Summary for Friday, 4th February 2022
Bit of a late start today - just been one of those days.
So, here we are with a shortened, quickie synopsis of what's been happening on the Coronavirus scene over the past 24 hours or so:
Bit of a late start today - just been one of those days.
So, here we are with a shortened, quickie synopsis of what's been happening on the Coronavirus scene over the past 24 hours or so:
- India’s death toll from Covid-19 has crossed 500,000, a level many health experts say was breached last year but obscured by inaccurate surveys and unaccounted dead in the hinterlands, where millions remain vulnerable to the disease.
- Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau has said a military response to the ongoing Ottawa protest against Covid-19 measures is “not in the cards right now” after
Ottawa police chief Peter Sloly said that all options were on the table. - Tensions in societies around the world over the current Covid situation are going to be very difficult to handle, one of Britain’s most senior scientific figures has warned. Sir Jeremy Farrar, who stepped down as a government scientific adviser in November last year, warned the idea of simply “exiting” a pandemic was not realistic.
- Frustrations are boiling over in Canada’s capital as a protest by truckers against Covid-19 vaccine mandates has clogged downtown Ottawa for a week and shows no sign of ending, with many residents angry at police for not breaking it up.
- Two years after the outbreak of Covid, Europe could soon enter a “long period of tranquility” due to high vaccination rates, the milder Omicron variant and the end of winter, the WHO has said.
- Africa must boost the vaccination rate against Covid-19 “six times” to reach the target of 70 percent vaccine coverage set for the end of the first half of 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) said
- The number of adults in Denmark infected with Covid may be double the official tally, Danish scientists said on Thursday, after releasing data suggesting one third of the adult population has been infected in the past three months.
- The Covid-19 vaccine developed by Novavax has been approved by the UK regulator for use in people over the age of 18. Clinical trials suggest two doses of the Novavax jab have an efficacy of about 90% against symptomatic Covid, similar to the other approved UK vaccines.
- Palestinians are facing a winter coronavirus surge driven by the Omicron variant, placing stress on the medical system even though vaccines are widely available. More than 70,000 active cases in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, annexed east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip on Thursday, more than twice the number at the height of previous increases.
- South Africa’s Afrigen Biologics has used the publicly available sequence of Moderna’s Covid mRNA vaccine to make its own version of the shot, which could be tested in humans before the end of this year, Afrigen’s top executive has said.