This photo taken on March 5, 2021 shows the flag of the World Health Organization (WHO) at the agency's headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
(FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP)
BRUSSELS / LONDON / BERLIN / JOHANNESBURG / NAIROBI / BUDAPEST / HAVANA / PARIS / MEXICO CITY / RIO DE JANEIRO / MADRID / OSLO / MOSCOW – Official death tolls from the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to be a “significant undercount”, the World Health Organization said on Friday, estimating that the true figure of direct and indirect deaths could be two to three times higher.
Presenting its annual World Health Statistics report, the WHO estimated that total deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 were at least 3 million or 1.2 million more than 1.8 million figure officially reported.
“We are likely facing a significant undercount of total deaths directly and indirectly attributed to COVID-19,” the U.N. agency said.
By May 20 2021, WHO statistics showed around 3.4 million people had died globally as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, although the real figure could be much higher, the WHO said.
With the rising death toll in Latin America and in Asia as new variants spread, the death toll “would truly be two to three times higher,” said Samira Asma, WHO’s Assistant Director-General in its data and analytics division.
EU
The second shot of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford must not be given to anyone who has had blood clots with low blood platelets after receiving the first, Europe's medicines regulator said on Friday.
The advice for healthcare professionals was provided by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) as part of an ongoing review into rare, but severe blood clots possibly linked to inoculation after the shot and also to Johnson & Johnson's coronavirus vaccine.
The EMA has been looking into such clots in the abdomen and brain since March and has recommended that both vaccine labels carry a warning on the clotting issues while maintaining that the overall benefits outweighed any risks.
Both the AstraZeneca and J&J vaccine use different versions of a cold virus to deliver instructions for making coronavirus proteins into cells to produce an immune response.
Pfizer and BionTech
Pfizer and BionTech pledged on Friday to deliver 1 billion doses of their COVID-19 vaccine to poorer nations this year and another 1 billion next year, the boss of Pfizer said.
“Pfizer and BioNTech are pledging to provide 2 billion doses of our COVID-19 vaccines to middle- and low-income countries over the next 18 months,” Albert Bourla told a global health summit.
UK
The number of UK cases of a worrying coronavirus variant from India more than doubled for a second week as authorities also monitor a new mutation of the virus, adding fresh doubt to UK plans to fully unlock the economy.
Health officials have now detected 3,424 cases of the B1.617.2 variant first identified in India, Public Health England (PHE) said Thursday in a statement. That’s up from 1,313 last week, and 520 a week earlier. They’re also investigating a separate variant with an “unusual mutation profile”, with 49 cases logged so far — mainly in Yorkshire, northeast England.
Scientists at PHE say there is currently no evidence to suggest vaccines will be less effective in protecting people against severe illness from the India variant, but believe it could be more transmissible than the fast-spreading Kent variant that led to the country’s third lockdown in January.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said last week that he was “anxious” about the India variant, also known as VOC-21APR-02, and warned that it could affect the country’s plans to reopen the remaining bits of the economy from lockdown on June 21.
Those concerns prompted authorities to alter the country’s vaccination program, shortening the interval between doses. And even though stage 3 of the government’s reopening plan went ahead Monday, the fast spread of the new variant remain a cause for concern.
Meanwhile, Britain will work with the World Health Organization (WHO) to develop a “pandemic radar” system to identify new coronavirus variants quickly and track emerging diseases globally to ensure the world is never “caught unawares again”.
Johnson announced the plan for a new “Global Pandemic Radar” ahead of a G20 Global Health summit on Friday in Rome, where he will speak.
He is using Britain’s presidency of the G7 to highlight the need to be prepared for future pandemics, launching an expert group to examine how the development of vaccines against future diseases can be expedited.
Hungary
Hungary will lift most remaining COVID-19 curbs, including a night-time curfew, as soon as the number of those vaccinated reaches 5 million this weekend, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday.
