Portugal ‘forever grateful’ as Germany sends COVID-19 aid















Staff of the German armed forces Bundeswehr stand around an Airbus A310-304 MRTT military transport plane of German armed forces Bundeswehr at the military airport in Wunstorf near Hanover, northwestern Germany, on Feb 3, 2021. (PHOTO / AFP)

PARIS / DUBLIN / AMSTERDAM / LONDON / BERLIN / BRASILIA / MEXICO CITY / MADRID / ADDIS ABABA / LISBON / JOHANNESBURG / STOCKHOLM / MOSCOW / PRAGUE / TUNIS – The German military on Wednesday sent more than 20 doctors and nurses together with ventilators and hospital beds to coronavirus-stricken Portugal, where a severe rise in cases has prompted several European nations to offer help.

“The mission is necessary because there is currently an extremely difficult situation in Portugal and because we have to show here within the framework of European solidarity that countries can only master these great challenges together,” military general doctor Ulrich Baumgaertner said.

A military transport plane carrying 26 doctors, nurses and hygiene experts as well as 40 mobile and 10 stationary ventilators left for Lisbon.

The German military team will also bring 150 hospital beds to Portugal and aims to stay initially for three weeks.

Portugal has offered its first doses of COVID-19 vaccines to more than 400,000 people, Prime Minister Antonio Costa said Wednesday.

The vaccination plan starts with vulnerable groups, including the elderly over 80 and those over 50 with some chronic diseases, Costa said during a visit to the Alvalade Health Center in Lisbon with Health Minister Marta Temido.

"The doses are limited, so we have to respect the order to make it reach those who need it the fastest and, finally, everyone," said Costa.

Daily infections and deaths from COVID-19 in Portugal retreated further from last week’s records on Tuesday and fewer patients were in intensive care, easing pressure on overstretched hospitals.

Deaths rose by 260 to 13,017, below Monday’s increase of 275 and down from an all-time high of 303 reported on Thursday and Sunday, data from the health authority DGS showed.

New infections totaled 5,540 after 5,805 the previous day, in a sharp slowdown from 16,432 last Thursday.

The number of COVID-19 patients on hospitals wards and in intensive care units dropped, the latter by 13 to 852.

This combo photo shows the logos of GlaxoSmithKline and German biotech firm CureVac. (PHOTOS / AFP)

GlaxoSmithKline/CureVac 

Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline and German biotech firm CureVac struck a 150 million euro (US$180 million) deal to develop next-generation vaccines against COVID-19 that target several variants in one product.

In a joint statement on Wednesday, the partners said they were targeting a possible launch in 2022.

The partners aim to use novel mRNA technology to develop products that target multiple variants in one vaccine. The immunizations may be used to protect people who haven’t been inoculated or as booster shots if immunity from other vaccines wanes, they said. 

Glaxo this year also plans to manufacture as many as 100 million doses of CureVac’s current mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, which is still in late-stage trials and could be approved as soon as March.

The pair will also investigate mRNA vaccines to protect against other respiratory viruses beyond COVID-19.

Serbia 

Serbia has appealed for more Chinese vaccine doses after being the first in Europe to import shots from Sinopharm last month, the office of President Aleksandar Vucic said in email, after he met with ambassador Chen Bo on Wednesday. 

The initial shipment of 1 million doses put the Balkan country ahead of the rest of continental Europe in inoculation.

Global tally

Coronavirus cases worldwide exceeded 103.8 million while the global death toll topped 2.25 million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

ALSO READ: Brazil COVID-19 outbreak shows signs of slowing

Africa tally

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases recorded on the African continent reached 3,579,368 as of Tuesday, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said, adding that the death toll stood at 91,524.

Czech Republic 

Nearly one in 10 people in the Czech Republic have been infected by the coronavirus, data showed on Wednesday, as the total number of cases surpassed 1 million in one of the countries worst-hit by the pandemic.

In Europe, only Portugal and Spain had higher per-capita infections in the past 14 days, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. The Czech death rate is also among the highest in Europe.

Deaths from COVID-19 in the Czech Republic reached 16,683 as of Tuesday, doubling since the end of November. The death toll has grown 39-fold since the start of September.

