Tag Archives: lockdowns

Airlines look past slow recovery to post-pandemic travel

By Laurence Frost

PARIS (Reuters) – Even as new setbacks cloud their path to recovery, airline bosses are focusing on the lasting impact of COVID-19 on premium travel, technology and other pillars of their business.

Aviation leaders, forced to gather virtually by the pandemic, have been gauging its longer-term fallout at the World Aviation Festival, after more than a year of lockdowns.

Drawing many top executives and thousands of participants, this week’s event comes as doubts over the northern summer vacation season renew scrutiny of airlines’ cash and their ability to withstand another washout.

The addition of France, Britain and 114 other states to the U.S. “Do Not Travel” list has also cast a pall.

“There will be a lot of carriers that will not make it through,” Air France-KLM Chief Executive Ben Smith said, citing nameless rivals that were “not viable prior to the crisis”.

For survivors like state-backed Air France-KLM, market consolidation would be welcome, Smith said, adding: “Even if it takes longer than planned for traffic to return, with a reduction in capacity that’s a good balance for us”.

Air France-KLM expects to need more capital following a 10.4 billion euro ($12.5 billion) bailout in 2020 and 1 billion-euro share issue this week. Long-haul juggernaut Emirates may also need to raise more cash within months, the Gulf carrier’s President Tim Clark said during the event.

BUSINESS DECLINE

Despite the deep uncertainties, executives are looking beyond the pandemic to anticipate underlying shifts.

High on the list is a structural slump in business travel as many future meetings – if not airline conferences – stay online.

“A large percentage of this traffic will not come back on long-haul,” aviation consultant John Strickland predicted, as companies curb travel costs and carbon emissions.

“You can’t beat face-to-face in many business situations,” he said. “However a big amount can be cut.”

That will hit yields, or fare levels, Clark and his Virgin Atlantic counterpart Shai Weiss acknowledged, although the Emirates boss expects leisure customers to fill business cabins.

“If you drop (fares) by 15% or 20% they will come to business,” Clark said. Such customers are “not quite as good as the corporate segments were, but hey ho, you take what you can get and you fill your aircraft.”

The pandemic has sped efforts by airlines and airports to integrate digital passenger services, information and document checks, while the race is on to deploy “contactless” processes and digital health passes with COVID-19 vaccination and test certificates.

DIGITAL DRIVE

EasyJet CEO Johan Lundgren said digital platform upgrades hurriedly deployed to cope with last year’s flood of flight cancellations and refund claims were now among post-crisis “silver linings”.

“Cost bases have been reset” after the low-cost carrier invested in “self-service” capabilities for its booking system, he said. Airlines that have used the crisis for digital upgrades “will come out of this in a more efficient way.”

Even with traffic around 10% of pre-crisis levels, airports have warned that COVID-19 paperwork and test results are already clogging “pinch points” in check-in and boarding, despite full staffing.

Without swift digitization of processes including test and vaccine checks, airports could be overwhelmed by a traffic uptick as soon as May, said Emiliano Sorrenti, chief information and technology officer at Aeroporti di Roma, which operates the Italian capital’s Fiumicino and Ciampino airports.

“When we reach just 50% of (pre-crisis) passengers, will we be able to cope with those numbers given the new regulations?” he said. Fully seamless services that now seem far off will rapidly become a “mandatory level of automation”, he expects.

Vaccination setbacks and concern over COVID-19 variants suggest airports may have a little longer to prepare.

Global airline body IATA this week cut its traffic forecast to reflect a weaker international travel outlook, despite domestic rebounds in U.S. and China.

But Clark, who has put off his retirement to pilot Emirates through the crisis, remained upbeat about the recovery opportunities awaiting his eventual successor.

“We are, dare I say it, on the threshold of something really good here,” he said. “Once this pandemic is over.”

(Reporting by Laurence Frost; Additional reporting by Sarah Young in London and Conor Humphries in Dublin; Editing by Alexander Smith)

J&J stands ready to roll out COVID-19 vaccine in Europe as regulators weigh risks

By Manas Mishra and Carl O’Donnell

(Reuters) -Johnson & Johnson said on Tuesday it stands ready to resume rolling out its COVID-19 vaccine in Europe, where the region’s medical regulator said the benefits of the shot outweigh the risk of very rare, potentially lethal blood clots.

Use of the company’s one-dose vaccine was temporarily halted by U.S. regulators last week after the rare brain blood clots combined with a low blood platelet count were reported in six women, prompting the company to delay its rollout in Europe.

