Tag Archives: COVID-19

COVID-19 heart problems may persist for months; smartphone oxygen meters prove helpful

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

COVID-19 heart problems may remain evident months later

Signs of heart injury in hospitalized COVID-19 patients could be precursors to longer-lasting heart problems, researchers have found. They studied 148 survivors of severe COVID-19 who had high levels of troponin – a protein released when the heart has been injured – while they were hospitalized. An average of two months after they left the hospital, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) still showed some sort of heart issue in 48% of the patients, including heart attacks, heart muscle inflammation, inadequate blood flow, or some combination of those problems, the researchers reported on Thursday in the European Heart Journal. Among patients with heart attacks or inadequate cardiac blood flow, two-thirds had no past history of coronary disease. “Ultimately, we cannot definitely establish a link between the abnormalities detected on these cardiovascular magnetic resonance scans and the acute COVID-19 infection,” the authors said. But the high prevalence of the abnormalities “suggests a likely link.” Dr. Matthew Toomey, cardiac ICU director at Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital in New York City who was not involved in the study, noted: “We don’t have the benefit of long-term follow-up to see what it will develop into.” He added that he was guardedly optimistic that most patients will not end up with heart failure.

Samsung smartphone oxygen meters could help in COVID-19

A device in Samsung S9 and S10 smartphones that measures oxygen levels in the blood meets U.S. Food and Drug Administration standards and could be used to monitor COVID-19 patients, researchers said. Oxygen saturation levels are usually monitored with devices called pulse oximeters that clip onto a finger. Falling levels can indicate serious disease and need for intervention. Pulse oximeters used in hospitals are expensive, and inexpensive versions sold in drugstores are of variable accuracy, the researchers said in a report posted on Thursday on medRxiv ahead of peer review. The phones they studied have built-in pulse oximetry sensors, and the proprietary Samsung algorithms that interpret the signals “are very good,” said coauthor Sara Browne of the University of California, San Diego. “We are not aware of any other smartphone that has clinical grade pulse oximetry in it. Samsung did an awesome job on this,” she said. Samsung dropped the sensors from their phones for 2020 and 2021, Browne said. “As healthcare practitioners, we would love to see them put back in,” she added. Her team estimates that over 100 million S9 and S10 phones are still in circulation and said they could be particularly useful in countries where access to accurate pulse oximetry is limited.

PTSD often follows serious COVID-19

Italian doctors who interviewed COVID-19 survivors up to four months after their diagnosis found nearly one in three had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Their study included 381 adult survivors, roughly 80% of whom had been hospitalized. Aside from PTSD, seen in 30% of study participants, other psychiatric issues included depressive episodes (diagnosed in 17%) and generalized anxiety disorders (7%), according to a report published on Thursday in JAMA Psychiatry. Patients with PTSD were more likely to be female, to have been delirious or agitated while hospitalized, and to be suffering from persistent COVID-19 symptoms. The researchers point out that they only studied patients from a single hospital and did not compare them to patients with other serious illnesses, so they cannot say whether PTSD is more common after COVID-19. They note, however, that the prevalence of PTSD in their patients “is in line with findings … reported after other types of collective traumatic events.”

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid and Linda Carroll; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

U.S. factory activity cools; cost pressures mounting

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. factory activity slowed in early February likely as a global semiconductor chip shortage hurt production at automobile plants, while prices of inputs and manufactured goods soared, which could heighten fears of strong inflation growth this year.

The report from data firm IHS Markit on Friday also showed businesses in the services industry were experiencing higher costs related to the procurement of personal protective equipment, a greater proportion of which they were passing on to clients “through a marked rise in selling prices.”

Inflation is being closely watched amid concerns from some quarters that President Joe Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion COVID-19 rescue package could cause the economy to overheat. The package would be on top of nearly $900 billion in additional fiscal stimulus provided at the end of December.

“A concern is that firms’ costs have surged higher, driving selling prices for goods and services up at a survey record pace and hinting at a further increase in inflation,” said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit.

IHS Markit’s flash U.S. manufacturing PMI dropped to 58.5 in the first half of this month from a final reading of 59.2 in January. Extreme weather in large parts of the United States was also blamed. The data was in line with economists’ forecasts.

A reading above 50 indicates growth in manufacturing, which accounts for 11.9% of the U.S. economy. Manufacturing has powered ahead as the pandemic left Americans grounded at home, shifting demand to household goods from services like airline travel and hotel accommodation.