Hospitals have been strained by the surge in cases that began after the summer holidays, with a shortage of healthcare workers and the number of patients needing care hovering around 6,000 since falling from peaks of over 7,000 in mid-January.

The country recorded 9,057 new cases on Tuesday, a touch below a week earlier, while the seven-day average has risen to 6,770.

France

French President Emmanuel Macron said that based on contracts secured at a European level, France will be able to offer COVID-19 vaccines to all adults who want it “by the end of summer”.

All nursing home residents who want to be inoculated will be able to so by early March, representing about 500,000 people, he said. Macron called on the French to keep up preventive measures, test and isolate, saying that vaccination won’t end a lockdown or relieve pressure on hospitals. “The virus is circulating at great speed,” he said.

Meanwhile, France’s National Authority for Health declined to recommend giving AstraZeneca's vaccine to people age 65 and over, a spokesperson said.

France registered 23,337 new coronavirus cases and 404 deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the cumulative total to 3,224,798 and the death toll to 77,238, official data showed Tuesday.

There were 28,029 people were in hospital in France with the virus and 3,270 in intensive care. Both numbers set new 2021 highs.

Hungary 

France condemned Hungary for a go-it-alone approval of Russian and Chinese vaccines outside the European Union process.

Hungary is “carrying out its own procedures with Russia and China” while benefiting from the EU’s supply process, Clement Beaune, junior minister for EU affairs, said Wednesday on LCI television. Instead, he suggested that Russia should submit its Sputnik V vaccine to European regulators to ensure it’s vetted according to the same criteria as others.

“The Russians haven’t submitted their vaccine to European authorities and we would invite them to do so,” he said.

Ireland

Ireland reported 101 deaths related to COVID-19 on Tuesday, the highest number of deaths confirmed in a single day since the start of the pandemic, exceeding the previous peak of 93 from Jan 19.

The daily death toll is published by the National Public Health Emergency Team and can include fatalities that took place weeks ago but were just confirmed to authorities on the day in question.

The team said 83 of the deaths reported on Tuesday occurred in January, with 18 occurring in February.

“The high mortality we are experiencing as a country at the moment is related to the surge of infection we saw several weeks ago, and the hospitalizations and admissions to ICU that followed as a direct result,” said Ireland’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Tony Holohan.

There has been been a total of 3,418 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland.

Meanwhile, daily infections dropped to 879, the lowest in over a month.

EU

President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen told a group of European lawmakers that she was responsible for the Commission’s bungled handling of export controls on COVID-19 vaccines.

During a discussion of the problems with MEPs from the European People’s Party, von der Leyen said she takes responsibility for all the Commission’s decisions, according to a person who was present at the private meeting.

The absolute priority is to get shots delivered to Europeans and a legal battle would be counterproductive, she said, according to another person familiar with the afternoon briefing.

Von der Leyen said that other measures such as compulsory licensing of vaccines would be incredibly complex to implement and risk disrupting supplies at a time when pharma companies are racing to adapt their shots to coronavirus mutations.

She also warned lawmakers to be ready for variants of the disease that do not respond to existing shots.

The EU has seen just 2.9 doses administered per 100 people, far behind the 14.7 in the UK and 10 in the US. The 27-nation bloc established an export-authorization system four days ago amid calls to ensure adequate domestic supply.

Earlier on Tuesday, von der Leyen’s spokesman, Eric Mamer, said the EU expects 300 million doses to be delivered to the bloc during the second quarter. Mamer also said the bloc had authorized exports of the shots to the UK and Canada.

Georgia 

Georgia on Wednesday reported 688 new COVID-19 cases, taking its total to 259,897, according to the country's National Center for Disease Control and Public Health (NCDC).

Data from the NCDC showed that 788 more patients recovered in the past 24 hours, taking the total number of recoveries to 251,077.

Netherlands

The lockdown in the Netherlands will be extended until March 2, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced on Tuesday.

Despite decreasing infections since Christmas, Rutte warned of “an inevitable third wave” because the British mutation accounts for about two-thirds of all new infections. A relaxation of measures would have been possible if it weren’t for the British variant, he said.

Rutte did announce a reopening of elementary schools from Feb 8, stating that the risk is limited. 

