Coronavirus pandemic - World News

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South Korea tells people who attended Samsung memorial to get tested after coronavirus case emerges

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea said on Thursday it had alerted about 1,000 people who attended the memorial of the late Samsung Group patriarch Lee Kun-hee last week to get tested for the coronavirus after one person at the event tested positive.

A local journalist who had covered the memorial developed symptoms two days later and tested positive on Monday, health authorities said. At least six new coronavirus cases, including two colleagues and two family members had been linked to the journalist, the authorities said.

Kwak Jin, an official at the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), told a briefing that no cases had yet been directly linked to the funeral home at the Samsung Medical Center, including that of the journalist, who wore a mask during the event.

Visitors to the event included many high-profile business leaders, politicians and senior presidential aides.

Some of the visitors who had already tested negative for the virus after the memorial included a deputy national security advisor Kim Hyun-chong and the Jeju governor Won Hee-ryong, according to the presidential Blue House and the Jeju city.

South Korea has used aggressive testing and contact tracing in a bid to contain the virus and was lauded as a success story in the beginning of the pandemic, but has been fighting daily cases that have hovered around 100 over the past week.

People attended the memorial over four days to pay their respects in an area capped for 50 people, while visitors also wore masks as required in public places to control the spread of COVID-19.

South Korea reported 125 new coronavirus cases as of Wednesday midnight, bringing the total number of infections to 27,050, and the COVID-19 death toll to 475.

Source: https://ca.reuters.com/a.rticle/us-health-coronavirus-samsung-funeral-idCAKBN27L0ZB.

 

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Second wave of coronavirus infections picking up with a vengeance

TOKYO
If you felt hopefully optimistic that Japan would be largely spared from the second wave of coronavirus infections that's been setting new records in Europe and North America, then look again.

Shukan Bunshun (Nov 12) reports that in Hokkaido, for instance, over the month of October new highs for the number of people testing positive were exceeded almost daily.

A local journalist at prefectural headquarters tells the magazine, "Hokkaido's first peak came last April 23, with 45 people testing positive in a single day. From the end of May onwards, the number of new cases fell to less than 10 per day, but then from late September the second wave hit, and on October 23, a new high of 51 people was set."

More disturbing was a government estimate issued last July predicting that a daily maximum of 96 new cases would test positive by autumn. This was reached on Nov 2.

"But the government is saying, we have yet to reach the peak," says the aforesaid reporter.

"Hokkaido is leaning toward issuing an advisory to refrain from two-way travel between other prefectures," a government source is quoted as saying.

Being the farthest north, Hokkaido is the first part of the country to encounter low temperatures with low humidity, conditions that enhance the spread of the coronavirus. In another month, wintry weather will cover the rest of the main islands, and this does not bode well for public health.

Actually, it's already beginning. Data from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare compared the number of cases tested positive, and occupancy ratio of available dedicated hospital beds earmarked for coronavirus patients, in Japan's 47 prefectures between end-September and end-October.

Leading the rise in infections was Aomori Prefecture, where cases rose from 36 to 227, an increase of 630.6%. This was followed by Okayama (182.2%); Miyagi (178.8%); Fukushima (153.4%); and Hokkaido (148.8%). Tokyo was ranked 13th, with 120.8%, and Osaka 14th, with 120.4%.

As far as hospital bed occupancy, Aomori was tops again, with 27.9% of available beds for COVID-19 cases occupied, a one-month increase of 27.3 points. Rounding out the top five in terms of rises in bed occupancy were Miyagi (21.2 points); Okinawa (19.2); Okayama (14.0) and Kumamoto (7.0). In Tokyo and Osaka, bed occupants actually declined between end-September and end-October, by minus 4.5 and minus 5.6, respectively.

Despite the obvious warning signs, the government has been blithely promoting its Go To Travel campaign to stimulate regional economies, and Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga appears to be pleased with the results.

Haruo Ozaki, president of the Tokyo Medical Association, believes it's possible that travelers from Tokyo to the provinces who eat out and enjoy local night life may be responsible for cluster infections. And these localities are poorly set up to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.

"At least in Tokyo there are some doctors with experience in treating the pandemic," says Ozaki. "But that's not the case for local areas. Nor are there enough physicians to go around. If over 100 cases were to flare up over a short period, treatment facilities would be stretched to the limit."

So what can a person do? Professor Shinichi Tanabe of Waseda advises that in addition to somehow keeping rooms ventilated, striking a happy medium between 40 to 70% humidity is advisable. Below 40% makes it easier for the virus to propagate; above 70% leads to water condensation on inner surfaces, enabling the growth of molds.

Professor Koichi Wada at the International University of Health and Welfare in Tochigi believes that a key factor in increase of new cases from this autumn is that restrictive measures initially put in place to deal with the first wave of the coronavirus have been allowed to slacken.

"Up to next March, if we are able to hold down the spread of the virus, things will become much brighter," Wada tells Shukan Bunshun. "The real battle will be making it through the winter."

Source: https://japantoday.com/category/fea...avirus-infections-picking-up-with-a-vengeance.

 

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Six countries reported coronavirus on mink farms, WHO says

(MENAFN - Gulf Times) Denmark and the United States are among six countries that have reported new coronavirus cases linked to mink farms, the World Health Organization said.

Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden are the other nations to have discovered SARS-CoV-2 in minks, WHO said in a statement.

Denmark has imposed strict measures on the north of the country after warning that a mutation of the virus had jumped from minks to humans and infected 12 people.

Copenhagen has warned the mutation could threaten the effectiveness of any future vaccine and has ordered the slaughter of all the estimated 15-17 million minks in the country.

Britain on Saturday banned entry to all non-resident foreigners coming from Denmark after the mutation linked to mink farms was found in humans.

Scientists say virus mutations are common and often harmless, and this one doesn't cause a more severe illness in humans.

But Danish health authorities have expressed concern this strain, known as ‘Cluster 5', is not inhibited by antibodies to the same degree as the normal virus, which they fear could threaten the efficacy of vaccines that are being developed across the globe.

‘Initial observations suggest that the clinical presentation, severity and transmission among those infected are similar to that of other circulating SARS-CoV-2 viruses,' the WHO statement said on Friday.

‘However, this variant... the 'cluster 5' variant, had a combination of mutations, or changes that have not been previously observed. The implications of the identified changes in this variant are not yet well understood,' WHO warned.

The UN agency said preliminary findings indicated this mink-associated variant has ‘moderately decreased sensitivity to neutralizing antibodies'.

WHO called for further studies to verify the preliminary findings and ‘to understand any potential implications of this finding in terms of diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines in development'.

‘Although the virus is believed to be ancestrally linked to bats, its origin and intermediate host(s) of SARS-CoV-2 have not yet been identified,' WHO noted.

Since June 2020, 214 human cases of Covid-19 have been identified in Denmark with SARS-CoV-2 variants associated with farmed minks, including 12 cases with a unique variant, reported on 5 November.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101088680/Six-countries-reported-coronavirus-on-mink-farms-WHO-says.

 

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Kids found to have antibodies that could protect against Covid

(MENAFN - IANS)

London, Nov 7 (IANS) Scientists have found that some people, notably children, have antibodies reactive to SARS-CoV-2 in their blood, despite not ever having being infected with the virus.

These antibodies are likely the result of exposure to other coronaviruses, which cause a common cold and which have structural similarities with SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for Covid-19, said the study published in the journal Science.

The researchers made this discovery while developing highly sensitive antibody tests for Covid-19.

To see how well their assay tests were performing, they compared the blood of patients with Covid-19 to patients who had not had the disease.

Surprisingly, they found that some people who had not been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 had antibodies in their blood which would recognise the virus.

To confirm their findings, they analysed over 300 blood samples collected before the pandemic, between 2011 and 2018.

Nearly all samples had antibodies that reacted with common cold coronaviruses, which was expected given how everyone has been exposed to these viruses at some point in their lives.

However, a small fraction of adult donors, about 1 in 20, also had antibodies that cross-reacted with SARS-CoV-2, and this was not dependent on recent infection with a common cold coronavirus.

Notably, such cross-reactive antibodies were found much more frequently in blood samples taken from children aged 6 to 16.

"Our results show that children are much more likely to have these cross-reactive antibodies than adults. More research is needed to understand why this is, but it could be down to children being more regularly exposed to other coronaviruses," said lead author of the study Kevin Ng from Francis Crick Institute in England.

"These higher levels we observed in children could also help explain why they are less likely to become severely ill with Covid-19. There is no evidence yet, however, that these antibodies prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection or spread."

In the lab, the researchers tested the antibodies they found in blood from uninfected people to confirm they are able to neutralise SARS-CoV-2.

They found the cross-reactive antibodies target the S2 subunit of the spike protein on the surface of the virus.

A large study is now underway, in partnership with researchers at Imperial College London and University College London, to uncover the role that different antibodies and other immune defences play in protection against Covid-19 and how severely ill people become.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101087914/Kids-found-to-have-antibodies-that-could-protect-against-Covid.

 

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Patients in many countries report HCQ shortages due to Covid-19

(MENAFN - IANS)

New York, Nov 7 (IANS) Patients with rheumatic diseases across Africa, Southeast Asia, the Americas and Europe had trouble filling their prescriptions of hydroxychloroquine, during the 2020 global coronavirus pandemic, when antimalarials were touted as a possible Covid-19 treatment, says a new study.

Antimalarial drugs are taken regularly by most people with lupus, as well as many with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and other rheumatic diseases.

In the early weeks of the global pandemic, two antimalarial drugs often used to treat lupus and RA, hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, were touted to potentially prevent or treat Covid-19 infections despite a lack of data to support this use, leading to worldwide shortages of both.

A team of international researchers launched this study to assess the effects of antimalarials on Covid-19 infection and the impact of drug shortages on people with rheumatic disease.

"Since hydroxychloroquine is an essential treatment for RA and lupus, reported drug shortages of antimalarials became a major concern," said the study's lead author, Emily Sirotich, a doctoral student at McMaster Centre for Transfusion Research in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

"The aims of this study were to assess the prevalence and impact of drug shortages during the Covid-19 pandemic, and whether the use of antimalarials in patients with rheumatic disease was associated with a lower risk of Covid-19 infection."

Patients who could not access their antimalarial drugs faced worse physical and mental health outcomes as a result, according to the research presented at ACR Convergence, the American College of Rheumatology's annual meeting being held online from Nov 5-9.

Data for the new study was collected using the Covid-19 Global Rheumatology Alliance Patient Experience Survey which was launched in April.

Of the 9,393 people who responded to the survey, 3,872 were taking antimalarial drugs and 230 said they were unable to continue taking their medications because of a lack of supply at their pharmacy.

Antimalarial shortages were worse for people in Africa and Southeast Asia: 26.7 per cent of respondents in Africa and 21.4 per cent of respondents in Southeast Asia reported inadequate supplies at local pharmacies.

Patients in the Americas (6.8 per cent) and Europe (2.1 per cent) also reported being unable to fill their prescriptions at their pharmacy due to lack of supply.

The study found that patients on antimalarials and those who did not take these drugs had similar rates of Covid-19 infection.

A total of 28 patients with Covid-19, who were also taking antimalarials, were hospitalised.

Of 519 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 in the survey, 68 reported that they were prescribed an antimalarial for their coronavirus infection.

Patients who could not fill their antimalarial prescriptions experienced higher levels of disease activity and also experienced worse mental and physical health symptoms, the study found.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101087288/Patients-in-many-countries-report-HCQ-shortages-due-to-Covid-19.

 

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(MENAFN - AzerNews) By Ayya Lmahamad

Azerbaijan registered 1,410 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, Operational Headquarters under Cabinet of Ministers reported on November 7.

Some 779 patients have recovered and 13 patients have died in the reported period.

So far, 63,748 COVID-19 cases have been registered in the country. Some 48,049 patients have recovered, 824 people have died. Currently, 14,875 people are under treatment in special hospitals.

Over the past day, 12,140 tests were conducted in Azerbaijan to reveal coronavirus cases.

In general, 1,429,508 tests have been conducted in Azerbaijan so far.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101088056/Country-registers-1410-new-COVID-19-cases&source=27.

 

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Global coronavirus cases exceed 50 million after 30-day spike

(Reuters) - Global coronavirus infections exceeded 50 million on Sunday, according to a Reuters tally, with a second wave of the virus in the past 30 days accounting for a quarter of the total.

October was the worst month for the pandemic so far, with the United States becoming the first country to report more than 100,000 daily cases. A surge in Europe contributed to the rise.

The latest seven-day average shows global daily infections are rising by more than 540,000.

More than 1.25 million people have died from the respiratory disease that emerged in China late last year.

The pandemic’s recent acceleration has been ferocious. It took 32 days for the number of cases to rise from 30 million to 40 million. It took just 21 days to add another 10 million.

Europe, with about 12 million cases, is the worst-affected region, overtaking Latin America. Europe accounts for 24% of COVID-19 deaths.

The region is logging about 1 million new infections every three days or so, according to a Reuters analysis. That is 51% of the global total.

France is recording 54,440 cases a day on the latest seven-day average, a higher rate than India with a far bigger population.

The global second wave is testing healthcare systems across Europe, prompting Germany, France and Britain to order many citizens back to their homes again.

Denmark, which imposed a new lockdown on its population in several northern areas, ordered the culling of its 17 million minks after a mutation of the coronavirus found in the animals spread to humans.

The United States, with about 20% of global cases, is facing its worst surge, recording more than 100,000 daily coronavirus cases on the latest seven-day average, Reuters data showed. It reported a record of more than 130,000 cases on Saturday.

The latest U.S. surge coincided with the last month of election campaigning in which President Donald Trump minimized the severity of the pandemic and his successful challenger, Joe Biden, urged a more science-based approach.

Trump’s rallies, some open-air and with few masks and little social distancing, led to 30,000 additional confirmed cases and likely led to more than 700 deaths, Stanford University economists estimated in a research paper.

In Asia, India has the world’s second-highest caseload but has seen a steady slowdown since September, despite the start of the Hindu festival season. Total cases exceeded 8.5 million cases on Friday and the daily average is 46,200, according to Reuters data.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...d-50-million-after-30-day-spike-idUSKBN27O0IM

 

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Canada's COVID-19 cases surpass 260,000 level

(MENAFN - Trend News Agency) Canada reported a total of 264,045 cases of COVID-19 and 10,522 deaths as of Sunday afternoon, according to CTV, Trend reports citing Xinhua .

There have been more than 100,000 new cases of COVID-19 and over 1,000 more deaths in the country since Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in late September that Canada was at a "crossroads" in the COVID-19 pandemic.

The percentage of COVID-19 tests across the country that have come back positive has grown by more than 235 percent, from 1.4 percent in mid-September to 4.7 percent in the past week.

On Sunday, Quebec announced 1,397 more cases of COVID-19, the largest reported daily increase in the province since the COVID-19 pandemic. The total number of cases in the province rose to 114,820 on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Ontario confirmed 1,328 new cases after a record-breaking day on Saturday with 1,132 new infections reported in the province.

Sunday's report brought Ontario's total number of lab-confirmed cases to 84,153, including deaths and recoveries. Its seven-day average for the number of cases continued going up and stood at 1,063.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101091833/Canadas-COVID-19-cases-surpass-260000-level.

 

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Covid-19 science taskforce rejects accusations of alarmism

(MENAFN - Swissinfo) The Covid-19 science taskforce has said it stands by estimates that Switzerland's intensive care units could reach capacity if new Covid-19 infections don't drop dramatically in the next few weeks.

This content was published on November 8, 2020 - 14:49 November 8, 2020 - 14:49 Tages-Anzeiger/jdp
In an interview in the Sonntagszeitung, Sebastian Bonhoeffer, a member of the National Covid-19 Science Taskforce, said that the forecasts were not alarmist overestimates. 'If you add 100 or 200 beds to the bed capacity, it will only take a few days longer for the hospitals to reach their limits,' he said.