But the coronavirus has disrupted labor at both suppliers and manufacturers, leading to shortages of goods critical to the production processes. Motor vehicle manufacturers have been hit by a semiconductor chip shortage, leading some to temporarily close assembly plants this month.

General Motors announced it would take down production entirely at its Fairfax plant in Kansas City during the week of Feb. 8. Ford Motor has reduced shifts at its Dearborn truck plant and Kansas City assembly plant.

The supply chain bottlenecks, which are widespread across the manufacturing sector as well as the services industry, have led to higher prices for inputs, including raw materials. The survey’s measure of prices paid by manufacturers shot up to its highest level since April 2011. A gauge of prices received by factories surged to its highest level since July 2008.

Though price pressures are expected to rise as last year’s low readings drop out of the calculation, there is no consensus among economists whether higher inflation would stick beyond the so-called base effects.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said last week while he expected inflation to be boosted by base effects and pent-up demand when the economy fully reopens, that would be transitory, citing three decades of lower and stable prices.

The inflation outlook will likely hinge on the labor market, which is currently experiencing considerable slack, with at least 18.3 million Americans on unemployment benefits.

While the manufacturing expansion cooled, activity in the services industry gained traction this month.

The IHS Markit’s flash services sector PMI edged up to 58.9 from a final reading of 58.3 in January. The highest reading since March 2015 came as new COVID-19 infections and hospitalization rates dropped, allowing authorities to roll back some restrictions on consumer-facing businesses.

The services sector, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, has borne the brunt of the pandemic.

Cost burdens for services businesses increased at their steepest pace since October 2009, leading to firms boosting their selling prices at the sharpest rate on record.

Stocks on Wall Street were trading higher. The dollar fell against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury prices were lower.

STRONG HOUSING MARKET

Manufacturing and housing are leading the economy’s recovery from the pandemic recession. In a separate report on Friday, the National Association of Realtors said existing home sales rose 0.6% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.69 million units in January.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast sales would fall 1.5% to a rate of 6.61 million units in January. The second straight monthly increase in sales was despite contracts to buy a home declining for four consecutive months. The NAR attributed the misalignment to different sample sizes.

Home resales, which account for the bulk of U.S. home sales, surged 23.7% on a year-on-year basis. The gains have defied tight supply, which has led to a surge in house price inflation. Sales last month were concentrated in the mid-to-upper price range of the market. Sales fell in the Northeast and West. They, however, rose in the South and the Midwest.

“Existing home sales will remain strong but will be unable to move significantly higher until more supply appears,” said David Berson, chief economist at Nationwide in Columbus, Ohio.

The housing market is being driven by still historically low mortgage rates, and demand for spacious accommodations for home offices and schooling.

There were a record-low 1.04 million previously owned homes on the market in January, down 25.7% from one year ago. The median existing house price shot up 14.1% from a year ago to $303,900 in January.

At January’s sales pace, it would take 1.9 months to exhaust the current inventory, down from 3.1 months a year ago. A six-to-seven-month supply is viewed as a healthy balance between supply and demand.

U.S. extends travel restrictions at land borders with Canada, Mexico through March 21

By David Shepardson and Ted Hesson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. land borders with Canada and Mexico will remain closed to non-essential travel until at least March 21, the one-year anniversary of the restrictions to address COVID-19 transmission concerns, the U.S. government said Friday.

The new 30-day extension is the first announced under President Joe Biden and comes as the White House has been holding meetings about potentially tightening requirements for crossing at U.S. land borders in North America, officials said.

Canada has shown little interest in lifting the restrictions and recently imposed new COVID-19 testing requirements for some Canadians returning by land crossings.

On Jan. 26, the U.S. government began requiring nearly all international air travelers to get negative COVID-19 test results within three days of travel, but has no similar requirements for land border crossings.

In an executive order issued last month, Biden directed U.S. officials to “immediately commence diplomatic outreach to the governments of Canada and Mexico regarding public health protocols for land ports of entry.”

It added U.S. agencies should submit a plan to Biden within 14 days “to implement appropriate public health measures at land ports of entry.”

“The plan should implement CDC (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) guidelines, consistent with applicable law, and take into account the operational considerations relevant to the different populations who enter the United States by land,” it said.