Orban told state radio that masks would no longer need to be worn in public, and gatherings of up to 500 people could be held in the open air, with events in closed spaces open to though to people with vaccination cards.
"This means we have defeated the third wave of the pandemic," Orban said, adding that the time has come to say "goodbye to masks" in public places.
Hungary is the only EU country to have approved and used Russian and Chinese vaccines in large quantities before the European Medicines Agency has examined or approved them.
This has enabled it to reach one of the EU's highest inoculation rates, with 50% of its population of around 10 million having already had at least one shot.
Spain
Spain will allow travelers from Britain and Japan into the country without a negative PCR test for COVID-19 from May 24, according to an order published in the state gazette on Friday.
UK restrictions still require travelers returning to Britain from Spain to isolate upon arrival.
Meanwhile, Spain will allow people from non-EU countries who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 enter the country from June 7, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Friday.
The new rule will apply to travellers from the United States, Sanchez pointed out.
The country is working with the European Commission to extend the European Union COVID-19 travel card outside the bloc, Spanish Health Minister Carolina Darias said on Friday.
A pilot project trialling theue pass will soon be widened to test with airport operator AENA and other partners, she added.
Global tally
Coronavirus cases worldwide surpassed 165.58 million while the global death toll topped 3.43 million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Argentina
Argentina will tighten pandemic lockdown measures to combat a severe second COVID-19 wave, President Alberto Fernandez said on Thursday, underscoring concern as daily cases and deaths have broken records over the last week.
The strict "circuit-breaker" measures will come into force on Saturday and last until May 31. They include school and non-essential commerce closures and the banning of social, religious and sporting events in the nation of 45 million people.
Citizens who are not classed as essential workers will be allowed to be out close to their homes between 6 am and 6 pm; otherwise, they must stay at home.
The restrictions come as the government accelerates a vaccination campaign that has lagged ambitious initial plans. So far, only 4.7 percent of the population has been fully inoculated and 18.4 percent has received at least one dose, according to a Reuters analysis.
Argentina posted 35,884 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday after hitting a record high 39,652 on Wednesday. Total infections number some 3.45 million, which puts the country ahead of hard-hit Brazil on a per capita basis and has pushed hospital intensive care units to near-saturation. There have been 72,699 confirmed deaths.
Germany
Germany’s Health Minister Jens Spahn said the third virus wave “has been broken” amid accelerating vaccinations. The country’s seven-day incidence rate has been steadily falling and was at 67.3 per 100,000 people on Friday.
Europe’s biggest economy is reopening outdoor dining and is easing restrictions on non-essential stores. Lothar Wieler, head of the Robert Koch Institute public-health agency, said the willingness of Germans to get vaccinated was very high. Still, he warned that infections could jump back up quickly if restrictions were relaxed too soon.
ALSO READ: Virus: Brazil sees over 1,000 more deaths, cases top 1.8m
South Africa
South Africa has capabilities in research and development, clinical trials as well as infrastructure to develop and manufacture vaccines but more needs to be done in investment and other areas, said a government official on Thursday.
Director for Health Innovation at the Department of Science and Technology Glaudina Loots made the remarks at a webinar to unpack South Africa's readiness to develop and manufacture vaccines at large scale.
She stated that they are negotiating with some international organizations to help the government with investment as well as in discussion with various companies for technical transfer to South Africans to address skills shortage.
Morena Makhoana, CEO of the Cape Town-based Biovac Institute (Biovac), concurred that the country has strength in some areas like infrastructure but needs improvement in others such as large-scale capacity.
Makhoana said the country has to improve on good manufacturing practice, technical transfer and address the intellectual property regulations. There is also a need for improvement in skills and infrastructure.
Passengers queue up at the passport control area of Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport in Roissy, near Paris, on April 25, 2021. (IAN LANGSDON / POOL / AFP)
European Union
The European Union intends to donate at least 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to poorer nations by the end of this year, the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday.