On October 23, Martin Ackermann, who heads the Covid-19 science taskforce, said they estimated that the capacity limit in intensive care in hospitals would be reached between end of October and November 9 if the situation didn't improve. At the time, Switzerland reported 6,634 new cases.

Bonhoeffer explains that 'the forecasts of October 23 were based on the assumption that non-emergency interventions would not be postponed'. As some hospitals have rescheduled procedures, the doubling time slowed from 7 to 8.6 days. In response to changes, the taskforce adjusted the forecasts and declared last Friday that the upper limit of 1,400 beds would be reached by November 13 to 19 if nothing is done to bring down the cases.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101091266/Covid-19-science-taskforce-rejects-accusations-of-alarmism.

 

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Azerbaijan reports 859 new COVID-19 recoveries

(MENAFN - AzerNews) By Trend:

Azerbaijan has detected 1,663 new COVID-19 cases, 859 patients have recovered and 16 patients have died, Trend reports citing the Operational Headquarters under Azerbaijani Cabinet of Ministers.

Up until now, 65,411 people have been infected with coronavirus in the country, 48,908 of them have recovered, and 840 people have died. Currently, 15,663 people are under treatment in special hospitals.

To reveal the COVID-19 cases, 11,722 tests have been carried out in Azerbaijan over the past day, and a total of 1,441,230 tests have been conducted so far.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101091520/Azerbaijan-reports-859-new-COVID-19-recoveries.

 

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Kyrgyzstan reports 515 new COVID-19 cases

(MENAFN - Trend News Agency) Kyrgyzstan reported on Sunday 515 new COVID-19 cases, raising the tally of infections to 62,819, Trend reports citing Kabar .

The Republican Headquarters for Combating COVID-19 said that 546 COVID-19 patients recovered from the virus over the past day. In total, 53,952 patients have recovered since the pandemic.

The headquarters also said that 7 medical workers tested positive over the past day, bringing the total number of contracted medical workers to 3,647.

Five new deaths are reported over the last 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 1,177.

Currently, 3,409 patients are receiving treatment in hospitals throughout the country and 3,634 patients - at home.

2,402 PCR tests were conducted in the country in the last 24 hours.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101091506/Kyrgyzstan-reports-515-new-COVID-19-cases.

 

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COVID-19 cases in Argentina surpass 1,230,000

(MENAFN - Trend News Agency) Argentina on Saturday reported 8,037 COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, taking the national count to 1,236,851, said the country's health ministry, Trend reports citing Xinhua .

The ministry said that 213 more patients died from the disease, bringing the nationwide death toll to 33,348.

A total of 1,053,313 people have recovered from the disease so far nationwide, according to the ministry.

The Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires will end Preventive and Obligatory Social Isolation, which has been in effect since March 20, and will enter Preventive and Obligatory Social Distancing this month.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101091730/COVID-19-cases-in-Argentina-surpass-1230000.

 

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Hospitals struggling amid Covid spike in Stockholm

(MENAFN - Gulf Times) Hospitals in the Swedish capital are struggling to cope with a surge in new cases of Covid-19 after seeing an increase of around 75 patients requiring hospital care since the end of last week, the local authority said yesterday.
The Covid-19 respiratory disease is caused by the coronavirus.
The number of new cases has surged across the Nordic nation in recent weeks, rising past peaks hit during the spring, although a huge increase in testing since the pandemic struck early in the year makes comparisons difficult.
Sweden's biggest region, Stockholm, is again among the areas hardest hit by infections and hospitalisations after a spring and early summer when it accounted for well over a third of the country's more than 6,000 dead in the pandemic.
'We can see today a large increase in the number of patients who have become so ill with Covid-19 that they need to be treated in hospital, Bjorn Eriksson, the director of healthcare for the region of Stockholm, said in a statement. 'The pressure on our front-line hospitals is significant.
There were 349 Covid-19 patients being treated in Stockholm hospitals and geriatric wards yesterday, up from 273 on Friday, the region said.
Other areas, centred around cities such as Gothenburg and Malmo, have also seen hospitalisations mount.
The percentage of tests coming back positive has also climbed in a country that gained international attention for a strategy that rejected lockdowns and still mainly relies on voluntary social distancing recommendations.
In Stockholm, 20.3% of the about 42,000 people tested last week were shown to be infected, up from 16.3% in the previous week and 8.4% in the week before that, a spokeswoman for the region's Karolinska University Hospital said.
Sweden registered 4,697 new coronavirus cases on Friday, the latest in a string of new record daily increases.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and two top presidential and government officials have tested positive for the coronavirus, presidential and government offices said yesterday.
'The head of state is feeling well and will continue to perform his duties remotely in self-isolation, Zelenskiy's office said in a statement.
Zelenskiy's wife, Olena, contracted Covid-19 in June and spent several weeks in a hospital.
Minutes after Zelenskiy's announcement, Andriy Yermak, head of the presidential office, said on Facebook that he had also tested positive for the virus.
Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko has been diagnosed with Covid-19 as well and will work remotely, his ministry said.
Yesterday Italy's government ramped up coronavirus restrictions in Tuscany and four other regions, a health ministry source said, in a new attempt to rein in the second wave of the epidemic.
The government issued a decree last week which toughens up national curbs and divides the country into three zones according to the intensity of their outbreaks.
The peak of the coronavirus pandemic in France is still to come, its top health official Jerome Salomon said yesterday, urging the population to remain vigilant.
French cities that were put under curfew in October were however starting to see a lesser spread of the respiratory disease, he added.
'We are at a crucial moment, Salomon told a news conference.
The government imposed a new lockdown on October 30 to rein in a surge in new cases although the restrictions were softer than in March to limit the impact on the eurozone's second-biggest economy.
Spain's coronavirus death toll meanwhile rose to 39,345 yesterday, an increase of 512 compared with Friday, according to health ministry data.
However, the number of deaths during the past seven days was slightly down at 1,054 yesterday compared with Friday's 1,088.
The total cumulative number of cases rose to 1,381,218 yesterday from 1,328,832 on Friday.
Germany's Duesseldorf city was forced yesterday to lift an order for residents to wear masks against the coronavirus, after a citizen successfully sued against the blanket rule.
The setback for the western city came as Germany is fighting a surging second wave of Covid-19, with new daily cases reaching record levels almost every other day.
Duesseldorf authorities on Wednesday ordered masks in public across the city, with the exception of parks and cemeteries, unless the possibility of encountering other people who are fewer than 5m away can be precluded.
In its ruling, the court called Duesseldorf's order confusing because it did not provide clarity on 'which conduct is required while at the same time threatening a fine in case of non-compliance.
City authorities said they would re-examine the wording of their mask order following the ruling.
Russia reported a record high of 21,798 new coronavirus infections yesterday as the authorities called for stricter measures to contain the virus in certain regions.
'It is necessary to strengthen restrictions and control over their implementation in the regions where the daily case load and the infection is spreading at rates significantly higher than the average Russian levels, Anna Popova, head of Russia's consumer health watchdog, told Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin at a televised meeting with government officials.
She said the regions where restrictions should be increased include the Far Eastern Magadan and Sakhalin regions, as well as the Arkhangelsk and Ulyanovsk regions, among others.
The number of new coronavirus cases registered in the Netherlands fell sharply yesterday, continuing a decline that began in early November after entering a second near-lockdown on October 13.
There were 4,680 new cases reported yesterday, according to official data from the National Institute for Health (RIVM), compared to 5,664 on Sunday and less than half the all-time high of 11,119 registered on October 30.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101098659/Hospitals-struggling-amid-Covid-spike-in-Stockholm.

 

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Ontario To Ease Covid-19 Restrictions Starting On November 14

(MENAFN - Baystreet.ca) Ontario, Canada's most populous province, will ease its Covid-19 measures on November 14 and allow a number of businesses, including indoor dining and gymnasiums, to reopen in cities that have been hardest hit by the virus such as Toronto and Ottawa.
The easing by the government of Ontario Premier Doug Ford is part of a reopening framework unveiled and comes as Covid-19 case counts rise in the province. But recent modeling out of Ontario suggests the surge will not overwhelm hospital capacity as it did this past spring. Ontario prohibited indoor dining and closed fitness facilities on October 10 for a 28-day period.
Going forward, Ontario will use metrics including weekly case counts per 100,000 people, capacity of hospitals and contact tracing systems to evaluate whether to move a region in the province from one restriction stage to the next.
Several regions of Ontario, including the national capital of Ottawa, will ease restrictions on November 14, Ford said, as long as the province's public health experts agree and approve. The new measures will limit but not ban the number of people permitted at indoor dining, fitness facilities, casinos and movie theaters.
Canada's seven-day rolling average of new cases now exceeds 2,900, federal Chief Medical Officer Theresa Tam said at a news conference in Ottawa. Tam also recommended that people wear three-layer non-medical masks, with a middle filter layer, to help prevent the spread of Covid-19.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said people needed to act now to tamp down the spread of a second wave of Covid-19 before it gets out of hand.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101095294/Ontario-To-Ease-Covid-19-Restrictions-Starting-On-November-14.

 

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Russia hits record COVID-19 single-day cases

(MENAFN - IANS)

Moscow, Nov 10 (IANS) Russia registered 21,798 COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, a new record of daily increase, as the pandemic worsens in the cold season, the country's COVID-19 response center said.

Daily infections in Russia have been over 20,000 for four consecutive days, according to data provided by the center on Monday, Xinhua news agency reported.

The national tally of cases has grown to 1,796,132, including 30,793 deaths and 1,335,141 recoveries, the center said in a statement.

The capital Moscow reported a new single-day record of 6,897 COVID-19 cases, bringing the city's total to 475,166.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101098054/Russia-hits-record-COVID-19-single-day-cases&source=30.

 

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Turkey reports 2,576 new COVID-19 patients, 396,831 in total

(MENAFN - Trend News Agency) Turkey's daily COVID-19 patients increased by 2,576 on Monday, raising the total number in the country to 396,831, the Turkish Health Ministry announced, Trend reports citing Xinhua.

Meanwhile, 85 people died in the past 24 hours, taking the death toll to 10,972.

A total of 2,047 patients recovered in the last 24 hours, raising the total recoveries to 340,286 in Turkey since the outbreak.

The rate of pneumonia in COVID-19 patients is 4.2 percent and the number of seriously ill patients is 2,867.

Turkey reported the first COVID-19 case on March 11.

Turkey and China have supported each other in the fight against COVID-19. Chinese doctors and medical experts held video conferences with Turkish counterparts to share China's experience in treating coronavirus patients, protecting medical workers, and controlling the spread of the virus.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101099853/Turkey-reports-2576-new-COVID-19-patients-396831-in-total&source=30.

 

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France's new COVID-19 deaths up 472 in 24 hours: BFM TV

PARIS (Reuters) - The number of people in France who have died from COVID-19 infections rose by 472 over 24 hours, versus 551 on Monday, BFM TV said on Tuesday, citing data from Sante Publique France.

Some 31,477 people are now hospitalised with a COVID-19 disease in France, including 3,168 over 24 hours, it said.

Sante Publique France could not be immediately reached to confirm the figures.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...eaths-up-472-in-24-hours-bfm-tv-idUSKBN27Q35G

 

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Why has Belgium been so badly affected by Covid-19?

The country, which has the highest coronavirus death rate in the world, has suffered from a lack of trust and coordination between different regions and cultures.

Much like the UK, Belgium has seen a new national lockdown replace a confusing and uncoordinated localised response to rising Covid-19 cases.

The home of EU institutions has been hit hard by both waves of coronavirus. In the spring, the country had the highest Covid-19 death rate in the world. Now, with a rate of 1,443 cases per 100,000 people over the past 14 days, it has the highest rate of infections in Europe. Hospitals are being overwhelmed, admitting 680 coronavirus patients each day, and, on Monday 2 November, non-essential shops and businesses were shuttered again.

“We’ve lost control,” the Belgian health minister Frank Vandenbroucke warned last month, predicting a “tsunami” of infections.

There are some obvious reasons why Belgium has been so badly affected: it is one of Europe’s most densely populated countries and is a crossroad of cultures at the centre of the EU.

But this doesn’t entirely explain the problem. The neighbouring Netherlands, also densely populated, was lightly affected earlier in the year, though it is experiencing a more severe second wave. Instead, another reason the county has struggled to keep the virus under control is a phenomenon that’s affected the whole of the EU during the virus crisis: a lack of trust and coordination between different regions and cultures.

Regional splits
Belgium, often called “a country in name only”, has been steadily federalised over the last 60 years, split into three regions: Dutch-speaking Flanders, French-speaking Wallonia and theoretically bilingual – but mostly Francophone – Brussels. In the first wave, the wealthier Flanders region was the hardest hit of the three, with deaths in care homes particularly high. Now, it is Francophone Wallonia and Brussels that are suffering most.

As the federal government refused to increase restrictions in September, despite rapidly rising cases, the minister-president of the Brussels region decided to take matters into his own hands. Bars were closed and gatherings were restricted in the capital. Wallonia followed suit. But in Flanders, which surrounds Brussels and is where many of the city’s workers live, things remained open.

Eventually measures had to be harmonised, and the federal government announced a full national lockdown on 30 October, one similar to the shutdown imposed from March to May. But regional differences remain. Brussels has a curfew from 10pm to 6am, for instance, yet in Flanders, the curfew is from midnight to 5am.

The timeline of a regional approach replaced by a national lockdown has been familiar through both waves of the pandemic, says Sascha Marschang, the director-general of the European Public Health Alliance. It has been witnessed in Germany, France and Spain, he says, adding: “We had to learn again that more localised situations weren’t working.”

The same formula was applied in the very first days of the pandemic, when Italy first tried to contain its northern regions, only to quickly extend the restrictions to the whole country after an exodus from north to south. A similar pattern is now playing out in the UK.

[See also: Why are we locking down again? Because England didn’t learn from Europe’s mistakes]

Aside from the confusion, it is simply difficult for people to see themselves locked down while their neighbours are not, says Marschang. This applies not just within countries, but also among them. “The differences between regions and countries have made people uncomfortable; to see that they’re locked down, but in Sweden people are free to sit out on a patio somewhere.”

Where Belgium has perhaps helped itself, however, has been in the quality of its national-level communications. During the summer, while policy decisions wer left to the regions, Belgium’s caretaker prime minister Sophie Wilmès became the communicator-in-chief. “How Covid is communicated is as important as the measures that are taken,” says Marschang, who thinks the nation has fared better than its neighbours in this respect. “It was neither hype-based like in the UK, or trying to play it down like in other countries.”

Hospital fears
Belgium’s lockdown, scheduled to last until 13 December, is very similar to that of England. The big difference is that Belgian schools are closed, though this has been achieved by extending school holidays. It’s the result of a classic “compromis à la Belge”, in which the Flemish wanted to emulate the Netherlands’ softer approach and the Walloons wanted to emulate France, where people are required to carry permission slips when making trips outside.

The fear for a tiny country such as Belgium, however, is that the country’s hospitals will become overwhelmed. Unlike in larger nations, Belgium does not have much flexibility to transfer patients around, says Marschang. Its 2,000 ICU available beds is a relatively large amount for a country of 12 million – but more than half of those are now occupied, and some hospitals are at breaking point. Often patients do not want to be transferred to a part of the country where they cannot speak the language.

Philippe Devos, the president of the Belgian Association of Medical Unions, has said the situation in Liège, in Wallonia, is “catastrophic”. He told the Belgian broadcaster RTBF last week that between a fifth and a quarter of medical staff are currently sick or in quarantine. Meanwhile, hospital staff across the country have been protesting about the extreme conditions they are working in.

[See also: Postcards from Planet Covid]

The European Commission has proposed a data-sharing system through which patients could be more easily transferred to different hospitals in other EU countries based on current capacity. But cooperation between EU member states during this pandemic has been slow-going. The lack of coordination between Belgium’s regions has, in this way, made the country a microcosm of the situation in the EU as a whole. Though the Commission has tried to coordinate, it has limited power to do so in the area of health policy, which is made at national level.

