In this file photo taken on Feb 4, 2021 aeroplanes stocked by TARMAC Aerosave, an aircraft recycling and storage company, are pictured on the company parking area in Azereix, southwestern France. (PHOTO / AFP)
SAO PAULO / TEGUCIGALPA / ROME / WASHINGTON / PARIS / BERLIN / MADRID / NAIROBI / SOFIA / LISBON / HELSINKI / LONDON / BRUSSELS / RABAT / ROME / ADDIS ABABA / STOCKHOLM / LOME / MOSCOW / BUDAPEST / ABUJA / COTONOU / KYIV / COPENHAGEN / WARSAW - France will ease some COVID-19 restrictions on international travel outside Europe, the foreign ministry said on Thursday.
The ministry said in a statement that travellers to or from Australia, South Korea, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Britain and Singapore would no longer have to need a compelling reason to travel.
All other restrictions, such as a requirement for a negative COVID-19 test less than 72 hours before travel, would remain in place, the ministry said, adding a decree was due to be published on March 12.
France reported 30,303 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours on Wednesday, rising above 30,000 for the first time in two weeks.
The number of people treated in intensive care units for the disease was unchanged at 3,918, halting a five-day-long increase, but staying at a three-and-a-half-month high.
Health Minister Olivier Veran is due to give his weekly COVID-19 briefing on Thursday but no major announcements are expected.
To date, France has reported 3.963 million cases, the sixth-highest total in the world.
There were 264 newly reported deaths over the past 24 hours, taking the total to 89,565, the seventh-highest in the world. The health ministry also reported on Wednesday that 4.32 million people, or 6.5 percent of the adult population, had received a first coronavirus vaccine and 2.10 million had received a second shot, for a total of 6,425 million injections.
Denmark
Denmark has temporarily suspended AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine shots after reports of cases of blood clots forming, including one in Denmark, Danish authorities said on Thursday.
They did not say how many reports of blood clots there had been. They said six other European countries had halted the use of a vaccine batch from AstraZeneca.
"Both we and the Danish Medicines Agency have to respond to reports of possible serious side-effects, both from Denmark and other European countries," the director of the Danish Health Authority, Soren Brostrom, said in a statement.
The vaccine would be suspended for 14 days, the health agency said. It did not give details of the Danish blood clot patient.
The Danish Medicines Agency said it had launched an investigation into the vaccine together with corresponding agencies in other EU-countries as well as EMA.
The agency said it had pushed back the final date for when it expects all Danes to have been fully vaccinated by four weeks to Aug 15 as a result of the vaccine suspension.
Global tally
Coronavirus cases worldwide have exceeded 118 million while the global death toll topped 2.61 million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Africa
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Africa has reached 3,994,030 as of Thursday noon, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said.
The Africa CDC, the specialized healthcare agency of the African Union (AU), said the death toll related to the pandemic stood at 106,712, while 3,576,363 patients across the continent have recovered from the disease.
The most affected countries in terms of the number of confirmed positive cases include South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, and Ethiopia, the agency noted.
Algeria
Algeria on Wednesday reported 138 new COVID-19 cases, raising the total number of confirmed cases in the North African country to 123,681.
The death toll rose to 3,026 after four more fatalities were added, the Ministry of Health said in a statement.
The total number of recoveries went up by 109 to 79,488, the ministry said.
In this Jan 2, 2021 file photo, boxes containing vials of the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine are seen at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, England. (GARETH FULLER / POOL VIA AP)
Belarus
Belarus reported 837 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, taking its total to 298,960, according to the country's health ministry.
Meanwhile, 1,009 new recoveries were logged, bringing the national tally to 289,622, the ministry added.
So far, 2,070 people have died of the disease in the country, including seven over the past 24 hours, it said.
The Belarusian health ministry said on Thursday it had registered several cases of the coronavirus variant first identified in Britain in passengers travelling from Poland, Ukraine and Egypt.
The variant was also found in people who were infected in Belarus, the ministry said.
Benin
Benin received its first batch of coronavirus vaccines on Wednesday, joining the list of African countries that have received their first doses via the COVAX initiative.
Receiving the vaccines is "a turning point" in Benin's national response to the pandemic, said Health Minister Benjamin Hounkpatin as he welcomed the 144,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines at Cardinal Bernadin Gantin International Airport.
The vaccines will cover 70,000 frontline health workers and other vulnerable groups, said the government.
