Tag Archives: COVID-19

Norway to close borders to all but essential visits, says PM

OSLO (Reuters) – Norway will close its borders to all but essential visitors, Prime Minister Erna Solberg said on Wednesday, tightening further some of the toughest travel restrictions in Europe.

“In practice, the border will be closed to anyone not living in Norway,” Solberg told a news conference.

While exceptions will apply to a few groups, including health workers from some countries, most migrant labor will be prevented from coming, she said.

“What we see is that the mutated virus has spread significantly in many countries that do not monitor the extent of mutations in the same way as Norway, Denmark and Britain do,” said Solberg of the reasons why the latest measures were introduced.

The non-EU country on Saturday announced a lockdown of its capital region after an outbreak of a more contagious coronavirus variant, first identified in Britain.

Among the measures introduced on Jan 23., non-essential stores in and around Oslo are currently closed for the first time in the pandemic.

Norway is seeing declining levels of infections by the coronavirus however, said Solberg. The county’s reproduction rate, which indicates how many people on average an infected person transmits the virus to, stands at 0.6, she added.

Norway has one of the lowest rates of new infections in Europe per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

While sailors on merchant ships are still permitted to travel, the Norwegian Shipowners’ Association (NSA) questioned the prime minister’s plan.

“This will be very challenging,” NSA Chief Executive Harald Solberg said.

“We need rapid decisions on, and improvements to, compensations for all those who will now face the consequences,” he said.

(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche and Terje Solsvik; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

Chicago teachers threaten to stop working over district’s reopening plan

By Brendan O’Brien

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Chicago teachers threatened to stop working altogether if the district retaliates against any of them who failed to report to school buildings on Wednesday to prepare to resume in-person learning for tens of thousands of students next week.

Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), which represents 25,000 public school educators, has been locked in negotiations with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) for months over a plan to gradually reopen schools for the system’s 355,000 students. Teachers are demanding stronger safety protocols to prevent the spread of the coronavirus inside the classroom.

The labor dispute came to a head on Sunday when the rank and file union membership voted 71% in favor of a resolution not to return to the classroom and to remain teaching remotely until a stronger health and safety agreement is reached.

Despite the vote, the district ordered some 10,000 teachers to report to work on Wednesday, instead of Monday as initially planned. Some 70,000 elementary and middle school students who opted to take classes both in-person and online are due to return at the beginning of next week.

“Of course we take your health and safety incredibly seriously,” Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said to teachers during a news conference on Tuesday night. “But you need to work with us, you need to talk to your leadership, because we can’t get there unless we get there together.”

As of early Wednesday afternoon, it was unclear how many teachers reported for work at their schools. The district and union were not immediately available for comment.

In a message to teachers on Tuesday night, the union said that if the district takes action against teachers who did not report, members will stop working altogether on Thursday and picket, the Chicago Tribune reported. CTU President Jesse Sharkey said that if the district took disciplinary action, union delegates would decide whether to set a strike date.

The district also canceled in-person classes on Wednesday for 6,500 pre-kindergarten and special education students who were given the option to take classes in their school as part of the CPS’s reopening plan. Those students began in-person classes on Jan. 11.

The district has yet to announce when high school students will have the option to return to school buildings.

Similar labor battles have unfolded across the country, pitting teacher unions against district officials over conditions for reopening, almost a year after the virus shut down schools for 50 million students nationwide.

The possible work action in Chicago comes 15 months after the city’s teachers staged an 11-day strike over overcrowded classrooms, support staff levels and pay.

In the current dispute, the union contends that classrooms lack proper ventilation and that the district has failed to provide cleaning supplies and personal protective equipment. The district says ventilation meets industry standards for classroom learning and that it would provide schools with adequate PPE.

The union has urged school and city officials to move quickly to vaccinate teachers. Inoculations are expected to begin in mid-February.

The union also wants the district to make accommodations for teachers who have family members who have medical conditions. It also wants the CPS to spell out metrics to determine when to open and close schools, according to the union.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Matthew Lewis)

UK plans tough new border measures to combat coronavirus

By William James and Michael Holden

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain will announce new tougher border measures on Wednesday to stop new variants of COVID-19 getting into the country, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said as he promised to deliver a roadmap out of lockdowns that have shuttered much of the economy.

The government is expected to bring in quarantine hotels for those coming to Britain from high-risk countries where new strains of the coronavirus have emerged – so-called red list nations – such as South Africa and those in South America.

