geneva.
He was speaking after the global health body’s vaccine safety panel said available data about the AstraZeneca shot did not point to any overall increase in clotting conditions.
European and British regulators also said this week that the benefits of AstraZeneca’s shot outweighed the risks, prompting various nations to lift their suspensions.
“The AstraZeneca vaccine is especially important because it accounts for more than 90% of the vaccines being distributed through COVAX,” Tedros added, referring to a WHO-led global vaccine-sharing scheme.
“There is no question. COVID-19 is a deadly disease, and the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine can prevent it. It’s also important to remember that COVID-19 itself can cause blood clots and low platelets.”
Argentina
Argentina reported 8,160 new COVID-19 infections on Friday, taking the national total to 2,234,913 said the health ministry.
The ministry also confirmed 113 more deaths, bringing the death toll to 54,476.
The central province of Buenos Aires, with 934,393 cases, remains the hardest-hit region in the South American country.
Belgium
Belgium will pause its plan to relax coronavirus-related restrictive measures as the number of infections continues to rise, Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said on Friday.
"The relaxation measures that were planned for April such as the reopening of parks, cultural activities for example, cannot be done now," said De Croo.
Among the measures that have been postponed or changed, cultural events cannot be organized, even if held outdoors with a maximum of 50 people, wearing masks and respecting social distance, as was previously announced, the English newspaper Brussels Times reported.
Health workers care for patients infected with COVID-19 at the full emergency room of the Nossa Senhora da Conceiao hospital in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul State, in southern Brazil, on March 11, 2021, amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. (SILVIO AVILA / AFP)
Brazil
A third senator has died of COVID-19 in Brazil, raising questions around precautions taken in the country’s Congress where as many as one-in-three lawmakers has been infected with the virus devastating Latin America’s largest nation.
Senator Major Olimpio, a former policeman who backed and later fell out with far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, was declared brain dead on Thursday by doctors at a Sao Paulo hospital where he had been in intensive care for three weeks.
The two oldest senators in Congress, aged 87 and 83, also succumbed to COVID-19. But the death of Olimpio, just 58 and the senator who won the most votes in the 2018 election, shocked Brazilians and the legislature.
The Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro announced the closure of its beaches over the weekend as part of restrictions to prevent the further spread of COVID-19, amid a widespread collapse of Brazil's health system.
According to the Municipal Health Secretariat, 95 percent of intensive care unit beds in public and private hospitals were occupied this week in the country's second most populous city.
"Either we become aware of what's happening or we're going to have a situation that's out of control in the coming days. It's a tough measure and we understand the economic difficulties involved," said Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes on Friday during a press conference to explain the decree.
Rio de Janeiro, capital of the state of the same name, currently has an accumulated 216,413 COVID-19 cases and 19,583 deaths.
Brazil on Friday saw a record high number of new daily cases of COVID-19 after 90,570 tests came out positive, the Ministry of Health said.
A total of 2,815 people died from COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, the second highest number of single day deaths since the onset of the pandemic in the country.
The South American country's COVID-19 death toll stands at 290,314 while its total caseload has reached 11,871,390, the world's second highest after the United States.
Canada
Canada's capital city of Ottawa moved to the red zone on Friday as the spread of COVID-19 has been getting out of control.
Red brings with it some of the strictest restrictions detailed on the pandemic scale, second only to grey lockdown.
Going red means avoiding social gatherings, only leaving home for essential reasons, and not having inside visitors, on top of existing health advice including masking, distancing and staying home when being sick.
The decision to go to red was announced as the province of Ontario, where Ottawa is located, reported 1,553 new COVID-19 cases and 15 new deaths on Thursday.
Cuba
Cuba on Friday surpassed 65,000 cases of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), after 735 more people tested positive in the previous 24 hours, raising the total caseload to 65,149.
In the same period, three more people died from the disease, bringing the death toll to 387, the national director of hygiene and epidemiology, Francisco Duran, said during a televised pandemic report.
Of the new daily cases, almost all, except 10, arose from community transmission, with the highest number concentrated in the capital Havana (396), which is registering 278 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
Ethiopia
Ethiopia registered 1,994 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, taking the nationwide tally to 183,863 as of Friday evening, the country's Ministry of Health said.
The ministry said 16 new deaths from the coronavirus were reported across the country, bringing the national death toll to 2,618.
Germany
Germany's reported daily COVID-19 infections continued to rise sharply on Friday as the country registered 17,482 new cases in one day, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) said on Friday.
The increase in infections was "clearly exponential," RKI Vice President Lars Schaade said at a press conference, adding that the incidence rate was "gaining momentum."
The COVID-19 incidence rate per 100,000 citizens in Germany in the past seven days increased from 90 on Thursday to 95.6. The increase in the number of cases was largely due to the more infectious variant B.1.1.7 that was first detected in the UK.
Protesters wearing face masks take part in a demonstration against COVID-19 measures in front of the Greek parliament building, in Athens, on March 17, 2021. (ANGELOS TZORTZINIS / AFP)
Greece
Greece will lift some COVID-19 lockdown restrictions next week as part of a plan to gradually reopen the economy and relieve national fatigue even as its hospitals remain under severe pressure from stubbornly high infections, authorities said on Friday.
Hair and beauty salons and archaeological sites will open from Monday, Akis Skertsos, deputy minister to the prime minister, told a weekly news briefing.
