The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world on Friday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available.
6:07 am The head of Germany’s disease control agency said on Friday that the country entered a “state of national emergency” due to rising coronavirus infections.
Lothar Wieler, director of the Robert Koch Institute, said regular medical care can no longer be guaranteed in some parts of the country because hospitals and intensive care wards are overloaded.
He called for urgent additional measures to address the surge in COVID-19 cases, which exceeded 50,000 for the third day in a row.
“All of Germany is one big outbreak,” Wieler told reporters in Berlin. “This is a state of emergency at the national level. We need to pull the emergency brake. “
His comments came as the upper house of parliament on Friday approved new measures to control the outbreak proposed by the center-left alliance that emerged after the September 26 national elections. The measures include requirements for people to show that they are vaccinated, have recently recovered from COVID-19, or have tested negative for the virus in order to access communal workplaces or public transportation.
5:40 am When the coronavirus first appeared last year, health officials feared the pandemic would spread across Africa and kill millions. While it’s still unclear what the ultimate cost of COVID-19 will be, that catastrophic scenario has yet to materialize across much of the continent.
Scientists emphasize that obtaining accurate COVID-19 data, particularly in African countries with spotty surveillance, is extremely difficult, warning that declining trends in the coronavirus could easily be reversed.
But something “mysterious” is happening in Africa that puzzles scientists, said Wafaa El-Sadr, president of global health at Columbia University. “Africa does not have the vaccines and resources to combat COVID-19 that they have in Europe and the United States, but somehow it seems that they are doing better,” he said.
Less than 6 percent of people in Africa are vaccinated. For months, the WHO has described Africa as “one of the least affected regions in the world” in its weekly pandemic reports.
5:36 am Taiwan’s COVID-19 response task force has recognized that the island could have done better in fighting the disease, after 12 families who lost family members to the pandemic filed a claim seeking financial compensation from the government.
The families allege that the authorities were unprepared despite being over a year old during which there were few cases, resulting in unnecessary deaths and suffering.
Taiwan managed to keep out of the coronavirus largely for nearly a year and a half, with 1,199 cases and 12 deaths as of May 10. The virus then swept the island, powered by the contagious alpha variant, and Taiwan has now recorded 16,516 cases and 848 deaths.
5:35 am Austrian Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg said on Friday that the country will enter a national lockdown to contain a fourth wave of coronavirus cases.
Schallenberg said the lockdown will begin on Monday and initially last 10 days. Most stores will close and cultural events will be canceled.
Initially he said that all students would have to go back to homeschooling. Wolfgang Mueckstein, the country’s health minister, later said that schools would remain open for those who needed to go there, but all parents were asked to keep their children at home if possible.
Starting February 1, the country will also make vaccinations mandatory, public broadcaster ORF reported.
“We don’t want a fifth wave,” Schallenberg said, according to ORF. “We don’t want a sixth or seventh wave.”
Austria had initially introduced a national lockdown only for the unvaccinated that began Monday, but as virus cases continued to skyrocket, the government said it had no choice but to extend it to everyone.
5:25 am The federal government is scheduled to make two major announcements on the front lines of the pandemic on Friday, beginning with the approval of Canada’s first COVID-19 vaccine for children, and then detailed plans to ease some of the pandemic-related measures. on the border.
The government has scheduled a press conference with officials at 10 am to share news about the authorization of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children.
Canada expects an expedited delivery of 2.9 million doses to children as soon as Health Canada provides regulatory approval, enough for a first dose for every child in the five to 11-year-old age group.
Officials will also provide updates on the recommendations of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization.
At 1 pm, federal ministers are ready to discuss the easing measures taken to prevent the importation of new cases across the border.
5:23 am An informal survey shows that at least one million doses of Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine have been wasted.
Canadian Press asked health ministries across the country to provide how many doses needed to be disposed of because they had expired or for other reasons.
Not everyone was able to respond before the deadline. Some jurisdictions, including Yukon and Prince Edward Island, only provided the number of overdue doses. Ontario declined to provide information.
The survey suggests that at least 1,016,669 doses have been rejected since the vaccines arrived last December. That’s about 2.6 percent of all supply delivered to the provinces and territories that provided their number.
Unused doses vary greatly in Canada. Alberta reported eliminating 10 percent of its doses; Nova Scotia 0.3 percent.
5 am An Ontario university campus police expelled a student from class, once carried in handcuffs and again carried out by his hands and feet, in a dramatic showdown over the school’s enforcement of its COVID-vaccination mandate. 19.
Recent events at Western University in London, captured on video and shared on social media, are among the first to publicly highlight the challenge schools across the province face in upholding a policy that requires staff and students to be fully vaccinated on campus.
After being repeatedly warned not to trespass on campus and being removed three times, Harry Wade, 22, was expelled on November 18 and told the Star, “if a university is willing to go that far to exclude to the people, then it is not an institution that I want to participate in. “
Read the full story of Isabel Teotonio de Star
Reference-www.thestar.com