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French President Emmanuel Macron has contracted the corona virus. As the Elysee Palace announced on Thursday, he had previously shown the first symptoms. Symptoms were not reported. The head of state will now isolate himself for seven days in accordance with applicable regulations, but will continue to work from home. Macron had attended an EU summit at the end of last week. On Wednesday he met with Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa.
France had recently shut down public life on a massive scale. A six-week lockdown ended on Tuesday. Since the end of October, every step towards the front door had to be justified and documented in writing. Officially, he was only allowed to move more than a kilometer from his home for work or unavoidable activities, such as visiting the doctor. For 55 days, France became a ghost land with empty streets, parks and forests. Schools remained open meanwhile.
Now there is a night curfew starting at 8 pm The only exception: on December 24, people can go home whenever they want. Up to six adults from different households can celebrate Christmas together. For New Year’s Eve, however, the following applies again: everyone stays inside, no one gathers. In this way, the spread of the virus could be contained. The average number of newly infected people is about 10,000 per day.
US highest: more than 3,600 deaths in one day
The pandemic continues unchecked in the United States. The number of new coronavirus infections and deaths every day is reaching new highs. On Wednesday, there were 247,403 new infections and 3,656 deaths with a confirmed coronavirus infection in one day, according to data from Johns Hopkins University (JHU) in Baltimore on Thursday morning (CET). The highest values to date with 233,133 new cases and 3,306 deaths were recorded on December 11.
In total, around 16.9 million people in the country of around 330 million inhabitants have been shown to be infected with the corona virus. Since the pandemic began, more than 307,500 people have died from the Sars-CoV-2 pathogen. This makes the United States the country with the most infections and deaths in the world.
The Biontech and Pfizer vaccine, which has been approved in the United States since last Saturday, is a weak hope of recovery. To increase public confidence in the corona vaccine, President-elect Joe Biden and current Vice President Mike Pence would like to be vaccinated in public. The White House announced Wednesday that Mike Pence and his wife Karen will receive the vaccine on Friday. According to the AP news agency, Biden is expected to be publicly vaccinated next week.
America’s chief immunologist Anthony Fauci apparently advised Biden to get vaccinated quickly. The next president of the United States had previously said that, with a view to early vaccination, health officials and risk groups must continue to have the highest priority on vaccination. You don’t want to be in the front row, but you want to show the American people that the syringe is safe. However, according to Biden, Fauci said he should get it “sooner rather than later.”
After the vaccine is approved, the first vaccines are already running in the US However, confidence in the coronavirus vaccine does not appear to be very high. A survey by the AP news agency has shown that only half of Americans want to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. About a quarter refuse to be vaccinated and the rest are undecided.
In the Donald Trump administration, Covid-19 infections are known over and over again. The most recent case is that of Interior Minister David Bernhardt, who tested positive on Wednesday. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went into quarantine Wednesday. The State Department said it had contact with a person who tested positive. After Donald Trump himself contracted the virus in October and was treated for three days at the hospital, tests from several White House employees were also positive.
Short message service Twitter wants to provide misleading tweets and targeted misinformation about coronavirus vaccines with warnings or remove them altogether. Twitter announced this tightening of the rules on Wednesday through the official blog of the company. Consequently, starting next week, not only should the tweets that spread absurd conspiracy myths about vaccines, such as that the drugs are supposedly intended to control the population, should be eliminated. Scientifically disproven false claims about alleged health harm caused by vaccines or denial of any danger from the virus should no longer be tolerated.
Since early next year, Twitter also wants to put a warning on tweets that contain controversial representations or incomplete information, out of context about vaccines. Such tweets could receive more links to Twitter’s terms of use and reliable information about the corona virus, he said in the blog post. With this, the short message service wants to support the fight against the pandemic led by scientists and governments.
“In the context of a global pandemic, vaccine misinformation is a significant and growing public health challenge, and we all have a role to play,” the Twitter blog said in support of the statement.
Von der Leyen for the start of vaccination in Europe on the same day
The head of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has proposed a common start of vaccinations against the corona virus throughout the European Union. “Let’s start getting vaccinated together as soon as possible, together, when we are 27 years old, starting on the same day,” von der Leyen told the European Parliament on Wednesday.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced Tuesday that it would give its opinion on the Biontech and Pfizer vaccine on December 21, eight days ahead of schedule. Von der Leyen left no doubt that he expected a positive decision. Therefore, the first vaccinations could be given before Christmas.
Its spokesperson stressed on Wednesday that the EU Commission would ensure that the Biontech / Pfizer vaccine could go on the market within two days of the EMA’s decision. According to the EMA report, the final decision on whether the product will be approved in the 27 EU countries rests with the authority of Brussels.
More vaccines, according to von der Leyen, would be added in 2021. The EU Commission has put together the world’s widest range of future vaccines and bought more than enough vaccines for all Europeans.
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Slovakia imposes closing and departure restrictions from Saturday
Slovakia already advanced to this Saturday the start of a lockdown scheduled for next week. At the same time, strict exit restrictions take effect. Health Minister Marek Krajčí announced this on Wednesday night after an hour-long government meeting. Therefore, Christmas shopping is only possible until Friday.
Originally, all stores except supermarkets shouldn’t be closed for at least three weeks starting December 21. A simultaneous curfew was not included in the government’s previous plans. Krajčí cited the dramatic worsening of the pandemic situation in the country and, above all, the imminent overload of hospitals as the reason for the short-term change.
According to data published by health authorities this Wednesday, 58 people died from corona in the EU country in 24 hours. This is the highest number of corona deaths since the outbreak of the pandemic in March. This means that twice as many people died from the virus in one day in Slovakia than in all spring and summer combined. In the crown statistics, the country only counts those deaths for which no other cause of death can be proven.
On the weekend of October 31 and November 1, Slovakia attracted international attention with massive nationwide testing of almost the entire population. The populist-conservative head of government Igor Matovič had promoted mass tests as an alternative to confinement. On Wednesday, he called the fact that the blockade could not be avoided as a political defeat.
The EU Medicines Agency wants to decide on the approval of the vaccine on December 21
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is scheduled to present its opinion on the approval of the corona vaccine from the companies Biontech and Pfizer on December 21, eight days earlier than last scheduled. The authority announced Tuesday in Amsterdam. Approval by the EU Commission is considered relatively secure. The vaccine could be approved for the EU before Christmas.
Previously, an approval decision was made on December 29. After the EMA announcement, the president of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced via Twitter that she was grateful for the earlier date. “Every day counts,” von der Leyen wrote.
The vaccine is already being administered in Britain and the United States, among others. This sparked a debate in the EU about why a vaccine developed in Germany can only be used there relatively late.
Health Minister Jens Spahn had also fueled this debate with a tweet in which he wrote: “All necessary data on BioNTech are available. UK + US have already issued approvals.” The EMA must verify and approve the data as soon as possible. However, his spokesman stressed Monday that Spahn did not mean that there should also be a national emergency approval for Germany.
The federal government had decided against a possible national emergency approval, because they want to act within the EU and are concerned about the acceptance of the vaccine. Emergency approval in Britain, for example, is seen as counterproductive. The EMA reiterated that the approval would apply the same standards as any other vaccine.