“Up until now, EU member states have not been prepared to take joint decisions on health,” says Marschang. But this is being revised. “We don’t need to all shut down at the same time," he says, explaining that there could be a nuanced system in which a nation will have to enter a certain lockdown phase depending on the conditions in the country. He adds: “But you have to apply the same system to determine that in every country.”

Source: https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/2020/11/why-has-belgium-been-so-badly-affected-covid-19.

 

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Japan suicides rise as economic impact of coronavirus hits home

TOKYO (Reuters) - The number of suicides in Japan rose in October for the fourth month in a row to the highest level in more than five years, data showed on Tuesday, a trend activists have blamed on the economic impact of the coronavirus, on women in particular.

According to preliminary police data, the total number of suicides for October was 2,153, an increase of more than 300 from the previous month and the highest monthly tally since May 2015.

Of October's cases, 851 were women, a rise of 82.6% over the same month in 2019. The number of suicides by men rose 21.3%.

Cases of suicide had been falling steadily until July but then the economic impact of the novel coronavirus outbreak hit home and the numbers started rising, activists say.

Women, who are more likely to be in non-permanent employment in the retail or service industries, have been disproportionately affected by job losses.

Through the ages in Japan, suicide has been a way to avoid shame or dishonour.

For many years getting psychological help was stigmatized and Japan has the grim distinction of the highest suicide rate among G7 countries.

But when suicides hit a peak of 34,427 in 2003, alarmed policymakers drew up a comprehensive prevention programme launched in 2007.

Through a combination of government and corporate efforts that included identifying at-risk groups, capping overtime and making it easier to get counselling, suicides decreased to just over 20,000 last year.

Source: https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/news/...nomic-impact-of-coronavirus-hits-home-518722/.

 

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Covid: 'It's a relief for us to talk about money'

Living semi-independently, but in care, and on a small weekly allowance, Tekisha Henry learnt how to budget.

She had never felt she could talk about money.

"Young people are often in competition with each other," she said.

"You do not feel confident enough to say you don't have enough. There is a stigma attached to that."

Now aged 19 and in her own social housing flat, she speaks at workshops for young people leaving care. She tells them that young people boasting about spending on social media may be a facade, and - like her - they can learn about, and discuss, financial literacy.

"They can relate. We are not taught to be open about money. It is a relief for them when we do," she said.

Newly published research suggests that 18 to 24-year-olds are the most likely to feel uncomfortable talking about their finances with family and friends.

They are also among the hardest hit financially by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

Around 71% of them worried about money once a week, according to a survey of more than 5,000 people by the Money and Pensions Service - a government-backed guidance body.

Yet, 37% of them felt uncomfortable talking to their loved ones about their money situation. Some 46% wished they could open up but reported feelings of shame as their biggest reason for avoiding doing so.

People with a black and minority ethnic background also reported Covid-linked money worries. Nearly half (45%) said they were worried compared with the national average of one in three (35%).

Four in 10 wished they could be more comfortable talking to friends and family about their finances. This follows a research by the City regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which found those from a black and minority ethnic background were more likely to have taken an income hit during the pandemic.

Your money secrets
The survey also suggested that four in 10 people are keeping "money secrets" from their loved ones.

Two people, who do not want to give their names, told the BBC about how this had affected their relationships.

"My wife and I got our salaries paid into our personal bank accounts. I wasn't honest or transparent with how much I was paid. Over the years I saved money in premium bonds and spent money selfishly," said one man, from Northern Ireland, now facing divorce.

"The result of my wife finding out was a total loss of trust. I would do anything to undo it now."

A woman aged in her 50s, from England, said: "I was struggling on my own with debts that had accumulated. I was working full time and renting a house. I was on a low wage.

"I was courting a guy. When we decided he would move to England I had to put my cards on the table which was very distressing as I was ashamed. As hard as it was, I had to confront all my debts and contact the relevant companies and am currently paying back monthly [on a debt plan]."

Presentational grey line
Breaking the 'money-worry cycle'
Sarah Porretta, strategy and insights director at the Money and Pensions Service said: "The pandemic continues to make the world an uncertain place. It is clear that the impact on people's financial wellbeing is acute, particularly for young adults and BAME communities.

"Speaking to someone, whether a family member, friend or professional, can help break the money-worry cycle, which can occur when people are concerned about having money conversations, often feeling worse for bottling up their money worries."

As previously reported, the research also suggested that millennials aged 25 to 34 formed the generation most secretive about their money, with three in five hiding details of their finances.

Tekisha Henry's advice to young people in her workshops - run by the MyBnk social enterprise and charity - is to keep a positive mindset about money.

"Don't just work for money, make it work for you," she said.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54893548.

 

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Plasma Jets May Kill Novel Coronavirus Within Seconds, Study Shows

(MENAFN - Kashmir Observer)

Los Angeles : Plasma jets may kill the novel coronavirus on surfaces such as metal, leather, and plastic in as a little as 30 seconds, according to a study which suggests that plasma could promise a significant breakthrough in the fight against the spread of COVID-19.

Plasma is one of the four basic states of matter and can be created by heating a stable gas or subjecting it to a strong electromagnetic field.

Published in the journal Physics of Fluids, the modelling study conducted in June showed strains of the novel coronavirus on surfaces like metal, leather, and plastic were killed in as little as 30 seconds of treatment with argon-fed, cold atmospheric plasma.

The researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the US used an atmospheric pressure plasma jet they built with a 3D printer to spray surfaces that were treated with SARS-CoV-2 cultures.

The surfaces included plastic, metal, cardboard, and basketball, football, and baseball leather.

The spray using plasma fed by argon killed all the coronavirus on the six surfaces in less than three minutes, and most of the virus was destroyed after 30 seconds.

Additional testing showed the virus was destroyed in similar times on cotton from face masks.

The novel coronavirus can remain infectious on surfaces for several hours. According to study author Richard E. Wirz, the findings show great potential for the use of plasma in halting the virus"s transmission cycle.

"This is only the beginning. We are very confident and have very high expectations for plasma in future work. In the future, a lot of answers for the scientific community will come from plasma," Wirz said.

A relatively new technology, cold atmospheric plasma is an ionised, near-room-temperature gas that has proven effective in cancer treatments, wound healing, dentistry, and other medical applications.

The researchers ran a similar coronavirus test with helium-fed plasma, but the helium was not effective, even with treatments up to five minutes.

They believe this was due to lower rates of reactive oxygen and reactive nitrogen when using helium-fed gas, compared to argon.

The researchers said they are building a compact device that could be used widely to treat surfaces for the coronavirus with plasma.

It is a safer, healthier option than chemicals or other treatments, they said.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101112246/Plasma-Jets-May-Kill-Novel-Coronavirus-Within-Seconds-Study-Shows.

 

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Turkey's total COVID-19 patients exceed 400,000

(MENAFN - Trend News Agency) Turkey's total number of COVID-19 patients increased by 2,693 on Wednesday to 402,053, the Health Ministry announced, Trend reports citing Xinhua.

In addition, 86 people died in the past 24 hours, raising the death toll to 11,145 in the country, while 2,112 more patients recovered, taking the total recoveries to 344,613 since the outbreak.

The rate of pneumonia in COVID-19 patients stands at 4.2 percent and the number of seriously ill patients is 3,095.

A total of 145,989 tests were conducted over the past day in Turkey, bringing the overall number of tests to 15,565,409.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101112924/Turkeys-total-COVID-19-patients-exceed-400000&source=27.

 

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Confirmed COVID-19 cases in Italy exceeds 1 million

(MENAFN - IANS)

Rome, Nov 12 (IANS) The Covid-19 cases in Italy exceeded one million on Wednesday, official statistics by the Health Ministry showed.

Some 32,961 new cases were registered on a daily basis, which brought the country's total to 10,28,424 -- comprising active infections, recoveries, and fatalities -- since the pandemic officially broke out here in late February, the Xinhua news agency reported.

Of all the new daily cases, some 23,248 were new active infections, and the total figure of actively infected people in the country thus rose to 6,13,358.

The vast majority, or 5,80,833, are currently isolated at home because they are asymptomatic or with mild symptoms. Another 29,444 patients are hospitalized, and 3,081 are in intensive care -- 10 more than Tuesday.

The Health Ministry's data also showed that recoveries grew by 9,090 on a daily basis to total 3,72,113, while 623 fresh fatalities pushed the country's death toll to 42,953.

In order to slow down the second wave of the pandemic, Italy's government sealed off five more regions that showed a middle risk of contagion, with people's movements strictly limited and some non-essential business closed starting on Wednesday.

Adding to these were the "red-zone" regions and provinces (five in total, including northern Lombardy), which were considered at high risk and subjected to a soft lockdown since last week.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101112825/Confirmed-COVID-19-cases-in-Italy-exceeds-1-million&source=246.

 

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Georgian Prime Minister recovers from coronavirus

(MENAFN - Trend News Agency) BAKU, Azerbaijan, Nov. 11

By Tamilla Mammadova – Trend:

Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia has recovered from the coronavirus, Trend reports via Georgian media.

His latest PCR test gave a negative result.

According to the Press Service of the Government Administration, prime minister continues working in usual mode.

Gakharia tested positive for coronavirus on November 2. The news followed his announcement via Facebook that he went into self-isolation after one of his security guards tested positive for coronavirus.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101107470/Georgian-Prime-Minister-recovers-from-coronavirus&source=30.

 

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Covid-19 cases in Nepal surpass 200,000 mark

(MENAFN - IANS)

Kathmandu, Nov 11 (IANS) Covid-19 cases in Nepal surpassed 200,000 mark on Wednesday, country's Ministry of Health and Population said.

The Himalayan country has been witnessing a surge in the Covid-19 cases in the recent months amid massive penetration of virus on the communities particularly in Kathmandu Valley, Xinhua reported.

According to the statistics released by Nepal's health ministry on Wednesday, total Covid-19 cases in the Himalayan country reached 202,329 on Wednesday with 2,569 new cases.

According to the health ministry, nearly half of the cases have been reported in Kathmandu Valley.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101110880/Covid-19-cases-in-Nepal-surpass-200000-mark.

 

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Ukrainian speaker tests positive for COVID-19

(MENAFN - UkrinForm) Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Dmytro Razumkov has tested positive for COVID-19.

In a post on his Facebook page, he wrote: 'Each of us risks contracting the coronavirus. Today the disease got to my family, I received a positive test. I feel fine and I hope it will be so in the future.

Razumkov noted that he would go into self-isolation and work remotely.

As reported, on November 9, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said he had contracted the coronavirus. Head of the Office of President Andriy Yermak also tested positive for COVID-19.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101114939/Ukrainian-speaker-tests-positive-for-COVID-19&source=30.

 

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Number of coronavirus cases on rise in Turkish Parliament

(MENAFN - Trend News Agency) The number of coronavirus patients in the Turkish Parliament is on the rise as five more deputies have reported being infected with the virus, one of whom was present at the general assembly on Wednesday, Trend reports citing Daily Sabah .

According to the Habertürk daily, one of the deputies that contracted the virus took part in the commission that opened the envelopes and counted the votes during budget talks in Parliament.

Reportedly, social distancing protocols were not followed as many deputies took selfies together during the voting process.

During the second round of the vote, certain deputies are assigned to count votes through a draw, with one of those deputies being Refik Özen, the Bursa deputy of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), whose name also came up in the draw to count the votes for the third round. However, Özen was unable to participate in the third round's vote count, citing health-related reasons. Özen immediately left the general assembly when his health began to alarm him, after which the assembly took a 45-minute break in order to disinfect the room.

After the break, the main opposition Republican People's Party's (CHP) Istanbul deputy, Mahmut Tanal, informed the deputies that one of the members of the commission had contracted the virus, without naming Özen.

The next morning, on Thursday, Özen announced from his Twitter account that he tested positive for COVID-19.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101118100/Number-of-coronavirus-cases-on-rise-in-Turkish-Parliament&source=30.

 

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Relaxing coronavirus measures: Has the Netherlands passed the peak?

For a number of weeks now, the Netherlands has been battling against a second coronavirus wave, with the Dutch government introducing increasingly drastic measures in an effort to halt the virus’ spread.

But as the numbers appear to be dropping (for now), what does that mean for the existing coronavirus measures?

The second wave and coronavirus measures in the Netherlands
The number of coronavirus infections has been steadily rising since early September, triggering a number of new measures from the Dutch government in an attempt to curtail the so-called second wave of the virus. Now, two months since new regional measures were announced to limit the virus’ spread, Health Minister Hugo de Jonge says the worst is behind us.

Speaking at a Facebook live Q&A session with Prime Minister Mark Rutte, De Jonge said: “What we have to do in the short term is ensure that we get the virus down together. Just for a while; we have really passed that peak.”

If the Netherlands has passed the peak, what does this mean for the plans for strict regional lockdowns that were announced at the press conference on November 3? De Jonge says a regional curfew is no longer necessary. And he expects libraries, cinemas, and museums will be able to reopen next week.

Restaurants to reopen for Christmas?
Rutte and his cabinet ministers have been in conversation with the union representing hospitality businesses, Koninklijke Horeca Nederland (KHN), looking at ways it may be possible to reopen bars, restaurants and cafes (horeca) across the country for Christmas.

KHN chairman, Robèr Willemsen, attended a meeting with the prime minister on Wednesday, discussing the difficulties horeca faces now that they have been forced to close again. Willemsen also asked for more financial support to keep companies afloat.

Over the coming week, the cabinet plans on discussing when and how the current coronavirus measures can be relaxed. After their meeting, Willemsen said: “The prime minister stated in concrete terms that he will clarify during the week whether the catering industry can open during Christmas...The cabinet says it is really looking at what is possible in December, and I trust the prime minister to keep his word.”

A fine for failing to wear your face mask
For months, the government has resisted a mandatory face mask rule, but at the press conference on November 3, De Jonge announced face masks would be made mandatory in all public indoor areas, and that this rule would likely come into effect on December 1 at the latest.

Following a parliamentary debate on Tuesday, the House of Representatives (Tweede Kamer) agreed to a fine being introduced on December 1 for anyone who failed to wear a mask in public indoor areas. Those who fail to wear a mask will face a fine of 95 euros, but the misdemeanour will not be registered on a criminal record.

The fine and face mask rule can only be introduced once the controversial coronavirus law comes into effect on December 1.

Source: https://www.iamexpat.nl/expat-info/...onavirus-measures-has-netherlands-passed-peak.

 

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LATEST: Spain's official coronavirus death toll passes 40,000

Spain's death toll surged over 40,000 on Wednesday with infections passing the 1.4 million mark, while the rate of new cases continued to grow, health ministry data showed.
With 349 people dying in the past 24 hours, the death toll now stands at 40,105 in Spain, which has the fourth-highest death rate within the European Union after the United Kingdom, France and Italy.

Spain passed the grim landmark a day after logging 411 deaths, the highest daily death toll of the second wave.

Over the past 24 hours, health authorities also registered more than 19,000 new cases, bringing the overall number of people infected to 1,417,709, the second-highest figure within the EU after France.

Pressure on hospitals is increasing with around a third -- 31.78 percent -- of all intensive care beds taken up by Covid-19 patients.

Despite the figures, top health official Fernando Simón said there were signs of a "clear stabilisation" in the figures as a result of the restrictions.

In Europe, which has suffered more than 317,525 deaths from nearly 13,330,000 infections, many countries are struggling with a surging second wave.

Despite its high caseload, Spain has been slow to follow the example of other European nations which have imposed new lockdowns to try and curb spiralling cases.

Britain, France and several other countries have all recently re-imposed lockdowns as the virus that first emerged in China at the end of 2019 shows no sign of abating, while other European nations like Portugal have entered
partial lockdowns.