The night-time curfew will remain in place until Feb 10, and Rutte said his government will decide early next week whether an extension is needed.

The National Institute for Health (RIVM) said on Tuesday there had been 28,628 COVID-19 cases in the past week, down 20 percent from the week before and the lowest level since lockdown measures were introduced in October.

But this week’s decline “would have been greater without the new variants of the virus that have entered the Netherlands, especially the British Variant”, the RIVM said in a statement. RIVM estimates that about two-thirds of newly infected people last week had the UK variant.

Brazil

Brazil registered 1,210 COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday and 54,096 additional infections from the coronavirus, according to data released by the Health Ministry.

In total, the country has recorded 226,309 COVID-19 deaths and 9,283,418 confirmed cases, according to ministry data. 

The Brazilian pharmaceutical company that will make Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19 expects regulatory approval for Phase III tests by this week or early next at the latest, its Chief Executive Officer Fernando Marques said on Tuesday.

READ MORE: Russia's Sputnik V vaccine 91.6% effective in late-stage trial

Mexico

Mexico has approved emergency use of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine after signing a contract for millions of doses of the product, Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell said on Tuesday.

Lopez-Gatell said the contract provided for 7.4 million doses between February and April, with more due in May.

Mexico’s health ministry on Tuesday reported 4,384 new confirmed coronavirus cases and 433 additional fatalities, bringing the total to 1,874,092 cases and 159,533 deaths.

Paramedics move a COVID-19 patient inside a biocontainment unit from his home to a hospital in the Iztapalapa district of Mexico City, Feb 2 2021. (MARCO UGARTE / AP)

UK

At least 20,000 people a day in England are failing to self-isolate after contact with a coronavirus case despite being told to do so, according to the head of the country’s test-and-trace program.

Dido Harding told members of Parliament about 20 percent of some 100,000 contacts traced by authorities each day last week were not fully complying with regulations, due to a range of reasons including financial difficulties.

It is imperative that Britain stamps out any mutations of the novel coronavirus that have been detected in recent days and actions already taken to step up testing and contract tracing will help, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Wednesday.

Hancock said he was confident that measures being taken in affected parts of the country to contain the spread of the South African variant would be successful.

Britain is working on tightening controls at its borders to stop new variants of COVID-19 entering the country, he said, with details of a plan to make some arrivals quarantine in hotels due to be set out shortly.

The UK variant has developed a new, concerning mutation in a small number of cases, which scientists said makes it similar to the South African and Brazilian variants and could reduce the efficacy of vaccines

The British government on Tuesday reported 16,840 new cases and another 1,449 deaths, bringing the tally to 3,852,623 and the death toll to 108,013, official figures showed.

Among the newly reported fatalities was 100-year-old British army veteran Captain Tom Moore, who raised millions of pounds to help Britain's health service in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic last year.

Official data showed that 9.65 million people have been given the first dose of a vaccine, up from a figure of 9.29 million people announced on Monday.

The UK variant has developed a new, concerning mutation in a small number of cases, which scientists said makes it similar to the South African and Brazilian variants and could reduce the efficacy of vaccines.

Public Health England said there had been 11 reports of the UK variant which feature the E484K mutation, mostly in south-west England. The E484K mutation, which occurs on the spike protein of the virus, is the same change as has been seen in the South African and Brazilian variants that have caused international concern.

Meanwhile, Scotland will tighten rules for anyone coming into the country in an effort to further suppress coronavirus infections as the government in Edinburgh set out an initial road map out of lockdown.

UK study

Almost all people previously infected with COVID-19 have high levels of antibodies for at least six months that are likely to protect them from reinfection with the disease, results of a major UK study showed on Wednesday.

Scientists said the study, which measured levels of previous COVID-19 infection in populations across Britain, as well as how long antibodies persisted in those infected, should provide some reassurance that swift cases of reinfection will be rare.

Among participants who had tested positive for previous COVID-19 infection, 99 percent retained antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 for three months, the results showed. After the full six months of follow-up in the study, 88 percent still had them.

