US President Joe Biden visits with volunteers at the Houston Food Bank, Feb 26, 2021, in Houston. (PATRICK SEMANSKY / AP)

NEW YORK / BRUSSELS / LONDON / FREETOWN / PARIS / LISBON / BOGOTA / JOHANNESBURG / ADDIS ABABA / BUENOS AIRES / BERLIN / BRASILIA - The Democrats-held House approved US President Joe Biden's US$1.9-trillion COVID-19 relief package early Saturday morning amid Republican opposition, sending the bill to the Senate.

The measure, which is a major legislation for Biden, cleared the lower chamber of Congress by a vote of 219 to 212, with Democrats and Republicans largely voting along party lines. Two Democrats voted against it.

The relief plan contains direct payments of US$1,400 per person for working families, which is on top of the US$600 checks in the US$900-billion relief package approved in December. It would also boost federal unemployment benefits to US$400 per week and extend the measure through the end of September.

The bill also includes a US$15 federal minimum wage increase, which would face tough tests in the Senate, where parliamentarians have ruled that the wage increase violates the budget reconciliation process and cannot be included.

In another development, a panel of advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommended on Friday to authorize Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use.

The panel, consisting of infectious disease experts, doctors and scientists, believed the benefits of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine outweigh the risks for those 18 and older.

The positive vote, which came after hours of scientific discussion, paves the way for an official decision the FDA will make over the coming weekend.

However, about a quarter of Americans say they won’t take a dose of the coronavirus vaccines, and there is a partisan divide on the issue - much as around public health guidance to wear masks and take other precautions against infection. 

A Federal District's employee disinfects a public school as a measure against the spread of the new coronavirus in Brasilia, on Aug 5, 2020. (PHOTO / AFP)

Brazil

The governor of Brazil’s capital city, Brasilia, decreed a 24-hour lockdown for all but essential services on Friday to curb a worsening COVID-19 outbreak that has filled its intensive care wards to the brim.

The drastic step came as right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, who has repeatedly downplayed the gravity of the pandemic that has killed 250,000 Brazilians, renewed his attacks on state governors for destroying jobs with lockdowns.

“The lockdown will start today and be total, it will be 24-hours a day,” said a press aide for the federal district’s Governor Ibaneis Rocha. A decree published at the end of the day said the lockdown would start right after midnight Saturday.

WHO

Countries seeking their own COVID-19 vaccine doses are making deals with drug companies that threaten the supply for the global COVAX programme for poor and middle-income countries, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

“Now, some countries are still pursuing deals that will compromise the COVAX supply. Without a doubt,” WHO senior adviser Bruce Aylward told a briefing.

The WHO has long called upon rich countries to ensure that vaccines are shared equitably. The global organization is one of the leaders of COVAX, a programme that aims to supply 1.3 billion vaccine doses to poor and middle income countries this year. But so far, COVAX has had a slow rollout.

“We can’t beat COVID without vaccine equity. Our world will not recover fast enough without vaccine equity, this is clear,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

“We have made great progress. But that progress is fragile. We need to accelerate the supply and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, and we cannot do that if some countries continue to approach manufacturers who are producing vaccines that COVAX is counting on.”

The WHO also called on countries and manufacturers on Friday to provide more help for developing countries to access COVID-19 vaccines against the pandemic.

Global tally

The global COVID-19 death toll surpassed 2.51 million on Thursday, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

More than 113.3 million cases have been reported worlwide, according to the data.  

UN

The UN Security Council on Friday unanimously passed a resolution calling on all member states to support a "sustained humanitarian pause" to local conflicts, in order to allow for COVID-19 vaccinations.

Resolution 2656, adopted unanimously by the 15-member council, will enable the vaccines, which COVAX began distributing on Feb. 24, to reach those living in conflict areas.

The resolution calls on all UN member states to fund the COVAX initiative in order to help developing countries access coronavirus vaccines; to cooperate on overcoming logistical barriers to equitable access, including the inclusion of vulnerable groups such as refugees in national vaccination programs; and to support local ceasefires so coronavirus vaccinations can actually take place in conflict zones.

Hungry

Hungarian President Janos Ader received an injection of China's Sinopharm vaccine against COVID-19 on Friday, Hungarian news agency MTI reported.

Ader's doctors have advised him to get vaccinated as soon as possible, MTI said.

Meanwhile, in a short message aired by Hungarian public television M1, Ader called on all Hungarians to register for the vaccination as soon as possible.

"Anyone who gets the chance to receive the first and then the second vaccine with any product approved by the Hungarian authorities and Hungarian experts should do so," Ader said.