Europe "aims at donating at least 100 million doses to low-and middle-income countries by the end 2021", von der Leyen said kicking off a global health summit in Rome meant to coordinate the world's fight against the pandemic.
Meanwhile, the bloc reached a deal on Thursday on COVID-19 certificates designed to open up tourism across the 27-nation bloc this summer as a rapid pick-up of vaccinations allows widespread easing of coronavirus restrictions.
European Parliament lawmakers and current EU president Portugal representing member states sealed the agreement after a fourth round of negotiations on Thursday afternoon.
The free certificate will take the form of a QR code on a smartphone or paper, letting authorities determine the status of a visitor based on records in their home EU country. The certificate would show if a person had received a vaccine, had a recent negative test or had immunity based on recovery.
EU countries agreed to refrain from imposing additional restrictions, such as testing or quarantines, unless considered necessary on public health grounds, such as because of the rise of a new coronavirus variant.
The agreement between the institutions should allow the European Parliament to pass a law in the week from June 7 and for more than a dozen EU countries, including France and Spain, to test the system before a launch on July 1.
EU countries would allow in people inoculated with EU-authorised vaccines and could choose to accept other vaccines. The scheme also covers non-EU members of the border-free Schengen zone – Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.
BioNTech
BioNTech SE said on Thursday the COVID-19 vaccine it developed with Pfizer should be roughly as effective against the new coronavirus variant first detected in India as it has been shown to be against the South African variant.
The company said in a statement Chief Executive Ugur Sahin felt encouraged by recent findings in a scientific paper here based on blood analysis of vaccinated individuals, which showed that the antibodies elicited by the vaccine were able to neutralise the Indian variant.
Since the blood tests on the variant that was first detected in South Africa had shown similar results, promising real-world data on the vaccine’s effectiveness against the South African variant of about 75 percent led him to believe that its actual effectiveness against the Indian variant “might be in the same range”.
“So far we’ve had the chance to test our vaccine against more than 30 variants of the virus. It has proven effective against mutations so far,” Sahin said earlier, speaking on Turkish television.
Since the concerning COVID-19 variant, known as B.1.617.2, was first identified in India, it has ravaged that country and spread to at least 26 nations out of the 53 in the World Health Organization’s (WHO) European Region, the organization said.
The WHO’s regional director said on Thursday COVID-19 vaccines being deployed in Europe, including the Pfizer/BioNTech shot, appear able to protect against circulating virus variants that have caused concern because they are more easily transmitted.
France
Pressure on French hospitals eased further on Thursday as the number of people in intensive care with COVID-19 fell by 93 to 3,769 while the overall number of patients eased by nearly 600 to 20,750.
The number of new deaths from COVID-19 in hospitals fell to 133 from 153 on Wednesday, bringing total deaths to 81,966.
Health Ministry data also showed that the number of new COVID-19 cases had been revised down on Thursday because some people had earlier been counted twice.
As a result, Thursday’s data showed an unusual decline of 348,846 in new cases over 24 hours, bringing the total tally since the start of the epidemic to 5.68 million cases.
Meanwhile, all adults in France will be eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccines starting from May 31, two weeks earlier than an initial schedule for June 15, French Prime Minister Jean Castex said Thursday.
"Health indicators continue to improve. The incidence rate and the number of patients in intensive care continue to decrease. In order to consolidate this improvement even more, it's necessary to vaccinate…We need to have the highest possible vaccination rate and it is within our reach," he said.
More than 22 million people in France have got a first injection, or 42 percent of the adult population. Some 9.42 million people have received both shots, meaning that 17.9 percent of those aged over 18 have completed their inoculation, data from Health Ministry showed.
Mexico
Nearly 1.2 million doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 shot arrived in Mexico from the United States on Thursday, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said.
The batch arrived after US President Joe Biden said this week he planned to send 60 million AstraZeneca shots to other countries. The United States sent 2.7 million doses of the same vaccine to its southern neighbor in March and a smaller amount to Canada.