Until now, Spain has resisted, with the government hoping a national night-time curfew and other restrictions put in place by its regional authorities who are responsible for managing the pandemic, would be enough to slow the rate of infection.

Since it first emerged in China late last year, the virus has now claimed at least 1,275,113 lives worldwide and infected more than 51,000,000 people, according to an AFP tally based on official sources.

The United States is the worst-affected country with 239,695 deaths, followed by Brazil with 162,829, India with 127,571, Mexico with 95,842 and the United Kingdom with 50,365 deaths.

Source: https://www.thelocal.es/20201112/spains-official-coronavirus-death-toll-passes-40000.

 

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Video of dead man in hospital lavatory highlights COVID crisis in Italy's south

NAPLES, Italy (Reuters) - The health crisis in Italy’s third largest city Naples is out of control, Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said on Thursday, after a video was posted on social media showing a corpse sprawled in a hospital lavatory.

The unidentified man was a suspected coronavirus sufferer who had been waiting for a test in a packed, squalid hospital emergency room, which was also shown in the amateur video.

Health officials said they were investigating the death, but Di Maio said this was just the latest shocking incident he had heard about in recent days from his native Campania region, which is centred on the Mediterranean port city.

“The situation in Naples and in many areas of Campania is out of control. The central government needs to intervene because there is no time left,” Di Maio said.

Officials said Campania reflected a wider health calamity playing out across much of Italy’s south, which emerged largely unscathed from the initial wave of COVID-19 that mainly battered the north. But it is being hammered by the second wave.

The number of cases nationwide roared past the one million mark on Wednesday - with half of those infections emerging in just the last 19 days. The number of deaths totals 42,953 - the sixth highest tally in the world.

Hospitals across the country have struggled to manage the skyrocketing COVID-19 numbers, but the poorer south has appeared particularly ill-equipped to cope despite having all summer to bolster their defences.

The sick in Naples have been administered oxygen and placed on drips through their car windows as they wait for hours for COVID tests or to be admitted to hospital. Further south, on the island of Sicily, the mayor of Palermo warned on Monday his region faced an “inevitable massacre” as infections rose there.

“The north has always had a well-equipped health system spread out across the territory. The situation there might not be optimal, but the south by comparison is a wasteland,” Carlo Palermo, head of the ANAAO-ASSOMED doctors’ union, told Reuters.

POOR MANAGEMENT
Latest government figures from 2018 show this divide, with annual per-capita health spending coming in at 2,054 euros ($2,425) in the northern region of Liguria and 1,973 euros in neighbouring Emilia-Romagna. In Campania it was 1,697 euros, the lowest in Italy, and 1,706 euros in nearby Calabria.

But it is not just a question of money. Poor management has also taken a heavy toll in the south.

The issue came into focus this month when the health commissioner for Calabria was interviewed on state television and initially denied any responsibility for having to draw up a long-delayed emergency plan to deal with the coronavirus crisis.

To prove his point, Saverio Cotticelli, a retired general, produced the health ministry letter that established the guidelines. Still on camera, the truth slowly dawned on him that he was indeed responsible for drawing up the plan.

He resigned the following day.

Calabria had 146 intensive-care beds available at the start of the year. This number had risen to just 154 by the end of October despite the Rome government telling regions to double their emergency room capacity over the summer.

When the national government split the country into three tiers this month to reflect the differing health risks, it immediately put Calabria into the “red zone” and imposed a partial lockdown.

Using an algorithm based on 21 indicators, Campania, to widespread surprise, was placed in the lowest-risk “yellow zone”. The decision raised questions about whether the region was supplying reliable data, and the Rome health ministry has dispatched inspectors to review the situation.

Maurizio Cappiello, an emergency services doctor at Naples Cardarelli hospital and a member of the ANAAO-ASSOMED union, said the virus was spreading exponentially.

“We have passed a critical level of alarm. The only way to manage the emergency in Campania is a total lockdown,” he said.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/hea...ts-covid-crisis-in-italys-south-idUSL8N2HW7KM.

 

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Switzerland reviews third anti-viral Covid vaccine

(MENAFN - Swissinfo) The Swiss therapeutics products agency Swissmedic has started a review of another anti-Covid 19 vaccine – this time from United States biotech firm Moderna - in the rolling submission procedure.



This content was published on November 13, 2020 - 14:03 November 13, 2020 - 14:03 Keystone-SDA/Swissmedic/SWI swissinfo.ch/ilj
This is the third authorisation procedure submitted in Switzerland for a vaccine against the novel coronavirus.

'The rolling submission procedure for mRNA-1273 is based on the initially submitted data packages on the preclinical situation and quality, as well as on preliminary clinical data. In a rolling review, the data can be evaluated as soon as they become available. The companies can then submit the latest data continuously without having to wait for the conclusive results from all studies,' Swissmedic said on Friday .

Swissmedic can thus obtain an initial picture of the benefit-risk profile of the vaccine candidates before the authorisation studies are completed (Phase III studies). This accelerates the review process while at the same time 'preserving the same level of careful checking of all requirements relating to safety, efficacy and quality', it explained.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101122395/Switzerland-reviews-third-anti-viral-Covid-vaccine.

 

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South Korea reports 205 coronavirus cases, above 200 for first time since September

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea reported 205 new coronavirus cases as of Friday midnight, rising above 200 for the first time since September, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said on Saturday.

Of the new cases, 166 were domestically transmitted and 39 imported. More than 65% of the locally transmitted cases were from Seoul and Gyeonggi province, a densely populated region near the capital.

South Korea began fining people who fail to wear masks in public on Friday as it reported 191 new coronavirus cases, with daily infections continuing to creep higher.

People caught without masks in public venues, including nightclubs, malls, theme parks and hair salons, face fines of up to 100,000 won ($89.75), while the operators of those places could pay up to 3 million won in fines.

Four South Korean soccer players and one staff member tested positive for COVID-19, Yonhap reported on Saturday, citing the Korea Football Association, adding that all five do not currently show any symptoms.

The latest daily tally was slightly up from 191 a day before, taking the country's total number of infections to 28,338 with 492 deaths, according to the KDCA.

The government is in final talks with global drugmakers over potential COVID-19 vaccines as it seeks to secure supplies to cover 60% of its population this year.

Source: https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/news/...ve-200-for-first-time-since-september-520333/.

 

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Coronavirus cases in Japan hit new highs

A record 1,705 new coronavirus cases were reported in Japan on Friday, surpassing the previous high set on Thursday. The prime minister is calling for renewed vigilance.

Experts say the country is experiencing a third wave of infections. In total, there have been more than 116,000 since the outbreak began. Nearly 1,900 people have died.

Tokyo remains the largest hot spot. New cases in the capital have surpassed 300 for three straight days.

Medical workers are concerned about the rising number of patients. Doctors at a Tokyo hospital accepting the seriously ill say they're reaching capacity.

One said, "It may be necessary to increase the number of beds because they have been almost full since last week."

The northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido is another hot spot. More than 200 new cases were reported on Friday. Multiple clusters have been detected in a nightlife district in Sapporo. Authorities are asking restaurants and bars in the area to shorten their business hours.

Hokkaido Governor Suzuki Naomichi said, "The situation is still very severe as we try to strike a balance between social and economic activities and preventing infections from spreading."

Also on Friday, officials said more than 130 people who made use of a domestic travel campaign launched by the central government had tested positive for the virus.

The campaign aims to boost the tourism industry, which has been hit hard by the pandemic. But questions are being raised about whether it should continue.

Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide said, "I acknowledge that experts also have the view that there is no need to declare a state of emergency or review the travel campaign at the moment."

Suga is urging people to take basic anti-infection measures, especially in risky situations, such as group meals.

Source: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20201114_03/.

 

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Ukraine reports 12,524 new COVID-19 cases

(MENAFN - UkrinForm) Ukraine has reported 12,524 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, according to Health Minister Maksym Stepanov.

"As of November 14, 2020, Ukraine has recorded 12,524 new cases of the coronavirus disease COVID-19 (including 474 cases among children and 496 ones among health workers)," Stepanov wrote on his Facebook page.

According to him, 191 deaths, 1,525 hospitalizations and 4,962 recoveries were recorded in Ukraine over the past day.

Stepanov noted that 78,179 coronavirus tests had been performed in Ukraine in the past 24 hours.

Over the entire period of the pandemic, 204,229 recoveries and 8,312 deaths have been registered in Ukraine.

Since the start of the pandemic, Ukraine has reported 525,176 COVID-19 cases, 238,811 recoveries and 9,508 lethal cases from the disease.

The minister said that the highest number of new coronavirus cases had been registered in Kyiv city (1,053), Zaporizhia region (805), Odesa region (758), Kharkiv region (749) and Kyiv region (698).

Source: https://menafn.com/1101126350/Ukraine-reports-12524-new-COVID-19-cases&source=27.

 

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Scientists Decode Why Covid-19 Spares Children

(MENAFN - Kashmir Observer)

KO File Photo: Abid Bhat

Washington- Scientists have found a key factor which may explain why the novel coronavirus predominantly affects adults and older people while seeming to spare younger children, an advance that may lead to the development of new treatment strategies for COVID-19.

According to the researchers, including those from the Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) in the US, children have lower levels of a receptor protein that the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 needs to invade airway epithelial cells in the lung.

The findings, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, support efforts to block this protein to potentially treat or prevent COVID-19 in older people, the scientists said.

"Our study provides a biologic rationale for why particularly infants and very young children seem to be less likely to either get infected or to have severe disease symptoms," said Jennifer Sucre, a co-author of the study from VUMC.

After a viral particle is inhaled into the lungs, protein "spikes" attach to ACE2, a receptor on the surfaces of certain lung cells, the researchers explained.

They said another cellular protein called TMPRSS2 chops up the spike, enabling the virus to fuse into the cell membrane and "break into" the cell.

"Our research has always focused on understanding lung development and how infant lungs differ from adult lungs in their vulnerability to injury," Sucre said.

"In this study we actually took the opposite approach, and were able to see how the developing lung by its differences is protected from SARS-CoV-2 infection," she added.

In the study, using a technique called single-cell RNA-sequencing, the researchers detected the expression of genes in individual mice cells of tissues such as the lung.

They tracked the expression of genes known to be involved in the body's response to COVID-19 over time.

While the gene for ACE2 was expressed at low levels in the mouse lung, "TMPRSS2 stood out as having a really striking trajectory of increased expression during development," said Bryce Schuler, another co-author of the study.

The scientists obtained and analysed human lung specimens collected from donors of different ages, and confirmed a similar trajectory in TMPRSS2 expression to what they'd found in mice.

"What we found is that expression of (TMPRSS2) goes up significantly with aging, and we see that at the level of the gene and at the level of the protein. We see a lot more TMPRSS2 in older individuals, in both humans and mice," Sucre said.

Then using fluorescent molecules to analyse autopsy specimens from three patients who died of COVID-19, the researchers found the virus in three types of cells that express TMPRSS2.

They said this receptor protein is well known for its role in the development of prostate cancer.

According to the scientists, drugs that block the TMPRSS2 and which have been approved for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer currently are being tested clinically as potential treatments for COVID-19.

"We do think TMPRSS2 could be an attractive target both in treatment and potentially as a prophylaxis for people at high risk of COVID exposure," Sucre added.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101125352/Scientists-Decode-Why-Covid-19-Spares-Children.

 

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How Covid-19 may severely affect our offsprings

(MENAFN - IANS)

New York, Nov 14 (IANS) Scientists have claimed that by the end of 2020, approximately 300,000 infants could be born to mothers infected by SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.

The study, published in the Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Diseases, revealed that exposure to Covid-19 could pose a risk to the health and ageing of individuals who aren't even born yet.

"Millions more will be born into families who have experienced tremendous stress and upheaval due to the pandemic even if they haven't been infected themselves," said the study authors from University of Southern California (USC) in the US.

While the longer-term effects of Covid-19 on infants is yet to be seen, researchers can find some insight from the past, including the 1918 flu pandemic and previous coronavirus illnesses such as SARS in 2002 and MERS in 2012.

"The 1918 influenza pandemic had long-term impacts on the cohort exposed in utero, which experienced earlier adult mortality and more diabetes, ischemic heart disease and depression after age 50," said study author Caleb Finch from USC.

"It is possible that the Covid-19 pandemic will also have long-term impacts on the cohort that was in utero during the pandemic, from exposure to maternal infection and/or the stress of the pandemic environment," Finch added

Maternal viral infections can affect fetuses through multiple pathways, from direct transmission through the placenta to inflammatory responses that disturb in-utero metabolism and negatively affect growth.

While direct maternal-fetal transmission of the virus and severe birth defects appear to have been rare during previous coronavirus outbreaks, there were increases in preterm delivery and low birth weight during both the 2002 SARS and 2009 H1N1 influenza outbreaks, which are possible consequences of increased inflammation.

While studies on Covid-19 and pregnancy are still in their early stages, there have already been some concerning results that merit a closer look in ongoing studies, the authors wrote.

Increased rates of preterm birth may be linked to maternal SARS-CoV-2 infections, and other studies indicate that severe illness is correlated with a higher risk of stillbirth.

Other potential dangers, including the increased risk of blood clots presented by both pregnancy and severe Covid-19, also need further study.

"We suggest that to capture the consequences of viral exposure in utero for childhood development and adult health, Covid-19 birth cohort studies consider the immediate collection of data from the mother, fetus, neonate, and placenta," the team noted.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101124393/How-Covid-19-may-severely-affect-our-offsprings.

 

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Russia reports one-day high of 22,702 new Covid-19 cases

(MENAFN - IANS)

Moscow, Nov 15 (IANS) Russia has confirmed a record number of 22,702 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours, taking its total to 19,03,253, the country's Covid-19 response centre said in a statement Saturday.

Meanwhile, 391 new deaths were reported, taking the nationwide count to 32,834, the Xinhua news agency reported.

Moscow, the country's worst-hit region, reported 6,427 new cases, taking its tally of infections to 503,943, the response centre said.

According to the statement, 1,425,529 people have recovered, including 18,626 over the past day.

So far, over 67.9 million tests have been conducted across the country.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101127150/Russia-reports-one-day-high-of-22702-new-Covid-19-cases&source=27.

 

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Turkmenistan taking measures to prevent spread of COVID-19

(MENAFN - AzerNews) By Trend

Turkmenistan is taking measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus into the country, said President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, Trend reports with reference to Turkmenistan's State News Agency.

He noted that special control is established at the state border, where appropriate restrictions are imposed. Monitoring of the health status of citizens has been strengthened, and coordinated activities of all relevant services have been established.

Also, disinfection measures were regularly carried out in secondary and higher educational institutions, kindergartens, enterprises and departments, and public places. In addition, the necessary medicines and supplies, medical equipment, diagnostic and other means have been purchased in sufficient quantities.

Special points have been set up in the capital Ashgabat, and regions-to comply with the quarantine regime.

The president added that experience is constantly exchanged with other states, and close cooperation is maintained with the United Nations and its structural divisions, including the World Health Organization.

Berdimuhamedov also noted that as a result of the preventive measures carried out, no cases of coronavirus infection have been registered in the country so far.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101125766/Turkmenistan-taking-measures-to-prevent-spread-of-COVID-19.

 

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Record coronavirus cases reported in Japan for 3 days in row

Japan logged 1,737 daily new coronavirus cases on Saturday, renewing a record for a third consecutive day, as Tokyo, Osaka and other major cities continued to see high rates of infection.

The latest Kyodo News tally based on data released by local governments followed 1,704 cases on Friday and 1,660 the previous day, in what experts say could be the third wave of the pandemic in the country.

Tokyo reported 352 new coronavirus cases, surpassing 300 for a fourth consecutive day, the first such streak since early August.

Osaka reported 285, a daily record for the densely populated western Japan prefecture, and Chiba, which neighbors Tokyo, logged a record 88 cases in a single day.

Other prefectures that saw record cases on Saturday were Ibaraki, Kanagawa and Shizuoka.

