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Countries in Europe were preparing on Saturday to launch their first coronavirus vaccines, even as a supposedly more contagious variant spreads across the globe, forcing some nations to return to lockdown.
The looming vaccination campaigns have raised hopes that 2021 could bring a respite from the pandemic, which has killed more than 1.7 million people since it emerged in China late last year.
The first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine arrived in the most affected EU countries, including Italy, Spain and France, in the early hours of Saturday, ready for distribution to nursing homes and care staff.
“We will regain our freedom, we will be able to hug each other again,” said Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio, urging his compatriots to get vaccinated.
But polls show that only 57 percent of Italians intend to take the hit, while scientists estimate that herd immunity can only be achieved if 75 to 80 percent have it.
Vaccines in the 27 countries of the European Union are scheduled to begin on Sunday, after regulators approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on December 21.
But a new strain that emerged in Britain and spread rapidly has caused jitters in already overstretched health services, as countries from Sweden to Japan have reported cases.
Austria began its third national shutdown on Saturday and millions also woke up to tighter restrictions in Britain, where the launch of the vaccine has already begun.
France, Spain and Sweden are among the countries that confirm that the new strain of the virus has reached their shores.
French officials said late Friday that a Frenchman living in Britain tested positive after arriving from London, adding that he showed no symptoms and was isolated.
On Saturday four cases were confirmed in Madrid, although the patients were not seriously ill, said the deputy director of Health of the Community of Madrid, Antonio Zapatero, adding that “there is no need to be alarmed.”
The new strain, which experts fear is more contagious, prompted more than 50 countries to impose travel restrictions on the UK.
Thousands of trucks backed down in southern England, but the bottleneck eased after France lifted a 48-hour entry ban for drivers with a negative coronavirus test.
South Africa has detected a mutation of the virus in some infected people, but on Friday denied British claims that its strain was more infectious or dangerous than the one native to the United Kingdom.
In Asia, China’s communist leadership issued a statement praising the “extraordinary glory” of its handling of the virus, the state news agency Xinhua reported.
Tokyo, the Japanese capital, reported a record 949 new cases daily, while Thailand has seen a new outbreak linked to a seafood market near Bangkok that has infected nearly 1,500 people.
In Australia, there was little sign of the usual rush for the Boxing Day sales in Sydney, with residents paying more attention to the state prime minister’s request to stay home in the face of a new cluster of viruses.
“Even when we walked into the store there were fewer than 10 people,” shopper Lia Gunawan told The Sydney Morning Herald.
Around the world, people are urged to adhere to social distancing guidelines.
“Vaccines are offering the world a way out of this tragedy. But it will take time for everyone to be vaccinated,” World Health Organization head of Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday.
At the Vatican, Pope Francis called for “vaccines for all” in his traditional Christmas message on Friday, urging leaders in politics and beyond to find a solution “especially to the most vulnerable and needy.”
In authoritarian post-Soviet Turkmenistan, where the government says no coronavirus cases have been detected, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov claimed that licorice root could cure Covid-19.
Without citing any scientific evidence, former dentist Berdymukhamedov claimed that “licorice stops the development of the coronavirus.”
