Latest updates: more than 340,000 have died in the United States; UK reports nearly 1,000 more deaths
Brazil has reported 56,773 cases of Covid-19 beyond 24 hours and 1,074 deaths from the virus.
It is the third day in a row with more than 1,000 people killed in a pandemic resurgence in the South American country.
Brazil has registered 7,675,973 cases since the start of the pandemic in March, while the official death toll has risen to 194,949, the third worst epidemic in the world outdoors in the United States and India.
Canada will require people over the age of five to have a negative outcome for Covid-19 prior to their arrival, starting January 7, said Transport Minister Marc Garneau as the country tightens restrictions amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Passengers must go through a Covid-19 Polymer Negative Reaction Check (PCR) conducted within 72 hours of their scheduled departure to Canada, after photographs of unmasked Canadian tourists on social media generated calls for stricter measures to combat the virus.
Documentation showing a negative result must be submitted to the airline before boarding a flight to Canada, Garneau said.
Pre-departure testing will not be a mandatory 14-day quarantine for arrivals, a blow to Canadian airlines that required a negative result to be accepted as an option for such restrictions.
“The announcement is just one component of the way forward: the use of evidence to help additional public health,” said Mike McNaney, president of Canada’s National Airline Council, which represents major airlines such as Air Canada.
“We are firmly convinced that it deserves to be used in conjunction with measures to reduce quarantine levels,” he said.
The new measures add to Canada’s existing restrictions, which prohibit access to non-essential aliens and require citizens to return to quarantine.
Canada would also increase surveillance for travelers entering Canada throughout its quarantine, Garneau said.
Canada reported a total of 572,982 instances of Covid-19 on Thursday, while new instances are higher in its most populous provinces, Ontario and Quebec.
On Tuesday, Quebec suggested the federal government require Covid-19 for citizens returning from a new year-end vacation, while hospitals deal with expanding instances in the province.
Thousands of New Year’s revelers piled up in downtown Wuhan, the Chinese city where Covid-19 first spotted, cheering and launching balloons to house in 2021.
Police erected fences to avoid traffic jams around the clock tower of the city’s customs office, but the move was not effective due to increased participation, basically among young people.
“2020 has been a very difficult year for us, as we have reveled in the epidemic, especially in Wuhan, which is an unforgettable delight for us,” Xu Du, a local resident, told AFP.
Most of the crowd wore masks for Thursday night’s celebrations, which included a gentle spectacle.
Wuhan was strictly confined for more than two months since the end of January, but has returned to general life since the summer. Schools completely opened in September.
“China has controlled the epidemic very well now,” said Li Yusu, a party-goer. “But there are still other countries suffering from the virus. I hope that other countries will succeed in this difficulty as temporarily as possible. “
China has been widely criticized for its initial handling of the virus, which gave the impression in Wuhan, hubei Central Province, in December 2019.
The country has been accused of covering up the epidemic and allowing the virus to reach international level.
Beijing has also recently tried to doubt the origin of Covid-19 in Wuhan.
On Monday, citizen journalist Zhang Zhan was imprisoned for 4 years for reporting on Wuhan’s internal situations at the height of the epidemic.
The city of 11 million more people was forced into a complicated lockdown from January to April and around 4,000 people died, according to Chinese figures.
The U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is a U. S. The U. S. reported a record increase of 3,764 Covid-19-related deaths, bringing the total to 341,199.
The firm said the number of cases increased from 230,337 to 19,663,976. CDC figures necessarily reflect cases reported across individual states.
The World Health Organization has indexed Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, the resolution opens the door for countries to increase their own import and vaccination approvals.
Dr Mariangela Simao, WHO Deputy Director-General for Access to Medicines and Health Products, said:
This is a very positive step in ensuring that Covid-19 vaccines are global.
But I would like to emphasize the need for an even greater global effort for a source of vaccines good enough to meet the desires of preceding populations around the world.
WHO, in collaboration with GAVI Vaccine Alliance and Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), is leading a global effort called COVAX to distribute vaccines to low- and middle-income countries to ensure vaccines are not just nations.
The COVAX alliance said it had reached agreements for approximately 2 billion doses, and that the first deliveries were expected in early 2021 and said it was in talks with Pfizer and BioNTech to protect their vaccine.
Pfizer/BioNTech messenger RNA vaccine has been shown to have a 95% effectiveness in preventing symptoms of the disease after two doses 21 days apart. Delivery is complicated because you want to store at -70 degrees C.
The vaccine has already been approved for emergency use in the United States and Britain, and has conditional marketing approval in the EU and Switzerland, among other countries, where the distribution of vaccines for the elderly and fitness staff began in December.
The Slovak government ordered the closure of ski resorts and hotels and banned travel between districts in an emergency consultation on New Year’s Eve, after new cases of coronavirus reached record levels and hospitals were filled with patients.
The new restrictions, which came into force here on January 1, also ordered painting in the house when possible, banned the circle of family visits and ordered the closure of churches.
