Iran reports that 13,922 new infections exceed one million cases in total; WHO investigates electronic vaccination certificates for prospects; Italy to restrict cities outdoors
Conditions in retirement homes for the elderly in the Spanish regions of Madrid and Catalonia, where thousands of people died when the pandemic began, remain “alarming” despite improvements, Amnesty International warned.
In a very transparent report on retirement homes on the pandemic, Amnesty said that the “vast majority” of other older people had not been well served and that the measures put in place in both regions were “ineffective and inadequate” and violated their rights.
Spain has been one of the most affected countries in Europe, infecting more than 1. 6 million people and causing nearly 46,000 deaths.
Nearly part of the number is thought to be other older people who have died at home, Amnesty said, indicating that an upcoming Spanish government report is expected to put the figure between 47% and 50%.
“The vast majority of older people living in apartments in Madrid and Catalonia have not been well cared for, nor have they been referred to hospitals when necessary, have been remote in their rooms, infrequently for weeks, without contact with their families and some have not even been able to die with dignity “the first months of the Array pandemic Said.
While some innovations have been made, “residential housing remains alarming at the current time,” Amnesty said.
Regional protocols advising to treat older people in apartments instead of sending them to the hospital “have not been changed”, they have been found to be “discriminatory”, the circle of family visits is not yet guaranteed and the government has not taken mandatory measures for construction the number of employees, he told me.
Amnesty said the denial of the right to physical fitness care for the elderly is strongly linked to austerity measures and cuts in public health care following the 2008 monetary crisis.
Esteban Beltron, director of Amnesty’s Spain office, said:
A fitness emergency is no excuse for not providing good enough care to the elderly. Please note that the houses do not have parking for the elderly.
The government will have to protect them.
Support for the Swedish government and public confidence in the authorities’ ability to manage the coronavirus crisis are declining as the country’s anti-block system continues to be tested through a large number of deaths and new cases.
A six-monthly vote conducted through Sweden Statistics this week showed that centre-left Social Democrats, Prime Minister Stefan Lefven’s party, had fallen into nearly five issues to 29. 4% since May, while Swedes have become less and less convinced across the country. . Strategy.
A survey last week found that confidence in the authorities’ ability to crisis had fallen dramatically to 42% from 55% in October, while 44% of respondents said they had not done enough to fight Covid-19, compared to 31%. last month.
More than 80% of respondents said they were “quite” or “very concerned” that the Swedish fitness service would not live up to the challenge.
“It is transparent that the increase in infection rate, combined with measures taken through the authorities, has led to a sharp increase in concern,” Nicklas Kollebring, from ipsos survey firm, told Dagens Nyheter.
The biomedical center of the Butantan Institute of Brazil won 1 million doses of a Chinese vaccine developed through Sinovac Biotech and subjected to complex testing through the State Institute of Sao Paulo.
The CoronaVac vaccine, which will be packaged and labeled at the Butantan facility, arrived at Guarulhos Airport in Sao Paulo.
This is the time when the shipment of the vaccine, which still wants to be approved through federal fitness regulator Anvisa before it can be used, will arrive in Brazil after 120,000 doses of China were landed on November 19. effects of effectiveness until 15 December.
“At the end of December, we will get 6 million doses,” and 40 through January 15, said Sao Paulo Governor Joo Doria.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who many hope to be challenged through Doria in the 2022 presidential election, has long criticized the Sinovac vaccine.
Meanwhile, Doria accused Anvisa of being too politicized after an astonishing suspension of Sinovac’s trial for the suicide of a volunteer. The trial revived, but the president called the ruling a “victory” for Bolsonaro.
Anvisa said Wednesday that it was open for approval of Covid-19 vaccines for emergency use, that approvals would be analyzed on a case-by-case basis and that to be considered, the vaccine will have to be in expired trials in Brazil. He said no programs have been won to date.
Switzerland will not give in to foreign pressure to close ski resorts during the New Year’s Eve holidays, as some neighbours have done, Health Minister Alain Berset said, while infection rates in the country remain “very worrying. “
The government plans to speak Friday of its “intermediate route” to combat the pandemic, which has kept the country open and confident that citizens will comply with hygiene measures aimed at curbing the spread of Covid-19.
This shows combined success, with rates of new infections being set at stubbornly higher levels.
