Tag Archives: COVID-19

U.S. exceeds 400,000 coronavirus deaths

By Anurag Maan and Roshan Abraham

(Reuters) – The U.S. coronavirus death toll topped 400,000 on Tuesday, according to a Reuters tally, as the country hardest hit by the pandemic struggled to meet the demand for vaccines to stem the spread of infection.

States including Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, South Carolina and Vermont have shown signs of vaccine supply strain and are asking for more doses of both approved vaccines, one from Pfizer-BioNTech and the other from Moderna.

The number of deaths has spiked since Christmas.

During the past three weeks, U.S. coronavirus fatalities have totaled 63,793 compared with 52,715 deaths in the three weeks prior to Christmas, an increase of 21%, according to a Reuters analysis.

The daily COVID-19 death numbers crossed 4,000 for the first time on Jan. 6.

Eighteen U.S. states, including California, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington reported their highest daily death numbers in January, according to the Reuters tally.

The number of coronavirus cases has risen across all U.S. regions and on Tuesday crossed 24 million since the pandemic started.

While seriously ill patients are straining healthcare systems in parts of the country, especially in California, the national rate of hospitalizations has leveled off in the past two weeks and was near 124,000 on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Anurag Maan, Roshan Abraham and Chaithra J in Bengaluru; Editing by Howard Goller)

Spain’s COVID-19 incidence hits new high as third wave of infection rages

MADRID (Reuters) – Spain’s incidence of the coronavirus as measured over the past 14 days reached a new high of 714 cases per 100,000 people on Tuesday after 689 cases the previous day, Health Ministry data showed, as a rampant third wave of infection grips the country.

The ministry reported 34,291 new infections, retreating from Friday’s record rise of more than 40,000, and bringing the cumulative tally to 2,370,742.

Spain’s overall death toll from the virus rose by 404 to 54,173, the data showed. Although daily increases in the death toll have been on the rise, it is still far below the nearly 900 deaths registered per day in late March and early April.

(Reporting by Nathan Allen, editing by Andrei Khalip)

Brussels targets vaccinating at least 70% of EU adults by summer

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union states should aim to vaccinate at least 70% of their adult populations against COVID-19 by the summer, the European Commission recommended on Tuesday.

Each of the EU’s 27 governments are managing their own vaccination campaigns, including their pace and which groups get priority. The Commission’s recommendations are not binding.

The 70% goal could mean inoculating over 200 million people, most likely with vaccines which need two doses per person. The EU has so far given a first dose to about 5 million people since it started its rollout at the end of December, the Commission said.

To meet its ambitious goal, the EU executive said it will work to boost the production capacity of vaccine makers with measures that could include investment in plants and faster regulatory procedures to authorize them.

As a mid-term target, by March at least 80% of people over the age of 80, and 80% of healthcare workers should also be vaccinated in each EU state, the Commission said.

The EU has ordered nearly 2.3 billion doses of approved and candidate COVID-19 vaccines, but only the shots developed by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech have so far received regulatory clearance in the bloc. They both need two doses to provide full protection.

The EU has secured 600 million doses of the vaccine developed by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech and, despite early snags in deliveries, expects them to be delivered by the end of this year.

Moderna said it expects to deliver at least 80 million doses to the EU by the third quarter. Decisions on EU approvals of the vaccines developed by AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson are expected in coming weeks.

The Commission is also urging EU states to boost their capacity to sequence the coronavirus in order to detect new variants.

It called on EU governments to sequence at least 5% of all positive tests whereas at the moment many states test less than 1% of samples.

“Vaccinations will still take time until they reach all Europeans,” EU health commissioner Stella Kyriakides said, adding that meanwhile testing and sequencing must be increased.

The Commission also said it was working with EU states to adopt a common approach by the end of the month on vaccination certificates to facilitate travel.

(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio; editing by Philip Blenkinsop, John Stonestreet, Philippa Fletcher, Alexandra Hudson)

Average U.S. air fares fall to lowest price after COVID-19 pandemic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Average U.S. airfare prices in the three months ending in September fell to the lowest inflation-adjusted price since the government began tracking the issue in 1995, the Transportation Department said Tuesday.

The average ticket price was $245, down 30% over the same period in 2019 and down 7% over the second quarter, when average prices were $262 a ticket. Prices have declined as air demand has fallen sharply, especially for business travel. U.S. airlines reported 27 million passengers in the third quarter, down from 86 million passengers a year earlier.