Europe’s health regulator, the European Medicines Agency, on Tuesday recommended adding a warning about blood clots with low blood platelet count to the vaccine’s product label, but said the benefits of the one-dose shot outweigh its risks.

J&J earlier on Tuesday said it was set to resume vaccinations in Europe and was working with European countries to resume ongoing clinical trials for its shot.

“It’s an extremely rare event. We hope by making people aware as well as putting clear diagnostic and therapeutic guidance in place that we can restore the confidence in our vaccine,” said J&J’s Chief Scientific Officer Paul Stoffels.

The United States is also reviewing a handful of potential cases of severe side effects in addition to those that led to the pause.

“The outcome of the vaccine review is important for overall global vaccination efforts, given J&J’s vaccine does not have the extreme cold storage requirements of the mRNA vaccines,” Edward Jones analyst Ashtyn Evans said, referring to vaccines from Moderna Inc and Pfizer Inc with partner BioNTech SE.

Meanwhile, J&J is working with U.S. regulators to get clearance for its Baltimore-based vaccine production plant, owned by Emergent BioSolutions Inc, and expects feedback in the coming days. Emergent shut down production at its plant earlier this month after manufacturing errors ruined millions of J&J doses in March.

“We are remediating what we need to remediate. We think that will lend itself to a positive outcome,” said J&J Chief Financial Officer Joseph Wolk during a call to discuss quarterly results. He said J&J “should know more in the next couple of days.”

Nearly 8 million people had received the J&J vaccine in the United States prior to the halt.

J&J said it would fulfill its commitments to ship 200 million doses in Europe and 100 million in the United States.

The company said it recorded $100 million in COVID-19 vaccine sales. J&J has said the vaccine will be available on a not-for-profit basis until the end of the pandemic.

An advisory committee to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to meet on Friday to address the pause after it delayed making any recommendations in a meeting last week and called for more data.

Johnson & Johnson reported first-quarter earnings that exceeded Wall Street expectations and raised its dividend payouts to shareholders.

The company said it expects a big improvement in sales from its medical device business in the second quarter of 2021 compared with a year earlier, when COVID-19 lockdowns took a toll.

J&J slightly raised its full-year adjusted profit forecast and now sees earnings of $9.42 to $9.57 per share, up from its prior view of $9.40 to $9.60 per share.

Total sales rose 7.9% to $22.32 billion, beating estimates of $21.98 billion.

(Reporting by Manas Mishra, Manojna Maddipatla in Bengaluru and Carl O’Donnell in New York; Editing by Anil D’Silva and Bill Berkrot)

Dying in line: Brazil’s crunch for COVID-19 intensive care beds

By Stephen Eisenhammer

PIRATININGA, Brazil (Reuters) – José Roberto Inácio spent much of his life ferrying the sick and injured to the hospital in this quiet Brazilian town.

On Wednesday, March 10, the retired ambulance driver took the familiar route once more – as a passenger gasping for breath.

By the weekend, the 63-year-old’s kidneys were failing. He needed dialysis. He needed intensive care.

But at the small hospital where he was being treated even basic medical supplies, like a catheter, were lacking. He joined the list for a bed in an intensive care unit (ICU), but doctors told his family there were 70 people in this part of Sao Paulo state already in line.

Bauru, the nearest major town, only has 50 intensive care beds – and all were full.

Inácio died waiting.

“All his life he worked to save people, but in the hour that he needed help, there was nothing for him,” Inácio’s son Roberto, 41, told Reuters, eyes still blank with shock. “You watch a person dying, and you can’t do anything about it.”

Inácio was one of 3,251 people in Brazil killed by COVID-19 on March 23, then the highest daily death toll since the pandemic began. Around the world, nearly one in three COVID-19 deaths were Brazilian. Inácio was one.

“He’s become a statistic,” his son said.

As much of the world appears to be emerging from the worst of the pandemic, Brazil’s health system is buckling.

Across the country there are over 6,000 people waiting for an ICU bed, according to government data. In 15 of Brazil’s 26 states, ICU capacity is at or above 90% full, as the country’s P1 variant fuels a second wave far deadlier than the first.

Even in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s wealthiest state with a sophisticated public hospital network, scores are dying in line for intensive care.

Despite the crisis, President Jair Bolsonaro continues to ridicule stay-at-home measures. He rarely wears a mask and has said he does not plan to get vaccinated. He told Brazilians to “stop whining” about the number of dead, now over 300,000 – the world’s second-highest toll behind the United States.