The move comes as Britain’s death toll from COVID-19 surpassed 100,000, the first European state to reach that figure, leading to further questions about Johnson’s handling of the crisis.

“The Home Secretary (interior minister) will be setting out later today…even tougher measures for those red list countries where we are particularly concerned about new variants,” Johnson told parliament when asked about plans to strengthen Britain’s borders.

Britain saw infections soar at the end of last year after a highly-contagious new variant that emerged in southeast England surged through the population, taking cases and later deaths to record levels.

Since the start of January, all the United Kingdom has faced lockdowns which have closed schools, pubs and restaurants to all bar takeaways with the public told they must stay home as much as possible.

Johnson and his ministers have faced repeated questions, including from many in his own party, on when measures would be eased especially with regard to school closures. He told lawmakers he would address that issue later on Wednesday when he is due to host a media conference.

“Then in the course of the next few weeks, assuming the vaccine rollout continues well, assuming we don’t find new variants of concern…I will be setting out a broader roadmap for the way forward for the whole country,” he said.

With 100,162 recorded deaths, Britain has the world’s fifth highest toll from COVID-19 and the highest deaths per 100,000 people in the world.

Johnson said he felt deep sorrow about the loss of life when the figures were announced on Tuesday, but said the government had done everything it could.

Asked repeatedly by the leader of the Labor opposition Keir Starmer why Britain had fared so badly, he said there would be a time to learn the lessons of what happened but “I don’t think that moment is now” when 37,000 people were still in hospital suffering from the virus.

“There are no easy answers, perpetual lockdown is no answer,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Elizabeth Piper; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Global COVID-19 cases surpass 100 million as nations tackle vaccine shortages

By Shaina Ahluwalia and Roshan Abraham

(Reuters) – Global coronavirus cases surpassed 100 million on Wednesday, according to a Reuters tally, as countries around the world struggle with new virus variants and vaccine shortfalls.

Almost 1.3% of the world’s population has now been infected with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, and more than 2.1 million people have died.

One person has been infected every 7.7 seconds, on average, since the start of the year. Around 668,250 cases have been reported each day over the same period, and the global fatality rate stands at 2.15%.

The worst-affected countries – the United States, India, Brazil, Russia and the United Kingdom – make up more than half all reported COVID-19 cases but represent 28% of the global population, according to a Reuters analysis.

It took the world 11 months to record the first 50 million cases of the pandemic, compared to just three months for cases to double to 100 million.

Around 56 countries have begun vaccinating people for the coronavirus, administering at least 64 million doses. Israel leads the world on per capita vaccinations, inoculating 29% of its population with at least one dose.

UNITED STATES

With over 25 million cases, the United States has 25% of all reported COVID cases although it accounts for just 4% of the world’s population. The United States leads the world in the daily average number of new deaths reported, accounting for one in every five deaths reported worldwide each day. With just under 425,00 fatalities, the United States has reported almost twice as many deaths as Brazil, which has the second-highest death toll in the world.

As the worst-affected region in the world, Europe is currently reporting a million new infections about every four days and has reported nearly 30 million since the pandemic began. Britain on Tuesday reached 100,000 deaths.

The Eastern European region, including countries like Russia, Poland and Ukraine, contribute to nearly 10% of all global COVID-19 cases.

Despite securing deals for vaccine supplies early on, many European countries are facing delays in shipments from both Pfizer Inc and AstraZeneca Plc.

ASIA AND AFRICA

In India, the nation with the second-highest number of cases, infections are decreasing, with almost 13,700 new infections reported on average each day – around 15% of its peak. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday India was completely self-reliant on coronavirus vaccine supplies as the world’s second-most populous country inoculated more than 1 million people within a week of starting its campaign.

China, which recently marked the first anniversary of the world’s first coronavirus lockdown in the central city of Wuhan, is facing its worst wave of local cases since March last year.

As richer nations race ahead with mass vaccination campaigns, Africa is still scrambling to secure supplies as it grapples with concerns about more-infectious variants of the virus first identified in South Africa and Britain.

According to the Reuters tally, African countries have nearly 3.5 million cases and over 85,000 deaths.

The South African variant, also known as 501Y.V2, is 50% more infectious and has been detected in at least 20 countries.

U.S. President Joe Biden will impose a ban on most non-U.S. citizens entering the country who have recently been in South Africa starting Saturday in a bid to contain the spread of a new variant of COVID-19.

