Cambodia recorded a record high of daily infections on Friday, as 576 new coronavirus caseswere logged.
The Phnom Penh Post reports:
The Ministry of Health on April 9 reported 576 Covid-19 cases linked to the February 20 community outbreak, by far the largest number it has ever recorded in a single day since the pandemic began.
The 576 cases include four Chinese, one Thai and three Vietnamese nationals, with the rest being Cambodian. The Cambodian patients include three children aged 6 to 13.
Phnom Penh recorded the most cases at 544, followed by Svay Rieng province at 16, Preah Sihanouk at 12, Siem Reap at two, and one each in Kandal and Kampong Cham.
The ministry also reported 70 recoveries linked to the February 20 community outbreak.
Alarmed by a huge surge in community transmission cases, ministry spokeswoman Or Vandine urged strict adherence to preventive measures. She said the surge would have long-term impact on public health and potentially lead to a much larger-scale outbreak.
“I’ve lost sleep, wondering why some people can’t seem to take basic precautions to break the chain of transmission,” she said, reiterating a call for the public to refrain from non-essential travel, especially during the Khmer New Year holiday, and get vaccinated against the disease.
As of April 9, Cambodia had recorded a total of 3,604 Covid-19 cases with 1,591 receiving ongoing treatment and 24 confirmed deaths from the disease.
Garment factory workers and staff wait to receive China’s Sinovac coronavirus vaccine at an industrial park in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on 7 April, 2021. Photograph: Cindy Liu/Reuters
The highly contagious UK Covid-19 variant is now predominant in Cyprus, its health ministry said on Friday, linking it to a recent surge in infections.
Reuters reports:
The ministry said all 111 positive samples taken in March and sent to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control were found to be the variant known as B.1.1.7, which was first discovered in Britain late last year.
The results explain a recent spike in infections since the strain is about 50 percent more contagious than the more common Covid-19 strain, the health ministry said.
An earlier comparison with January and February samples, released in March, showed the British variant accounted for about a quarter of all cases.
After a relative lull, the number of coronavirus cases in Cyprus started climbing in late February and despite restrictions on movement still in force, infections remain stubbornly high.
As of Thursday, Cyprus had reported a total of 49,988 Covid-19 infections and 268 deaths since the start of the pandemic. The numbers cover the south of the island controlled by the international recognised government and do not include cases in the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north.
Cyprus first reported cases of the British variant in early January after tests on positive samples taken in December 2020.
Cyprus has had a widespread testing plan in place for months, offering free and compulsory rapid tests once a week for most of the population.
Medical workers conduct a rapid coronavirus test at the CyprusExpo in Nicosia, Cyprus, on Wednesday. Photograph: Danil Shamkin/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock
A row over shipments of Sputnik V vaccine doses that erupted on Thursday between Russia and Slovakia will not undermine EU confidence in the shot, the Kremlin said on Friday in the week of an EU vaccines’ regulator visit to Moscow.
“If Slovakia doesn’t need the vaccine, other countries will be pleased […] there will be more for others,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Russia called on Slovakia on Thursday to return hundreds of thousands of doses of the Sputnik vaccine, citing contract violations, in an escalating row between the two countries after a Slovak watchdog raised doubts about the shot, Reuters reports.
Here some more detail on the German government’s plans to centralise containment measures, whenever there is a seven-day incidence rate of 100 per 100,000 people in a state, in the country’s battle against a third wave from Reuters:
The [seven-day incidence] figure reached a high near 200 in late December, soon after Germany went from a “lockdown lite” that started in early November, during which schools and stores were open, to a full shutdown.
It last stood at 110.4, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases.
However, containment measures in Germany vary from region to region due to the country’s decentralised federal system. In some regions, consumers can go shopping as long as they have a negative Covid-19 test, while stores are closed in others.
Some, like Berlin, have introduced nighttime bans on gatherings, while others, like Saarland, have allowed restaurants and beer gardens to open outdoor seating.
Guests sit outside at a cafe during a sleet shower in Saarbruecken, western Germany, on Tuesday. Germans in the tiny border state of Saarland returned to cafes, cinemas and cultural venues on 6 April, even as the rest of the country faces tighter coronavirus restrictions amid rising case numbers. Photograph: Jean-Christophe Verhaegen/AFP/Getty Images
The largest Covid-19 vaccination centre in the Czech Republic was put through its paces on Friday, but it will not be fully operational until May as the country badly hit by the pandemic waits for more vaccine shots.
Reuters reports:
The government has come under criticism for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, including its failure to order as many vaccines as it could under the EU’s programme.
Following a spat in Brussels over distribution of extra vaccines among member states, the Czechs are now projected to lag behind all other EU countries by mid-year.
The country of 10.7 million has the world’s highest per-capita death toll from Covid-19, according to Our World in Data, while infection rates have only just started easing.
Deaths from the disease have hit 27,617, more than doubling in 2021 alone. On Thursday, 5,245 new cases were reported, the lowest weekday tally since mid-December. In total, 1.57 million infections have been reported since March 2020.
The vaccination centre at Prague’s O2 Arena complex is to be a key component in ramping up inoculations. But it faces a three-week delay until May 3 before starting with a capacity of 7,000 people a day.
On Friday, 1,000 state emergency personnel were set to get shots.
“The centre will start in full at the beginning of May, because at the moment there are not enough vaccines for it to go at full capacity,” Prime Minister Andrej Babis said during an inspection on Friday.
The country has administered 1.97 million vaccine doses so far, including 663,006 people who have got both shots. On Thursday, 58,928 shots were given, the highest daily total.