Biden also directed a similar review of sea travel and to “implement appropriate public health measures at sea ports.”

(Reporting by David Shepardson and Ted Hesson, Editing by Franklin Paul and Bill Berkrot)

Africa COVID-19 deaths surpass 100,000 after second wave

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Africa’s reported COVID-19 death toll surpassed 100,000 on Friday, a fraction of those reported on other continents but rising fast as a second wave of infections overwhelms hospitals.

The continent’s reported deaths, at 100,354, compare favorably with North America, which has registered more than half a million, and Europe, which is approaching 900,000, a Reuters tally shows.

But deaths are rising sharply across Africa, driven by its southern region, especially economic powerhouse South Africa, which accounts for nearly half. South Africa was ravaged by a second wave caused by a more contagious variant that has jammed up casualty wards.

“The increased number (of infections) has led to many severe cases and some of the countries really found it quite difficult to cope,” Richard Mihigo, coordinator of the immunization program at the World Health Organization’s Africa office, told Reuters.

“We have seen some countries getting to their limit in terms of oxygen supply, which has got a really negative impact in terms of case management for severe cases.”

Mihigo said the rise in deaths was pronounced in countries near South Africa like Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi, raising the possibility that the 501Y.V2 variant identified in South Africa late last year had spread through the southern Africa region – although more genomic sequencing needs to be carried out to prove that.

International aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) this month called for urgent vaccine distributions in southern Africa to counter the spread of the new variant, as most African countries have lagged richer Western nations in launching mass vaccination programs.

Reuters data show Africa’s case fatality rate is now at around 2.6%, higher than the global average of 2.3%, and marginally up on the 2.4% rate after the first wave of infections – which at the time compared favorably with other continents.

Experts caution against reading too much into the data – the real toll may be much higher or lower. For instance, South Africa’s excess deaths – deaths considered over-and-above the normal rate – during the pandemic have reached over 137,000, almost three times its official COVID-19 death toll.

Then again, in some cases Africa’s low testing rates could inflate its true case fatality rate (CFR), said Professor Francisca Mutapi, an infectious disease expert at the University of Edinburgh.

“If deaths being registered as COVID-19 deaths are not necessarily contingent on a positive test … as is the case in South Africa, then this can drive up CFR,” she said.

Even with these caveats acknowledged, African countries look like they are struggling with COVID-19 more than last year.

“Are we counting all the deaths on the continent? No … but most people on the continent do know somebody who has died of COVID during this second wave,” Africa CDC director John Nkengasong told reporters last week.

“Hospitals are being overwhelmed due to health systems that are fragile.”

(Reporting by Alexander Winning, Tim Cocks and Wendell Roelf; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Nick Macfie, Angus MacSwan and Jane Wardell)

India virus infections at three-week high, Mumbai hires marshals to enforce mask-wearing

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India reported on Friday its biggest jump in new coronavirus infections in three weeks, with 13,193 cases, while thousands of marshals fanned out to enforce mask wearing across the financial capital of Mumbai, which is battling a recent spurt.

The tally of confirmed infections is 10.96 million, the second highest after the United States, with more than 156,000 deaths. But actual infections could range as high as 300 million, a government serological survey showed this month.

In recent days, 75% of India’s new cases have been reported from the southern state of Kerala and Maharashtra, home to Mumbai, a densely populated city of 20 million people. The two states already had the highest number of reported infections.

Health experts suggest the re-opening of educational institutes in Kerala and resumption of suburban train services in Mumbai could be key factors.

After a gap of 11 months, Mumbai resumed on Feb. 1 full suburban train services, which before the pandemic carried a daily average of 8 million people.

The city has begun hiring marshals to enforce mask wearing. Out of nearly 5,000 marshals, around 300 would be deployed on the rail network, city authorities said.

Indians have largely given up on masks and social distancing, Reuters reporting shows.

“Coronavirus … has not yet left the country,” the health ministry said on Twitter. “We still need to follow COVID-appropriate behavior. No carelessness till there is a cure.”

Despite the recent rise in infections, India’s daily tally of new cases remains well below a mid-September peak of nearly 100,000. Testing numbers have also fallen to about 800,000 a day from more than 1 million.

Since starting its vaccine campaign in mid-January, India has administered nearly 10 million doses, aiming to cover 300 million people by August.