Brazil, a major global economy once lauded for its public health victories, has also been slow to secure vaccines for its 210 million inhabitants. Less than 10% of adults have received a first dose and only 3% are fully vaccinated.

Epidemiologists fear the worst is yet to come.

“This is going to be devastating,” said Albert Ko, a professor at Yale School of Public Health with decades of experience in Brazil. “Unless there’s a change in federal and state government policies, towards implementing effective lockdowns, we’re looking at a real humanitarian crisis.”

SILENT BURIAL

A giant billboard of Bolsonaro greets visitors to Bauru, a town of 400,000 about a four-hour drive from Sao Paulo.

The mayor, Suéllen Rosim, has railed against lockdown measures and aligned herself with the far-right leader. Last month, she defied a state government order to close nonessential businesses, allowing many to remain open despite surging COVID-19 cases.

A court ruling finally forced her to comply, but she continues to argue lockdowns are ineffective despite overwhelming evidence they have worked across the globe.

“There’s no science that shows that if I lock everyone up at home, everything will get better,” she told Reuters. “Bars and restaurants have been shut for weeks and the numbers haven’t stopped going up.”

She blamed the state for a lack of ICU capacity.

In response, the Sao Paulo government said it was working to increase the number of hospital beds in Bauru and across the region. The state criticized the municipality, which it said did not fund a single intensive care bed.

“The town is also responsible for the increase of intensive care and should do its part,” the state said in a note to Reuters.

On Bauru’s front line, doctors are exhausted; understaffed and under-resourced against the relentless tide of infections.

“People have been talking for months about the risk of the public health system collapsing,” said Fred Nicácio, a doctor treating COVID-19 patients in Bauru. “Sadly, that moment has come.”

Ambulances dart across town carrying patients connected to green oxygen canisters, their belongings in black trash bags by their feet.

One patient in his 40’s, between concentrated breaths, said he now understood the virus was no joke, as medics wheeled him into the hospital.

Beds are so scarce in Bauru that desperate relatives are turning to the courts, hiring lawyers to secure injunctions that would force hospitals – public or private – to take in patients.

But lawyers cannot create ICU beds where there are none. Even private hospitals are struggling, sometimes begging the public sector to take patients needing intensive care off their waitlists.

Inácio’s son is haunted by the belief that his father’s death could have been avoided. If a vaccine had reached him in time, if his hospital had an extra catheter, if an ICU bed had become available.

Last Wednesday, one week after entering the hospital he knew so well, Inácio was buried.

Four men in white hazmat suits drove his body in a minivan the two blocks to the cemetery. They carted the wooden coffin between the rows of dead to a break in the red dirt.

No words were spoken. The only sound was the scratching of mortar and brick as the tomb was sealed.

From a distance, his son watched.

(Reporting by Stephen Eisenhammer; Additional reporting by Leonardo Benassatto; Editing by Brad Haynes and Jonathan Oatis)

More under-30 Americans report anxiety, depression during pandemic – CDC

By Vishwadha Chander

(Reuters) – More young adults in the United States reported feeling anxious or depressed during the past six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and fewer people reported getting the help they needed, according to a U.S. government study released on Friday.

The percentage of adults under age 30 with recent symptoms of an anxiety or a depressive disorder rose significantly about five months after the U.S. imposed COVID-19 related lockdowns, and reported rising deaths from the fast-spreading virus.

Between August 2020 and February 2021, this number went up to 41.5% from 36.4%, as did the percentage of such people reporting that they needed, but did not receive, mental health counseling.

The study suggests that the rise in anxiety or depressive disorder symptoms reported correspond with the weekly number of reported COVID-19 cases.

The findings are based on a Household Pulse Survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Census Bureau to monitor changes in mental health status and access to care during the pandemic.

“Trends in mental health can be used to evaluate the impact of strategies addressing adult mental health status and care during the pandemic,” the authors of the study wrote in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report released on Friday.

The study also found those with less than a high school education were more at risk, though it did not provide an explanation for it.

Even with more vaccines gaining authorization beginning late 2020, the effects of the pandemic on mental health continued into 2021.

During Jan. 20, 2021 through Feb. 1, 2021, about two in five adults aged over 18 years experienced recent symptoms of an anxiety or a depressive disorder, the survey found.

Demand for mental health and meditation apps, and investments in tech startups building these apps have also risen during this period.