The government said in a news release that 20 percent of the population is expected to take jabs distributed via COVAX for low income countries.
So far, the west African country has registered a total of 6,501 confirmed COVID-19 cases, along with 5,552 recoveries and 81 deaths. There were currently 868 patients receiving treatment.
Brazil
Brazil’s lower house of congress backed a US$7.5 billion COVID-19 aid bill in a first vote, hours after Latin America’s largest economy posted a record virus death toll for a single day.
Lawmakers voted early Thursday in favor of a so-called emergency bill that revives last year’s monthly stipends that kept millions of poor households afloat. To assuage investor concern, the bill also includes compensatory fiscal measures to demonstrate a commitment to austerity. As a constitutional amendment, the bill requires a second-round vote in the house, scheduled for Thursday morning.
Brazil registered 2,286 additional fatalites in the last 24 hours, according to the health ministry on Wednesday.
New coronavirus infections tallied 79,876 to bring the total in the year-long pandemic to more than 11.2 million, according to the ministry.
The overall death toll of 270,656 is the second-highest after the United States.
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said on Wednesday that infection rates in Brazil are worrying, spurred by a new and more contagious variant known as P1, and called for much stricter public health measures.
The government of the state of Sao Paulo confirmed in a news conference on Wednesday a Reuters report saying the COVID-19 vaccine developed by China's Sinovac Biotech Ltd is effective against the P1 variant.
Bulgaria
Bulgaria reported 3,502 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, its highest daily tally in three months, prompting some regions to again tighten measures to tame the third wave of the pandemic.
Local health authorities in Sofia, home to 2 million of the Balkan country's 7 million people, said secondary school students should study online from March 12 for two weeks, while restaurants and bars should close at 10 pm. Shopping malls and gyms in the capital remain open for now but will be shut if infections continue to surge.
Similar measures were introduced in the regions of Pleven, Blagoevgrad, Yambol and Vratsa, with at least four others set to decide on Thursday whether to follow.
On Wednesday, the total number of Bulgarians to have been infected reached 266,805, including 10,902 who have died.
Just 3 percent of the adult population has been vaccinated since the first shots were given in December, the lowest of any European Union country except Latvia.
Chile
The positivity rate of COVID-19 PCR tests in Chile stood at 11.01 percent, the highest figure since July 26, which was the peak of the pandemic in the country, according to the Ministry of Health on Wednesday.
The ministry also said Chile registered 3,958 new COVID-19 infections and 24 deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing the overall tally and the toll to 867,949 and 21,206, respectively.
Health Minister Enrique Paris said in a press release that three regions in the country saw a reduction in cases in the last seven days.
However, he noted that the regions with the greatest increase in new cases in a week were Santiago Metropolitan, Nuble, Biobio and Los Rios.
Congo
The first batch of COVID-19 vaccine donated by the Chinese government arrived Wednesday in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo, ahead of the vaccination expected on the eve of the scheduled presidential election on March 21.
Congolese Minister of Health Jacqueline Lydia Mikolo, who was accompanied by two other ministers and Chinese Ambassador Ma Fulin at the airport to welcome the cargo, said this is the first batch of COVID-19 vaccines received by her country.
"The vaccination will start in the following days. We are ready to vaccinate. The vaccination sites are known, " said the health minister.
Cuba
Cuba registered 772 new COVID-19 infections and five deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number confirmed cases to 58,379 and the toll to 357 in total, the Public Health Ministry said on Wednesday.
"There was a decrease of 269 cases from the previous day, but the figures are still high and there are cases throughout the country," Francisco Duran, the ministry's national director of hygiene and epidemiology, said during his daily report.
Of the cases reported in one day, 764 were from community transmission, of which 370 were posted in Havana.
Ecuador
Ecuador registered 1,727 new COVID-19 infections and 33 deaths in one day, bringing the total caseload to 296,841 cases, including 11,318 deaths, the Public Health Ministry reported on Wednesday.
In its daily report, the ministry said three more "probable deaths" due to COVID-19 were also logged in the same period for a total of 4,787.
The ministry also reported that 69,030 people have received their first dose of the vaccine against COVID-19 as of Tuesday.
El Salvador
El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele wrote on Twitter that the country would receive 33,600 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine via COVAX on Thursday.