"Let's trust our doctors, let's trust our healthcare system," Ader said, adding that he hoped that Hungarians would soon leave the pandemic behind.

Canada

Canada announced its approval of the use of the COVID-19 vaccine co-developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca on Friday, clearing the way for millions of more inoculations in the country.

"AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine is indicated for active immunization of individuals 18 years of age and older for the prevention of coronavirus disease 2019," said Health Canada in its news release.

Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau said that while the vaccine program wasn’t going as fast as people would like, he expects everyone to be vaccinated “by the end of summer,” according to a transcript of an interview with Meet the Press.

He said Canada would continue to engage with the White H

Canada has confirmed 1,010 COVID-19 variant cases, the Public Health Agency of Canada said Friday.

Out of the 1,010, 964 are B.1.1.7 variant cases, 44 are B.1.351 variant cases and two are P.1 variant cases.

Over the past week, an average of 97,120 tests were completed daily, of which 3.2 percent were positive for COVID-19 and an average of 2,960 new cases and 52 deaths were reported daily.

Poland

The average weekly level of infections in the "third wave" of the pandemic would amount to 10,000-12,000, Polish Health Minister  Adam Niedzielski said on Friday.

"Currently, we have slightly more than 8,000 infections," said Niedzielski, adding there are grounds to believe that "the third wave should be a bit smaller."

The minister expected the pandemic to peak in the next three to four weeks.

However, he told Polish Radio One that this scenario may prove to be erroneous due to the appearance of new variants of the coronavirus. He referred to the Warmia-Masuria province, where "the dynamic increase in the incidence is caused by a mutation."

According to Niedzielski, tests have shown that the coronavirus variant first detected in Britain is responsible for more than 70 percent of infections in this province.

Portugal

Emerging from the European Council meeting, which was held via video conference on Feb. 25-26, Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa said all participants agreed that, "to eradicate the pandemic, it is necessary to accelerate the vaccination process against the new coronavirus" in the European Union (EU).

"There was a very constructive exchange of views on the need to collectively support an increase in vaccine production and streamline the vaccine licensing processes by the European Medicines Agency," he told journalists.

Costa confirmed that a bloc-wide vaccine passport will be created "in the coming months," which would allow vaccinated people to travel freely within the EU "without quarantine."

Portugal will present in March a gradual plan to ease restrictions, and it’s “natural” that the first steps may be schools, Costa said Friday.

Daily infections eased in February after one of the most difficult months in the pandemic. The government said on Jan. 21 that the variant that first emerged in the U.K. was spreading quickly, forcing it to adopt additional measures such as closing schools.

Italy

Italy’s infections rose to the highest point since Jan. 1 as restrictions were set to tighten again in some regions, including Milan, according to Ansa newswires.

The country reported 20,499 new cases, compared with 19,886 the day before. Giovanni Rezza, head of prevention at the Health Ministry, said he is worried that many regional clusters are related to new virus strains.

Belgium

Belgium’s federal government and regions agreed to postpone a decision about relaxing restrictions by a week amid a surge in hospital admissions in recent days, Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said.

Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke said he’s asking hospitals to reserve as much as 50% of ICU beds for COVID-19 patients. Current ICU occupation by COVID-19 patients ranges from 7 percent to as much as 35 percent, depending on the region.

Germany

Fifty-six percent of German citizens would support the immediate easing of the country's COVID-19 measures, while 41 percent would not like to see them relaxed, a Politbarometer survey published by the German public broadcaster ZDF showed on Friday.

Although most Germans still believe that the current COVID-19 measures in Germany are "just right," 23 percent -- nine percentage points more than in late January -- said the measures are "exaggerated."

Only 18 percent favor stricter coronavirus measures in Germany, ten percentage points less than at the end of January, the survey found. However, a broad majority -- 64 percent -- of Germans believe that a third COVID-19 wave is about to hit the country.

Sweden

Delivery problems have hampered the rollout of coronavirus vaccines in Sweden and caused great frustration among the general public, the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR) said on Friday.

The government has pledged that every adult in Sweden will be vaccinated by the end of June, but the SALAR warned that this might not happen as vaccine deliveries are not expected to be scaled up before the end of May at the earliest.

Also, only a fraction of the number of doses the government and the Public Health Agency had forecast would have been delivered has actually arrived, SALAR told journalists.

UK

Police and teachers will not jump to the head of the queue in the second phase of Britain’s COVID-19 vaccination rollout, with people instead prioritised by age, officials advising the government said on Friday, describing this as the best way to keep up the pace of immunisations.