However, it was not immediately clear if the batch originated in the United States or had been manufactured elsewhere. One senior Mexican government source said the doses were not part of an agreement with Washington.
East Africa
The regional business apex lobby, East African Business Council (EABC), on Thursday called for the establishment of a 108 billion shillings (US$1 billion) regional food reserve in order to boost food security in the region amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dennis Karera, vice chairman of EABC, told a virtual meeting that the containment measures put in place to curb the spread of the pandemic have undermined the performance of the agricultural sector, thereby pushing a multitude of agricultural households into poverty.
Karera observed that the East African Community (EAC) food reserve will help to ensure a coordinated regional response in times of crisis and get food where it is needed more quickly across borders.
The EAC member states include Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda and South Sudan.
Hungary
Hungary's total number of confirmed coronavirus cases topped 800,000 on Thursday, but life is slowly returning to normal with the number of new infections markedly decreasing.
Gergely Gulyas, head of the Prime Minister's Office, said that Hungary had enough vaccines in stock to be able to inoculate the population a third time if needed. For this reason, the country will not join the European Union's (EU) next common vaccine acquisition project.
Gulyas said that by the upcoming weekend Hungary will have vaccinated five million people, a threshold enabling the further easing of restrictions.
Cuba
Cuba reported on Thursday 1,252 new COVID-19 infections and six more deaths in one day, for a total of 129,346 cases and 840 deaths, the Ministry of Public Health said.
The capital Havana registered 702 new cases in the last day, with an incidence rate of 449.6 per 100,000 inhabitants, continuing to be the epicenter of the pandemic on the island.
ALSO READ: France eases virus restrictions on international travelers
Bolivia
Bolivia's immunization drive against COVID-19 is being hit by anti-vaccine misinformation that is stoking scepticism and leaving inoculation centers half empty, a challenge for the government facing a wave of new infections.
Health workers and officials have raised concerns about low turnout at some vaccination sites, saying jabs are going to waste. They blame fake news campaigns that have included leaflets saying vaccines contain "satanic" material.
The region has also struggled with a scarcity of vaccines, though Bolivia has started to see more doses flow in after deals for Russia's Sputnik V, China's Sinopharm and with India's Serum Institute for AstraZeneca shots.
However, many vaccines centers in major cities have continued to face low turnout, with empty sites and queues.
Health worker Patricia Almanza said that organization around the vaccine campaign had been poor, which had not helped encourage people to come to get their shots.
Morocco
Morocco’s nightly curfew, which has been in force for much of the last 13 months, will be eased on Friday after new cases declined, the government said in a statement.
Cafes, bars and restaurants will be allowed to say open an extra three hours until 11 pm, according to a cabinet statement on the MAP newswire.
Brazil
Brazil on Thursday reported 2,403 more deaths from COVID-19, raising the national death toll to 444,094, the Ministry of Health said.
A total of 82,039 more infections were detected, raising the nationwide tally to 15,894,094, the ministry said.
Norway
Norway will take the next major step in unwinding restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic on May 27, allowing larger groups of people to meet and the public serving of alcohol until midnight, Prime Minister Erna Solberg said on Friday.
The government last month said the second phase of a four-step plan to unwind the lockdown would likely begin in late May.
Local restrictions will however in some places remain tougher than the national rules to prevent regional flare-ups of the virus.
The country has had some of Europe’s lowest rates of infections and deaths since the start of the pandemic, but tightened measures after a rapid increase in hospitalisations in March triggered by more contagious variants of the coronavirus.
Since then, rates of new infections have declined steadily, raising hopes that the third wave of infections has been brought under control.
Russia
Russia reported 8,937 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, including 2,954 in Moscow, taking the official national tally since the pandemic began to 4,983,845.
The government coronavirus task force said 389 people had died of coronavirus-linked causes in the past 24 hours, pushing the national death toll to 117,739.
The federal statistics agency has kept a separate count and has said Russia recorded around 250,000 deaths related to COVID-19 from April 2020 to March 2021.