The findings were also consistent with results of other studies in the UK and Iceland which found that antibodies to the coronavirus tended to persist for several months in those who have had the disease and recovered, according to Naomi Allen, a professor and chief scientist at the UK Biobank, where the study was carried out.

The UK Biobank study also found that the proportion of the UK population with COVID-19 antibodies – a measure known as seroprevalence – rose from 6.6 percent at the start of the study period in May/June 2020 to 8.8 percent by November/December 2020.

In this undated file photo issued by the University of Oxford, a researcher in a laboratory at the Jenner Institute in Oxford, England, works on the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University. (JOHN CAIRNS / UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD VIA AP)

Oxford 

AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford are planning to have a re-engineered shot that protects against new mutations available by the fall in time for the next round of immunizations that may be required before winter.

Andrew Pollard, chief investigator of the Oxford trials, said switching out the genome sequence, manufacturing and completing new studies for a vaccine against variants should be fairly quick.

The COVID-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca gives good immune responses in older people, even if there is a lack of data about its exact efficacy, Oxford’s vaccine trial chief Andrew Pollard said on Wednesday.

Asked about a reported comment from French President Emmanuel Macron that the vaccine is “quasi-ineffective” among people over 65, Pollard said, “I don’t understand what that statement means.”

“The point is that we have rather less data in older adults, which is why people have less certainty about the level of protection,” Pollard told BBC radio.

Meanwhile, Pollard said that COVID-19 vaccines might offer protection against severe disease even as coronavirus variants evolve to better allow continued transmission between peopley.

Asked how effective the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot will be against new variants, he said “they are making changes that allow them to avoid human immune responses, so that they can still transmit.”

“So, that does mean that it’s likely over time that the virus will find ways of adapting so that can continue to pass between people,” he told BBC TV.

ALSO READ: 2 Chinese virus vaccines 'remain active against S. African variant'

Germany

Germany has boosted the number of Army troops helping in the fight against the pandemic by 5,000 to 25,000 and will call up more reservists as well, the country’s defense ministry said. The move comes as Chancellor Angela Merkel is under increasing pressure to speed up a lagging vaccination program.

From guarding vaccine shipments to helping with mobile medical units, soldiers are deployed according to demands from counties and communities throughout the country.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 9,705 to 2,237,790, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Wednesday. 

The reported death toll rose by 975 to 58,956, the tally showed. 

Germany will have vaccinated 10 million people against the new coronavirus by the end of the first quarter, Chancellor Angela Merkel told ARD television on Tuesday in a defense of her government’s handling of the vaccine roll-out.

Mentioning reports on Tuesday that Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine had performed well in trials, Merkel said any vaccine that gained approval from the European Medicines Agency would be welcome in Germany.

Italy

Italy reported 499 coronavirus-related deaths on Tuesday against 329 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections rose to 9,660 from 7,925.

Italy has registered 89,344 deaths linked to COVID-19 since its outbreak emerged last February, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the sixth-highest in the world. The country has reported 2.57 million cases to date.

Patients in hospital with COVID-19 – not including those in intensive care – stood at 20,317 on Tuesday, up marginally from 20,260 a day earlier.

There were 158 new admissions to intensive care units, up from 145 the day before. The total number of intensive care patients declined to 2,214 from 2,252 on Monday.

Russia

Russia on Wednesday reported 16,474 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, including 1,545 in Moscow, taking the national tally to 3,901,204.

Authorities also reported an additional 526 deaths, raising the official total to 74,684.

Russia will be able to vaccinate 700 million people with the Sputnik V coronavirus jab this year, the TASS news agency cited the head of the RDIF sovereign wealth fund as saying on Tuesday. 

People wearing masks walk on a shopping street in Essen, Germany, Feb 2, 2021, amid a lockdown imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (MARTIN MEISSNER / AP)

US

US President Joe Biden’s administration will begin Tuesday to test a program to provide coronavirus vaccines directly to pharmacies, as they try to ratchet up the pace of US inoculations.

Biden’s team will announce Tuesday that they’ll ship roughly 1 million doses per week directly to pharmacies as a trial run, according to two people familiar with the plans. The people asked not to be identified ahead of the announcement.

The program will expand as vaccine supply allows, the people said. It’s distinct from a planned 5 percent increase in shipments that the Biden administration revealed to states in a call with governors Tuesday morning, one person said.

