People wait on the concourse at Paddington Station in London | Photo credit: AP
European countries began banning flights from the UK on Sunday when the London government warned that a powerful new strain of the virus was “out of control”.
Following the example of the Netherlands, where the ban on all UK passenger flights went into effect on Sunday, a German government source said Berlin was also considering a similar measure as “a serious option” for flights from both Britain. as from South Africa.
The Dutch ban came into effect from 6:00 am (0500 GMT) and will last until January 1. And neighboring Belgium also said it would suspend flight and train arrivals from Britain from midnight.
The measures come as around a third of England’s population entered a Christmas lockdown and UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock warned that the new strain of the virus was “out of control”.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson had said the day before that millions of Britons would have to cancel their Christmas plans and stay home because the new strain was spreading much more rapidly.
Speaking on Sky News, Hancock said the situation was “deadly serious.”
“It’s going to be very difficult to keep it under control until we have the vaccine,” he said.
It appears that scientists first discovered the new variant in a patient in September.
Susan Hopkins of Public Health England told Sky News that the agency notified the government on Friday when modeling revealed the full severity of the new strain.
He confirmed a figure given by Johnson that the new strain of the virus could be 70 percent more transmissible.
Last week, Europe became the first region in the world to exceed 500,000 deaths from Covid-19 since the pandemic broke out a year ago, killing more than 1.6 million worldwide and plunging the global economy into a crisis. crisis. Countries are shutting down their economies again in an attempt to control the virus.
The Netherlands is under a five-week lockdown until mid-January with schools and all non-essential stores closed to stem the rise of the virus.
Italy also announced a new regime of restrictions until January 6 that included limits on people leaving their homes more than once a day, closures of nonessential shops, bars and restaurants, and restrictions on regional travel.
More than 50,000 deaths in Russia
In Russia, health authorities said the number of people who have died from the coronavirus has passed the 50,000 mark and is now 50,858.
But some experts believe the actual number could be much higher, with a former demographer at Russia’s state statistics agency Alexei Raksha calling it 250,000.
Raksha, who left Rosstat in July, told AFP that the Russian Health Ministry and the consumer health agency “downplay and falsify” the statistics.
A year after the pandemic first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the rapid deployment of vaccines is now seen as the only effective way to end the crisis, and the economically devastating lockdowns used to halt its spread.
Europe is expected to begin a mass vaccination campaign after Christmas after the United States and Britain, which have started pounding with an approved injection of Pfizer-BioNTech, one of several leading candidates.
Russia and China have also started giving injections with their own domestically produced vaccines.
The United States authorized Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use on Friday, paving the way for millions of doses of a second jab to be shipped to the most affected country in the world.
It is the first nation to authorize Moderna’s two-dose regimen, now the second vaccine to be implemented in a western country after the one developed by Pfizer and BioNTech.
The head of Asia’s largest pharmaceutical company Takeda said that pharmaceutical companies must be “very transparent” about the risks and benefits of vaccines.
“We have to handle the situation well, be very transparent and extremely educational in the way we present the products,” Takeda CEO Christophe Weber told AFP in an interview.
Takeda, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, is not developing its own vaccine, but has contracts with various companies to distribute its injections in Japan and is also testing a treatment against the virus.
“Medications or vaccines are never perfect … there are always some side effects,” Weber said.
US Virus Stimulus Agreement
The Wall Street Journal reported that US lawmakers agreed to pandemic spending powers for the Federal Reserve on Saturday night, clearing the way for a vote on a Covid-19 aid package of approximately $ 900 billion for millions of Americans.
The deal would maintain the central bank’s ability to establish emergency loan programs without congressional approval, the Journal said, but the Fed would require approval to restart existing CARES Act programs once they expire at the end of this year.
In the sports world, Cricket Australia said on Sunday that they were pursuing their plans to hold the third test against India in Sydney despite the growing coronavirus outbreak in the city.
The test will take place starting Jan.7 and CA Acting Chief Nick Hockley said they were watching the situation closely, with contingency plans in place.