Britain’s vaccine programme has been among the fastest in the world, meeting a government target to offer a first dose of vaccination to 15 million high-risk people by mid-February.

Another 8,523 people in Britain have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 4,163,085, according to official figures released Friday.

The country also reported another 345 coronavirus-related deaths. The total number of coronavirus-related deaths in Britain now stands at 122,415. These figures only include the deaths of people who died within 28 days of their first positive test.

Czech 

The Czech government on Friday evening declared a new state of emergency that will start from Saturday and last 30 days until March 28.

In the past weeks, coronavirus infections in the country continued to increase, with 14,457 new cases confirmed in the past 24 hours. To date, the country has recorded a total of 1,212,780 cases and 19,999 deaths, according to data from the Ministry of Health.

To control the spread of the virus, the government also decided to adopt a stricter lockdown from Monday, including limit of people's movement, shutdown of more shops and full closure of schools. 

Latvia 

While Latvia is still struggling to cope with persistently high COVID-19 incidence and a slowdown in its vaccine rollout, epidemiologists and officials are warning about a looming third wave of coronavirus infections.

Jurijs Perevoscikovs, a senior epidemiologist at the Latvian Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), informed on Friday that after several weeks of gradual improvement, in the past seven days the number of COVID-19 cases have been on the rise again.

Liene Cipule, head of the Emergency Medical Service, said on Twitter that the third COVID-19 wave is expected to hit Latvia in the next two to four weeks. She also warned that by Easter, bed saturation in Latvia's hospitals can be twice as high as during the Christmas holidays.

Greece

Quarantine fatigue is one of the most significant challenges in Greece a year after the first COVID-19 case was detected in the country, Greek experts and pollsters said on Friday.

Greece's first confirmed infection was diagnosed on Feb. 26, 2020. A year later, the country has been in a nationwide lockdown, which was imposed since Nov. 7 and extended by one more week Friday, as the epidemiological load remains heavy in many regions, officials told a regular press briefing.

"We still have many challenges ahead to face. Perhaps the biggest is fatigue over social-distancing measures," said Gkikas Magiorkinis, a professor of epidemiology who is in the committee of experts advising the Greek Health Ministry on the management of the COVID-19 crisis.

Malta 

Malta reported 258 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, the highest daily increase since the start of the pandemic in the country, according to health authorities.

The previous record of 245 new cases was registered on Jan. 9.

To date, the country has reported a total of 21,982 COVID-19 cases. Of them, 19,087 have recovered and 313 died.

Superintendent of Public Health Charmaine Gauci told media Friday that the record number was attributable to the coronavirus variant first identified in the UK, which accounts for around eight percent of the new daily cases.

Argentina

Argentine Health Minister Carla Vizzotti on Friday said she had tested positive for COVID-19 and entered quarantine.

"I want to tell you that I did a swab as part of the procedure required to enter Congress on March 1, and they informed me of the positive result. Therefore, I will be quarantining over the next few days, following the established protocol," she posted to Twitter.

"The pandemic is not over, let us continue to comply with the care guidelines," she added in a second message.

The positive test result came only a week after she took over the Health Ministry on Feb. 20 after her predecessor resigned.

A person in a vehicle arrives to receive a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine at a mass vaccination site at The Forum arena in Inglewood, California, US, on Feb 26, 2021. (PHOTO / BLOOMBERG)

Chile

Representatives of the Chilean government on Friday received a fourth shipment of vaccines from Chinese pharmaceutical firm Sinovac to continue the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Three previous shipments of Sinovac's CoronaVac vaccine arrived in the South American country on Jan. 28, Jan. 31, and Feb. 25 respectively.

Chile's Health Ministry on Friday reported 4,586 new COVID-19 infections and 90 deaths in the last 24 hours, for accumulative 816,929 cases and 20,400 deaths.

Chilean Health Minister Enrique Paris said in a statement that new cases of the virus have fallen by 3 percent in the past two weeks, while 11 regions in the country have seen a decline in infections in the same period.

But he warned against abandoning COVID-19 preventive measures.

Cuba

Cuba on Friday reported 875 COVID-19 infections in 24 hours, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 48,441, along with two more deaths for a total of 314, the Ministry of Public Health said.

According to its daily report, 43,735 patients, or 90.3 percent, have recovered from the disease, while 4,336 cases remain active.

During his daily televised appearance, the ministry's national director of hygiene and epidemiology Francisco Duran explained that of the infections in the last day, a total of 854 were community transmitted, while 21 were imported cases.