Ethiopia
The Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health on Wednesday evening said 1,543 new COVID-19 cases were registered over the last 24 hours, taking the national count to 169,878.
The country also reported 15 additional fatalities and 503 new recoveries in the same period, bringing the death toll to 2,466 and total recoveries to 140,035.
EU
The European Union's drugs regulator on Thursday recommended conditionally approving Johnson & Johnson's single dose COVID-19 vaccine, as the bloc seeks to speed up a stuttering inoculation campaign and boost its supplies of vaccines.
The COVID-19 shot is the fourth to be endorsed for use in the EU after vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech , AstraZeneca-Oxford University and Moderna, and is recommended for those over 18 years of age, the European Medicines agency (EMA) said.
The European Commission has decided to extend its export authorization scheme for COVID-19 vaccines to the end of June, one EU official said on Thursday, in a move that could cause unease in countries who rely on shots made in the EU. The move could be announced as early as Thursday.
The regulation which makes the export of vaccines to about 100 countries subject to authorization, was planned to run until end March. So far the bloc has authorized the vast majority of exports. However, Italy blocked a shipment of AstraZeneca vaccines to Australia earlier this month.
In another development on Thursday, the EMA said it had initiated a rolling review of data on antibodies bamlanivimab and etesemivab being developed by US company Eli Lilly to treat COVID-19.
On Wednesday, the EMA said there was no evidence so far linking AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine to illnesses in two people who received it in Austria, one of whom died 10 days after being inoculated.
The Austrian national health authority suspended the use of a batch of the vaccine after a person who was vaccinated was diagnosed with multiple thrombosis and later died, and another was hospitalized with pulmonary embolism.
"Although a quality defect is considered unlikely at this stage, the batch quality is being investigated," the EMA said in a statement
Also on Wednesday, the European Commission announced that the bloc will receive an additional four million doses of BioNTech-Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine by the end of March to address the need in virus hotspots.
Finland
Finland's National Advisory Committee on Vaccines (KRAR) authorized on Wednesday the use of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine for people aged 70 and older, according to a press release issued by the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL).
In January, KRAR had recommended that the vaccine be administered only to people under the age of 70 in Finland as there was very limited research data on the effectiveness of the vaccine in the elderly.
As of Wednesday, 515,218 people in Finland had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, accounting for about 9.3 percent of the country's population, according to THL.
People wait at the entrance of the supraregional vaccination center Gera, Germany, March 10, 2021. (BODO SCHACKOW / DPA VIA AP)
Germany
Coronavirus cases in Germany rose the most since Jan 21, and the country’s seven-day incidence rate per 100,000 people climbed to the highest in more than a month.
There were 21,163 new infections recorded in the 24 hours through Thursday morning, taking the total to 2.54 million, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The incidence rate climbed to 69.1, the highest since Feb 9, from 65.4 the previous day, Germany’s RKI public-health institute reported.
Data from the RKI showed on Thursday that Germany's infection tally increased by 14,356 to 2,532,947, while the reported death toll rose by 321 to 72,810.
Far more people in Germany will get a coronavirus vaccination from April when family doctors start giving them but the idea that 25 percent of the population can get a shot in just a month is unrealistic, Health Minister Jens Spahn warned on Wednesday.
A government spokesman said later that Germans could expect up to 10 million doses to be administered per week by June, but not by April.
GSK-Vir
GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Vir Biotechnology Inc. said their COVID-19 antibody therapy showed a significant reduction of hospitalization and death for at-risk patients in an advanced-stage trial that progressed faster than expected.
The companies said Thursday that they will immediately seek emergency-use authorization in the US after they finished a late-stage study early on the recommendation of an independent monitoring board. The treatment, VIR-7831, reduced the numbers of patients who were hospitalized or died by 85 percent compared to a placebo, the companies said.
Glaxo and Vir also presented data showing the antibody therapy is active against variants that have originated in the UK, South Africa and Brazil. The companies are also examining different methods of delivering the antibody and are set to begin another trial in the second quarter looking at whether the drug can prevent COVID-19 in uninfected high-risk adults.
Guatemala
Guatemala said Wednesday it is expecting 81,600 doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine on Thursday, which it purchased through the global COVAX facility.
Guatemala's government said in a statement it had requested a total of 6.74 million doses from COVAX.
That adds to 5,000 vaccine doses donated to Guatemala by Israel and another 200,000 doses donated by India, it added.
