Meantime, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is to supply Europe with 200 million coronavirus vaccine doses by September 2021.The vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech is “scheduled to be completed by September 2021,” a European Commission spokesman said on Monday, local time. “The Commission and the Member States are working to activate the additional 100 million doses,” the spokesman told CNN. The European Commission concluded a contract with Pfizer for 300 million doses in November and rolled out the first batches the day after Christmas.The deliveries of this vaccine “will continue in December and on a steady weekly basis during the following months,” the spokesman added.Iceland has received its first shipment of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed to CNN on Monday.According to the spokesman, an aircraft carrying Iceland’s first shipment of the vaccine landed at Keflavík International Airport Monday morning. It arrived from Amsterdam in the Netherlands.The shipment included 10,000 doses of the vaccine, which are expected to be rolled out from Tuesday.Vaccine supplies are expected to increase over time with the EU’s approval of additional vaccine candidates. The majority of delivery is foreseen to be completed in 2021 with first deliveries to the most vulnerable expected to start in the first quarter of 2021.
It comes as more countries identify the more contagious UK virus strain.South Korea announced that it has detected the new COVID-19 variant in three visitors travelling from London, the Korean Disease Control and Prevention Agency said on Monday.The three visitors were from the same family who arrived from London on December 22, the agency said. They tested positive for COVID-19 when entering South Korea and have since been placed under quarantine.South Korea has extended a ban on flights from the UK until January 7.
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Five cases of the same UK COVID-19 variant have been detected in southern Spain among travellers who returned to Andalusia after being in the UK. Madrid’s health Adviser Antonio Zapatero said on Saturday that the city had also detected four cases of the variant. One of the cases is a person who arrived from the UK, and the three others are family members, he said. Russia reported almost 26,000 coronavirus-related deaths for the month of November alone. It has extended a ban on flights to and from the UK until 12 January.FRANCE, BRITAIN CONSIDER MORE LOCKDOWNSFrance’s health Minister says he cannot rule out the possibility of a third national lockdown.“We never rule out measures that might be necessary to protect populations,” Olivier Véran told Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper on Sunday, local time, adding that authorities are monitoring the situation by the hour.The French government had previously announced its aim to reduce the daily increase in new coronavirus cases to 5,000, but 8,822 new coronavirus cases were recorded on Sunday. Meanwhile, the UK is viewing the possibility of enforcing an even tougher lockdown. A hypothetical “Tier 5” is being called for by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies because of the new faster-spreading variant of the virus.
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Experts have told British Prime Minister Boris Johnson that a New Year national lockdown similar to the one in November where schools remain open will not be enough.They recommend even stronger measures where secondary schools are shut and pubs and non-essential shops remain closed, The Sun has reported.The UK has reported its highest rise in daily coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic.At least 41,385 coronavirus cases were recorded on Monday, breaking its daily record since the pandemic began.A further 357 people have died from the virus.
US HOSPITALISATIONS SOARING, MILITARY CALLED INCNN has reported that at least 75 US Army and Air Force medical personnel have been deployed to California to assist in the pandemic response.“At the request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, approximately 75 U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force military medical personnel deployed to California as part of a Department of Defence COVID-19 response operation,” a statement from the Army said on Monday.California has faced a huge surge of infections which are leading to continued daily record highs in hospitalisations and deaths.Most of the state remains under stay at home orders as the state’s intensive care unit capacity has fallen below 15 per cent and in some regions the ICU capacity has hit zero. Monday was the twenty-sixth consecutive day that the US has remained above 100,000 current hospitalisations.It comes as the United States has narrowly avoided a national shutdown after President Donald Trump passed an emergency stimulus bill.