Australia and New Zealand have fared better than most other developed economies during the pandemic through swift border closures, lockdowns, strict hotel quarantine for travelers and widespread testing and social distancing.

“We have the virus under control here in Australia, but we want to roll out the vaccine,” Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg told a news conference on Sunday.

(Reporting by Shaina Ahluwalia and Roshan Abraham in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Jane Wardell)

Airline outlook dims again as new travel curbs threaten summer

By Laurence Frost and Sarah Young

LONDON (Reuters) – Recovery prospects for Europe’s coronavirus-stricken airlines are slipping from bad to worse, as a British minister warned on Tuesday against booking summer holidays and Germany mulled a drastic new clampdown on travel even within the EU.

UK consumers should “absolutely” hold off from booking holidays, said Nadhim Zahawi, the minister responsible for vaccinations. “There’s still 37,000 people in hospital with COVID at the moment – it’s far too early for us to even speculate about the summer.”

Airline shares, which had gained ground since November’s vaccine breakthroughs, have come under pressure this week amid concern that new coronavirus variants and resulting lockdowns now threaten the all-important summer season.

While major carriers have secured liquidity to survive the slump for many more months, analysts say, the latest setbacks mean some may need fresh funds to survive the following winter – tough at the best of times – and weaker airlines may fail.

Mounting restrictions and testing demands threaten more “stress and friction” throughout the summer, as well as “a more truncated recovery in demand than investors currently envisage,” Citi analyst Mark Manduca warned in a note.

The travel outlook for the Easter break – this year falling in early April – already seems almost hopeless.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told party lawmakers on Tuesday that “no tourist travel should be taking place,” as her government weighed tougher measures.

Throughout the crisis, governments have tried to maintain travel links among EU and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) states. Over the weekend, however, Sweden barred travel from neighbor Norway in an attempt to stem the spread of new COVID-19 variants, and Belgium banned non-essential travel.

Britain is also considering mandatory confinement in “quarantine hotels” for some international arrivals, following the example of some Asian countries.

Shares in UK-exposed easyJet and British Airways parent IAG have both fallen 14% over five days amid the resurgent gloom, wiping out some of their gains since November. Ryanair has lost 6% in the same period.

And while aircraft manufacturers have been cushioned by their large pre-crisis order books, some suppliers and engine makers are feeling the heat.

Rolls-Royce further lowered its financial forecasts on Tuesday, predicting a 2 billion-pound ($2.7 billion) cash outflow this year as the collapse in flying hours hit so-called power-by-the-hour contracts as well as maintenance.

British airlines and airports warned that further travel restrictions would prove “catastrophic,” calling for a bespoke support package to help them survive the prolonged crisis.

The new curbs also threaten jobs and cargo shipments including medical equipment, industry body Airlines UK said.

Airlines’ key role in vaccine distribution is also helping some to push back against restrictions affecting staff.

KLM, part of Air France-KLM, won a partial reprieve from Dutch plans to require rapid COVID-19 tests of returning crew, after warning of cargo disruption.

(Reporting by Laurence Frost in Paris and Sarah Young in London. Editing by Mark Potter)

UK surpasses 100,000 COVID deaths in grim new milestone

LONDON (Reuters) – More than 100,000 Britons have died within 28 days of a positive COVID-19 test, official data showed on Tuesday, a grim new milestone as the government battles to speed up vaccination delivery and keep variants of the virus at bay.

Britain has the fifth highest toll globally and reported a further 1,631 deaths and 20,089 cases on Tuesday, according to government figures.

The 100,162 deaths are more than the country’s civilian toll in World War Two and twice the number killed in the 1940-41 Blitz bombing campaign, although the total population was lower then.

“My thoughts are with each and every person who has lost a loved one – behind these heart-breaking figures are friends, families and neighbors,” health minister Matt Hancock said.

“I know how hard the last year has been, but I also know how strong the British public’s determination is and how much we have all pulled together to get through this.”

England, by far the most populous of the UK’s four nations, re-entered a national lockdown on Jan. 5, which includes the closure of pubs, restaurants, non-essential shops and schools to most pupils. Further travel restrictions have been introduced.

In December, Britain became the first country in the world to approve Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine and has set itself the task of offering jabs to everyone 70 and over, those who are clinically vulnerable, frontline health and social care workers and older adults in care homes by mid-February.