(Reporting by Krishna N. Das and Anuron Kumar Mitra; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Spain close to vaccinating all nursing-home residents, on track for summer goals

By Nathan Allen

MADRID (Reuters) – Spain has given a full two-shot course of coronavirus vaccines to almost all its elderly nursing-home residents, the FED care-home association said on Friday, restoring some sense of security to the most vulnerable section of the population.

Separately, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the country, which has administered 2.8 million doses and fully inoculated 1.14 million people, was on track to vaccinate 20 million people in the first half of 2021 out of a population of 47 million.

Nearly 43,000 care-home residents died of COVID-19 or suspected infection in the devastating March-May first wave of contagion, and prosecutors are investigating more than 200 cases of potential criminal negligence at such homes.

But more than 97% of residents have now been vaccinated across Spain’s 17 regions, according to the FED, putting nursing homes among the country’s safest places.

“They are very positive data that allow us to be optimistic about the future,” said FED’s president Ignacio Fernandez Cid. “Immunity will allow us to gradually return to the longed-for lost normality.”

Health Emergency Chief Fernando Simon said earlier this week that for the first time since the start of the pandemic, people over 65 who live in care homes have a lower rate of infection than those who live outside, supporting the thesis, if indirectly, that the vaccines are having an effect.

Frontline medics and care workers are the only people under 65 to receive a vaccine so far.

Spain will now give shots made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna to people over 80, while AstraZeneca’s drug will go to key workers under 55.

With a third wave quickly receding, Spain’s two-week infection rate hit 321 cases per 100,000 people on Thursday, from almost 900 cases at the end of January, prompting several regions to relax measures.

Madrid on Thursday pushed its curfew back an hour to 11 p.m. and on Friday lifted travel restrictions on 31 neighborhoods.

(Reporting by Nathan Allen, editing by Andrei Khalip)

‘I just ask God to help me’: Texas funeral home crushed by death as U.S. COVID toll nears 500,000

By Callaghan O’Hare and Maria Caspani

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Sunday is traditionally a quiet day for Chuck Pryor’s Houston funeral home, but on this Sunday in February, almost a year after the global pandemic reached Texas, the phone was still ringing.

Pryor took the call: COVID-19 had taken yet another American life — pushing the nation’s death toll closer to the half-million mark — and another grieving family required the services of the exhausted funeral director and his staff.

“It’s just mentally taxing,” Pryor, 59, who runs a small funeral home business with his wife Almika, told Reuters earlier this month.

The sheer number of coronavirus deaths has overwhelmed many U.S. funeral homes. Some family-owned businesses have handled a crushing case load, with some seeing the same number of deaths in a couple of months as they would normally handle in a full year, said Dutch Nie, a spokesperson with the National Funeral Directors Association.

“Most funeral home directors know that it’s a 24-hour, 365-day career, but you’re just not used to every single day working those hours,” Nie told Reuters.

The pandemic has brought profound changes to the way Pryor must operate. Overloaded hospitals want bodies to be removed quickly. It has been difficult to find trained staff, caskets and protective equipment. And every day brings a multitude of phone calls from families in pain and distress.

As the virus showed no sign of releasing its grip and deaths mounted over the summer and in the fall, exhausted workers at Pryority Funeral Experience fell ill while others quit.

“People quit because they mentally can’t handle it,” he said. “I pray God, — just give me strength… I want to run away right now, to be honest …I’m concerned about myself breaking down so I just ask God to help me.”

Sometimes the stories he hears on the job haunt him.

Like the one he was told when he answered a COVID-19 call on a recent weekend in The Woodlands, a suburb of Houston.

A young woman in her 30s had just died from complications from the virus, a while after doctors performed a C-section to save the life of her twins as her condition deteriorated.

The following day, Pryor was having a hard time processing the tragedy, one of the hundreds of thousands that have marked a year of profound loss across the entire country, and the world.

“I slept with it last night and I hate that, you know, when you take them to bed,” he said.

NEVER SO BUSY

Pryor said he had never been as busy as during the pandemic. The deaths the funeral home handled in 2020 were more than double those he would see in a normal year.

January was a terrible month. Even as hospitalizations in Texas fell by 10% last month from a 36% rise in December, coronavirus deaths increased by 48%, according to a Reuters analysis of state and county data.

“I do pace myself and I do turn people down because I can only do so much,” Pryor said.