Despite a resurgence of infections, people in Japan continued to head to popular tourist spots as the country entered the weekend following the two record-breaking days.

Some travelers, however, said they are apprehensive about the spike in the number of infections.

"I thought the number of infected people would decrease when I bought my ticket a month ago," said a 17-year-old high school student who came with a friend to JR Maihama Station to go to the Tokyo Disney Resort. "I am worried to some extent."

The country's northernmost main island of Hokkaido, a popular tourist spot, saw 230 infections, recording more than 200 cases for three consecutive days.

"There is a higher risk (of contracting the virus) in Hokkaido considering the population ratio, but I need to be cautious no matter where I am," said Mitsuo Masuda, who arrived at New Chitose Airport with his family.

In Osaka, many people formed a line to enter Universal Studios Japan. A 20-year-old university student from Tokyo who came to the western Japanese city on an overnight bus said, "I'm concerned that the number of cases has increased in both Tokyo and Osaka. But, I think (the park) has put in place good measures against the virus, so I want to have fun."

On Friday, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said he will maintain the government's "Go To Travel" subsidy campaign to support domestic tourism, despite the spike, and denied the need to declare another state of emergency.

The Japanese government has aimed at striking a balance between curbing the spread of the COVID-19 respiratory disease caused by the virus and keeping up social and economic activities since it lifted a state of emergency in May.

Before Thursday, the previous single-day record of 1,597 new cases nationwide was logged on Aug. 7.

The latest numbers bring Japan's nationwide cumulative total to over 117,800 cases, including around 700 from the Diamond Princess, a cruise ship that was quarantined in Yokohama in February. The death toll now stands at 1,901.

Source: https://english.kyodonews.net/news/...-but-continue-to-travel-amid-virus-surge.html.

 

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Argentina talks hit as IMF delegate tests positive for Covid

(MENAFN - AFP) Economy Minister Martin Guzman and other Argentine officials were placed in preventive isolation Sunday after a member of a visiting IMF mission tested positive for Covid-19, the government said.

The International Monetary Fund team has been in Buenos Aires since Tuesday for talks on a new rescue package for the crisis-ravaged South American country.

"All of those who had meetings with the IMF team are isolated and will be tested according to established protocols," the government said in a statement, adding that none of the Argentine officials had shown symptoms of the disease.

IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said earlier in New York that one of the eight members of the IMF mission had tested positive during routine tests on Saturday. He said the member would be tested again on Sunday to confirm the initial finding.

"Upon learning the results," Rice said, "the team immediately informed the Argentine authorities and went into self-isolation."

"The IMF team in coordination with the authorities also initiated contact tracing protocols to advise all persons with whom the IMF team met over the past week about the positive test," he said.

"The team will continue its work and will hold any further meetings virtually."

Rice said the affected IMF team member was asymptomatic and feeling well.

Among the Argentine officials who were self-isolating was Central Bank chief Miguel Pesce and Congress speaker Sergio Massa.

President Alberto Fernandez has been in self-isolation since Wednesday after an official with whom he had contact tested positive for Covid-19.

Argentina's 44 million population has been badly hit by the coronavirus, with more than 1.3 million cases and more than 35,300 deaths.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101130277/Argentina-talks-hit-as-IMF-delegate-tests-positive-for-Covid.

 

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Turkey reports 3,223 new COVID-19 cases, 414,278 in total

(MENAFN - Trend News Agency) Turkey's daily COVID-19 patients increased by 3,223 on Sunday, raising the total number in the country to 414,278, the Turkish Health Ministry announced, Trend reports citing Xinhua.

Meanwhile, 89 people died in the past 24 hours, taking the death toll to 11,507.

A total of 2,561 patients recovered in the last 24 hours, raising the total recoveries to 353,663 in Turkey since the outbreak.

The rate of pneumonia in COVID-19 patients is 4.2 percent and the number of seriously ill patients is 3,439.

Turkey reported the first COVID-19 case on March 11.

Turkey and China have supported each other in the fight against COVID-19. Chinese doctors and medical experts held video conferences with Turkish counterparts to share China's experience in treating coronavirus patients, protecting medical workers, and controlling the spread of the virus.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101130281/Turkey-reports-3223-new-COVID-19-cases-414278-in-total&source=30.

 

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Canadian hospitals under pressure amid rising Covid-19 cases

(MENAFN - IANS)

Ottawa, Nov 15 (IANS) Canadian hospitals are facing growing pressure as Covid-19 cases continue to rise in the country amid the ongoing second wave of the pandemic.

Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam on Saturday described the situation in Western Canada, Quebec and Ontario as "worrisome" and it is straining healthcare resources, reports Xinhua news agency.

The latest national-level data showed daily averages of 4,348 new cases in the past seven days, said Tam.

"Outbreaks continue to contribute to COVID-19 spread in Canada, including increased activity among vulnerable populations and settings -- elderly adults, long-term care residents, and Indigenous communities," she said in a statement.

She said the number of people with severe cases of Covid-19 continues to increase with a daily average of more than 1,400 people being treated in hospitals over the past week.

That included a daily average of 280 people in critical care and 55 deaths reported each day over the past seven days.

Tam said western provinces in the country saw a weekly increase in daily hospitalization between 24 percent to 50 percent compared to last week.

She pointed out that Ontario and Quebec and other provinces continued to have the highest numbers of people in hospital.

Tam's warnings came as Ontario reported 1,581 new cases and 20 new deaths on Saturday while Quebec announced 1,448 more cases and 25 deaths.

Manitoba reported its highest number of new deaths at 15 and 239 more cases on Saturday while Saskatchewan shattered its previous daily record by reporting 308 new cases.

As of Sunday, Canada has reported a total of 291,931 Covid-19 cases and 10,891 fatalities.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101127648/Canadian-hospitals-under-pressure-amid-rising-Covid-19-cases.

 

[sweep_shot]

Normalcy may return by winter 2021, says Covid vaccine creator

(MENAFN - IANS)

London, Nov 15 (IANS) Normalcy from the Covid era can only be expected by next year's winter as any Covid vaccine will take to show its effect and will not immediately reduce the number of infections, as per the co-developer of Pfizer's vaccine, media reports said.

A new Covid vaccine's impact will work significantly over the summer and life should be back to normal by next winter, Prof Ugur Sahin, co-founder of BioNTech, whose vaccine candidate has proved to prevent over 90 per cent people from getting Covid-19, as per preliminary reports. The Pfizer-BioNTech is one of the 11 vaccines in their final tests.

This winter would still be hard, he said in an interview on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show.

Sahin said he was confident the vaccine would reduce transmission between people as well as stop symptoms developing in someone who has had the vaccine, though not as high as the test results but still "maybe 50 per cent".

He said as everything continued to go well, he said, the vaccine would begin to be delivered at the "end of this year, beginning of next year".

The goal was to deliver more than 300 million doses worldwide by next April, he said on the BBC show, which "could allow us to only start to make an impact" and the bigger impact would happen later only.

"Summer will help us because the infection rate will go down in the summer and what is absolutely essential is that we get a high vaccination rate until or before autumn/winter next year," he stressed.

Asked if the vaccine was as effective in older people as it is in younger people, he said he expected to have a better idea in the next three weeks.

He said it was not yet known how long immunity would last after the vaccine's second shot is administered.

Sahin also said the "key side effects" of the vaccine seen so far were a mild to moderate pain in the injection site for a few days, while some participants had a mild to moderate fever over a similar period.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101128867/Normalcy-may-return-by-winter-2021-says-Covid-vaccine-creator.

 

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Slovenia reports 1,731 new COVID-19 cases

(MENAFN - Trend News Agency) Slovenia on Saturday reported 1,731 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, taking the national tally to 54,001, according to official figures, Trend reports citing Xinhua .

Slovenia on Nov. 12 decided to tighten its restrictive measures for 14 days to curb the spread of coronavirus, returning the country roughly to the spring level of lockdown.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101127281/Slovenia-reports-1731-new-COVID-19-cases&source=30.

 

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Belarus reports 1,315 new COVID-19 cases, total reaches 114,185

(MENAFN - Trend News Agency) Belarus reported 1,315 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, taking its nationwide count to 114,185, according to the country's health ministry, Trend reports citing Xinhua.

There have been 1,506 new recoveries over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number to 95,843, the ministry said.

So far, 1,046 people have died of the disease in the country, including seven in the past day, it added.

As of Sunday, 2,882,743 tests for the virus have been conducted across the country, including 34,887 in the last 24 hours, according to official figures.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101130115/Belarus-reports-1315-new-COVID-19-cases-total-reaches-114185&source=27.

 

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Canadian COVID-19 cases to break 300,000 mark

(MENAFN - Trend News Agency) Canada is expected to break the 300,000-case mark soon as the country reported 2,705 COVID-19 new cases Monday noon, bringing the total number to 298,782, including 10,988 deaths, according to CTV, Trend reports citing Xinhua .

The national-level data from the Public Health Agency of Canada showed daily averages of more than 4,000 new cases since Nov. 6.

Ontario reported 1,487 new cases on Monday after an increase from Sunday's 1,248 cases. The province has a total of 95,496 cases.

Monday is the 11th straight day in which Ontario has reported case numbers in the quadruple digits.

The province also reported 10 additional deaths on Monday, bringing the provincial death toll to 3,371.

The seven-day rolling average of cases stands at 1,443, up from the previous week's 1,105 per day.

There are at least 500 people being treated in Ontario hospitals for COVID-19, with at least 125 of those patients in intensive care units, said the Ontario government on Monday.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101135440/Canadian-COVID-19-cases-to-break-300000-mark.

 

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China doubles efforts to prevent COVID-19 spread through imported foods

(MENAFN) The Ministry of Transport has published guidelines to avoid the spread of COVID-19 by road and water transport through imported cold-chain food.

It encouraged all cold-chain logistics companies, wharves, and freight terminals to protect their staff members, highlighting the allocation of safety equipment, temperature controls, and regular nucleic acid testing.

Tighter disinfection policies must apply to the transport of imported cold-chain food transport equipment, including vehicles, vessels and containers, which should be disinfected on a regular basis in accordance with the guidelines.

The framework also called for a system of information registration to even more efficiently monitor and trace individuals, cargos, and vehicles.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101134177/China...ID-19-spread-through-imported-foods&source=28.

 

[sweep_shot]

How Covid-19 is crash-testing Swiss federalism

(MENAFN - Swissinfo)

Restaurant staff and owners in Lausanne in western Switzerland protest against strict Covid-19 measures and closures, November 10, 2020. Keystone / Jean-christophe Bott


Switzerland is one of the countries hardest hit by the second wave of coronavirus and is coming in for increasingly sharp criticism over inconsistencies resulting from its federal system.



This content was published on November 16, 2020 - 14:00 November 16, 2020 - 14:00 Alain Meyer See in other languages: 3
Deutsch

(de) Und täglich grüsst der Schweizer "Kantönligeist"
Italiano

(it) I confinamenti a geometria variabile dei cantoni svizzeri
Français

(fr) Les confinements à géométrie variable des cantons suisses
Has the Covid-19 crisis revealed the limits of Swiss federalism? Discrepancies between the cantons and communication errors made by the government have come to light for all to see. But unlike in other countries, no independent body has been charged with assessing how the state or the cantons have responded to the crisis.

Residents in one canton can currently travel dozens of kilometres to do some pre-Christmas shopping in another canton where non-essential stores are still open. Instances of migration like this have been observed over the past two weeks in the Lake Geneva region, since Geneva has been more restrictive in its response to the pandemic this autumn than neighbouring canton Vaud.

It's the same in canton Jura, where inhabitants this year are unable to celebrate the feast of Saint Martin, their culinary pride, after it was cancelled due to the health crisis. Many are sad to see fans of the food-heavy tradition going to satisfy their taste buds in neighbouring canton Bern; many cafes and restaurants in German-speaking cantons remain open.

Introspective report
As the second wave of Covid-19 hit hard in October, Health Minister Alain Berset repeated that in Switzerland 'people know that the closing hours for businesses vary from one canton to another. Nothing's new'. Indeed, since the end of the first wave each canton has been singing from a different hymn sheet.

The Swiss are now openly questioning the lack of consistency within the system. If the sacred union was comprehensively respected in spring during the 'extraordinary situation' declared by the government, the union is now fraying a bit and opposition voices are now making themselves heard. People are feeling bewildered by the multitude of measures and recommendations issued around the country.

'Without going so far as declaring a new state of emergency, the government must take back the reigns to curb mobility, [which is] a significant vector of transmission [of the virus],' said Hasim Sancar from the Green Party in Bern. At the end of spring Sancar wrote to cantonal authorities calling for a report on the management of the crisis because 'we're threatened by other pandemics worse than this one'.

Independent oversight in France
French President Emmanuel Macron charged Didier Pittet, an infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist from Geneva, with heading an independent commission to evaluate the health crisis.

The first conclusions were delivered last month. The commission's report said the French government had 'measured the stakes [of the crisis] well' and 'no massive or systematic failures' had been made. But the implementation of the response to the crisis had encountered difficulties such as a lack of preparedness, sometimes fraught collaborations between various health agencies and delays in delivering an adequate level of tests.

Ministers and the responsible health authorities were also called before a parliamentary enquiry. In front of television cameras they had to explain failures and notably the lack of protective masks.

Crash test
Would such an independent commission be useful and necessary in Switzerland?

'It's clear that we must conduct a review, but on the whole federalism has held up well,' said political scientist Andreas Ladner, a specialist in public administration. In Swiss Federalism, his analysis published last year on the organisation of a non-centralised state like Switzerland, Ladner rated Swiss federalism as 'generally cooperative, symmetric, competitive and supportive'.

In view of the management of the current crisis, these four objectives would have passed the 'crash test', he believed.

'With the possible exception of the symmetrical aspect, given the fact that the cantons are quite different from one another and have different resources,' he said. But 'the level of interactions has functioned quite well between the government, the cantons and the municipalities'.

Hiccups
Ladner believes it would serve little purpose to create an independent commission of enquiry as in France to assess the errors made in Switzerland.

'Create a commission to hear what?' he asked. 'It would just rehash simple, banal things that we would have already heard.'

If federalism has generated a few hiccups during Covid, they have mainly been down to poor and contradictory communication, he says.

'Explaining at the beginning of the crisis that protective masks were not necessary didn't help make things clearer,' Ladner said. 'The same thing happened when the government's Covid task force began to fuel the debate with its own conclusions.'

But compared with other more centralised countries like France, Switzerland is doing quite well today, he concludes. 'The Swiss federal system has so far coped well given the circumstances.'

Source: https://menafn.com/1101134608/How-Covid-19-is-crash-testing-Swiss-federalism.

 

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76 more coronavirus patients die in Moscow in past day

(MENAFN - Trend News Agency) Seventy-six more coronavirus patients died in Moscow during the past day, with the overall number of fatalities exceeding 8,000, the city's anti-coronavirus crisis center said on Tuesday, Trend reports citing TASS .

"Seventy-six coronavirus-positive patients diagnosed with pneumonia have died in Moscow," it said, adding the overall number of coronavirus-related deaths in Moscow has reached 8,009.

The center once again warned that in case of any symptoms of a respiratory disease it is necessary to stay home, call a doctor and not indulge in self-treatment.

Moscow tops the list of Russian regions in terms of confirmed coronavirus cases and the morbidity is now demonstrating upwards tendencies. As of today, Moscow has reported 522,456 confirmed coronavirus cases, including 5,882 during the past day. As many as 377,131 patients have recovered.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101142298/76-more-coronavirus-patients-die-in-Moscow-in-past-day.

 

[sweep_shot]

France's Covid-19 cases top 2 mln

(MENAFN - IANS)

Paris, Nov 18 (IANS) France became the first European country to record over two millions of confirmed Covid-19 cases, although pandemic indicators were gradually improving, said Health General Director Jerome Salomon.

