Month: May 2021

BEIJING – China on Monday reimposed anti-coronavirus travel controls on its southern province of Guangdong, announcing anyone leaving the populous region must be tested for the virus following a spike in infections that has alarmed authorities.

Guangdong, which borders Hong Kong, recorded 20 new confirmed cases, all contracted locally, in the 24 hours through midnight Sunday. Guangdong’s numbers are low compared with many places in the world, but the rise has rattled Chinese leaders who thought they had the disease under control.

People leaving Guangdong by plane, train, bus, or private car after 10 p.m. on Monday must present results of a nucleic acid test within the past 72 hours, the provincial government announced. It said testing stations for truck drivers would be set up on major roads.

The government of the provincial capital, Guangzhou, a business center of 15 million people, ordered mass testing after locally acquired infections were found beginning May 21. The government said 700,000 people had been tested through last Wednesday.

China had relaxed most restrictions on domestic travel after the ruling Communist Party declared the virus under control last March. Travelers arriving from abroad still must be tested.

On Saturday, residents of one Guangzhou neighborhood were ordered to stay at home for door-to-door testing. In some areas, outdoor markets and child care facilities were closed and in-person grade school classes and indoor restaurant dining canceled.

China reports a handful of new cases every day but says almost all are believed to be people who were infected abroad. The mainland’s official death toll stands at 4,636 out of 91,099 confirmed cases.

Source: Voice of America

To fight a rise in cases caused by the coronavirus variants, France and England moved Monday to increase vaccinations.

France is now allowing all adults to receive COVID-19 vaccinations. President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, were vaccinated Monday.

“Like Brigitte and I, like 25 million French people have already done, let’s get vaccinated! To protect ourselves, to protect our loved ones,” Macron, who contracted the disease caused by the coronavirus in December, tweeted.

As of Monday, France had confirmed more than 5.7 million cases of COVID-19 and 109,690 deaths caused by the disease, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

In Britain, health officials opened London’s Twickenham rugby station as a mass vaccination site. No appointments were required. The country, which is experiencing a rise in coronavirus cases, is trying to contain a fast-spreading virus variant that was first identified in India and accounts for most of its new cases.

The United Kingdom had confirmed 4.5 million COVID-19 cases on Monday, and 128,044 deaths.

Beginning June 7, Germany plans to make the coronavirus vaccine available to all people older than 16.

As of Monday, Germany had nearly 3.7 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 88,469 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

Variants renamed

The World Health Organization, responding to criticisms that the scientific names of the various coronavirus variants were too complicated or stigmatized certain countries, on Monday assigned the variants letters of the Greek alphabet.

The four main variants are generally referred to as the Brazil, India, South Africa and U.K. variants. Critics have told the WHO the scientific names were too complicated. For example, the so-called South African coronavirus variant goes by several names, such as B.1.351, 501Y.V2 and 20H/501Y.V2.

The variants’ scientific names will remain the same, the WHO said. The change affects the names given the variants when being discussed with the public. The U.K., South Africa, Brazil and India variants have now been given the letters Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, respectively, according to the order in which they were detected, the WHO said.

“No country should be stigmatized for detecting and reporting variants,” WHO COVID-19 technical lead Maria Van Kerkhove tweeted.

The WHO has listed all the variants and their corresponding Greek alphabet designation on its website.

Historically, viruses have often been associated with the locations from which they are thought to have emerged, such as Ebola named after the eponymous Congolese river, according to Reuters. However, the naming can be inaccurate or damaging, as with the so-called Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, the origins of which are unknown.

Peru toll revised

Also Monday, Peru Health Minister Oscar Ugarte revised the coronavirus death toll for the country, from 69,342 to 180,764.

“What is being said is that a significant number of deaths were not classified as caused by COVID-19,” Ugarte said, adding that the criteria for assigning COVID-19 as the cause of death was changed. Previously, only patients who “had a positive diagnostic test” were considered to have died from the coronavirus, he said.

The criteria were broadened beyond people who tested positive for the virus to include probable cases with “an epidemiological link to a confirmed case,” according to a panel composed of experts from public and private health entities in Peru and from the World Health Organization, the Agence France-Presse reported.

The country’s death toll had been questioned since early last year, and experts warned the death toll was being undercounted.

Vietnam ramps up testing

Because of a recent surge in coronavirus cases, all 9 million residents in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s largest city, will be tested for the coronavirus, city officials said.

The state newspaper, Vietnam News, said the city has a testing capacity of 100,000 samples a day, according to The Associated Press.

The country has been battling a surge in the coronavirus since the end of April, tallying more than 4,000 cases. Since early last year, Vietnam has had only 7,321 confirmed cases of the virus and 47 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.

China restricts travel

Meanwhile, China reimposed on Monday travel controls on Guangdong province after the region recorded 20 new confirmed COVID-19 cases in the 24-hour period ending at midnight Sunday.

Provincial officials said that anyone leaving the province, which has a population of 113.4 million people, must provide the results of a nucleic acid test within the previous 72 hours.

As of Monday, China had recorded 102,991 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 4,846 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.

Source: Voice of America

GENEVA – The World Health Organization is asking for 20 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine for African countries to administer second doses to those who have received their first shot.

After three weeks of declining rates of COVID-19 infections in Africa, the World Health Organization is reporting an increase in cases.  It says its latest figures of more than 4.7 million cases, including 128,000 deaths indicate a 17% rise over the previous week.

WHO regional director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti says she is concerned, but that it is too soon to tell whether Africa is on the cusp of a third wave.

“While it is too soon to say if Africa is seeing a resurgence, however, we are seeing increases in a number of countries, we are monitoring the situation very closely.  And we see that we are balancing on a knife’s edge,” she said. “So this makes the rapid rollout of COVID-19 vaccines all the more important.”

Moeti says South Africa accounts for nearly one-third of the 65,000 new cases reported by WHO.  She says she fears new variants of the virus circulating in South Africa may be spreading into neighboring countries.  She notes Namibia and Zambia are among 11 African countries experiencing more cases.

So far, 28 million COVID-19 doses of different vaccines have been administered in Africa, a continent of 1.4 billion people.  Moeti says Africa needs at least 20 million second doses of the Oxford-Astra Zeneca vaccine by mid-July to give everyone who has received the first dose full immunity.

“Africa needs vaccines now.  Any pause in our vaccination campaigns will lead to lost lives and lost hope,” she said.  “Another 200 million doses are needed so that the continent can vaccinate 10% of its population by September this year.”

Moeti appeals to countries that have vaccinated their high-risk groups to share their excess doses with Africa.  She notes France is the first country to donate tens of thousands of doses to Africa from its domestic supply.

WHO says the European Union has pledged more than 100 million doses for low-income countries and the United States has promised to share 80 million doses with lower-income countries.  Other wealthy countries have said they will follow suit.

 

Source: Voice of America