Biden will also order a government-wide review of critical supply chains in an effort to reduce the US' reliance on countries for essential medical supplies and minerals, according to people familiar with the matter.

The US has so far reported over 26.4 million confirmed cases and more than 446,000 deaths, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it had administered 32,780,860 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Tuesday morning and distributed 52,657,675 doses.

The CDC may recommend wearing two masks – one over the other – to keep at bay the more contagious variants of the coronavirus, according to Anthony Fauci.

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico Governor Pedro Pierluisi and San Juan Mayor Miguel Romero are both in isolation after Romero tested positive for COVID-19.

On Twitter Tuesday, Romero said an antigen test came back positive, and he was waiting for the results of a more-reliable PCR test. The governor’s office said Pierluisi, who had recently met with Romero, was isolating as a precaution.

South Africa

South Africa on Tuesday reported 2,649 new coronavirus cases, bringing the tally to 1,458,958, the health department said.

Another 547 newly recorded COVID-19 deaths took the death toll from the disease to 44,946, it said.

The department said that a total of 1,318,504 recoveries had been registered to date, representing a recovery rate of 90 percent. 

Doctors Without Borders said Southern Africa is in dire need of vaccine doses, and called for more-equitable distribution of shots with health workers and people at highest risk given priority.

“Health workers in Mozambique, Eswatini, and Malawi are currently struggling to treat escalating numbers of patients with little prospect of receiving a vaccine to protect themselves or others from the virus,” the group said in a statement.

Spain

Spain on Tuesday registered the highest number of COVID-19 related deaths in a 24-hour period since April 8. 

The Ministry of Health said that another 724 people had died of the disease by Tuesday noon. That brought the country's COVID-19 toll to 59,805.

The ministry also reported 29,064 new cases, taking the total number of infections to 2,851,869.

The incidence rate of the disease over a 14-day period continued to slowly decline, standing at 846.84 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, after peaking at 899 cases per 100,000 people last week.

The government said it was restricting flights from Brazil and South Africa between Feb 3 and Feb 17, in a bid to curb the spread of variants of the coronavirus that had appeared in those countries.

Switzerland

Switzerland and Liechtenstein on Tuesday reported 1,633 new COVID-19 cases over the previous day, bringing their combined tally to 526,728, according to data published by the Federal Office of Public Health.

Another 46 more deaths were added, bringing their death toll in the pandemic to 8,771 as of Tuesday, the office said.  

Tunisia

Tunisia expects to receive four million free doses of COVID-19 vaccine through the Geneva-based GAVI vaccine alliance from mid-February, Health Minister Fouzi Mehdi said on Tuesday.

The doses will be enough to immunize 2 million of Tunisia’s 11.5 million population.

Nigeria

Nigeria on Tuesday confirmed 1,634 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, bringing the nation's infection tally to 133,552, said the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC).

The death toll rose to 1,613, the NCDC said.

Nigeria has confirmed six new cases of the UK coronavirus variant in two states in the country, said Chikwe Ihekweazu, head of the NCDC.

Bolivia

Bolivia on Tuesday reported 2,127 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 220,426, the Ministry of Health and Sports announced.

The death toll went up by 74 to 10,513, the ministry said.

AstraZeneca

AstraZeneca Plc’s COVID-19 vaccine showed 82 percent effectiveness with a three-month gap between two shots, according to a new study that bolsters the UK’s controversial decision to adopt an extended dosing interval.

The vaccine may also significantly reduce transmission of the virus, according to analysis of trial data by the University of Oxford, which developed the shot with the British drugmaker. Swabs taken from volunteers in the UK arm of the trial showed a 67 percent reduction in transmission after the first dose, the report showed.

The UK approved giving the first and second injections of two-shot vaccines from four to 12 weeks apart in an effort to stretch scarce supplies while manufacturing is ramped up. AstraZeneca executives had previously said the longer gap, compared with the three- to four-week period between shots that’s been recommended for other vaccines, could also boost effectiveness.

Vaccine efficacy rose from 55 percent with a dosing interval of less than six weeks to 82 percent when spaced 12 or more weeks apart, according to new data. The analysis also found the shot showed 76 percent protection after the first of two injections. That level of immunity was achieved from 22 days after the first shot.

