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HEALTH-VIRUS
Pope, Queen Elizabeth join vaccine drive as German deaths top 40,000
ROME, Jan 10, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – The pope and Britain’s Queen Elizabeth
became the latest high-profile figures to join the global vaccination
campaign against the coronavirus as Germany on Sunday reported 40,000
fatalities since the pandemic began a year ago.
And German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that the worst was still to
come.
More than 1.9 million people worldwide have now died from the virus, with
new variants adding to soaring cases and prompting the re-introduction of
restrictions on movement across the globe — even as with mass inoculation
drives underway.
Pope Francis urged people to get the vaccination saying he would be
inoculated against the virus himself next week when the Vatican begins its
campaign and denouncing opposition to the jab.
“There is a suicidal denial which I cannot explain, but today we have to
get vaccinated,” the pontiff tells Canale 5 in an interview to be broadcast
Sunday.
Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip received their
Covid-19 vaccinations on Saturday, said Buckingham Palace.
A source told the Press Association news agency that the queen, 94, and
Philip, 99, were given the injections by a royal household doctor at Windsor
Castle.
More than 1.5 million people in Britain have so far been inoculated, in the
biggest immunisation programme in national history, with the elderly, their
carers and health workers first in line.
Countries across the world are following suit with coronavirus shots
approved including those by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna and domestically made
jabs from Russia and China.
Britain is racing to protect as many people as possible as a new variant
believed to be more contagious pushes infections and deaths to unprecedented
levels.
Health authorities announced more than three million coronavirus infections
since the pandemic began last year. The total UK death toll stands at 80,868,
one of the highest in Europe.
– ‘Worse to come’, warns Merkel – Germany’s topped 40,000 fatalities on
Sunday, the centre for disease control announced.
In her weekly video message, Chancellor Merkel had warned Saturday that the
full impact of socialising over the Christmas and New Year’s period had yet
to be felt.
The coming weeks will be “the hardest phase of the pandemic” so far, she
said, with hospitals stretched to their limits. More than 1.9 million people
have been infected so far, with almost 17,000 new cases added since Saturday.
Belgium also passed a significant threshold Sunday, recording 20,000
deaths, more than half in retirement care homes, said health officials.
With a population of 11.5 million people, that gives it one of the hightest
death rates in the world, at 1,725 per 100,000 people, according to an AFP
tally.
Cases and deaths also continue to spiral in the United States, the world’s
worst-hit country.
With the 24-hour death toll exceeding 3,000 in recent days — more than
4,000 on Saturday — the total figure stands at 372,051 fatalities, according
to Johns Hopkins University.
– Tighter restrictions –
India will launch one of the world’s most ambitious coronavirus free
vaccination drives next Saturday, aiming to reach 300 million people by July,
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.
India is the second worst-hit country with more than 10 million cases,
though the death rate is one of the world’s lowest.
Cuba, meanwhile, said it would test its most advanced Covid vaccine
candidate in Iran, after Tehran banned the import of already-proven US and
British-produced vaccines.
Governments are being forced to reintroduce restrictions that helped slow
the spread of the virus last year, but badly disrupted their economies.
France was to extend its Covid-19 curfews to a further eight departments on
Sunday evening.
After a rise in cases, Burundi will close its land and lakeside borders
from Monday and impose a seven-day quarantine on travellers arriving by
plane, officials said. – New British strain –
On Saturday the streets of the Australian city of Brisbane were quiet as
its more than two million residents were ordered back into lockdown, after
authorities detected a single infection of the new strain from Britain.
“Quite surreal, like something from a movie set,” local man Scott told AFP
in Brisbane’s deserted downtown, before adding: “It’s necessary.”
Israel said four people had tested positive for the new South African
strain, which is also more infectious than the original. It had already
recorded the new British variant.
In China, where the original coronavirus first emerged in late 2019,
authorities also tightened restrictions on two cities near Beijing to stamp
out a growing cluster.
Beijing also insisted Saturday that preparations were still ongoing for a
World Health Organization mission to Wuhan to investigate the origins of
Covid-19, following a rare rebuke from the UN body over delays to the long-
planned trip.
BSS/AFP/ARS/1700 hrs