The bill passed the House and Senate on Monday evening and will see the US$2.3 trillion relief packages offer millions of Americans direct checks of $600 if they earn up to US$75,000 (AU$98,633) per year. People who make over US$95,000 (AU$124,935) will not receive a check. The bill also included a new US$300 weekly unemployment benefit, and additional funding for vaccine distribution across the nation. Over the weekend, Mr Trump tweeted his interest in changing the bill, saying individuals should receive checks of US$2000 per person, an increase of US$1400. “As President, I have told Congress that I want far less wasteful spending and more money going to the American people in the form of $2,000 checks per adult and $600 per child,” Mr Trump said in a statement. On Saturday night, Mr Trump tweeted, “$2000 + $2000 plus other family members. Not $600. Remember, it was China’s fault!” Had Mr Trump not signed off the on the bill, the US could have seen a shutdown similar to that of 2018, when the government entered a 35-day-long shutdown that lasted well into January 2020 and ultimately cost US$11 billion.GREG NORMAN IN HOSPITALAustralian golfing legend Greg Norman has returned to hospital again, revealing his COVID-19 symptoms had “kicked the crap” out of him.The Shark, who lives in America and is being treated at Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center in Florida, told fans he went back to hospital after a second test came back positive.Just yesterday, Norman told his 191,000 Instagram followers he was back quarantining at home after he was first hospitalised.“I am fit and strong and have a high tolerance for pain but this virus kicked the crap out of me like nothing I have ever experienced before,” Norman said.“Muscle and joint pain on another level. Headaches that feel like a chisel going through your head scraping little bits off each time, fever, muscles that just did not want to work like yesterday walking my dog Apollo my quads and hip flexors just did not want to work due to fatigue.
“Then my taste failed where beer tastes bad and wine the same. And finally at times struggling with memory of names and things. Then there is irritation.”Norman described the virus as “hideous”, and told followers to take it seriously.“So please take care. And for those doubters out there, do not judge or cast unwarranted comments and opinions I would not want anyone, even you, to experience this hideous virus,” he said.“So I ask, do what is right, not just for you, but your family, friends, co-workers and other people around. I am luckier than most and for that I am thankful and blessed.”He also thanked his medical team and those working on the frontline to develop a vaccine. “Getting an infusion of Bamlanivimab antibody. The path to full recovery. Hoping to be out later today,” he said. “Also the world is blessed and science has acted and performed like never before in getting a vaccine/s for all to eventually receive. Thank you to those people. “We need to get our world back in healthy harmony so we can get healthy economically and prosperously with millions and millions people getting their lives back.“God bless those infected and who may fall unwittingly to this virus. My prayers and thoughts go out to you all. Once out of here today back to quarantine.”Norman admitted himself to hospital in Florida on Christmas Day with coronavirus symptoms. He was self-quarantining after returning home from a golf tournament in Orlando, when he began experiencing headache, joint and muscle pain and fever. He revealed he had tested negative to the virus while in the PGA Tour bubble for the tournament.
However he was concerned when the symptoms appeared, saying they were “very suspicious to what I have read about relating to COVID.”“These are what made me admit myself on Christmas Day as I wanted to know my status to COVID for the health and safety for all around me,” Norman said in his Instagram post.“I had a chest x-ray and blood test where two markers showed up leading the doc to say, assume you are positive with these symptoms and markers. “They released me to continue quarantining at home on medication in our guesthouse away from the main house.”Norman offered his thanks for the messages of concern, love and support and urged people to “stay healthy and be smart.”“And let’s put this 2020 in our rearview mirrors and look to 2021 and beyond where we can get back to life in whatever the new normal will be,” he wrote in his post.LA RUNS OUT OF HOSPITAL BEDS AS US WORSENSDecember has been the nation’s deadliest month since the COVID-19 pandemic’s start — with more than 63,000 Americans lost to the virus in the past 26 days.In comparison, the entire month of November saw about 36,964 deaths.The grim death toll comes on the heels of several brutal months for the US, with COVID-19 ravaging communities from coast to coast, crippling hospital systems and prompting new widespread restrictions.The authorisation of two COVID-19 vaccines earlier in December offered some hope of a light at the end of the tunnel. But experts continue to warn that while the end is in sight, the pandemic is not over and another surge stemming from the Christmas holiday could be on its way, CNN said.The nation’s top infectious diseases expert Dr Anthony Fauci said while the current death toll was worrying, he expected it could get much worse after hundreds of thousands of Americans travelled for Christmas, despite health experts warning them not to.