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Honduras
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the WHO's regional office for the Americas, said Honduras will on Saturday receive its first 48,000 donated vaccine doses through COVAX.
It is the initial shipment of an expected 139,200 doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine expected to arrive in the country in the coming weeks from COVAX.
Honduras in February also received a donation of 5,000 vaccine doses from Israel.
The Central American country is eligible to receive vaccine donations from COVAX to cover 20 percent of its population, or about 2 million people.
COVAX agreed to increase the amount of doses sent in March after Honduras requested priority, citing the devastating effects of two hurricanes last year.
Honduras is scheduled to receive 424,800 doses between March and May, PAHO representative Piedad Huerta said.
Hungary
Hungary reported a record 8,312 new coronavirus infections on Thursday in a worsening third wave of the pandemic, with tighter lockdown measures and a vaccination campaign not yet sufficient to reverse a dismal trend.
There were 8,329 coronavirus patients in hospital on Thursday, 911 of them needing a ventilator, putting an increasing strain on the healthcare system.
The number of people on ventilators has tripled in the past one month, and the surgeon general has said more and more people aged 30 to 50 were in serious condition and in intensive care.
Hungary said on Thursday it was paying the equivalent of about US$37.5 per dose for Chinese company Sinopharm's COVID-19 vaccine, but hailed its importance to its inoculation campaign as it reported a record rise in new infections.
The country had given a first dose of a vaccine to 1.149 million people as of Thursday, the government said on its website. However, Hungary has still administered only 65.3 percent of a total of more than 2 million vaccines received, according to the EU's COVID-19 vaccine tracker website.
Italy
Italy's decision to ban a batch of AstraZeneca vaccine was taken following the deaths of two men in Sicily who had recently been inoculated, a source close to the matter said on Thursday.
Italy's medicines authority Aifa said earlier that the ban was a "precautionary" measure, adding that no link had been established between the vaccine and subsequent "serious adverse events." The source said Aifa had moved after Stefano Paterno, a 43-year-old navy officer, died earlier this week of a suspected heart attack the day after his jab.
Italy reported 332 coronavirus-related deaths on Wednesday against 376 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections rose to 22,409 from 19,749 the day before.
Italy has registered 100,811 deaths linked to COVID-19 since its outbreak emerged in February last year, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the seventh-highest in the world. The country has reported 3.12 million cases to date.
The health crisis sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the improvement Italy had made in the last ten years in terms of life expectancy, the country's Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) said on Wednesday.
Life expectancy at birth in the country dropped to 82 years in 2020 from 83.6 years in 2019, according to the "Equitable and Sustainable Well-Being in Italy" (BES) report. Ten years earlier, in 2010, it stood at 82.1 years.
"The positive development of life expectancy at birth between 2010 and 2019... has been severely curbed by the COVID-19, which has canceled out the gains of the decade in terms of years expected," ISTAT said.
Such gains were wiped out "completely in the North, and partially in the other areas of the country," it specified.
The report also showed 28.8 percent of households said their economic situation worsened in 2020 compared to 25.8 percent of the respondents in 2019.
This photo captures medical personnel at work in a COVID-19 unit of a hospital in Bologna, Italy, on March 10, 2021. (GIANNI SCHICCHI / XINHUA)
Kenya
Kenya's health ministry on Wednesday called on citizens to remain alert as the country is experiencing the third wave of COVID-19 pandemic.
Cabinet Secretary for Health Mutahi Kagwe said another 12 deaths and 713 new cases were registered in the last 24 hours, pushing the country's death toll to 1,898 and the cumulative tally to110,356.
The daily tally was the highest figure reported this year.
Mercy Mwangangi, chief administrative secretary in the ministry of health said the situation points to the emergence of a third wave in the country, but added that the situation was different in the counties which are yet to experience shortages at the intensive care units.
The east African nation so far vaccinated 4,000 people, one week after Kenya received 1.02 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.
Lithuania
The Lithuanian government on Wednesday decided to allow all shops with direct street access, and museums and galleries to reopen next week.
Starting Monday, stores, kiosks or pavilions with direct street access will be allowed to reopen if they can ensure at least 20 square meters of floor space per customer or serve only one customer at a time, according to the government.
Visits to museums, galleries and other exhibition spaces will also be allowed, on the condition that visitors buy tickets online or be registered in advance and operators would have to ensure there is at least 30 square meters distance between each visitor.