The AstraZeneca vaccine had shown an average of 70 percent protection in earlier results of broad clinical trials. 

Sweden

Sweden is stepping up efforts to map mutated strains of the coronavirus in the country amid increasing cases of the variant that was first detected in Britain.

On Tuesday, the government instructed the Swedish Public Health Agency to increase national surveillance of different coronavirus variants, according to Swedish TT News Agency. All of the country's 21 counties must build up the capability for genome sequencing.

The UK variant was identified in approximately 11 percent of 2,200 positive COVID-19 tests screened for the new strain, the Public Health Agency of Sweden said in a press release on Tuesday. Last week, fewer than 100 cases of the new strain, believed to be more contagious than the original, had been confirmed in the country.

It is important to be able to identify not only the mutation found in Britain but also other interesting virus variants, Minister for Health and Social Affairs Lena Hallengren told TT.

By Tuesday, 576,606 COVID-19 cases had been confirmed in Sweden since the pandemic started. Since Friday, the number of deaths from the virus has increased by 224 to 11,815. 

Ethiopia

Ethiopia will start importing COVID-19 vaccines in April, said Muluken Yohannes, senior advisor on vaccination and related issues at the Ethiopia Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH), on Tuesday.

"In addition, a taskforce has been established composed of members from development partners, government agencies, the Ministry of Health, and other stakeholders to coordinate COVID-19 vaccine related activities," Yohannes told state-owned newspaper Addis Zemen.

The taskforce will also be given the responsibility to evaluate the performance of COVID-19 vaccine distribution activities, follow-up on COVID-19 related educational programs for the society, as well as to control the quality and safety of COVID-19 vaccines imported into Ethiopia.

FMoH on Tuesday reported 477 new COVID-19 cases and 13 additional deaths, taking the nation's infection tally to 138,861 and the death toll to 2,116.

Latvia

The Latvian government decided Tuesday to extend the state of emergency in the country until April 6, said Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins.

The announcement came on the same day the Latvian Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) reported a slight increase in positive COVID-19 tests over the past week.

Last week, the average share of positive coronavirus tests rose by 0.3 percentage points, to 7.9 percent from 7.6 percent the week before, while the weekly number of tests gradually dropped during the first month of 2021, from 75,856 in the first week of January to 66,460 in the last week of the month.

In the past day, Latvia confirmed 775 new COVID-19 cases, which is 6 percent of the 12,949 people tested for the coronavirus infection in the 24-hour period.

The Health Ministry has proposed that the state of emergency could be lifted when the COVID-19 incidence declines by two thirds.

Cuba

Cuba on Tuesday reported more than 1,000 new cases of novel coronavirus infection for the second time in less than a week.

According to the latest report from the Ministry of Public Health, 1,044 new cases were recorded, bringing the cumulative caseload to 28,636. Deaths rose by two to 218. 

Of the new cases, 1,022 involved community transmissions, the highest figure to date, while the rest were imported.

Ecuador

The Ministry of Public Health of Ecuador on Tuesday registered 293 COVID-19 infections in the last 24 hours, bringing the cumulative total to 251,279 cases.

The ministry said 24 deaths were recorded, taking the death toll to 10,226, of which 4,689 were "probable deaths."

The province of Pichincha remains as the epicenter of the outbreak in the country with 87,824 cases, most of which were posted in the capital city of Quito.

Chile

Chile registered on Tuesday 3,138 new COVID-19 infections and 22 deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing the tally to 734,035 and the death toll to 18,559, the Ministry of Health said.

Health Minister Enrique Paris said that confirmed cases have dropped by 6 percent in the last seven days.

Regarding vaccination against COVID-19, Paris said that as of Monday, 56,771 people had been vaccinated with their first doses, while 10,352 had received their first and second doses.

On Wednesday, Chile will begin mass vaccination, starting with people over 85 years old.

Rwanda

The Rwandan government on Tuesday extended nationwide measures against COVID-19 until Sunday, including a lockdown in the capital city Kigali.

A 7 pm-4 am curfew with other restrictions was also announced to replace the lockdown for the next two weeks starting from Feb 8.