(Reporting by David Shepardson)

Pandemic could be WHO’s Chernobyl moment, review panel says

By Stephanie Nebehay and Kate Kelland

GENEVA/LONDON (Reuters) – The COVID-19 pandemic could be the catalyst for much-needed reform of the World Health Organization just as the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 forced urgent changes at the U.N. nuclear agency, a co-chair of an independent review panel said.

The panel, set up to investigate the global response to the coronavirus, said the WHO is under-powered, under-funded and required fundamental reform to give it the resources it needs to respond more effectively to deadly disease outbreaks.

“We are not here to assign blame, but to make concrete recommendations to help the world respond faster and better in future,” the panel’s co-chair, former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, told reporters at a briefing on Tuesday.

The panel’s report said on Monday that Chinese officials should have applied public health measures more forcefully in January to curb the initial COVID-19 outbreak, and criticized the WHO for not declaring an international emergency until Jan. 30.

“While member states turn to the WHO for leadership, they have kept it under-powered and under-resourced to do the job expected of it,” Johnson Sirleaf said, adding that she believes the WHO “is reformable.”

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the WHO Executive Board at the start of a debate on the report that it was “committed to accountability” and change.

Many governments around the world, including those in the United States, Australia and the European Union, have called for the WHO to be reformed or restructured amid criticism of its response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

The U.N. health agency was also rocked by a decision last year by the United States to halt its funding, and has been accused of being too close to China in the first phase of the pandemic, a charge the WHO denies.

Johnson Sirleaf and her co-chair, former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, noted repeatedly that the WHO’s ability to enforce its advice, or enter countries to investigate the source of disease outbreaks, is severely curtailed.

The said the pandemic had shown that the WHO’s 194 member states must act swiftly to reform the Geneva-based agency, boost its funding, and give it powers to enforce international health regulations.

“Is that this (Chernobyl) moment for WHO and the global health system?,” Clark asked, adding that WHO member states “are going to have to face up to this.”

The United States has accused the WHO of being “China-centric,” which the agency denies. European countries led by France and Germany have pushed for shortcomings in the WHO’s funding, governance and legal powers to be addressed.

Describing the funding of the WHO as “woeful,” Clark told the briefing: “The WHO is not empowered for the task. Everything is done on the basis of cooperation.”

“Is that enough in this day and age, when a pathogen can spread so quickly?,” she said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Kate Kelland in London, editing by Philippa Fletcher)

New York governor asks Pfizer to directly sell COVID-19 vaccine doses

By Kanishka Singh

(Reuters) – New York Governor Andrew Cuomo asked Pfizer Inc Chief Executive Albert Bourla on Monday if the state could buy COVID-19 vaccine doses directly from the U.S. drugmaker.

Pfizer, however, told Reuters that such a proposal would first require approval by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“With hospitalizations and deaths increasing across the country this winter, we are in a footrace with the virus, and we will lose unless we dramatically increase the number of doses getting to New Yorkers,” Cuomo said in a letter to Pfizer’s CEO.

Cuomo said he was appealing to Pfizer directly as the company was “not bound by commitments” that Moderna Inc made as part of Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. government’s program to distribute COVID-19 vaccines.

No state has purchased vaccines directly from the producer. Cuomo’s letter did not state how many doses he was seeking or how he would pay for it.

Pfizer said it was open to collaborating with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in a way that would ensure quick vaccine distribution to as many Americans as possible.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Howard Goller)

Portugal’s daily COVID deaths hit record high as hospitals struggle

By Catarina Demony and Miguel Pereira

LISBON (Reuters) – Portugal, initially praised for its swift response to the coronavirus pandemic, recorded a record number of COVID-19 related deaths on Monday as its hospitals struggled to cope.

The Portuguese government, facing concerns over low compliance with lockdown measures brought in last week, also introduced further rules to try to curb the spread of the coronavirus among its population of 10 million people.

Portugal posted 167 COVID-19 related deaths over the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 9,028 since the pandemic began.

“After so many cases, and so many deaths, nobody can … think COVID-19 only happens to others,” Portugal’s Prime Minister Antonio Costa told reporters.

Under the new rules, those not able to work remotely will have to carry an employer declaration and people will not be allowed to travel between municipalities over the weekend.

“You see a lot of people not following (the rules) during this new lockdown,” Anabela Ribeiro, 55, said as she left a busy train station in the heart of the capital Lisbon.

“Stricter measures are needed,” Ribeiro added.

Hospitals are struggling to cope with the soaring number of infections, with Portugal now the country with the highest rolling average of new cases over the last seven days per million inhabitants, ourworldindata.org said.