Visits to these facilities in groups are also limited to no more than two persons, except for members of one family or one household.
Starting next week, 59 primary schools in 25 out of Lithuania's 60 municipalities will also be allowed to reopen and follow a mixed mode of distance learning and classroom learning.
So far, Lithuania has registered 203,386 COVID-19 cases and 3,351 deaths, according to the Department of Statistics. The incidence rate in the last 14 days stands at 231.4 cases per 100,000 residents.
Malawi
Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera and his deputy, Saulos Chilima, on Thursday led the country in getting the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to mark the official rollout of the vaccination campaign.
The Malawi leader got his jab at a televised ceremony at a COVID-19 field hospital in the country's former capital city, Zomba, while Chilima got his jab at a field hospital in Mzuzu city in northern Malawi.
UN Resident Coordinator in Malawi, Maria Jose Torres Macho, also got the AstraZeneca jab at the facility followed by Speaker of Parliament, Catherine Gotani Hara, Malawi Defense Force and Malawi Police Service chiefs, representatives of religious leaders, traditional leaders, and some senior government officials.
Malta
The Maltese government on Wednesday ordered non-essential shops and schools to close amid a surge in COVID-19 cases on the Mediterranean island.
Prime Minister Robert Abela imposed the measures after Malta saw a daily record of 510 new cases on Wednesday in the country of 500,000 people.
As well as schools and shops, he suspended all organized sport and closed theatres, museums, gyms and religious activities. Gatherings of more than four people are prohibited.
Other restrictions introduced over recent weeks, including the closure of all bars and restaurants and the mandatory wearing of masks in public areas, remain in place.
Health Minister Chris Fearne said Malta was far ahead of other EU countries in its vaccination campaign against the virus, having given 18 percent of the population at least one jab.
Herd immunity is expected to be achieved by mid-summer, he said.
Mauritius
Mauritius has gone into lockdown and suspended flights in and out of the island for two weeks following the discovery of 15 more cases of COVID-19, the Mauritius state tourism agency said on Wednesday.
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The Indian Ocean island of 1.4 million people has had 641 confirmed coronavirus cases with 10 deaths, according to the latest World Health Organization (WHO) data.
All residents and visitors have been asked to stay at home or in their hotels until March 25, the Mauritian agency said in a statement.
The agency said Mauritius' vaccination program against the coronavirus has been underway since January, offering Oxford/AstraZeneca shots free of charge.
Mexico
Mexico's health ministry on Wednesday reported 6,674 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country and 699 additional fatalities, bringing the total tally of infections to 2,144,558 and 192,488 deaths.
Morocco
Morocco's COVID-19 tally rose to 487,286 on Wednesday after 453 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours, according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Health.
The death toll climbed to 8,705 as 10 more COVID-19 patients have died, according to the statement.
The total number of recoveries rose by 530 to 473,738, while 402 people were in intensive care units, according to the statement.
Meanwhile, a total of 4,080,009 people have so far received one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine while 854,274 have both shots.
Nicaragua
PAHO has placed orders with the Serum Institute of India for 135,000 doses for Nicaragua, the organization's director, Carissa Etienne, said at a news conference on Wednesday.
Nigeria
Eagle Square in Nigeria's capital Abuja usually hosts concerts, rallies, and even presidential inaugurations but since the COVID-19 pandemic it has become home to a mobile court where those who break rules aimed at containing the virus are prosecuted.
Small groups of men reluctantly file inside the square, which is surrounded by stadium seats, to receive fines from a judge of 2,000 naira (US$5.25) or more for offences such as not wearing masks, failing to social distance or being in a gathering over 50 people.
Other Nigerian states, including southeastern Anambra and western Kwara state have also trialed mobile courts, where the accused are brought by police to courts that are dismantled daily and can move to different locations.
Nigeria has had 159,252 confirmed cases and 1,988 deaths from the virus.
Norway
Norway halted on Thursday the rollout of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine, following a similar move by Denmark. "This is a cautionary decision," Geir Bukholm, Director of Infection Prevention and Control at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, told a news conference.
Pfizer
Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE said on Wednesday that real-world data from Israel suggests that their COVID-19 vaccine is 94 percent effective in preventing asymptomatic infections, meaning the vaccine could significantly reduce transmission.