Neighboring France, Italy and Germany keep winter sports a secret during the holidays. Austria will allow the resorts to reopen for Christmas and make the ski holiday almost impossible.
“Switzerland is not responding to the tension of other countries,” Berset told reporters after visiting the fitness staff in Basel, and said Bern is in constant contact with his neighbors.
However, public opinion may simply oppose Switzerland if others see it as a merit of the caution of others, he said.
There is no tension for us, however, Switzerland’s reputation can be complicated in the event of sudden epidemics. Europe and others would say they come from Switzerland.
So it doesn’t matter if it’s true or false. It is very ugly for us.
The Swiss fitness government has reported more than 340,000 infections and 4,747 deaths since the outbreak began.
German corporations affected through a resolution to enlarge a partial blockade to curb the Covid-19 pandemic expect less beneficial state aid starting in January, conservative prime ministers said.
Chancellor Angela Merkel and state leaders agreed Wednesday to take larger restrictive measures to stop a wave of new coronavirus infections until January 10.
The measures, which had been in force since 2 November and were due to expire on 20 December, come with the continuous closure of restaurants, bars, hotels, gymnasiums and entertainment venues.
Berlin has allocated 15 billion euros ($18 billion) for November and 17 billion euros by December to compensate affected companies through a programme that allows them to claim up to 75% of their monthly sales.
But Saxony Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer and Bavarian incumbent Markus Suder said the regime would replace him from January, which would mean fewer state aid in line with the company.
Businesses attending the new program cover the constant costs, but would not compensate for the loss of profits or lack of revenue from the merchants themselves, Kretschmer told the MDR television channel.
The state may no longer be as strong as it was in November and December because it was too expensive during a longer era, he added.
He said the federal government was lately executing the main points of the new program, but that it was already transparent now that companies are preparing for less support.
Sader RTL / ntv:
State reimbursement aid of 75% of sales will be obtained in November and December. He can’t do it forever. Therefore, from January, there will be something less, but broader, for more sectors.
German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said last week that he was planning to nearly double the loans he was making next year to fund emergency business aid at the time of the Covid-19 pandemic.
On Friday, the Parliamentary Budget Committee agreed on a debt amount of approximately 180 billion euros by 2021, the largest number of new net loans in the history of post-war Germany.
The World Health Organization’s European plans an assembly next week with the fitness ministers of its 53 member states to review coverage of schools opposing covid-19, adding alternate classes, regional director Hans Kluge said.
“For transmission in schools, it wants to be broadcast in communities,” said Catherine Smallwood, WHO Emergency Officer.
The Spanish region of Catalonia will maintain its existing restrictions against coronaviruses and will not move towards calmer measures on Monday as originally planned due to deteriorating infection rates, the regional government said.
Switzerland allows a third wave of coronavirus, said its Health Minister Alain Berset, calling the scenario “very worrying” as the degrees of infection stabilize at a higher level. He said the country might want to tighten restrictions.
The government should talk about its technique for combating the pandemic on Friday. Coronavirus infections rise to 4,455 in a day, according to the knowledge of Swiss fitness authorities.
The promise of Covid-19 vaccines is “phenomenal” and “potentially revolutionary,” Hans Kluge, Regional Director of the World Health Organization for Europe.
He said that materials deserve to be very limited in the early stages and that countries deserve who has priority, although WHO said there is a “growing consensus” that the first beneficiaries deserve to be the elderly, medical staff and others with comorability.
The new coronavirus still had the possibility of causing “huge damage,” Kluge said, but “the long term looks brighter,” as other candidate vaccines, adding Modern and AstraZeneca, have also yielded positive results.
The more candidates we have, the more likely it is that there will be success.
Vaccines, combined with other public conditioning measures, put at hand the end of an acute pandemic and the reconstruction of economies.
Covid-19 Pfizer vaccine from Britain on Wednesday.
A WHO official, asked about regulatory processes, said the World Health Agency and the European Medicines Agency had asked Britain to share the percentage of the documents it had used in their approval to help to expedite the evaluations of the other agencies.
Sharing can be accepted as true among others who will eventually be the target of vaccines, said Siddhartha Datta, head of WHO’s vaccine-preventable diseases programme.
“This resolution is a resolution on the component of one of the national regulators, as it will instill confidence in the system,” Datta said. “It’s amazing that this procedure is robust, the procedure is evidence-based, and a resolution is made. “and shared transparently. “
WHO has already gained knowledge from Pfizer and BioNTech about the vaccine and is reading it for a “possible emergency record” that can serve as a benchmark for use in other countries.