“It is imperative to provide some breaths of freedom, some depressurisation valves, so that the remaining measures can be complied with,” Skertsos said, adding that the government plans to provide free rapid tests to all citizens.
As part of the loosening of restrictions, a nighttime curfew nationwide will start two hours later at 9 pm during weekends, he said.
Kenya
Kenya's Ministry of Health on Friday expressed concern over the rising number of COVID-19 infections.
Chief Administrative Secretary of the Ministry of Health Mercy Mwangangi said the rising cases of infections are an indication that Kenyans have lowered their guard.
"We are in the third wave of this virus and it's a wave that threatens to erase all the gains we have made as a country in fighting the pandemic over the last one year," Mwangangi told a news conference in Nairobi.
The Kenyan official said that 1,354 new cases, the highest ever, turned positive from a sample size of 7,732 collected in the last 24 hours.
Morocco
Morocco registered 444 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, taking the total tally in the North African country to 491,019, the health ministry said in a statement.
The total number of recoveries from COVID-19 in Morocco increased to 478,386 after 507 more were added.
The death toll rose to 8,755 after seven new fatalities were added during the last 24 hours, while 401 people are in intensive care units.
Poland
The government of Poland announced a new nationwide partial lockdown on Friday after the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic exceeded two million in the country.
Starting on Saturday, only a select number of shops – among them supermarkets and pharmacies – located in shopping malls with over 2,000 square meters of retail space will be allowed to operate. Service providers, such as banks, hairdressers and opticians, have also been given a pass.
Cinemas, theaters and museums will have to remain closed, and schools will return to online learning.
The restrictions have already been in place in four of Poland's 16 provinces, including Mazovia, where the capital Warsaw is located.
On Friday, 25,998 new COVID-19 cases were confirmed, taking the total since the start of the pandemic in March last year to 2,010,244. Since then, 48,807 people in Poland have lost their lives to the coronavirus.
Romania
The number of COVID-19 patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) in Romania reached 1,313 on Friday, a record high since the outbreak, but Prime Minister Florin Citu said new restrictions would not be considered for the time being.
In the last 24 hours, 5,593 new cases were registered in Romania, the fourth consecutive day to report over 5,000 new cases, bringing the caseload to 886,752, official data showed.
Meanwhile, with 143 more fatalities associated with the virus, the death toll now stood at 22,020, according to the latest data released by the Strategic Communication Group, Romania's official COVID-19 communication task force.
Tunisia
Tunisian Health Ministry on Friday reported 841 new COVID-19 cases, raising the total number of infections in the country to 244,776.
The death toll from the virus rose by 16 to 8,506, the ministry said in a statement.
The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients reached 1,025, including 260 in intensive care units, while the total number of recoveries reached 211,561, it added.
Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson receives his first dose of a AstraZeneca/Oxford COVID-19 vaccine, administered by nurse and Clinical Pod Lead, Lily Harrington, at the vaccination centre in St Thomas' Hospital in London on March 19, 2021. (FRANK AUGSTEIN / POOL / AFP)
UK
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson received his first dose of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine on Friday and urged the public to do the same, saying “he did not feel a thing.”
Johnson, 56, received his vaccine at the same hospital where almost a year ago he was put in an intensive care unit and given oxygen via a tube in his nose after he contracted the virus and fell seriously ill. He later said he was so sick that plans were drawn up on how to announce his death.
“I literally did not feel a thing. It was very good, very quick,” Johnson said after receiving the injection at St Thomas’ Hospital in London.
“I cannot recommend it too highly, everybody when you do get your notification to go for a jab, please go and get it, it is the best thing for you, best thing for your family and for everyone else.”
Another 4,802 people in Britain have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 4,285,684, according to official figures released Friday.
The country also reported another 101 coronavirus-related deaths. The total number of coronavirus-related deaths in Britain now stands at 126,026. These figures only include the deaths of people who died within 28 days of their first positive test.
READ MORE: Europe, with millions of doses unused, is divided on export ban
Ukraine
According to Ukraine's Health Minister Maxym Stepanov, the second stage of vaccination against COVID-19 will start in Ukraine next week, reported Interfax Ukraine news agency on Friday.
"In less than a month, we have moved to the second stage of vaccination. Next week, stationary vaccination points and vaccination of family doctors will start. Currently, 92,713 people have been vaccinated in Ukraine," said the official while speaking at the Parliament.
A total of 1,519,926 COVID-19 cases and 29,515 deaths have been registered in Ukraine as of Friday, while 1,248,782 patients have recovered, according to the health authorities.
Students and teachers participate in a socially distanced classroom session at Medora Elementary School on March 17, 2021 in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. (PHOTO / BLOOMBERG)
US
Schools can allow social distancing of three feet, rather than six currently, between students in classrooms, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday in what is expected to be a boost to reopening of schools nationwide.
The CDC’s long-awaited guidance on how schools can safely reopen comes after lawmakers and parents have become increasingly concerned about returning to in-person education to help with children’s learning and social development after some students have had virtual classes for a year or more.
The agency says schools that decide on less than six feet of physical distance can use COVID-19 testing to provide added protection. Previous recommendations for installing physical barriers have been removed. The guidance details what actions schools should take to control transmission in the event of clusters of infections among students.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in a statement that the agency is committed to leading with science and updating guidance as new evidence emerges.