His staff of four full-time employees and eight part-timers is feeling the strain, he said.

Embalmers and others who come directly into contact with bodies and are at higher risk of contagion, have been hard to find, Pryor said. And caskets are in short supply due to the pandemic. On a Thursday earlier this month, Pryor’s uncle drove four hours from Dallas to deliver eight of them.

The job is so consuming, Pryor said, there is little time left to perform the most essential personal tasks, like cooking or spending time with his soon-to-be 10-year-old son.

While caring for those who lost loved ones in his community, Pryor’s family was faced with their own grief. The virus took his nephew and his uncle while his wife lost her cousin and her aunt to COVID-19.

‘HOOKED’ ON HELPING PEOPLE

Pryor grew up in rural Texas, the youngest of six and the only one of his siblings who did not attend segregated schools. His first brush with the funeral business was in the late 1970’s when he would help illiterate members of his community with their mail and bills at the local funeral home on the first of every month.

“I got hooked in helping people when they need help the most,” Pryor said.

Since he started his own business in 1984, celebrating life even in death had always been front and center in his profession, he said. But the coronavirus pandemic turned everything “upside down,” making it even more difficult to help people through the grieving process.

In late January, Pryor and his team handled the funeral arrangements for Gregory Blanks, a 50-year-old COVID-19 victim who ran a heating and air conditioning business in the Houston area. He was a huge fan of the Dallas Cowboys football team.

In keeping with current restrictions to prevent infections, only a limited number of family and friends were able to attend the burial at San Felipe Community Cemetery where a preacher spoke next to a table lined with baseball caps for the Cowboys and other Texas teams.

Clad in a face mask sporting the logo of her husband’s company, Blanks’ wife Lila solemnly watched as some of Pryor’s workers lowered the casket into the ground.

“People, they can’t hug,” Pryor said. “They cry and no one’s there to wipe your tears.”

(Reporting by Maria Caspani in New York and Callaghan O’Hare in Houston, additional reporting by Anurag Maan in Bengaluru; Writing by Maria Caspani; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Pfizer study deals new blow to South Africa’s vaccine hopes

By Alexander Winning and Wendell Roelf

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Scientists will meet on Thursday to advise South Africa’s government on its next steps after a study suggested the dominant local coronavirus variant may reduce antibody protection from Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine by two-thirds.

The laboratory study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, dealt a new blow to the country hardest-hit by the pandemic on the African continent.

The government and its advisers must weigh whether to wait for vaccines that might be more effective against the more infectious 501Y.V2 variant, or try to vaccinate people quickly to avert further infections and deaths.

South Africa had been counting on the Pfizer shot, developed with German partner BioNTech, to step up its vaccination program after administering the first Johnson & Johnson (J&J) doses on Wednesday.

Earlier this month, it placed AstraZeneca vaccinations on hold because of interim data showing its jab offered minimal protection against mild to moderate illness from the 501Y.V2 variant first identified late last year.

Officials are more confident about the J&J shot because it was shown to be effective in preventing severe illness in the local leg of a large global trial.

The detailed laboratory study published on Wednesday took into account all key mutations of the 501Y.V2 variant. A paper published in late January assessed the impact of only three key mutations of the variant on the Pfizer vaccine.

Scientists said that because the new study’s findings come from a laboratory, it is not easy to extrapolate what they might mean for the shot’s efficacy in the real world.

“Our scientists will be meeting to discuss it (the study) and they will advise the minister,” health ministry spokesman Popo Maja said.

Barry Schoub, a professor and chair of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on vaccines, said the committee would discuss the study alongside information on other COVID-19 vaccines.

Asked to comment on the findings, he said: “The Pfizer vaccine is enormously effective at 95%, so even if there is quite a significant reduction there still will be quite a bit of remnant efficacy left.”

“It is very likely that it will protect to a reasonable extent, certainly against severe illness and mild to moderate to some extent,” he said.

“STRONG ENOUGH”

Richard Mihigo, an immunization official at the World Health Organization’s Africa office, told a news conference the antibody response to the variant in the Pfizer study was “strong enough”.

Linda-Gail Bekker, co-lead investigator of the South African arm of J&J’s global trial, said she would recommend rolling out the Pfizer vaccine but monitoring it in the same way as the J&J shot, which is being administered in an “implementation study” targeting up to 500,000 health workers to further test it in the field.