(Reporting by Vishwadha Chander in Bengaluru; Editing by Caroline Humer and Shailesh Kuber)

Turkey’s reopening relieves restaurants but worries doctors

By Canan Sevgili and Daren Butler

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish restaurants reopened and many children returned to school on Tuesday after the government announced steps to ease COVID-19 restrictions even as cases edged higher, raising concerns among the top medical association.

On Monday evening, President Tayyip Erdogan lifted weekend lockdowns in low- and medium-risk cities and limited lockdowns to Sundays in those deemed higher risk under what he called a “controlled normalization.”

Café and restaurant owners, limited to takeaway service for much of last year, have long urged a reopening of in-house dining after sector revenues dropped 65%. They also want relief from growing debt, and from social security and tax payments.

“We were serving 4,000-5,000 people a week. Now with takeaway services we are serving only 500 people,” Istanbul-based Pideban restaurant owner Yusuf Kaptanoglu said before the easing measures were announced.

“I did not benefit from any support including loan support,” he said.

Across Turkey, pre- and primary schools as well as grades 8-12 resumed partial in-person education.

Yet the moves come as new daily coronavirus cases rose to 11,837 on Tuesday, the highest since Jan. 7 and up from 9,891 a day earlier, according to official data. Cases were around 6,000 in late January.

“The number of mutant virus cases is increasingly rising. We do not see conditions to return to an old ‘normal’,” the Turkish Medical Association said on Twitter, calling for higher rates of testing and inoculation.

“Political and economic interests must not take precedence over human life and science,” it added.

Turkey, with a population of 83 million, has administered 9.18 million vaccines in a campaign that began in mid-January. More than 7.18 million people have received a first shot and 2 million have received a second.

(Reporting by Daren Butler, Canan Sevgili and Ceyda Caglayan; Editing by Jonathan Spicer, Aurora Ellis and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

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)

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)

Airbnb CEO says travel never going back to the way it was before pandemic

By Subrat Patnaik

(Reuters) – Airbnb Chief Executive Officer Brian Chesky on Thursday predicted travel would permanently change due to the pandemic with people seeking out thousands of smaller cities and spending more time visiting friends and family.

Traditional tourism and sightseeing at top global destinations would be significantly reduced by travelers who will drive to smaller communities and fly less for business meetings.

The startup was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 and its business dropped by 80% in a little over eight weeks.

However, as lockdowns eased, more travelers opted to book homes instead of hotels, helping Airbnb post a surprise profit for the third quarter. The San Francisco-based firm gained from increased interest in renting homes away from major cities.

The home rental firm went public in a blockbuster initial public offering in December, its shares more than doubling in their stock market debut. Shares of Airbnb rose as much as 10% to record high of $187.42 on Thursday.

WILL NOT FACILITATE VIOLENCE

The rental platform has been canceling home-sharing reservations in the Washington D.C. area for President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration’s next Wednesday after law enforcement warned of a threat from armed militias.

Speaking during the Reuters Next conference, Chesky recalled the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia and said that he did not want the platform facilitating people traveling to commit violence in communities.

Airbnb made the decision after consulting local and federal officials and after a number of hosts worried about potential attacks sought to cancel bookings.

However, major hotel chains including Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc and Marriott International have said they planned to uphold existing reservations.

(Reporting by Subrat Patnaik in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Europe extends and tightens lockdowns, with fingers crossed for vaccines

By Claudia Cristoferi and John Revill

ROME/ZURICH (Reuters) – Governments across Europe announced tighter and longer coronavirus lockdowns and curbs on Wednesday amid fears of a fast-spreading variant first detected in Britain, with vaccinations not expected to help much until the spring.

Vaccines are being rolled out across the continent, but not as quickly as many countries had wished, and the effects are not expected until inoculations are widespread among the population.

Italy will extend its COVID-19 state of emergency to the end of April, Health Minister Roberto Speranza said as infections show no sign of abating.

Switzerland announced tighter measures to tackle new variants of the COVID-19 virus and extended the closure of restaurants, cultural and sport sites by five weeks to run until the end of February.

Germany is also likely to have to extend COVID-19 curbs into February, Health Minister Jens Spahn said, stressing the need to further reduce contacts to fend off the more infectious variant first identified in Britain.

The German cabinet approved stricter entry controls to require people arriving from countries with high caseloads or where the more virulent variant is circulating to take coronavirus tests.