A total of 6,853,327 people have now received a first dose and 472,446 a second dose.

(Reporting by Costas Pitas; editing by Michael Holden)

WHO issues new clinical advice on treating COVID-19 patients

GENEVA (Reuters) – The World Health Organization (WHO) issued fresh clinical advice on Tuesday for treating COVID-19 patients, including those displaying persistent symptoms after recovery, and also said it advised using low-dose anti-coagulants to prevent blood clots.

“The other things in the guidance that are new are that COVID-19 patients at home should have the use of pulse oximetry, that’s measuring the oxygen levels, so you can identify whether someone at home is deteriorating and would be better off having hospital care,” WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris told a U.N. briefing in Geneva.

The WHO advised clinicians to put patients into the awake prone position, on their front, shown to improve the oxygen flow, she said.

“Also we recommend, we suggest, the use of low-dose anti-coagulants to prevent blood clots forming in blood vessels. We suggest the use of lower doses rather than higher doses because higher doses may lead to other problems,” Harris said.

She added that a WHO-led team of independent experts, currently in the central Chinese city of Wuhan where the first human cases were detected in December 2019, is due to leave quarantine in the next two days to pursue its work with Chinese researchers on the virus origins.

She declined to comment on reports of delays in roll-out of vaccines in the European Union. She said she had no specific data and the WHO’s priority was for health workers in all countries to be vaccinated in the first 100 days of the year.

AstraZeneca, which developed its shot with Oxford University, told the EU on Friday it could not meet agreed supply targets up to the end of March.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay and Emma Farge)

U.S. new COVID cases down 21% in past week, deaths fall from peak

(Reuters) – The United States reported a 21% drop in new cases of COVID-19 last week, as all but one state reported declines in new infections, and the number of coronavirus patients in hospitals also fell.

The country reported 1.2 million new cases in the week ended Jan. 24, down from 1.5 million new cases in the previous week. It was the biggest decline on both a percentage and absolute basis in the past year, according to a Reuters analysis of state and county reports.

New Hampshire is the only state where cases rose. In California, a hotspot where hospitals have been overwhelmed by the number of patients, new cases fell 32% in the past week.

Deaths from the virus fell by 6.6% last week to about 21,600 across the country, with Arizona, Alabama and New Mexico having the highest per capita death rates. Deaths rose in 17 out of 50 states last week and are a lagging indicator, meaning they can rise weeks after cases and hospitalizations fall.

Cumulatively, nearly 419,000 people have died from the novel coronavirus, or one in every 780 U.S. residents.

The average number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals fell 7.5% from the previous week to about 119,000, the biggest one-week drop on a percentage basis since the week ended Aug. 9, according to a Reuters analysis of data from the volunteer-run COVID Tracking Project.

Nationally, 9.2% of tests of tests came back positive for the virus, down from 11.0% the prior week and the lowest since the week ended Nov. 8, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project. The lowest positive test rates were in Vermont at 2.3% and Connecticut and Hawaii at 2.5%, and the highest were Iowa at 43.5% and Alabama at 32.5%.

(Graphic by Chris Canipe, writing by Lisa Shumaker, editing by Tiffany Wu)

France’s new COVID-19 hospitalizations and ICU treatments rise sharply

PARIS (Reuters) – The number of people hospitalized in France for COVID-19 rose by more than a 1,000 over the last two days, a trend unseen since Nov 16, and the number of patients in intensive care units for the disease exceeded 3,000 for the first time since Dec 9.

A growing number of medical experts have called for a third lockdown in France but French media report that President Emmanuel Macron is trying to avoid such a measure.

Macron hopes a 6 p.m. curfew put in place 10 days ago will be enough to rein in the surge in new infections prompted by the emergence of more contagious variants of the virus.

Getting the number of patients treated in ICUs for COVID-19 below the 3,000 limit was the main justification for replacing the second lockdown with the national curfew on Dec 15.

At 3,041, the ICU total is less than half its all time high of 7,148 on April 4, but has grown almost every day since Jan 7.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Bloomberg Television that a new lockdown would make it very difficult for the country to reach its 2021 target of 6% economic growth.

The government had also aimed to bring the average new daily cases below 5,000 before lifting the second lockdown. After a 54,440 high on Nov 7, the seven-day moving average of daily new infections, which averages out reporting irregularities, fell to 10,348 on Dec 4 but is now at a two-month high of 20,447.