The companies also said the latest analysis of the Israeli data shows the vaccine was 97 percent effective in preventing symptomatic disease, severe disease and death. That is basically in line with the 95% efficacy Pfizer and BioNTech reported from the vaccine’s late-stage clinical trial in December.
Pfizer Inc will consider making its coronavirus vaccine outside the United States and Europe only after the "pandemic supply phase" is over, it said on Thursday, adding it was not currently talking to India over local production.
The comments came after Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing sources, that the US drugmaker had told the Indian government it wanted to produce the shot locally if assured of faster regulatory clearance and freedom on pricing and exports. The sources did not give a timeline.
Poland
Poland will reintroduce restrictions in two more regions suffering from the highest coronavirus infection rates, including the one where the capital Warsaw is located, Health Minister Adam Niedzielski said on Thursday.
Starting from Monday, the Mazowieckie region in central Poland and Lubuskie in the west will have to close hotels, cinemas, swimming pools and shopping malls while children in the first three school grades will partly switch to online learning. The government has recently imposed similar curbs in the northern and northeast. Poland reported 21,045 coronavirus cases on Thursday, health ministry data showed, the highest daily tally since November.
Poland reported 21,045 daily coronavirus cases on Thursday, health ministry data showed, the highest tally since November as the country faces a surge in infections driven by a highly contagious variant of the virus first identified in Britain.
In total, the country has reported 1,849,424 cases of the coronavirus and 46,373 deaths.
Portugal
Portugal recorded 22 more deaths related to COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, the lowest figure since Oct 25, 2020 and taking the overall toll to 16,617.
The Directorate-General for Health (DGS) said the country also posted another 642 new cases, pushing the total number of infections to 811,948.
According to the DGS' epidemiological bulletin, there were 1,201 patients in hospitals - the lowest figure since Oct 19 - 283 of whom were in intensive care units (ICU).
So far, Portugal has vaccinated 1,055,085 people against COVID-19, of whom 757,663 have received the first jab while 297,422 have received both shots, DGS data showed.
Romania
The Romanian government announced on Wednesday a decision to extent the state of alert for another month and the nationwide curfew by one hour to 10 pm.
The government also decided to limit the occupancy rate to 70 percent capacity at tourist accommodation spaces in several localities, including skiing resorts.
The new rules will enter into force starting from March 14.
As of Wednesday, 1,297,160 Romanians had received one dose of the coronavirus vaccine while 672,686 have received both doses.
Russia
Russia reported 9,270 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, including 1,281 in Moscow, taking its total case tally to 4,360,823 since the pandemic began.
The government coronavirus taskforce also said that another 459 people had died in the last 24 hours, pushing its death toll to 90,734.
Slovakia
Slovak Health Minister Marek Krajci said on Thursday he would resign, as the government tries to move past a coalition row while it tackling one of the world's most severe rates of COVID-19 infections and deaths.
Slovakia's four-party ruling coalition was thrown into turmoil last week when Prime Minister Igor Matovic bypassed partners and ordered shipments of the Russian Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine.
Spain
Spanish biopharmaceutical group Zendal wrote to Spain's industry minister declaring its interest in producing Russia's Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in the country, an industry ministry spokeswoman said on Wednesday.
Spain's health ministry said earlier on Wednesday it was unaware of any contract to domestically manufacture Sputnik V after Moscow's RDIF sovereign wealth fund said it had struck deals in Spain, Italy, France and Germany.
The Russian Embassy in Madrid tweeted late on Tuesday that Spanish company IberAtlantic was negotiating a potential deal with RDIF and Zendal to produce Sputnik V at the latter's laboratory in the northwestern region of Galicia.
Sweden
Sweden has administered one million COVID-19 vaccine doses, Minister for Health and Social Affairs Lena Hallengren said on Wednesday.
"By the end of today, Sweden will have carried out one million vaccinations against COVID-19," Hallengren told journalists.
"There is no doubt that (the vaccines) have had an effect. The number of cases has fallen dramatically in nursing homes, where over 90 percent of the residents have received at least one dose of vaccine," Hallengren said, presenting a graph outlining the spread of the infections.
During the first week of 2021, nearly 800 new COVID-19 infections were confirmed among nursing home residents. In the last few weeks, new cases there were nearly non-existent while the number of infections has increased among the general public.
By Wednesday, Sweden has reported 702,000 confirmed cases and 13,088 deaths.
A new law comes into effect on Thursday that would allow the government to shut businesses in what would be the most drastic measures yet. Hallengren said on Wednesday there were no immediate plans for a lockdown.