After a record of some 69,500 new cases were registered on November 2, "the incidence rate has been declining. But the number of cases, which is still very high, must return to a reasonable level which the President of the Republic (Emmanuel Macron) has set at 5,000," Salomon told reporters at a weekly briefing on the pandemic situation.

Over the past 24 hours, 45,522 people tested positive for Covid-19, taking the national total to 2,036,755. The death toll rose by 1,219 to 46,273, according to data released by the Health Ministry.

Meanwhile, the total number of hospitalizations decreased by 327 to 33,170. This includes 4,854 Covid-19 patients who are in intensive care, down from 4,919 on Monday, Xinhua reported.

"Our collective efforts are beginning to bear fruit and justify this positive trend. It is by maintaining a high level of vigilance and mobilization that we will be able to spend year-end holidays in the best conditions of safety," Salomon said.

"The epidemic is slowing down but the pressure in hospitals remains very high... Let's redouble the effort to regain control of the epidemic," he added.

On October 30, France entered a second countrywide lockdown, initially for one month, to contain a grave virus resurgence.

Asked about a date on when the lockdown might be eased, Salomon said "we must be very vigilant."

Early in the day, Prime Minister Jean Castex told the National Assembly that some restrictive measures to brake the virus spread "will continue" after the lockdown because the epidemic should be "managed in long term."

"The better the current phase of confinement produces its effects, the faster we can move on to a next phase, which will nevertheless not be a return to that before the confinement," he told the lower house of the parliament.

"That is to say that there will be braking provisions that will last," he said.

"We will make the announcements as soon as we have made the decisions," said the prime minister, stressing that for the de-confinement to be possible, "it is necessary that the incidence rates continue downwards, and the intensive care services are less saturated."

President Emmanuel Macron will address the nation next week to evaluate the confinement impact and unveil terms of a gradual return to normalcy, reported local media quoting Elysee sources.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101142488/Frances-Covid-19-cases-top-2-mln

 

[sweep_shot]

Turkey to impose new measures to fight coronavirus surge, Erdogan says

(MENAFN - The Peninsula) ISTANBUL - Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that the government will impose tighter measures to respond to surging numbers of coronavirus patients and impose partial lockdowns at weekends across the country.

"A lockdown restriction will be imposed outside the hours of 1000-2000 over the weekends in a way that will not disrupt supply and production chains," Erdogan said.

Speaking after a cabinet meeting, Erdogan also said all schools will remain closed and continue online education until the year-end and all restaurants and cafes will only offer a delivery service.

Turkey's advisory science board has recommended that the government should implement concrete measures to slow the spread of COVID-19, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Monday, as the number of daily cases has spiked in recent weeks.

Ankara only announces the daily number of symptomatic cases, of which there were 3,819 on Tuesday, as well as 103 deaths, both around the levels last seen in April, bringing the total death toll to 11,704 from the disease.

"If the increasing trend of the outbreak continues, it will become inevitable for the measures that resulted in painful outcomes for all of us to be back on the agenda," Erdogan said.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101140516/Turke...ight-coronavirus-surge-Erdogan-says&source=30.

 

[sweep_shot]

Chinese mainland reports 15 new imported COVID-19 cases

MENAFN - Trend News Agency) The Chinese mainland reported 15 new imported COVID-19 cases Monday, bringing the total number of imported cases to 3,716, the National Health Commission said Tuesday, Trend reports citing Xinhua .

Of the new imported cases, six were reported in Sichuan, four in Shanghai, three in Guangdong, and one each in Tianjin and Shandong, the commission said in its daily report.

Among all the imported cases, 3,382 had been discharged from hospitals after recovery while 334 remained hospitalized, the commission said.

No deaths had been reported from the imported cases.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101136705/Chinese-mainland-reports-15-new-imported-COVID-19-cases.

 

[sweep_shot]

Ukraine- Kyiv reports 879 new coronavirus cases

(MENAFN - UkrinForm) Kyiv has confirmed 879 new coronavirus cases in the past day, bringing the total to 51,499, according to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko.

'Unfortunately, the dynamics of the virus spread is extremely bad. Kyiv has reported 879 new patients in the past day. Despite the fact that fewer cases are usually recorded on weekends, as not all laboratories work. Eleven people have died, he said at a briefing on November 16, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

According to Klitschko, among people who have contracted COVID-19 in Kyiv in the past day are 511 women aged 18-99 years; 28 girls aged between nine months and 17 years; 316 men aged 18-93 years; 24 boys aged between three months and 16 years old. In addition, 43 health workers have fallen ill with COVID-19.

Kyiv has confirmed eight recoveries over the course of the past day. In total, 18,767 Kyiv residents have overcome the disease.

As of November 16, Ukraine reported 545,689 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 9,832 new cases recorded in the past 24 hours.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101134516/Ukraine-Kyiv-reports-879-new-coronavirus-cases&source=30.

 

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Why Doug Ford is stumbling during COVID-19's second wave

(MENAFN - The Conversation) Ontario's Progressive Conservative government has come to be defined by two things: its hesitant responses to the emerging second wave of COVID-19 and its relentlessly pro-business approach to virtually all other matters.

The situation invites the question of whether the government's stumbling reluctance to impose more restrictive measures to head off the growing numbers of COVID-19 infections, as recommended by medical experts from across the province, is a product of its pro-business orientation.

On the COVID-19 front, recent days have been defined by some deeply disturbing trends: record daily rates of new infections; an already fatal reappearance of the virus in long-term care facilities; and projections of uncontrolled infection rates exceeding 6,500 cases per day, which will overwhelm hospital and intensive care unit capacity. Although the news of potentially effective vaccines is encouraging, their widespread availability seems many months off.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford watches as Health Minister Christine Elliott walks to the podium to answer questions at Queen's Park on Nov. 16, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn
The provincial government's responses to the situation have been surprisingly feeble. The province was actually moving in the direction of easing restrictions, particularly around public gathering spaces like restaurants, bars, gyms and places of worship, despite warnings that these could be key points of transmission.

It was then revealed that the province had ignored the advice of its own public health agency in terms of the infection rates needed to trigger further restrictions. The recommended thresholds for restrictions were reportedly increased by a factor of four relative to the advice received by the province from its own public health agency.

Taking the fall?
The imposition of further restrictions has been left in the hands of local medical officers of health despite the limited legal authority available to them. The province, it seemed, was prepared to let them take the political fall for the imposition of potentially unpopular restrictions.

The catastrophic projections released on Nov. 13 brought a partial turnaround by the province in terms of the thresholds for additional restrictions. But the government's approach is still falling well short of what health authorities and experts are saying is needed to prevent disaster.

As if to add insult to injury, Ontario is poised to pass legislation that would effectively grant long-term care home owners and operators immunity from liability for the more than 1,800 resident deaths that occurred in their facilities during the first COVID-19 wave.

Read more: Governments shouldn't shield essential workers from COVID-19 lawsuits

There is strong evidence that a significant portion of those fatalities were the result of neglect and poor care, rather than COVID-19 itself.

The province has extensive authority over public health matters, as well as a range of other legal and policy tools at its disposal to combat the virus. And on the surface, the government has consistently expressed concern and distress over the impacts of COVID-19 on its victims. Yet it had to be pushed into partial action by the recent outcry from the media and health experts over its failing responses.

Pro-business arguments
Why?

The answer may lie with Ford's stance on issues beyond the pandemic. The essential feature of the Ford government has been its striking responsiveness to any argument presented to it from pro-business advocates and framed in terms of economic development.

The government's record on the environment in this context is well-known : the shredding of Ontario's climate change strategy; the elimination of the independent office of the environmental commissioner; the weakening or elimination of regulations on endangered species, forestry and toxic chemicals; and the evisceration of longstanding rules on industrial water pollution and environmental assessment .

Read more: 'New and improved' Doug Ford doesn't extend to the environment

Most striking of these tendencies has been the government's willingness to acquiesce to the demands presented to it by the land development industry. Planning rules intended to curb urban sprawl in the Greater Toronto Area have been gutted.

The province has made unprecedented moves to reach deep into local municipal plans on behalf of development interests to eliminate constraints and permit ever greater development in areas like midtown Toronto that are already subject to intensive development pressures.

Ministerial zoning orders have been used with unprecedented frequency to override municipal and provincial rules on specific sites, most recently permitting a warehouse development in an environmentally significant wetland on Pickering's Lake Ontario shoreline.

Provisions buried in the government's November 2020 budget bill would undermine the role of local conservation authorities in controlling development for lands that are at risk of flooding and other hazards — significant considerations in the age of climate change — as well as for wetlands and shorelines.

Early morning fishermen take advantage of warm weather on Pigeon Lake near Bobcaygeon, Ont., on Nov. 7, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Fred Thornhill Sympathetic to business owners
The same unapologetic pro-business orientation seems to lie at the heart of the government's response to the COVID-19 crisis.

The government has seemed particularly sympathetic to the pleas of small business owners, such as restaurants, bars and gyms, that would be affected by further shutdowns, despite the potentially significant roles these types of facilities could play in the spread of COVID-19.

A bartender and restaurant manager watch the news on television in the Port Credit neighbourhood of Mississauga, Ont., on Oct. 9, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette
That's profoundly short-sighted, laying the groundwork for disastrous runaway outbreaks like those occurring in the United States . Those types of outbreaks may only be able to be controlled, if at all, through the types of draconian and long-term lockdowns seen in places like Melbourne , Australia. The impact would be far more damaging to businesses than additional short-term restrictions.

A more effective and balanced approach would recognize the need for far greater restrictions in the short term, while working with the federal government to provide support to affected employees and helping businesses move their operations to take-out, delivery, curbside pickup and online services wherever possible.

Events in the U.S. and Europe are demonstrating just how bad a second COVID-19 wave could be. If the Ford government acts decisively, it may still be able to avoid the same fate, but time is running out quickly.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101148266/Why-Doug-Ford-is-stumbling-during-COVID-19s-second-wave.

 

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France's COVID-19-related deaths and cases decreasing

(MENAFN - Trend News Agency) France on Wednesday reported 425 COVID-19-related deaths, compared to Tuesday's 437, pushing up the country's death toll caused by the coronavirus to 46,698, according to the country's health authorities, Trend reports citing Xinhua .

Meanwhile, 28,383 new cases were recorded in France on Wednesday, down from Tuesday's 45,522, bringing the cumulative number of people who have caught the virus to 2,065,138 since the outbreak of the pandemic.

The number of hospital admissions dropped for the second day in a row as the French government was preparing for a gradual process to return to normalcy during year-end holidays.

A total of 328 COVID-19 patients left the hospital in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of hospitalized patients down to 32,842. The number of people in intensive care units, a key indicator to test the health system's ability to handle the sanitary crisis, fell by 79 to 4,775.

Since September coronavirus data had spiraled to levels much higher than in the first wave of the pandemic, dragging France into its second country-wide lockdown on Oct. 30.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101148920/Frances-COVID-19-related-deaths-and-cases-decreasing&source=27.

 

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Mouthwash can kill COVID-19 in 30 seconds: Study

(MENAFN - NewsIn.Asia) November 18 (Al Jazeera) - Over-the-counter mouthwash can kill coronavirus within 30 seconds of exposure, a study has found.

Scientists at Cardiff University discovered mouthwash containing at least 0.07 percent cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC) showed 'promising signs' of reducing transmission of the virus.

Their preliminary report, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, supports a study published last week that found mouthwash containing CPC helps in reducing the viral load of people infected with the coronavirus.

It comes ahead of a clinical trial on patients at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff to find out whether mouthwash can reduce coronavirus in a patient's saliva. The findings are expected to be published in early 2021.

Dentyl is the only UK mouthwash brand that is part of the clinical trial led by Professor David Thomas from Cardiff University.

'Although this in-vitro study is very encouraging and is a positive step, more clinical research is now clearly needed,' Dr Thomas told the PA news agency, as quoted by the Independent newspaper.

'We need to understand if the effect of over-the-counter mouthwashes on the COVID-19 virus achieved in the laboratory can be reproduced in patients, and we look forward to completing our clinical trial in early 2021.'

Breath of fresh air
Dr Nick Claydon, a specialist periodontologist, said he believed mouthwash can become an important addition to fighting coronavirus along with 'handwashing, physical distancing and wearing masks, both now and in the future'.

There are more than 54 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 globally and restrictions have been ratcheted up across the US and Europe to curb spiralling infections.

There is promising news from the race for a COVID-19 vaccine as US biotech firm Moderna on Monday said preliminary data from a continuing phase three study of its experimental vaccine showed it to be 94.5-percent effective.

The news followed on from last week's announcement from US drug giant Pfizer that phase three trial results for the COVID-19 vaccine it is developing with Germany's BioNTech showed it to be more than 90-percent effective.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101144601/Mouthwash-can-kill-COVID-19-in-30-seconds-Study.

 

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Ukraine- Kyiv reports 1,213 new coronavirus cases

(MENAFN - UkrinForm) Kyiv has confirmed 1,213 new coronavirus cases in the past day, bringing the total to 53,855, according to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko.

'Some 1,213 new patients have been recorded in Kyiv in the past day, 23 people have died. In total, 1,113 Kyiv residents have died from coronavirus, he said at a briefing on November 18, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

According to Klitschko, among people who have contracted COVID-19 in Kyiv in the past day are 673 women aged 18-94 years; 51 girls aged between 25 days and 17 years; 451 men aged 18-89 years; 38 boys aged between two months and 17 years old. In addition, 39 health workers have fallen ill with COVID-19.

Kyiv has confirmed 430 recoveries over the course of the past day. In total, 19,556 Kyiv residents have overcome the disease.

As of November 18, Ukraine reported 570,153 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 12,496 new cases recorded in the past 24 hours.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101147573/Ukraine-Kyiv-reports-1213-new-coronavirus-cases&source=30.

 

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Azerbaijan registered 2,075 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, Operational Headquarters under Cabinet of Ministers reported on November 17.

Some 1,139 patients have recovered and 20 patients have died in the reported period.

So far, 79,158 COVID-19 cases have been registered in the country. Some 56,894 patients have recovered, 1,005 people have died. Currently, 21,259 people are under treatment in special hospitals.

Over the past day, 13,213 tests were conducted in Azerbaijan to reveal coronavirus cases.

In general, 1,536,434 tests have been conducted in Azerbaijan so far.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101139115/Country-registers-2075-new-COVID-19-cases.

 

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Japan's new coronavirus cases surge to record of over 2,200 cases

Japan's coronavirus cases rose sharply Wednesday, logging a daily record of 2,203, with Tokyo also reporting a fresh record high in what experts say could be the third wave of the pandemic in the country.

Prior to Wednesday, record daily coronavirus cases in Japan were reported for three consecutive days through Saturday, with the figure hitting 1,735 on that day, according to the latest tally.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has once again instructed Yasutoshi Nishimura, the minister in charge of the Japanese government's coronavirus response, and health minister Norihisa Tamura to do their utmost to limit the spread of the virus.

"I feel a very strong sense of crisis," Nishimura said at a press conference after a government review meeting on the pandemic Wednesday.

He stressed the need to strengthen coronavirus measures at dining establishments, which have been hotspots for the virus.

Toshio Nakagawa, head of the Japan Medical Association, at a separate press conference Wednesday, asked the public to refrain from unnecessary travel, especially to and from regions experiencing a resurgence.

"Please do not get complacent about the coronavirus," he said. "We can prevent it from spreading across the country through the combination of each of our actions."

Nakagawa said that although there was no concrete evidence to indicate that the government's "Go To Travel" subsidy campaign was responsible for the spike in cases, "there is no mistaking that it acted as a catalyst."

Tokyo logged 493 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, with the metropolitan government planning to raise its virus alert to the highest level amid a resurgence, local government sources said.

The figure exceeds the previous high of 472 logged in Tokyo on Aug. 1.

The daily figures from the metropolitan government reflect the most recent totals reported by health authorities and medical institutions.