In addition to German chancellor Angela Merkel’s “emergency brake” that will see her take control from federal states, Berlin is also considering a statutory authorisation to issue ordinances from the federal government, which could also apply if the incidence value is below 100 new infections, according to a journalist, Handelsblatt reports.
Government spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer said the details could not be elaborated on today.
Despite an acceleration of the German vaccine programme, just over 12 million people in the country of 83 million have received at least their first jab.
Handelsblatt reports:
719,927 vaccine doses were administered in Germany on Thursday. This is a new record: the day before it was just under 660,000, previously the number of daily vaccinations never exceeded 370,000.
This is shown in the daily overview of the Federal Ministry of Health and the [Robert Koch Institute].
The upswing was made possible by the participation of the general practitioners, who have been supplementing inoculations in the vaccination centers for the past week.
By Wednesday they had already given half of all vaccinations. This means that 4,831,522 people are now fully vaccinated - that is 5.8% of the total population. A total of 12,204,176 people received at least one vaccine dose.
I’m Jedidajah Otte and will be taking over for the next few hours. Feel free to drop me a line if you have anything to flag you think we should be covering, I’m on Twitter @JedySays.
Authorities in France have ruled that under-55s who received a first injection of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine can be given a jab from a different producer for their second dose.
Hong Kong has confirmed this morning that it has requested AstraZeneca suspend delivery of its Covid-19 vaccine.
States and territories in Australia have been left scrambling to respond to government advice recommending against vaccinating anyone under 50 with the AstraZeneca shot, leaving tens of thousands of people in the lurch.
Chancellor Angela Merkel plans to take control from Germany’s federal states to impose restrictions on regions recording high numbers of new coronavirus infections, according to reports. Health minister Jens Spahn has said the country needs a national lockdown.
Leading hospitals in India’s most coronavirus-hit state halted vaccinations today, citing shortages as infections across the country crossed 13 million and set a new daily record.
Sweden’s climate campaigner Greta Thunberg has said she will not attend the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow this November, citing “inequitable vaccine distribution”.
Police in Norway have fined prime minister Erna Solberg for breaking Covid-19 social distancing rules when organising a family gathering to celebrate her birthday.
The manufacturer of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine has claimed that while it is less effective against the “South African” coronavirus variant, it is more effective against it than other vaccines.
The UK’s transport secretary, Grant Shapps, has said that the public could “start to think” about foreign holidays this summer.
Gibraltar has become one of the first places in the world to vaccinate the bulk of its adult population against Covid-19, allowing virus restrictions to be lifted and life to almost return to normal.
That’s it from me, Martin Belam, today. I will see you next week. Jedidajah Otte will be along in a moment to take you through the rest of the day’s global coronavirus news. And if you want our UK covid and politics live blog, then Yohannes Lowe has that over here.
Also in France, president Emmanuel Macron has been visiting the Delpharm vaccine production facility in Saint-Remy-sur-Avre, west of Paris.
The plant started bottling Pfizer vaccines this week as France tries to make its mark on global vaccine production, and speed up vaccinations of French people amid a new virus surge. While he was there, Reuters report that Macron said that French healthcare company Sanofi’s plans for a domestic Covid-19 shot is making some progress.
French president Emmanuel Macron, centre, at the vaccine production facility. Photograph: Christophe Ena/AP
French police detain chef and businessman over secret restaurant scandal
French police have detained for questioning the leading chef Christophe Leroy and flamboyant businessman Pierre-Jean Chalencon after accusations they organised clandestine restaurant dinners for top figures in defiance of Covid-19 restrictions, prosecutors said.
The M6 television channel had broadcast footage recorded with a hidden camera purportedly from a clandestine restaurant in an affluent district of Paris where neither the staff nor the diners were wearing masks.
All restaurants and cafes have been closed in France for eating in for the last five months. The country this week began a new limited nationwide lockdown to deal with surging Covid-19 infections.
Chalencon, who owns the luxury Palais Vivienne venue in the centre of Paris that was allegedly used for such an event, had told the channel that several such dinners had taken place and even ministers had attended. He later backtracked from this remark and the government has vehemently denied that any ministers have been involved.
AFP note that Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz said Sunday that a criminal probe had been opened into putting the lives of others at risk. Police on Thursday searched the premises of the Palais Vivienne and a similar search had been carried on Wednesday at the home of Christophe Leroy.
Leroy’s lawyer Thierry Fradet said his client had submitted documents that showed that any dinners he had organised were in private homes – in line with the current rules – and not secret restaurants.
Merkel plan to pass new law to force Covid measures onto German states – reports
There’s just a little bit more here from Reuters on developments in Germany. They are reporting that Chancellor Angela Merkel plans to take control from federal states to impose restrictions on regions recording high numbers of new coronavirus infections.
“The federal government plans to introduce draft legislation next week, in close coordination with the states, that includes a binding and comprehensive emergency break for districts with an incidence of 100 and up,” a source told Reuters.
At an infection rate of less than 100 per 100,000 people over seven days, the states will retain control over measures to slow the spread of the virus.
Germany is struggling to tackle a third wave of the pandemic, and Merkel and several regional leaders have called for a short, sharp lockdown while the country tries to vaccinate more people.
A meeting of Chancellor Merkel and the leaders of Germany’s 16 states scheduled for Monday, at which they were to discuss an extension to Covid restrictions, has been cancelled, the government source told Reuters.
Health minister Jens Spahn earlier today warned that nationwide measures were necessary to break the current wave of coronavirus infections as quickly as possible. He told journalists that there were currently nearly 4,500 patients in intensive care in Germany, adding: “If this continues, it will be too much for our health system.”