Data showed that the lockdown imposed in Kigali in the past two weeks slowed down the virus transmission, Minister of Health Daniel Ngamije said.

In the past three days, the number of recoveries surpassed the number of new cases, meaning that the number of active cases are going down, he said.

Colombia

Colombia registered 10,091 new COVID-19 cases during the past 24 hours, taking the national count to 2,114,597, the Ministry of Health and Social Protection said Tuesday.

The death toll went up by 304 to 54,576.

Bogota Mayor Claudia Lopez announced that the city has passed the second peak of the pandemic, and lowered a red alert to an orange one in the hospital system.

Argentina

Argentina registered 9,695 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, bringing the tally to 1,943,548, the health ministry said.

The ministry said 177 more deaths were reported, taking the death toll to 48,426.

This photo shows a view of a COVID-19 vaccination site at River Plate stadium in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Feb 2, 2021. (NATACHA PISARENKO / AP)

Canada

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Tuesday that the National Research Council-owned Royalmount facility will produce millions of COVID-19 vaccine shots developed by Novavax.

The Canadian company in Montreal submitted its vaccine to Health Canada for regulatory approval last Friday. Its production is expected to start in fall this year.

The announcement came on the same day Canadian Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam reported that at least 148 cases of the coronavirus variants that first emerged in Britain and South Africa have been confirmed across the country, as the number of new COVID-19 cases in the nation continued to decline.

Four cases of the South African variant that were confirmed in British Columbia province and one case reported in Ontario province had no known link to international travel, raising fears of community transmission.

Over the past seven days, an average of 4,368 new COVID-19 cases had been reported daily across Canada, a nearly 50 percent drop from three weeks ago, Tam said.

Hospitalizations are also on the decline, falling 12 percent over the past week to fewer than 3,900 patients in hospitals. Fatalities fell by 20 percent to 128 deaths per day.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Canada has reported a total of 785,494 cases and 20,186 deaths, according to CTV. 

Ghana

A total of 20 COVID-19 cases were recorded in schools in the Greater Accra region two weeks after the reopening of schools, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) said Tuesday.

Director General of the GHS Patrick Kuma-Aboagye said at a press conference that there was also a limited outbreak in some schools in the Upper West and the Western regions of the country.

As of Tuesday, Ghana's infection tally stood at 67,782 with 5,515 active cases and 424 deaths.

Belgium

It is still too early to see the effect of the vaccination campaign on the number of hospitalizations related to COVID-19 in Belgium, said Yves Van Laethem, interfederal COVID-19 spokesman, on Tuesday.

COVID-19 cases have hit a plateau in Belgium, with 2,000 to 2,500 new infections reported per day since the end of November.

However, the number of new infections is still on the rise. In the week from Jan 23-29, an average of 2,324 new infections per day were recorded, the public health institute Sciensano said on Tuesday.

Overall, Belgium has recorded a total of 711,417 COVID-19 cases and 21,124 deaths .

Health authorities have recorded a 40 percent increase in the infection rate among children, with 32 percent involving teenagers, Van Laethem said.

More than 280,000 people have received their first dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, Dirk Ramaekers, medical director of the Jessa Hospital in Hasselt and director of the working group for the vaccination strategy in Belgium, said.

Morocco

Morocco's COVID-19 tally rose to 472,273 on Tuesday after 835 new cases were registered in the past 24 hours.

According to a statement issued by the Ministry of Health, the death toll went up by 22 to 8,309.

Albania

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama received his second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday.

Rama received the first dose on Jan 11.

"Yesterday evening we received confirmation from Pfizer that over 10,000 doses of the vaccine will come by mid-February and over 30,000 more doses within February," Rama told reporters following his vaccination.

Rama added that the Ministry of Health was working to open two more vaccination centers in the cities of Shkodra in northwest and Vlora in southwest of the country.

Albania on Tuesday reported a record 942 new cases, taking the tally to 79,934, including 48,377 recoveries and 1,398 fatalities.

Previous post UK mourns ‘hero’ Captain Tom Moore with flowers and lights
Next post Italy’s Draghi accepts challenge to form govt as parties hesitate