Portugal also reported a record 664 coronavirus patients in intensive care, just below the 672 maximum allocation of ICU beds out of a total of just over 1,000, health authorities said.

With 6,702 new cases the cumulative tally of infections in the country has now reached 556,503.

“The impact is huge because the number of beds doesn’t increase, the walls are not expandable and health workers are not multiplying,” Antonio Pais de Lacerda, a doctor at Lisbon’s biggest hospital, Santa Maria, said.

Portugal has already nearly doubled the number of ICU beds since the start of the pandemic, when it had just 528 critical care beds and Europe’s lowest ratio per 100,000 inhabitants.

(Reporting by Catarina Demony and Miguel Pereira; Additional reporting by Victoria Waldersee and Patricia Vicente Rua; Editing by Andrei Khalip, Timothy Heritage and Alexander Smith)

Mexico aims to make up for Pfizer vaccine shortfall with others

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Monday the government aimed to compensate for a reduction in deliveries of COVID-19 vaccine doses from Pfizer Inc with those from other providers.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday it was in advanced talks with Pfizer about including its vaccine in the agency’s portfolio of shots to be shared with poorer countries.

Mexico had been expecting weekly deliveries of some 400,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine developed with Germany’s BioNTech SE. As a result of the U.S. drugmaker’s WHO agreements, Mexico would for now only be receiving half that total, Lopez Obrador told a regular news conference.

It was not clear how long the reduction would last. Pfizer did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is currently the only one being administered in Mexico, which has reported the fourth-highest death toll from the pandemic worldwide.

Mexico has also signed deals to acquire vaccines from Britain’s AstraZeneca Plc and China’s CanSino Biologics. Mexico has approved the AstraZeneca shot and expects to have it by March. It is still reviewing the CanSino vaccine.

Lopez Obrador also noted Mexico was about to complete its review of a Russian vaccine, and would soon have it available, an apparent reference to the Sputnik V product.

Mexico suffered a setback to its drive to inoculate the public with the news over the weekend that the official in charge of the program, Miriam Veras Godoy, had stepped down for personal reasons, according to the health ministry.

(Reporting by Raul Cortes; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Disneyland Paris delays reopening to April 2 due to COVID-19

PARIS (Reuters) – Disneyland Paris said on Monday it was postponing its reopening by almost two months, to April 2, due to the resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Due to the prevailing conditions in Europe, Disneyland Paris will not reopen on the 13th of February as initially planned. If conditions permit, we will reopen Disneyland Paris on the 2nd of April, 2021,” the group said on its Twitter account.

France has suffered more than 70,000 deaths from the coronavirus pandemic, among the highest national tolls worldwide, and has begun a mass vaccination program in an effort to ease lockdowns and revive the economy.

On Sunday, the health ministry reported that France had vaccinated more than 422,000 people since the start of the vaccination campaign on Dec. 26.

(Reporting by Richard Lough; Writing by Benoit Van Overstraeten; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

EU kicks off debate on vaccine travel certificates

By Philip Blenkinsop

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union countries kicked off a debate on Monday on whether people who have received a COVID-19 vaccine should have greater freedom to travel in the summer than those not immunized.

Europe ministers from the 27 EU nations held a video conference to discuss greater coordination for the roll-out of vaccines, a topic to be picked up by EU leaders who will meet online on Thursday.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis floated the idea last week in a letter to the European Commission of an EU-wide vaccination certificate to help restore cross-border travel that has been crippled by the pandemic.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Sunday that vaccinated people should be able to return sooner to restaurants and cinemas, although other ministers have criticized his view.

Maros Sefcovic, a European Commission vice president, said it was important to stress that vaccination is voluntary – some people were unable or unwilling to receive a vaccine.

Sefcovic told a news conference after Monday’s meeting such people should not have their rights limited. However, vaccination could become a condition for travel, like current requirements in many countries for a negative COVID test.

“There will be different options how we handle travel … the possibility of the electronic vaccination certificate could be added,” he said.

Michael Roth, representing Germany on Monday, said it was vital to establish if vaccinated people could still transmit the coronavirus to others.

The EU executive is working to ensure that vaccination data can be collected electronically in a common form.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control will start collecting data from this week on vaccines delivered and vaccinations per country.

Sefcovic said EU countries needed to be largely synchronized to help keep open its single market, which allows freedom of movement of people and workers.

Many EU nations say they are receiving lower-than-expected supplies of COVID-19 vaccines and complain of uncertainty over future deliveries, EU officials have told Reuters.

(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Giles Elgood)