The Covid-19 pandemic is gaining momentum in virtually the entire world, setting another daily record of infections in the United States on Friday, where, as in other countries, the vaccination campaign is accelerating amid restraint and criticism.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the United States recorded more than 290,000 infections in 24 hours on Friday, a day after the country posted a daily record of nearly 4,000 deaths from covid-19.
“The vaccines give us hope, but their spread is a sham,” Biden told reporters.
The distribution of the vaccines will be “the greatest operational challenge we will ever face as a nation,” said the president-elect who will replace Donald Trump on Jan. 20.
The United States is the country in the world most mourned by the pandemic, with more than 368,000 dead and nearly 22 million infected. In Los Angeles, for example, one of the areas most affected, now one person dies from the coronavirus every 15 minutes.
The pandemic has resulted in more than 1.9 million deaths and about 88.8 million people worldwide infected since its appearance in China in late 2019, according to an AFP balance sheet made with official data this Saturday.
The situation in Asia is also a cause for concern. Chinese authorities have tightened movement restrictions in two cities near Beijing to eradicate a source of infection.
Those restrictions, which will affect about 18 million people in Shijiazhuang and Xingtai for a week, come before the Chinese New Year, celebrated in February, when millions of people travel to visit family and friends. making us fear an increase in infections.
China said on Saturday that it had already administered nine million doses of its covid-19 vaccine.
In Australia, the country’s third city, Brisbane, began its first day of incarceration next Saturday, announced by authorities after the discovery of a first case of the British variant of Covid-19. Only a few people with masks were seen on the streets of the city.
– Concerns about new species –
Two new variants of the coronavirus, emerging in the UK and South Africa, are causing global concern because they are much more contagious.
The British variant has already been found in at least eight states in the United States, where 63 cases of this new strain have been recorded, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
However, Germany’s BioNTech lab gave reassuring news on Friday, saying the vaccine it developed with US giant Pfizer was effective against a “key mutation” in these new strains.
Despite months of incarceration and restrictive measures around the world, many countries are currently experiencing infections and deaths. Among them, the UK, which announced 1,325 deaths and 68,053 cases in 24 hours on Friday, the highest figures since the start of the pandemic.
Hospitals in London are at risk of becoming overcrowded and “the spread of the virus is out of control,” Mayor Sadiq Khan said.
Figures from Latin America and the Caribbean are also worrying. The region has more than 526,000 deaths and 16.3 million infections.
Brazil is the second most grieving country in the world because of Covid-19 behind the United States, with more than 201,000 dead.
There, the health authority announced that it had formally received the authorization request on Friday for the emergency use of the Chinese CoronaVac vaccine and that of AstraZeneca / Oxford, the first to be carried out in this country.
So far, vaccinations have already started in Latin America in Mexico, Costa Rica, Chile and Argentina.
Mexico, also particularly affected by the pandemic, recorded a record number of infections (14,362) for the second day in a row, and the capital, one of the most affected regions, extended its health warning about the virus and announced it will suspend operations. essential.
Argentina decided to limit people’s nighttime activities and traffic, given the acceleration of infections. As of March, the country has recorded more than 44,000 deaths.
A first case of the new British strain was also reported in Peru, and in Bolivia, the government announced that classes will begin practically across the country on February 1 in light of a wave of infections occurring face-to-face courses.
– Call from the WHO –
As the race to immunize the population against the coronavirus accelerates, the World Health Organization (WHO) urged rich countries to stop signing “bilateral agreements” with laboratories that produce the vaccines.
“50% of high-income countries are now vaccinating,” said Bruce Aylward, WHO adviser. “0% of low-income countries are vaccinating. It’s not fair.”
Those statements come just as the European Union (EU) entered into an agreement with Pfizer / BioNTech to double its pre-purchase contract from 300 million to 600 million doses. Currently, with confirmed purchases, the EU can vaccinate 380 million citizens, or 80% of the population, according to Brussels estimates.
Iran, for its part, has announced that it does not trust any of the vaccines made by the United States (Pfizer / BioNTech, Moderna) and the United Kingdom (Astrazeneca / Oxford) and has banned entry into the country directly.
“We cannot trust them. It is not impossible that they want to infect other nations,” said the supreme guide Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.