Mexico

Mexico will receive 800,000 Sinovac doses on Feb. 27 and 852,150 Pfizer doses on March 2, Health Ministry official Ricardo Cortes said at a Friday evening press conference.

So far, Mexico has received 1.77m doses of Pfizer vaccine, 870,000 of AstraZeneca, 200,000 of Sinovac and 200,000 of Sputnik, according to data presented by Cortes at the conference. Mexico has administered 2,271,032 doses of vaccine and 562,311 people have received a second dose, Cortes said. 

Ecuador 

Ecuador health minister Juan Carlos Zevallos resigned Friday, becoming the third top Latin American health official forced out in a week as outrage grows over the ability of the region’s richest and most powerful to obtain vaccinations before the rest of the population.

President Lenin Moreno, whose term ends May 24, posted the minister’s resignation letter on Twitter. Zevallos’ departure was quickened after he sent letters to university presidents inviting them to skip the line, and after prosecutors launched an investigation into his mother’s vaccination in January.

Africa

The deployment of COVID-19 vaccines in Africa has accelerated amid the quest to contain the virus and reopen the continent's economy, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional director for Africa, said the continent has stepped up procurement of vaccines to inoculate groups at higher risk of contracting the coronavirus.

"The roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines is an incredible, much-awaited leap forward for African countries that have spent months preparing while wealthy countries race ahead with vaccination," Moeti said in a statement issued in Nairobi late Thursday.

Ghana on Wednesday became the first African country to receive 600,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine procured through the COVAX facility.

Moeti said that Cote d'Ivoire will receive its vaccine allocation Friday while 24 African countries are expected to receive their doses procured under COVAX in a fortnight.

Botswana

Botswanan President Mokgweetsi Masisi said Friday that the COVID-19 variant first detected in South Africa has been found to be the most dominant in the country.

Addressing the nation on the state of the pandemic, Masisi said research has indicated that 80 percent of local cases are of the variant first detected in South Africa, which is reported to be easily transmittable.

Botswana had closed borders with South Africa except for essential travel but reopened the borders in December 2020.

Botswana is ready to bring into the country multiple COVID-19 vaccines, President Mokgweetsi Masisi said on Friday.

In his national address aired on television, Masisi said the southern African country will put in place a vaccination program in accordance with the Public Health Act, to ensure "a fair and equitable distribution of vaccines to all Batswana."

South Africa

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Friday called on the media to help disseminate correct messages about COVID-19 vaccinations and counter misinformation.

Ramaphosa made the remarks while engaging the South African National Editors' Forum (SANEF) about various issues affecting the country.

Algeria 

Algeria on Friday reported 183 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total number in the North African country to 112,805.

The death toll from the virus rose to 2,977 after four new fatalities were added, said the Algerian Ministry of Health in a statement.

Meanwhile, 159 more patients recovered from the disease, bringing the total number of recoveries in the country to 77,902, the statement added.

Cote d'Ivoire

Cote d'Ivoire on Friday received 504,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine from the vaccine-sharing COVAX initiative, according to the country's Ministry of Health and Public Hygiene.

The vaccine is produced by the pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca and will be administered in two doses in accordance with World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations.

Cote d'Ivoire is the second African country after Ghana to receive COVID-19 vaccines under the WHO-backed COVAX mechanism.

Tunisia

Tunisian Health Ministry on Friday reported 666 new COVID-19 cases, raising the total number of infections in the country to 231,964.

The death toll from the virus rose by 31 to 7,942, the ministry said in a statement.

The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients reached 1,116, including 268 in intensive care units, while the total number of recoveries reached 196,945, it added.

Uruguay

Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou on Friday thanked China for its support in providing COVID-19 vaccines.

Lacalle Pou expressed the gratitude during a meeting with Chinese Ambassador to Uruguay Wang Gang, according to Secretary of the Presidency Alvaro Delgado.

Accoring to the authorities, Uruguay will launch a vaccination campaign on March 1 to combat COVID-19 following the arrival of vaccines made by Chinese pharmaceutical firm Sinovac.

Ethiopia 

Ethiopia registered 935 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, taking the nationwide tally to 157,047 as of Friday evening, the country's health ministry said.

The ministry said 19 new deaths from the coronavirus were reported across the country during the same period, bringing the national death toll to 2,340.

The East African country reported 954 more recoveries, taking the national count of COVID-19 recoveries to 134,567.

Ethiopia, Africa's second-most populous nation, has so far reported the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the East Africa region.