The World Health Organization does not recommend that countries take into account the “immunity passports” to which they have recovered from Covid-19, but is exploring the option of electronic vaccination certificates, a WHO medical expert said.
“We are very much in favour of using generation in this Covid-19 response, one of which is how we can work with Member States to download an electronic vaccination certificate,” he said at a virtual briefing in Copenhagen.
England’s National Health Service (NHS) has tactics for implementing Pfizer/BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine in nursing homes with the medical regulator, but there is no guarantee that this will happen, deputy medical director Jonathan Van-Tam said.
Britain has become the first country to approve the candidate vaccine developed through BioNTech and Pfizer in Germany on Wednesday, beating the rest of the world in the race to launch a mass vaccination programme.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it was “fantastic news,” but warned of demanding logistical situations in the distribution of the vaccine, which will have to be stored at -70oC (-94oF).
Although it can be stored for five days in a regular refrigerator, Van-Tam stated that there was a limit to how it can be removed from the refrigerator and put back in place, with implications for distribution to nursing homes.
Van-Tam on Thursday at ITV’s This Morning:
The NHS, the MHRA (Drug Regulator), is working hard right now to verify and find a solution, so we can get it to nursing homes if we can.
At this point, there is no absolute security about it because Array . . . one thing we can’t do is . . . end up with a vaccine that has been mis handlered and is not viable at the end of the chain distribution.
Britain has stated that citizens of nursing homes and their caregivers are the most sensible priority to be vaccinated, along with those over the age of 80, the doctor who chairs the vaccine committee that compiled the list said operational practical aspects would influence the launch.
Pfizer UK national director Ben Osborn said the company had reveled in delivering about one billion sterile injectables a year in 165 countries and territories.
“I sincerely hope that this will give the British confidence that we are now in a position to deliver the vaccine to the 4 corners of our country,” he told reporters Wednesday.
The United States recorded its highest number of coronavirus deaths on Wednesday, and the number of others admitted to the hospital with Covid exceeded 100,000 for the first time since the start of the pandemic.
According to Johns Hopkins University tracker, 3,157 new deaths were recorded wednesday. The past record of 2,607 deaths recorded on April 15, at the start of the pandemic.
There were 200,070 new instances on Wednesday, the time when the new instances exceeded 200,000. With the total number of instances now at 13,911,728, the United States is expected to record its 14 million cases on Thursday.
Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 90% of the country’s hospitals are at full capacity.
We are at a very critical time right now for the recoverability of our health care system.
The truth is that December and January and February are going to be times, in fact I think they will be the greatest deceptions of the history of public fitness in this country, in a giant component because of the tension that will be put on our fitness care system.
Greece will expand its coronavirus blockage for a week until December 14, which will increase even higher infection rates.
“The epidemiological burden remains high,” government spokesman Stelios Petsas told reporters in pronouncing the extension.
An exception will be made for outlets that promote Christmas decoration, which can be opened from December 7, he said.
After overcoming the first wave of the pandemic with few deaths compared to other European countries, Greece has been affected by dozens of deaths every day in recent months.
More than two thousand and six hundred people died from the virus, adding nearly 90 on Wednesday, and more than six hundred others are in resuscitation. Nearly 2,200 new infections were announced on Wednesday.
“Many hospitals in northern Greece are still under great pressure,” Petsas said.
He added that the first vaccines were expected in Greece in early January and that the country would inoculate more than 2. 1 million more people according to the month. The government has declared that vaccination will be voluntary.
Imposed on 7 November for 3 weeks, the lockout had already been extended by a week until 7 December.
Petsas also rejected media reports Thursday alleging that government coronavirus counts had been distorted due to poor accounting within the public fitness organization.
He called the accusations “conspiracy theories” that were denied through the state committee of fitness experts tracking the virus.
A justice of the peace has ordered an initial investigation into media reports.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was also criticized this week for an off-road vehicle to the Athens suburb of Athens last weekend, at a time when other Greeks are only allowed to train outdoors near their homes.
Covid-19’s trial and follow-up formula in England has stopped looking to touch children under the age of 18 to ask them to isolate the the test and follow-up formula if a parent says they will tell their child, which is helping to increase the proportion of cases touched effectively.