People will only be able to leave their homes to work, run errands or walk in their own districts, the country’s fitness minister and public fitness officer said at a televised press conference.
The measures will last until 24 January.
The Central European country, which has a population of 5. 5 million, on Thursday reported a new record of 6,315 new instances detected through PCR laboratory tests and 5,954 instances of rapid results antigenic tests.
There were 2,946 patients with Covid-19 in hospitals on Thursday. A panel of experts warned that the ability of the fitness system, the addition of lung fans, could be depleted in two weeks.
Uk top medical officials have advocated a plan to delay the current dose of a Covid vaccine to more than 500,000 people who won the first vaccine after a protest among doctors.
Recipients of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine had already been informed that there would be a three-week gap between doses, many of which were already reserved for injection.
But the government announced Wednesday a replacement to its anti-Covid vaccination strategy, saying that the current doses of the recently approved Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine and the past approved Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine will now be administered up to 12 weeks after the first. dose.
This resolution applies to those who must obtain their moment dose of the Pfizer vaccine after January 4, as well as to those who have not yet won any of the doses. The government said it hoped this technique would mean that many other people as I imagined would soon be protected from the disease.
The new regime subsidized through the leading doctors of the 4 British countries, with orders given to the leaders of the fitness services in England through the heads of the NHS on Wednesday to postpone the maximum of the planned timing for the Pfizer hits. / BioNTech.
The announcement, however, controversial. Pfizer and BioNTech warned that two doses of their vaccine were needed for maximum coverage as opposed to Covid and that they had no evidence that the first dose alone was covered after 3 weeks.
The Guardian’s editorial on Covid’s science and why we stick to the example of the Chinese professor whose selfless resolution of percentage of his progress led to the medical miracle of a vaccine.
Many other people deserve a compliment for their selfless movements over the 12+ months, but one user of the act of clinical generosity is Zhang Yongzhen.
The scientist, who paints at the Shanghai Clinical Center for Public Health, was the first to map the complete genomic sequence of Sars-CoV-2. He did so on January 5, 2020 and hoped to share it with researchers as he uploaded his paintings to the US National Center for Biotechnology Information. U. S. (NCBI).
The professor knew he was dealing with a fatal virus, but he had no idea how harmful he was. The pathogen has killed more than 1. 7 million people and nations closed, leaving a trail of economic disruption.
Fearing that the NCBI would take its time, the scientist sanctioned the international public transmission of footage through an Australian colleague on 11 January, when Wuhan recorded his first death by Covid, the genomic series of the virus published on an open access site.
The 28,000 letters of the Covid genetic code allowed the Jenner, Moderna and BioNTech Institute at the University of Oxford to design their vaccines in a matter of days and testing lasted the rest of the year. Going from an unknown deadly new virus to a vaccine in a matter of months is a medical miracle.
Glastonbury Festival founder Michael Eavis, 85, won his Covid-19 vaccine in a network vaccination by a general physician at the Mendip District Council offices in Shepton Mallet.
Somerset’s milk producer said:
You will be part of one of the first teams of others to get the Covid-19 vaccine in Somerset.
It is vital that everyone seizes the opportunity to have the vaccine loose when it occurs; it is our only genuine possibility to protect ourselves, our friends and the family circle from this disease.
As far as the festival is concerned, wouldn’t it be glorious to have most of our population vaccinated before June 2021, so that we can celebrate next summer in the right ‘Glastonbury style’?
Eavis thanked the volunteers at the vaccination center, whom he called “very well organized. “
One of London’s largest hospitals has warned that it is on track to fit Covid practically amid a build-up of cases in the capital that has left her struggling to turn operating rooms, surgical recovery spaces and stroke rooms into large sets of care for the very sick.
As Covid’s number of cases in the UK continued to increase probably inexorably, reaching 55,892, with 23,813 in hospitals and 964 reported deaths, University College London Hospitals Trust executive Professor Marcel Levi said admissions were already expanding beyond the first spring wave.
All London hospitals faced the same demands for beds and staff, and UCLH accepted admissions from other hospitals that were less to deal with, he told the Guardian.
“It’s a lot more than we had in March and April,” said Levi, a doctor specializing in acute medicine. The 500-bed hospital has 220 Covid patients, whose number is expanding by 5% according to the day, however, the real tension is in extensive care, where there are now 70 patients in poor health, as in the spring, and which is expanding rapidly.
“Usually in our ITU, we have about 35 patients, so we have already doubled the duration in UCLH. We have more at London’s request to 92 patients next week, and after that we’ll have to expand further,” he said. Said.
At UCLH, entire floors should be dismantled and rebuilt according to the criteria required for extensive care services. As they did in March, they had to convert five floors and equip them with uninterrupted positive voltage and oxygen (CPAP) devices that help other people breathe.
An increase in the holiday season of coronavirus infections will give Colombia a complicated start by 2021, health minister Fernando Ruiz said, while doctors have called for quarantines in the hardest-hit areas.