The daily tally of new COVID infections was 4,240 on Monday, down from Sunday’s 18,346 but higher than last Monday’s 3,736. France’s cumulative total of cases now stands at 3,057,857, the sixth-highest in the world.

The country’s COVID-19 death toll was up by 445, at 73,494, the world’s seventh highest, versus a rise of 172 on Sunday. The seven-day moving average of new fatalities increased to 401, the highest since Dec. 9.

(Reporting by Benoit Van Overstraeten; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Philippa Fletcher)

Anger and grief as United Kingdom’s COVID-19 death toll nears 100,000

By Andrew MacAskill and Paul Sandle

LONDON (Reuters) – As the United Kingdom’s COVID-19 death toll approaches 100,000, grief-stricken relatives of the dead expressed anger at Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s handling of the worst public health crisis in a century.

When the novel coronavirus, which first emerged in China in 2019, slid silently across the United Kingdom in March, Johnson initially said he was confident it could be sent packing in weeks.

But 98,531 deaths later, the United Kingdom has the world’s fifth worst official death toll – more than its civilian toll in World War Two and twice the number killed in the 1940-41 Blitz bombing campaign, although the total population was lower then.

Behind the numbers there is grief and anger.

Jamie Brown’s 65-year-old father died at the end of March after it was suspected he contracted COVID-19 while travelling on a train into London for work. At the time, the government was mulling a lockdown.

Told by medics to stay at home, he awoke days later with a tight chest, disorientated and nauseous, and was taken to hospital in an ambulance. He died from a cardiac arrest five minutes after arriving.

His son said the virus had damaged his lungs to the point where his heart gave up. He was a month away from retirement. “For me, it has been terrifying and harrowing to see everything that you hope for taken away. He will never be at my wedding; he will never meet any grandkids,” Brown told Reuters.

“Then, you watch the death toll rising whilst ministers pat themselves on the back and tell you what a good job they have done. It changes very quickly from a personal to a collective grief.”

Some scientists and opposition politicians say Johnson acted too slowly to stop the spread of the virus and then bungled both the government’s strategy and execution of its response.

Johnson has resisted calls for an inquiry into the handling of the crisis and ministers say that while they have not got everything right, they were making decisions at speed and have among the best global vaccination programs.

The United Kingdom’s death toll – defined as those who die within 28 days of a positive test – rose to 98,531 on Monday. The toll has risen by an average of over 1,000 per day for the past seven days.

‘JUST UNFORGIVABLE’ RESPONSE

In a series of investigations, Reuters has reported how the British government made several errors: it was slow to spot the infections arriving, it was late with a lockdown and it continued to discharge infected hospital patients into care homes.

The government’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, said in March that 20,000 deaths would be a good outcome. Soon after, a worst-case scenario prepared by government scientific advisers put the possible death toll at 50,000.

Many of the bereaved are angry and want an immediate public inquiry to learn lessons from the government’s response.

Ranjith Chandrapala died in early May at the same hospital where he took passengers to and from on his bus.

His daughter, Leshie, said the 64-year-old was slim, healthy and had not missed a day of work driving buses in the last 10 years.

She said he was not issued with a face mask – she bought him one herself – and the passengers were not told to wear them.

“The government’s handling of the crisis has been negligent, it is just unforgivable,” she said. “People in power just sent these guys over the line unprotected.”

Chandrapala stopped work on April 24 after developing COVID-19 symptoms. He died in intensive care 10 days later, with his family unable to say goodbye in person.

Early in the pandemic in March, one of England’s most senior doctors told the public that wearing a face mask could increase the risk of infection. The government made face coverings mandatory for passengers in England on June 15.

Nearly 11 months after the United Kingdom recorded its first death, some British hospitals look like a “war zone”, Vallance said, as doctors and nurses battle more infectious variants of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that scientists fear could be more deadly.

On the COVID-19 frontline, patients and medics are fighting for life.

Joy Halliday, a consultant in intensive care and acute medicine at Milton Keynes University Hospital, said it was “truly heartbreaking” for staff to see so many patients die.

“(Patients) deteriorate very, very quickly, and they go from talking to you and looking actually very well, to 20 minutes later no longer talking to you, to a further 20 minutes later no longer being alive,” she said.

“That is incredibly difficult for everyone.”

(Writing by Paul Sandle; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Mike Collett-White)