After weeks near an all-time low of around 60% of positive contact cases that were effectively tracked, it reached 72. 5% of the other 246,604 people known as a close contact of a user who tested positive for Covid- 19 in the week before November 25.
“Children under the age of 18 in a family will no longer be monitored individually, for the parent of the family to confirm that they have fulfilled their legal responsibility to tell their child to isolate the child,” the Ministry of Health said.
“This operational improvement has resulted in an increase in the proportion of contacts made and the proportion reached in 24 hours. “
The last foreign members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have left North Korea, the most recent in a mass exodus of foreigners amid a strict coronavirus blockade.
North Korea has reported any shown cases of coronavirus, but the passing government has imposed suffocating measures that, in some cases, go beyond the controls that already exist in the politically and economically isolated country.
The ICRC foreigner left Pyongyang on Wednesday and the paintings the organization is making there will be controlled through its delegation in Beijing, said Graziella Leite Piccoli, deputy head of the ICRC delegation in East Asia.
“They have completed their missions in the DPRK,” he said, initials of the official name of North Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “They will go to their home country to locate their families. “
The ICRC remained open with very limited activities given the existing measures against coronavirus, Piccoli said.
The ICRC is among about 40 foreigners who left Pyongyang this week, joining several embassies and other humanitarian organizations, according to a NK News report, an online page that monitors North Korea.
“The latest outing suggests that foreign aid personnel are lately provided in North Korea,” NK News CEO Chad O’Carroll wrote.
North Korea has suspended almost all foreign flights and rail and cross-border road traffic, and citizens near the border warn that guards would shoot those trying to cross.
In the capital, imported goods have become scarce as industry declined due to self-imposed restrictions, foreign citizens said.
Many ambassadors, diplomats and others have left the country this year after weeks of blockade and have been unable to return.
According to the World Health Organization, as of November 25, North Korea had known another 8594 people as suspected cases of coronavirus, but no one tested positive.
Hello everyone, it is Jessica Murray who will take over the blog for the next few hours; feel free to leave me a message if you have any non-public advice or report that you would like to share.
Email: jessica. murray@theguardian. com Twitter: @journojess_
The total number of coronavirus cases in Iran reached 1 million on Thursday with 13922 new cases recorded in the last 24 hours, the Ministry of Health said, while the number of deaths in the most affected country in the Middle East reached 49,348.
Reuters reported that ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari told state television that another 358 people had died of coronavirus since Wednesday and that it showed that cases of Covid-19 infection had reached 1,003,494.
Iran has imposed stricter restrictions to stop a third wave of coronavirus infections, adding business closure and non-essential restrictions.
The European Court of Human Rights rejected a complaint through a French citizen that the anti-Covid 19 measures put in place through the French were insufficient, AP reported.
In a judgment issued on Thursday, the Strasbourg-based court ruled that Renaud Le Mailloux’s application is inadmissible because it may not identify that he was directly affected by the measures he complains about.
Le Mailloux, who lives in Marseille, southern France, joined a failed legal action in France, a French government court order to provide fitness mask professionals with FFP2 and FFP3, surgical mask for patients and mass coronavirus detection services for all. . .
The court stated that the applicants “cannot about a provision of domestic law, internal practice or public acts simply because they appear to be in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. “
He added that plaintiffs “must present moderate and convincing evidence of the likelihood of an infringement affecting them.
Dozens of lawsuits have been filed for France’s control of the pandemic, the government, nursing homes and others.
The government acknowledged some false steps, but argued that mask shortages were a global challenge before this year, and that it made political decisions based on limited clinical knowledge about the virus at the time.
The ink is still new to the BRITISH government’s seal of approval for the deployment of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine, however, in India, agents are already responding to requests from consumers who wish to get vaccinated in the UK.
While foreigners are unlikely to have early access to vaccination in the UK, regardless of age or occupation, this has not prevented some Indian travel agents from planning a imaginable increase in vaccine tourism in the UK by 2021.
An agent told Press Trust India that he planned to arrange a three-night package in the UK for Indians who need to take advantage of the credit for launching the government vaccine, which could begin as soon as next week. the vaccine would be obtained privately in the UK.
Another agent in Mumbai said that after the announcement of approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, he had won several applications from British-licensed Indians on how and when to go to the UK.
They also discussed whether indian travelers who come for vaccination alone may be exempt from two-week quarantine. “I told them it was too early to tell, ” he said.