“We’re going to struggle in the first two weeks of January,” Ruiz said in an interview with Colombian radio station Caracol, where he attributed the expansion of coronavirus cases to other people who were mixing the holiday season.
The country has reported more than 1. 6 million cases of coronavirus and nearly 43,000 deaths, and the number of active cases exceeds 80,000, according to the Ministry of Health.
Coronavirus cases in Colombia raise holidays with an all-time record of 14,941 new cases reported on December 25, the last of 4 new daily infection records reported in seven days.
“We are seeing a very significant expansion in some cases as a result of the easing of (biosecurity) measures in December,” Ruiz said.
The rise in the number of infections has prompted the government in some cities to call for curfews, bans on the sale of alcohol and limits on purchases, based on their national identity number, the age of parties
However, existing restrictions may not be sufficient and the government would again impose mandatory isolation measures in spaces with high degrees of coronavirus cases, Dr. Tatiana Espinosa, president of the Colombian Association of Internal Medicine (ACMI), told Reuters.
On Wednesday, ACMI issued an open letter calling on the government to put in place measures to curb the spread of the disease.
“We agree that there deserves a new era of isolation, at least for two weeks,” Espinosa said, adding that the government deserves to know whether such measures were taken at the national level or only in the maximum affected areas.
“We can’t throw away everything we’ve done before, ” he said.
Ontario Finance Minister Rod Phillips resigned after public outrage over a Caribbean holiday he took this month in violation of his own government’s warnings against coronaviruses.
Phillips, a member of the ruling Progressive Conservative Party in the Canadian province, admitted this week that he visited the French island of Saint-Barthélemy on December 13 after the legislative consultation ended.
Federal and provincial leaders in Canada have suggested to the public to avoid the non-essentials because of the pandemic.
“Today, after my verbal exchange with Rod Phillips, I accepted his resignation as Ontario’s finance minister,” said Ontario Prime Minister Doug Ford.
“At a time when the other Ontarioers have sacrificed so much, today’s resignation is a demonstration that our government takes seriously our legal responsibility to maintain the highest standards. “
Ford admitted that he had known for weeks that his finance minister, who forged social media posts to hide his position, had ignored blocking the coronavirus to transmit it to the Caribbean.
Messages on Phillips’ social media accounts reported that he had stayed home for Christmas.
Ford said he had asked Peter Bethlenfalvy to play the role of Minister of Finance and provide the 2021 budget in addition to his current role as Chairman of the Provincial Treasury Board.
Phillips served as Ontario’s Environment Minister before Minister of Finance in a cabinet reorganization in 2019.
He returned to Canada on Thursday and apologized for his actions. Ontario, home to Canada’s commercial and production heart, began a shutdown on December 26 to curb the spread of the virus.
Times Square in New York City barricaded himself on Thursday, with only a handful of guests, adding physical care personnel and others on the front line of the coronavirus pandemic, who were able to watch the new year-end dance in person.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said everyone stays home and sees the festivities blank on television; many occasions in the United States have also been reduced or published online.
Tens of thousands of people fill the blocks around Times Square, a bloodless hour-free state at the focal point of New Year’s celebrations in the United States, waiting for a crystal ball to slowly descend in the final seconds of the year.
This year, police will allow a few dozen, masked and no symptoms of fever, including Bronx-born singer Jennifer Lopez and Gloria Gaynor to sing their vintage album I Will Survive for a few dozen at the front. line staff and their families.
Organizers invited an employee from a grocery store, a construction doorman, a pizza delivery man and doctors and nurses, and added Sandra Lindsay, the New York nurse this month who became the first recipient of a coronavirus vaccine in the United States outdoor testing.
More than 25,000 New Yorkers have died from Covid-19 this year: in the spring, the city suffered the world’s deadliest epidemic at the time.
“This will in fact be, without a doubt, the special maxim, the maximum caress and the moving maximum New Year’s Eve,” Blasio told journalists, who will press the button to start the crystal ball descent. “In 2021, we’ll show other people what it’s like to recover, to come back. “
While the number of new instances continues to increase in the United States, bars and restaurants and other collection stores are closed or have very limited capacity.
In Las Vegas, Boston and beyond, fireworks were canceled.
A Brazilian laboratory said it had detected two cases of the new coronavirus variant that had spread in Britain and called for further quarantine measures for travellers in Europe.
Diagnostic company Dasa said it detected sarS-CoV-2 strain B. 1. 1. 7 through genetic sequencing performed in partnership with the Institute of Tropical Medicine at the University of Sao Paulo.
“Sequencing showed that the new strain of the virus arrived in Brazil,” said researcher Ester Sabino of the Institute of Tropical Medicine.
The new variant is temporarily the dominant strain in Covid-19 cases in parts of southern England, and has been linked to an increase in hospitalization rates. Australia, Italy and the Netherlands say they have detected cases of the new strain.
Scientists say it’s no more deadly than the original strain, it’s much more communicable.
“Given its maximum transmission power, this result reinforces the importance of quarantine and maintenance of isolation for 10 days, especially for those arriving or arriving from Europe,” Sabino said.