Test results can take up to about three days to confirm. The number of tests conducted in the capital on Monday was a record 8,600, according to the metropolitan government.

"Asymptomatic patients are being detected as the number of tests has increased. It is expected that the reported cases will continue to rise but more important is how to keep serious cases low," Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike told reporters Wednesday.

The highest alert out of four levels that infections "are spreading," upgraded from the current warning that infections "are starting to spread," is expected to be announced on Thursday based on an analysis of the situation by a panel of experts, the sources said.

The metropolitan government had lowered the alert on Sept. 10 from the highest to the current level.

The capital has seen more than 35,000 cases of coronavirus infections so far. In the week to Wednesday, the average daily number of new infections stood at 335, nearing the level seen in early August, which peaked at 346.1.

Among those hospitalized, 39 have developed serious symptoms -- down three from the highest figure since a state of emergency over the pandemic was lifted in late May, according to the local government.

Nakagawa warned the spike in Tokyo and Hokkaido is putting a strain on the health care system. The Hokkaido prefectural government said Wednesday that hospital beds for coronavirus patients were filled to more than 70 percent of capacity and that it had around 1,900 active cases as of Tuesday.

The northernmost main island has asked residents of its capital Sapporo to stay home after days of record infections in the region.

Source: https://english.kyodonews.net/news/...-virus-alert-to-highest-level-amid-surge.html.

 

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Russian regions told to act as Covid cases pass 2mn

(MENAFN - Gulf Times) Russia's health minister has urged regional leaders to take further steps to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, as the country's Covid-19 case tally passed 2mn and the number of daily deaths and infections hit new highs.
The Covid-19 respiratory disease is caused by the coronavirus.
Despite the surge in cases, taking Russia's overall tally to 2,015,608, authorities have resisted imposing lockdown restrictions across the country as they did earlier this year.
Instead, they have imposed strict rules for wearing masks and gloves, and underlined the importance of hygiene and social distancing.
Some regions have brought in their own targeted measures.
Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said the heads of regions with a high incidence of infections should use their authority to improve the situation, including targeted restrictions.
'Unfortunately, not all regional heads have so far exercised this right, he was quoted as saying by the RIA news agency.
President Vladimir Putin was working almost hourly with the country's coronavirus response teams, his spokesman said yesterday, a day after the Kremlin chief discussed a shortage of hospital beds and ambulances with senior government officials.
'The situation with Covid is very tense, the spokesman told reporters. 'This topic is now a priority for the president.
Yesterday the coronavirus crisis response centre reported 23,610 new infections in the previous 24 hours and 463 more deaths related to Covid-19.
Russia's death toll now stands at 34,850.
Sweden should rethink its decision not to recommend the use of face masks to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus amid a second wave of infections, the Royal Academy of Sciences, which awards the Nobel prizes, said yesterday.
Sweden's soft-touch pandemic response has focused mostly on voluntary social distancing and the Public Health Agency has cast doubt on the effectiveness of face masks, which are mandatory in many public places in Europe.
However, a report yesterday by the Royal Academy of Sciences said that face masks could play a role in reducing infection, particularly in enclosed spaces.
'I hope there is now a debate and leaders, irrespective of what the public health authority is saying, will take this to heart, Staffan Normark, who heads the Academy's expert group on Covid-19, said.
Meanwhile, health officials in Germany say the number of new infections remains far too high but there are signs that the country's 'lockdown lite is working and could reduce numbers soon.
'It is a fact that the measures are working, Lothar Wieler, head of the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases (RKI), told a news conference, referring to Germany's partial lockdown in place since November 2.
After an exponential increase in the number of infections over the past weeks, Wieler said a plateau had now been reached. 'We do not see the number of cases falling yet, but I am optimistic that they will.
Azerbaijan has introduced new restrictive measures on public transport to curb the spread of the coronavirus as cases soared in the wake of the war over Nagorno-Karabakh.
The World Health Organisation last month predicted that the outbreak would surge in both Azerbaijan and Armenia as their war over the disputed region led to the mobilisation of troops and displacement of civilians.
Yesterday health authorities in Azerbaijan reported 2,597 new cases of Covid-19, the highest number of daily infections since the start of the pandemic this spring.
Total infections stood at 83,994 while deaths reached 1,053 in the country of 10mn.
When the fighting over Karabakh erupted at the turn of October, the number of daily cases in Azerbaijan was hovering around 100.
Italy has registered 36,176 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, the health ministry said yesterday, up from 34,283 the day before.
The ministry also reported 653 Covid-19-related deaths, down from 753 on Wednesday.
Nightspots, restaurants and movie theatres will reopen on Monday in Catalonia, Spain's northeastern region, after being closed for over a month as part of measures to slow coronavirus infections, the regional government said yesterday.
The wealthy region centred on capital Barcelona closed nightspots and restaurants on October 16, imposed a night-time curfew and partially restricted entry from other regions of Spain as part of measures to fight the pandemic.
Ireland is planning a nationwide cull of mink over fears they may carry a mutated version of the coronavirus detected in the animals in Denmark, a government spokesman said yesterday.
An agriculture ministry spokesman said that testing of Ireland's mink herd has yielded no positive Covid-19 tests to date.
But the republic's department of health 'indicated that the continued farming of mink represents an ongoing risk of additional mink-adapted (coronavirus) variants emerging, he said in a statement.
There are three mink farms housing around 120,000 animals across Ireland.
And Sweden's health agency said yesterday that a number of people who work in the mink industry had tested positive for the coronavirus.
Authorities are analysing virus from the infected people and from infected minks to see if there is a link between the strains, the health agency said in a statement.
It did not specify how many people had tested positive.
Greece will shut one border crossing with Albania and conduct rapid Covid-19 tests on all visitors at its land borders, its government spokesman said yesterday, as cases in northern Greece continue to rise unabated.
Greece has seen a rapid rise in coronavirus cases in recent weeks which forced it to impose a nationwide lockdown, its second this year.
Its northern regions, including the city of Thessaloniki, have been hit the most.
The latest measures will come into effect this morning at 0400 GMT, government spokesman Stelios Petsas said, urging residents to also implement restrictions on movement.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101155408/Russian-regions-told-to-act-as-Covid-cases-pass-2mn.

 

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Serbia reports record-high number of new daily coronavirus cases

(MENAFN - Trend News Agency) Serbia has reported a record high number of new daily coronavirus cases, according to the country's Health Ministry, Trend reports citing TASS .

The number of cases rose by 6,109 to 104,097 in the past 24 hours. According to the Health Ministry, 29 coronavirus patients died in the past day, bringing the death toll to 1,110. As many as 186 patients remain hooked up to ventilators.

Over 1,573,000 coronavirus tests have been conducted in Serbia so far.

The Serbian government ordered that all entertainment facilities, shopping malls and stores must be closed between 9 pm and 5 am in an attempt to prevent the infection from spreading. The authorities earlier limited to five the number of people allowed to gather indoors and outdoors.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101154704/Serbi...mber-of-new-daily-coronavirus-cases&source=30.

 

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Germany reports 22,609 new daily COVID-19 cases

(MENAFN - Trend News Agency) The number of new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Germany increased by 22,609 in 24 hours, bringing the total to 855,916, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) said on Thursday. The increase is slightly above the previous week's level, Trend reports citing Xinhua.

Germany is currently in the second half of a month-long partial coronavirus lockdown.

The situation is "still serious, very serious," said RKI President Lothar Wieler at a press conference on Thursday. The case numbers are "still very high overall, much too high."

"The case numbers have stabilized at a high level in the last two weeks," said Wieler. "But we do not know whether this is already a trend reversal."

The number of deaths related to COVID-19 in Germany increased by 251 on Thursday to a total of 13,370, according to the RKI.

The number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care increased to 3,561 by Wednesday, the RKI said. During the first wave of COVID-19, the peak was around 2,900 COVID-19 patients in intensive care units, according to the DIVI online registry for intensive care beds.

Some hospitals in the country could reach capacity limits soon and patients could no longer receive optimal care, Wieler said.

On Monday, Chancellor Angela Merkel and the minister presidents of the federal states drew up an interim balance sheet of Germany's partial lockdown. Rather than further tightening the preventive measures, they appealed to the public to reduce social contacts to a minimum.

Representatives of the federal and state governments are scheduled to meet again on Nov. 25 to agree on COVID-19 measures for December and January.

As the world is struggling to contain the pandemic, countries including Germany, China, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States are racing to find a vaccine.

According to the website of the World Health Organization, as of Nov. 12, 212 COVID-19 candidate vaccines were being developed worldwide, 48 of them in clinical trials.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101155660/Germany-reports-22609-new-daily-COVID-19-cases.

 

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Czech Republic extends COVID-19 state of emergency

(MENAFN - Trend News Agency) The Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic on Thursday voted to extend the country's COVID-19 state of emergency until Dec. 12, Trend reports citing Xinhua.

The government's original proposal aimed to extend the state of emergency -- previously set to expire on Nov. 20 -- to Dec. 20.

The deputies were split over the decision, but they eventually accepted a compromise proposal submitted by the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM).

The daily increase in COVID-19 cases has slowed down in response to the government's strict measures, but officials, among them Health Minister Jan Blatny, have warned that the situation is still not under control.

On Thursday, the country's infection risk index stood at 62 on the 0-100 scale, down from 70 on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, the Czech Health Ministry confirmed 5,515 new coronavirus infections.

As the world is struggling to contain the pandemic, countries including France, China, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States are racing to find a vaccine.

According to the website of the World Health Organization, as of Nov. 12, 212 COVID-19 candidate vaccines were being developed worldwide, 48 of them in clinical trials.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101155414/Czech-Republic-extends-COVID-19-state-of-emergency&source=27.

 

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Japan's daily virus cases surge past previous record high

TOKYO -- Japan's number of reported coronavirus infections hit a record high Thursday, and the prime minister urged maximum caution but stopped short of calling for restrictions on travel or business.

The Health Ministry reported 2,179 new cases, the first time Japan has seen more than 2,000 new daily cases since the pandemic began. The previous high for new cases was 1,723 on Nov. 14.

Compared to many other countries, Japan has done well with its efforts to combat the virus, reporting 122,966 infections, with 1,922 deaths, since the pandemic began. But it has seen an uptick in cases recently, with record highs both nationally and in Tokyo, the country's largest city.

Tokyo's metropolitan government on Thursday reported 534 new cases, a record high, and raised its alert level to "red," or highest on the scale of four. Tokyo's previous record was 493 set Wednesday. Before that Tokyo's numbers peaked in August during an earlier surge.

The nationwide spikes, especially in the populated capital region and Hokkaido in the north, are also alarming experts ahead of an upcoming three-day weekend and the winter holiday season of travelling and parties. They have called on officials to step up preventive measures.

Experts on Tokyo's coronavirus panel called Thursday for officials to secure more beds for patients and hotel rooms for those with less-serious symptoms before infections further accelerate.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga told reporters Thursday that he has instructed relevant ministers to do their utmost to prevent the infections from escalating and he urged the thorough use of masks. But he said his government's tourism and dining incentives will continue.

The "GoTo eat" dining campaign aimed at supporting the restaurant and tourism industry should be limited to groups of up to four people, Suga said. He also asked people to wear masks when dining, remove them only they put food in their mouths and immediately put them back on while talking quietly.

"I ask the people to quietly dine with mask," Suga said. "I will start thoroughly doing that myself."

Experts say the wide use of face masks and other common preventative measures, as well as cultural traditions that lack handshakes and kissing, might have helped keep the country's caseload low.

Infections have gradually climbed back as the government tries to balance disease prevention and the economy without curbing business activity.

A top government panel expert, Shigeru Omi, told a parliamentary session Wednesday that infection "clusters" are now occurring in diverse situations, making preventive measures more challenging and would require scaling down of economic and social activity.

"It's time to buckle up again," Omi said.

Japan Medical Association President Toshio Nakagawa urged Tokyo residents to stay home over the weekend.

Economy Revitalization Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told reporters late Wednesday that service industry groups are currently revising their safety guidelines to step up preventive measures at restaurants and bars where risks are deemed high.

Government officials are reluctant to scale back businesses at a time when the economy is still struggling. The resurgence could also complicate things as Tokyo prepares to host the Olympics next summer after a postponement due to the pandemic.

Japan declared a state of emergency in April and May, making nonbinding stay-at-home and business closure requests. The number of cases had levelled off thanks to the measure, even if many people still commuted, picnicked in the park and dined at restaurants that stayed open despite the requests.

Source: https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/japan-s-daily-virus-cases-surge-past-previous-record-high-1.5195465.

 

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'Covid pandemic worsening rapidly in Canada'

(MENAFN - IANS)

Ottawa, Nov 21 (IANS) Canada could see upward of 60,000 new cases of Covid-19 by the end of December if Canadians increase their contacts and gatherings, according to the Covid-19 modelling charts issued by the Public Health Agency of Canada.

The modelling shows the country's daily case counts are increasing significantly and rapid growth is occurring in several provinces because each new case in Canada is spreading the infection to more than one other person, Xinhua reported.

It demonstrates that even under current rates of contacts into December, Canada could record 20,000 cases a day.

In the short term, the total number of Canadian Covid-19 cases is expected to reach between 366,500 to 378,600, and between 11,870 to 12,120 deaths by November 30. The total number stood at 317,171 Friday morning.

"The national epidemic curve shows that case counts have far surpassed peak levels seen during the first wave," Canadian Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam said at a press conference in Ottawa Friday morning.

"An average of about 4,800 cases are now being reported daily. Moreover, epidemic growth is continuing at rapid pace, and about 15 per cent more daily cases are reported this week, compared to the last."

To drive that number under 10,000 cases a day by the end of the year, Canadians would need to limit their interactions to essential activities while maintaining physical distancing and adhering to other public health guidelines.

"We are not on a good trajectory," Tam said on Friday. "I think across the board, across Canada, we have to say the time is now, with urgency, that we limit contacts. However that is being done at the local level, that is the underlying principle. Keep those contacts down by restrictions and of course each individual doing their work."

Tam also pointed out that increased cases strain on hospitals and healthcare systems, pushing some to capacity and leading to the postponement of other medical procedures in the country.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101160274/Covid-pandemic-worsening-rapidly-in-Canada.

 

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France poised to reopen stores as Covid case numbers drop

(MENAFN - AFP) France on Friday prepared to reopen stores for the crucial Christmas shopping season, encouraged by new data suggesting that the country is past the worst of its second wave of coronavirus infections.

Thanks to curfews and lockdowns, confirmed new infections dropped 40 percent last week, admissions to hospital fell 13 percent, and the number of new intensive care patients was down nine percent, the national health agency Sante Publique France reported.

The data provided fresh arguments for shop owners who have been lobbying to be allowed to reopen as early as next week as the government sought to hammer out arrangements for the Black Friday shopping splurge that would make the retail bonanza compatible with ongoing health protocols.

An update on store openings is expected on Tuesday, when President Emmanuel Macron goes on television to update the country on coronavirus measures, his office said.

"Although indicators are still at high levels, they suggest that the peak of the second wave is behind us," the agency said, but warned that it was too early to relax lockdown measures.

The number of Covid deaths has stabilised after several weeks of increases, the agency said, with 3,756 recorded fatalities compared with 3,817 a week earlier.

- 'Direct impact' -

French cities that imposed curfews earliest are now seeing the sharpest decreases in patient numbers, Sante Publique said.

Confinement measures were having "a direct impact" on patient statistics, which typically started to fall around 10 days after restrictions kicked in.

The government placed Paris and some other large cities under curfew on October 17, with others following suit a week later.

But since October 30, all of France has been under a lockdown, though it is less severe than the one seen in the spring, with schools still open and a wider range of shops still welcoming clients.

Sante Public said the "encouraging" statistics "should not make us forget that pending the availability of treatments and vaccines, the only way to slow the pandemic and lessen its impact on the health system is still to adopt individual prevention measures, combined with collective measures."