Chancellor Angela Merkel told a meeting of lawmakers on Tuesday that the coming 8 to 10 weeks would be very hard if the more infectious variant spread to Germany, according to a participant at the meeting.

Health Minister Spahn told Deutschlandfunk radio it would take another two or three months before the vaccination campaign really started to help.

The Dutch government said late on Tuesday it would extend the lockdown, including the closure of schools and shops, by at least three weeks until Feb. 9.

“This decision does not come as a surprise, but it is an incredible disappointment,” Prime Minister Mark Rutte told a news conference, adding that the threat posed by the new variant was “very, very worrying”.

He said the government was considering imposing a curfew, but was reluctant and had sought outside advice before deciding on such severe restrictions.

In France, President Emmanuel Macron was discussing possible tighter rules with senior ministers. A nationwide curfew could be brought forward to 6 p.m. from 8 p.m., as has already happened in parts of the country, French media reported.

The French government’s top scientific adviser said new restrictions were needed in light of the variant first detected in Britain, adding that if vaccines were more widely accepted the crisis could be over by September.

“The coming three months will be difficult, the situation will slightly improve during the spring but should really get better at the end of the summer,” Jean-François Delfraissy told franceinfo radio.

In Switzerland, officials cancelled the Lauberhorn World Cup downhill race, out of fear that the new variant – brought in by what health authorities said was a single British tourist – was spreading now spreading rapidly among locals.

At least 60 people have tested positive in the Alpine resort of Wengen in the last four weeks.

Switzerland, which has so far taken a lighter touch to restricting business and public life than its neighbors, said it will close shops selling non-essential supplies from Monday.

It also ordered companies to require that employees work from home where possible. The country also eased rules on allowing pandemic-hit businesses to apply for state financial aid in hardship cases.

There was more optimistic news from Poland, where COVID-19 case numbers have stabilized after surging in the autumn.

“I hope that in two to three weeks the restrictions will be a little smaller, the vaccine will work,” Poland’s Finance Minister Tadeusz Koscinski said in an interview for Money.pl.

“Some restrictions will remain for quite a long time, but I think that 80% of these restrictions will start to disappear at the turn of the first and second quarter.”

(Reporting by Anthony Deutsch and Bart Meijer in Amsterdam, John Miller in Zurich, Benoit Van Overstraeten in Paris, Sabine Siebold and Hans-Edzard Busemann in Berlin, Pawel Florkiewicz in Warsaw, writing by Emma Thomasson; editing by Philippa Fletcher and Nick Macfie)

Global coronavirus cases surpass 90 million in battle on new variant

By Roshan Abraham and Anurag Maan

(Reuters) – Worldwide coronavirus cases surpassed 90 million on Monday, according to Reuters tally, as nations around the globe scramble to procure vaccines and continue to extend or reinstate lockdowns to fight new coronavirus variants.

The new COVID-19 variants discovered initially in the United Kingdom and South Africa are rapidly spreading globally.

The novel coronavirus has picked up pace in the past few months with about one-third of total cases registered in the last 48 days, according to a Reuters tally.

Europe, which became the first region to report 25 million cases last week, remains the worst-affected area in the world, followed by North and Latin Americas with 22.4 million and 16.3 million cases respectively.

Europe has reported around 31% of about 1.93 million coronavirus-related deaths globally.

The United Kingdom, the worst-affected European country, crossed 3 million cases last Friday.

The nation is on course to have immunized its most vulnerable people against COVID-19 by mid-February and plans to offer a shot to every adult by autumn.

To control the spread of new coronavirus variant, countries across the globe have started to extend movement and business restrictions.

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel and state premiers last week agreed to restrict non-essential travel for residents of hard-hit areas all over Germany for the first time, after a lockdown decreed in December failed to significantly reduce infection numbers.

French authorities imposed a stricter evening curfew in Marseille after authorities said the new variant of the COVID-19 virus initially found in the UK had been discovered in the Mediterranean city.

The United States, world’s worst affected country, reported its highest death toll on Wednesday, with over 4,000 fatalities in a single day.

The nation has recorded more than 22 million cases since the pandemic started, reporting on average 245,000 new infections a day over the last seven days, according to a Reuters analysis.

In Asia, India crossed 150,000 deaths last Tuesday, becoming the third nation to reach the grim milestone.

The south Asian nation has approved two COVID-19 vaccines and will start its vaccination drive from Jan. 16 with priority given to about 30 million healthcare and frontline workers.

(Reporting by Roshan Abraham and Anurag Maan in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Michael Perry)