“We should make sure we do see the effectiveness we (are) hoping for,” she told Reuters.

Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said on Wednesday South Africa was expecting 500,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine initially and about 7 million doses by June.

A spokesman for regulator SAHPRA said Pfizer’s registration application was under review and declined further comment.

South Africa, with nearly 1.5 million cases and about 48,500 deaths, has recorded almost half the COVID-19 fatalities and over a third of confirmed infections in Africa. It lagged richer Western nations in launching its immunization campaign.

The government plans to vaccinate 40 million people – two-thirds of the population.

“Luckily there are a range of vaccines available and what we will do is work with the national authorities to understand the implications of this (study) and see what they need to do,” the WHO’s Africa director, Matshidiso Moeti, said.

(Reporting by Alexander Winning in Johannesburg and Wendell Roelf in Cape Town; Additional reporting by Kate Kelland in London, Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt and Aaron Ross in Dakar; Editing by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo, Angus MacSwan, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Timothy Heritage)

Planet Earth its quietest in decades as lockdowns reduce seismic noise

ZURICH (Reuters) – Earth had its quietest period in decades during 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic significantly reduced human activity and its impact on the planet’s crust, according to scientists working on a global study.

An international group of seismologists from 33 countries measured a drop of up to 50% in so-called ambient noise generated by humans travelling and factories humming after lockdowns came into force around the world.

The team, which included experts from the Swiss Seismological Service at ETH Zurich, a university, measured lower noise levels at 185 of the 268 seismic stations analyzed around the world.

Urban ambient noise fell by up to 50% at some measuring stations during the tightest lockdown weeks, as buses and train services were reduced, aircraft grounded and factories shuttered.

This made it much quieter than Christmas, traditionally the quietest time of the year.

“The weeks during lockdown were the quietest period we have on record,” said seismologist John Clinton, referring to data archives covering the last 20 years.

“With human noise always increasing, it is highly likely that it was the quietest period for a very long time.”

The experts, led by Thomas Lecocq from the Royal Observatory of Belgium, were able to track the “wave of quiet” around the world as lockdown came first in China, then Italy, before spreading across the rest of Europe and onto the Americas.

Lower background noise during lockdowns also means small earthquakes that otherwise would not be observed have been detected in some places.

Small tremors allow us to improve our understanding of the seismic hazard, said scientist Frederick Massin, and also help assess the probability of larger earthquakes in the future.

“This was an unprecedented opportunity. There’s no way we would normally be able to do this kind of experiment,” said Massin.

(Reporting by John Revill; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

Switzerland plans cautious easing of pandemic lockdown from March

By John Revill and John Miller

ZURICH (Reuters) – Switzerland plans to make its first “cautious steps” towards ending its coronavirus lockdown next month, the government said on Wednesday, contrasting with neighbors that are sticking with many restrictions.

In the first step, shops, museums and libraries are due to reopen from March 1. Zoos, gardens and sports facilities will also be reopened, with a final decision to come on Feb. 24.

Ministers have been caught being caught between health experts supporting stricter limits and struggling businesses calling for a reopening, but an easing in the number of infections has allowed the government to change course.

“The efforts of the last few months are now paying off, the population has been very disciplined,” said Health Minister Alain Berset.

“New infections have halved within a month, so the situation is not so bad. We would all like to do more activities again, such as sports.”

With the initial reopening, private events with up to 15 people would also be allowed, said the government, up from the current limit of five.

Switzerland’s reopening contrasts with neighboring Austria which will decide on March 1 on a potential loosening of pandemic restrictions that happen around Easter, at the earliest.

“We’re taking a risk, but we think that’s acceptable as long as everybody plays along,” Berset told a press conference in Bern.

Additional easing from April 1 could follow if infections remain low, he added.

Measures to cushion the economic impact of the pandemic will push Switzerland into a 15.8 billion Swiss franc ($17.59 billion) deficit for 2020, due mainly to higher spending and lower tax receipts.

Still, the government said it would expand its spending to deal with the pandemic, which has so far claimed 9,128 lives.

It has decided to expand support package for large companies hit hard by the crisis, ramping up a compensation scheme to 10 billion francs, from 5 billion francs previously.

($1 = 0.8981 Swiss francs)

(Reporting by John Revill and John Miller, editing by Mihcael Shields)