On Friday, Transport Minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari warned that it was too early to say whether people would be able to travel at Christmas, saying the Covid trend reversal was still "fragile."

National rail operator SNCF has slashed train schedules by 70 percent, but is planning to ramp its network back to normal capacity starting December 15.

- Black Friday, a movable feast -

Representatives from stores and online commerce sites meanwhile agreed with the finance ministry that Black Friday, scheduled for November 27 this year, will be postponed by a week if shops have been authorised to reopen by then.

Originally a US retail fest, Black Friday has caught on across the world, with French luxury department store Galeries Lafayette saying it generated more revenue on Black Friday in 2019 than on any other day of the year.

Government officials said reopening brick-and-mortar stores by Black Friday was one of the options on the table, but they feared that crowds flocking into shops could endanger progress made against infections.

The deal signed Friday deal was to allow "a reopening of stores soon under maximum health security conditions", a joint statement from the signatories said, without having to absorb large crowds of bargain hunters.

The head of Amazon's French operations, Frederic Duval, had already flagged that his company was in favour of moving Black Friday back to December 4 "if that allows shops and physical stores to reopen before December 1".

French stores have complained that the retail day would unfairly benefit online retail giants like Amazon if high street stores remained shuttered.

Macron is expected on Tuesday to announce tweaks to the current lockdown measures, which technically expire on December 1, with an easing of restrictions rather than ending the lockdown entirely.

Prime Minister Jean Castex said Friday that France was "on the right path" which could justify small shops reopening "around December 1".

Source: https://menafn.com/1101160178/France-poised-to-reopen-stores-as-Covid-case-numbers-drop&source=140.

 

[sweep_shot]

Mexico becomes 4th country to reach 100k Covid-19 deaths

(MENAFN - IANS)

Mexico City, Nov 20 (IANS) Mexico has announced that its Covid-19 death toll had exceeded 100,000, becoming the world's fourth country to reach the grim milestone after the US, Brazil and India.

"Today in Mexico we have 100,000 people who have lost their lives due to Covid-19," Xinhua news agency quoted Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell as saying to reporters on Thursday.

On Thursday, the Health Ministry announced 576 new fatalities, taking the total death toll to 100,004.

The overall caseload in Mexico, the hardest-hit Latin American country, has increased to 1,019,543, up 4,472 from the previous day, the Ministry further said.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101156667/Mexico-becomes-4th-country-to-reach-100k-Covid-19-deaths&source=30.

 

[sweep_shot]

Covid-19 tests imported from South Korea were 'flawed': WPost

Coronavirus tests imported from South Korea by the governor of the US state of Maryland were flawed and ended up not being used, The Washington Post reported on Friday.

The newspaper said Maryland Governor Larry Hogan spent $9.46 million in April to import 500,000 coronavirus tests from South Korea.

But the tests turned out to be flawed and the state "quietly" paid the same South Korean company an additional $2.5 million for 500,000 replacement tests, the Post said.

It said a University of Maryland laboratory abandoned its use of the replacement tests after a spate of suspected false positives but a private lab continues to use them.

Around 370,000 of the replacement tests have been used by the private lab, the Post said.

Hogan, a frequent critic of President Donald Trump, trumpeted the arrival of the South Korea tests in April and praised the assistance of his South Korean-born wife in obtaining them.

Hogan declined requests to comment on the newspaper's story, the Post said.

Source: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-11-covid-imported-south-korea-flawed.html.

 

[sweep_shot]

Madrid to close for ten days to curb Covid-19 spread

(MENAFN - IANS)

Madrid, Nov 21 (IANS) The Autonomous Community of Madrid will close its perimeter for 10 days between December 4 and 14, the regional government confirmed.

The measure has been adopted to stop the transmission of coronavirus into and out of the Spanish capital and its surrounding region over the long holiday weekend that lasts from December 5 until December 8, Xinhua reported.

"We want things to be as good as possible as we approach Christmas," explained the Madrid region's deputy health chief, Antonio Zapatero.

He said the decision had been taken "in the interest of prudence."

The decision to seal off the Madrid region is a repeat of the action taken by the regional government during the recent three-day' weekends ending on November 1 and November 9.

Zapatero said that the 12 midnight to 6 a.m. curfew currently in place in the region would remain in force, and gatherings will also remain limited to six people.

Friday also saw Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announce that his government had prepared "a comprehensive vaccination plan" that would be approved at the next meeting of his cabinet on Tuesday.

Speaking at an event in the La Rioja region in the north of Spain, Sanchez said the plan would make Spain "the first country within the EU, along with Germany, to have a full vaccination plan."

"We are ready. Our forecasts ... show that a very substantial part of the Spanish population will be able to be vaccinated, with all guarantees, within the first half of the year," he said.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101160723/Madrid-to-close-for-ten-days-to-curb-Covid-19-spread&source=27.

 

[Firebat]

Eastern Europe crosses over 5 million COVID-19 cases: Reuters tally

(Reuters) - The tally of coronavirus cases in the Eastern European sub-region passed 5 million on Saturday, a Reuters tally showed, as governments across Europe take measures to try to rein in surging cases.

The region, which comprises Belarus, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, and Ukraine, has the highest count of reported COVID-19 cases in Europe.

Eastern Europe reported over 82,000 cases in a single day on an average in the last week, while adding over 1,500 deaths daily on average.

Russia, Poland, and Ukraine are among the top 20 countries with the most cases in the world.

A recent surge in cases has taken Russia past the 2 million threshold, behind only the United States, India, Brazil, and France in total infections. Authorities have resisted imposing lockdowns across the country as they did earlier this year, however, preferring targeted, regional measures.

Europe has so far reported over 15 million COVID cases, making it the region with the highest number of cases. It has recorded more than 346,000 deaths, the second-highest in the world by region after Latin America, according to a Reuters tally.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...on-covid-19-cases-reuters-tally-idUSKBN2810EB

 

[sweep_shot]

Covid-19 death toll exceeds 1K in Slovenia

(MENAFN - IANS)

Ljubljana, Nov 22 (IANS) The Covid-19 death toll in Slovenia has passed the 1,000 mark, showed official figures.

The country's death toll rose by 31 in the last 24 hours to 1,026, while the total number of cases increased by 1,690 to 64,123, Xinhua reported.

The country conducted 6,580 coronavirus tests on Friday, with 25.68 percent of them returning positive. A total of 1,219 Covid-19 patients are in hospitals, 35 fewer than the day before. Among the hospitalized, 197 are in intensive care, four fewer than the day before.

The death toll in the second wave of the Covid-19 in the country is much higher than the one registered in the first wave, when 108 people died from the coronavirus-caused disease, according to the Slovenian Press Agency (STA), which reported that more than 600 people died in November alone.

Government spokesperson Jelko Kacin tweeted that "daily fluctuations can be seen, but this week the trend was notably negative nevertheless."

Government departments in Slovenia have been instructed to prepare a mass testing of the population for coronavirus by December 5 and the registration of candidates for voluntary vaccination, Prime Minister Janez Jansa announced on Twitter Friday night.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101164478/Covid-19-death-toll-exceeds-1K-in-Slovenia&source=22.

 

[sweep_shot]

Turkey reports 5,532 new COVID-19 cases, 440,805 in total

(MENAFN - Trend News Agency) Turkey confirmed 5,532 new COVID-19 patients on Saturday, raising the total number of cases in the country to 440,805, the Turkish Health Ministry announced, Trend reports citing Xinhua.

Meanwhile, 135 people died in the past 24 hours, taking the death toll to 12,219.

A total of 3,233 patients recovered in the last 24 hours, raising the total recoveries to 370,825.

The rate of pneumonia in COVID-19 patients is 3.8 percent and the number of seriously ill patients is 4,121.

A total of 152,214 tests were conducted over the past day, with the overall number of tests reaching 17,090,101 in the country.

This week, Turkey has reintroduced several restrictions to curb the rapid rise in cases, including a nationwide curfew from 8 p.m. to 10 a.m. on weekends. Schools will remain closed until the end of the year, with students switching to online education.

Turkey reported the first COVID-19 case on March 11.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101164289/Turkey-reports-5532-new-COVID-19-cases-440805-in-total&source=246.

 

[sweep_shot]

Italy: Students protest over school closures due to COVID-19 | NewsBytes

(MENAFN - NewsBytes) Italian school students have been protesting against the closure of schools in Turin city, Piedmont, due to COVID-19.

The protests were started by a 12-year-old girl, Anita Iacovelli, who sat outside her school, studying remotely on a tablet computer, as a sign of protest.

Schools were shut again after reopening in parts of Italy earlier this month amid the second wave of COVID-19.

In this article 'Learning at school is our right' Anita highlights problems with remote learning Schools in Italy had reopened earlier in September Anita's protest draws Education Minister's attention People draw parallels between Anita and Greta Anita says she would like to help schools in future
Protest 'Learning at school is our right'

Source: https://menafn.com/1101162658/Italy-Students-protest-over-school-closures-due-to-COVID-19-NewsBytes.

 

[sweep_shot]

Ukraine reports 14,580 new coronavirus cases

(MENAFN - UkrinForm) As of November 21, Ukraine has reported 612,665 COVID-19 cases, including 14,580 new coronavirus cases recorded in past 24 hours.

"As many as 14,580 new COVID-19 cases were registered in Ukraine in the past 24 hours (including 610 children and 590 health workers)," Health Minister of Ukraine Maksym Stepanov posted on Facebook.

According to him, 215 deaths, 1,761 hospitalizations and 7,989 recoveries were recorded in Ukraine on November 21.

Over the entire period of the pandemic, 282,313 recoveries and 10,813 deaths have been registered in Ukraine.

Stepanov also noted that 71,949 coronavirus tests had been performed in Ukraine in the past 24 hours.

The highest number of confirmed cases in past 24 hours was registered in Dnipropetrovsk region (1,342), Kyiv city (1,213), Sumy region (961), Kyiv region (953) and Zaporizhzhia region (810).

Source: https://menafn.com/1101163253/Ukraine-reports-14580-new-coronavirus-cases&source=27.

 

[sweep_shot]

Brazil's Covid-19 tally surpasses 6 million

(MENAFN - IANS)

Brasilia, Nov 21 (IANS) Brazil registered 38,397 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, bringing the nationwide tally to 6,020,164, the Ministry of Health said.

Meanwhile, 552 more fatalities from the virus were also reported by the Ministry on Friday, taking the death toll to 168,613, reports Xinhua news agency.

Brazil currently accounts for the world's second-highest Covid-19 death toll, after the US, and the third-largest number of confirmed cases, after the US and India.

The country registered an increase in cases and deaths in recent weeks, mainly in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

The state of Sao Paulo, the most populous in the country, has been hardest-hit, with 1,200,348 cases and 41,179 deaths, followed by Rio de Janeiro, with 336,915 cases and 21,938 deaths.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101161509/Brazils-Covid-19-tally-surpasses-6-million&source=30.

 

[sweep_shot]

Italy reports 28,337 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, 562 deaths

ROME — – Italy has registered 28,337 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, the health ministry said on Sunday, down from 34,767 the day before.

The ministry also reported 562 COVID 19-related deaths, down from 692 on Saturday and 699 on Friday.

There were 188,747 coronavirus swabs carried out in the past day, the ministry said, against a previous 237,225.

Italy was the first Western country to be hit by the virus and has seen 49,823 COVID-19 fatalities since its outbreak emerged in February, the second highest toll in Europe after Britain’s. It has also registered 1.409 million cases.

While Italy’s daily death tolls have been the highest in Europe over recent days, the increase in hospital admissions and intensive care occupancy has slowed.

The number of people in hospital with COVID-19 stood at 34,279 on Sunday, a rise of 216 from the day before. That compared with a daily increase of 106 on Saturday.

The number of patients in intensive care rose by 43, following an increase of just 10 on Saturday, and now stands at 3,801.

When Italy’s second wave of the epidemic was accelerating fast, until around a week ago, hospital admissions were rising by around 1,000 per day, while intensive care occupancy was increasing by about 100 per day.

The northern region of Lombardy, centered on Italy’s financial capital Milan, remained the hardest hit area on Sunday, reporting 5,094 new cases.

The southern region of Campania, which has only about 60% of Lombardy’s population, chalked up the second highest number of new cases, at 3,217.

Source: https://nationalpost.com/pmn/health...37-new-coronavirus-cases-on-sunday-562-deaths.

 

[sweep_shot]

Brazil registers 194 COVID-19 deaths on Sunday

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil registered 18,615 additional coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours and 194 new deaths, the nation’s Health Ministry said on Sunday.

South America’s largest country has now registered 6,071,401 total confirmed coronavirus cases and 169,183 deaths.

The Sunday figures were somewhat lower than totals presented in previous days. The Health Ministry warned, however, that “some problems” related to the government’s information technology systems could lead to delays in updating coronavirus data.

(Reporting by Gram Slattery; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Source: https://nationalpost.com/pmn/health-pmn/brazil-registers-194-covid-19-deaths-on-sunday.

 

[sweep_shot]

Japan breaks record for new cases for fourth straight day

TOKYO -- The daily tally of reported COVID-19 cases in Japan hit a record for the fourth day in a row, with 2,508 people confirmed infected, the health ministry said Sunday.

Japan has had fewer than 2,000 coronavirus-related deaths so far, avoiding the toll of harder hit nations. But fears are growing about another surge.

A flurry of criticism has erupted, from opposition legislators and the public, slamming the government as having acted too slowly in halting its "GoTo" campaign, which encouraged travel and dining out with discounts.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced the decision Saturday. But many people had already made travel reservations for this three-day Thanksgiving weekend in Japan.

Airports and restaurants have been packed. Some said the government should have offered to pay for cancellations, or stepped up more on PCR testing instead, if the goal is to keep the economy going amid a pandemic.

Tutorials are circulating online on the proper way to eat and drink at restaurants, while wearing masks.

Source: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coron...r-new-cases-for-fourth-straight-day-1.5199845.

 

[sweep_shot]

Turkey: Young artists highlight coronavirus effects on artworks

(MENAFN)

In the cultural core of Turkey, Istanbul, more than one hundred young Turkish artists have interpreted the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on their internal worlds through a great art event.

On Friday, Nov. 20, with over 110 works of art of an overall of 102 artists from several fields, the fourth edition of BASE, one of the key art shows in the country allocated to young performers, was launched.

Curator Derya Yucel addressed Xinhua saying: "we can follow the traces of the pandemic quarantine process, sometimes indirectly and sometimes directly, on their unique creative styles of the participant artists."

The coordinators stated that, the coronavirus age, in which self isolation has turned into the new routine, is portrayed in this year's theme named "Far-Near," and the theme narrates a tale of human's adjustment capability to the shifting situation.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101166004/Turke...ght-coronavirus-effects-on-artworks&source=21.

 

[sweep_shot]

Russia's coronavirus cases rise by 24,581 in the past day

(MENAFN - Trend News Agency) Russia's coronavirus cases grew by 24,581 in the past day to a total of 2,089,329, the crisis center told reporters on Sunday, Trend reports citing TASS .

In the past three days, the number of new cases of infection exceeded 24,000. According to the crisis center, the average growth rate over the past four days did not surpass 1.2%.

Currently, 457,707 people are undergoing treatment in Russia.

Russia's death toll from the coronavirus grew by 401 in the past day, reaching 36,179.

The average mortality rate remained at 1.73%, according to its data.

Russia's coronavirus recoveries rose by 18,008 in the past day to a total of 1,595,443.

According to the crisis center, the share of recoveries remained at 76.4% of the total number of those infected.

In the past 24 hours, 5,245 patients were discharged in Moscow, 1,335 in St. Petersburg, 695 in the Saratov Region, 571 in the Moscow Region and 387 in the Sverdlovsk Region.

Source: https://menafn.com/1101166352/Russias-coronavirus-cases-rise-by-24581-in-the-past-day.