“We very well might see a post-seasonal – in the sense of Christmas, New Years – surge,” Dr Fauci said.“If you look at the slope, the incline of cases that we’ve experienced as we’ve gone into the late fall and soon to be early winter, it is really quite troubling.”More than 1.1 million people were screened at airports on Saturday, marking the third busiest day for US air travel since March. More than 616,000 were screened on Christmas Day alone, and hundreds of thousands more travelled in the days leading up to the holiday.COVID-19 hospitalisation numbers across the US are already at record-high levels. On Saturday, the country recorded its fifth-highest number of hospitalisation – with more than 117,300 COVID-19 patients nationwide, according to the COVID Tracking Project.Meanwhile, in California LA County, America’s biggest county and home to 10 million people has all but run out of hospital beds.
The LA Times reported that patients were waiting as long as eight hours in ambulances before they can enter the emergency room. With intensive care units at zero per cent available capacity, health officials urged people to avoid emergency rooms or dialling 911 for assistance unless absolutely necessary.The surge in cases in California and across the US are blamed on the fallout of so many Americans travelling around the country for Thanksgiving last month.And with hundreds of thousands travelling last week for Christmas, health authorities fear the worst is still to come for the US, despite two emergency vaccines now being in use.
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UK HOSPITALS MUST FREE UP BEDSNHS England warned it will have to stay on its highest state of alert until at least the end of March because of the mutant strain of coronavirus.It comes as NHS trust bosses in England said the intense pressures they were facing were “extremely challenging” and that hospitals had almost as many Covid patients now as in April. “As we head into the new year we are seeing a real rise in the pressure on NHS services, particularly across London and the southeast,” said Saffron Cordery, the deputy chief executive of NHS Providers. The London ambulance service said Boxing Day had been one of its “busiest ever” days.It said it was now taking up to 8,000 999 calls a day compared to 5,500 on a typical “busy” day.In a six-page letter to NHS care providers on 23 December, health service chiefs said: “With COVID-19 inpatient numbers rising in almost all parts of the country, and the new risk presented by the variant strain of the virus, you should continue to plan on the basis that we will remain in a level four incident for at least the rest of this financial year and NHS trusts should continue to safely mobilise all of the available surge capacity over the coming weeks.”CONCERN GROWS OVER MUTANT COVID STRAINDozens of countries have banned travel from the UK in an effort to contain a new highly contagious strain of COVID-19, that was first reported in England.Sweden and Spain are the latest countries to report their first confirmed cases of the new UK coronavirus variant.Those countries join Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Singapore, Japan and Australia who have also confirmed cases of the new variant.Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte has extended a travel ban for flights from the UK by another two weeks.The strain has also been confirmed in Canada.The cases are a couple from Durham with no known travel history, exposure or high-risk contacts,” Barbara Yaffe, acting chief medical officer for Ontario, said in a statement.The couple have been placed in isolation, according to the statement, the same day that Ontario reimposed a lockdown for several weeks due to a spike in COVID-19 cases in the province since early December.Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday his country would prolong its suspension of passenger flights from the UK until January 6 in light of the coronavirus strain sweeping Britain.
The first French case of the new coronavirus variant was found in a citizen resident in Britain who arrived from London on December 19, the French health ministry said.They are asymptomatic and self-isolating at home in Tours in central France, and contact-tracing has taken place for the health professionals who treated him.Scientists are concerned after the genetic structure of COVID-19 changed, and the effectiveness of vaccines was thought to be impacted. The new mutation has been named VUI-202012/01 (the first “Variant Under Investigation”) in the UK as of December 2020. This mutation is now widespread in southeast England and is thought to account for the leap in infection rates there. Scientists advising the UK government have estimated that this variant could be up to 70 per cent more effective at spreading. The World Health Organisation said that the changes to the variant include 14 key mutations, and that some of them “may influence the transmissibility of the virus in humans,” though it added that further laboratory investigations were needed.
Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, said the variant was responsible for 60 per cent of new infections in London, which have nearly doubled in the last week alone.Last week, Japan confirmed five infections in passengers from the UK, while cases have also been reported in Denmark, Lebanon, Germany, Australia and the Netherlands.South Africa has detected a similar mutation in some infected people, but on Friday denied British claims its strain was more infectious or dangerous than the one originating in the UK.The closure of the UK-France border for 48 hours led to a bottleneck of up to 10,000 lorries in southeast England, with drivers stranded for days over the festive period.But the head of the Calais port operator told AFP that after the port remained open over Christmas specially, the “situation should be completely taken care of” soon.
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