Sweden, which has shunned lockdowns throughout the pandemic, registered 5,300 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, health agency statistics showed. The country of 10 million inhabitants registered 23 new deaths, taking the total to 13,111.
The deaths registered have occurred over several days and sometimes weeks. Sweden's death rate per capita is many times higher than that of its Nordic neighbours' but lower than in several European countries that opted for lockdowns.
Togolese Prime Minister Victoire Sidemeho Tomegah-Dogbe receives her first shot of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, in Lome, Togo, March 10, 2021. (VICTOR KELENGA / XINHUA)
Togo
Togolese Prime Minister Victoire Sidemeho Tomegah-Dogbe on Wednesday received the first shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine, kicking off the COVID-19 immunization campaign in the country.
"I have received my first dose of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and I thus launch the first round of the immunization operation," she declared.
The nationwide immunization will start Thursday, which will target health personnel and people over 50 years, in the capital Lome and its outskirts considered the hardest hit by the pandemic.
The government of Togo on Sunday received the first batch of 156,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine under the COVAX initiative.
So far, Togo has registered 7,680 confirmed COVID-19 cases in total, along with 6,460 recoveries and 92 deaths.
Tunisia
The Tunisian health ministry on Wednesday reported 737 new COVID-19 cases, pushing the tally to 239,368.
The death toll rose by 24 to 8,292, the ministry said in a statement.
The number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals stood at 1,071, including 275 in intensive care units, while the total number of recoveries stood at 205,719, it added.
UK
Another 5,926 people in Britain have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 4,234,924, according to official figures released Wednesday.
The country also reported another 190 coronavirus-related deaths. The total number of coronavirus-related deaths in Britain now stands at 124,987. These figures only include the deaths of people who died within 28 days of their first positive test.
More than 22.8 million people in Britain have received one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, according to official data.
Earlier Wednesday, British vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi warned against misinformation regarding the possibility of coronavirus vaccines affecting fertility, which has caused some women to become hesitant about having the jab.
Ukraine
A record high number of Ukrainians were taken to hospital with COVID-19 over the past 24 hours, health ministry data show on Wednesday.
Health Minister Maksym Stepanov said on Facebook 4,250 people were hospitalized in the past day, almost 22 percent more than the previous record of 3,486 people registered on March 3.
The number of hospitalizations did not exceed 2,000 during the peak of the pandemic in late 2020, but began to rise in late winter during the second wave of infections.
Stepanov said 9,084 new cases were registered over the past 24 hours with 262 deaths. Ukraine has reported a total of 1,425,522 coronavirus cases and 27,685 deaths so far.
US
A US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study has found that last year was the deadliest in US history, with COVID-19 helping to drive a 15 pecent increase in deaths, Politico reported Wednesday, citing sources.
Over 3 million people died in the US in 2020, Politico reported, adding COVID-19 was the third most common cause of death, behind only heart disease and cancer.
The CDC will summarize its findings in an upcoming issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, according to Politico.
This photo shows people crossing a road in Times Square, New York, on March 10, 2021. Health officials say the COVID-19 variant that was first detected in New York City now accounts for about two in five coronavirus cases in the city. (SETH WENIG / AP)
The US has so far reported a total of 29.1 million confirmed cases and more than 529,000 deaths, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
Over 3.2 million children in the country have tested positive for COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic, according to a latest report of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children's Hospital Association.
In another development, the House of Representatives gave final approval on Wednesday to President Joe Biden's US$1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill. The president plans to sign the stimulus legislation into law on Friday.
Meanwhile, former US Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter will star in two new public service announcements (PSA) for the coronavirus vaccine alongside former First Ladies Michelle Obama, Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton and Rosalynn Carter, the Ad Council announced on Thursday.
The new ads are part of the Ad Council’s nationwide vaccine education campaign titled “It’s Up To You.” More than 300 partners are supporting the nonprofit in the effort to battle hesitancy about the vaccine’s safety and help convince more people to get the shot.
The US has administered 95,721,290 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country and distributed 127,869,155 doses as of Wednesday morning, the CDC said on Wednesday.
Zimbabwe
The Zimbabwean government has so far approved four COVID-19 vaccines, as the second phase of the country's vaccination program kicks in.
Apart from the Sinopharm vaccine from China which is currently in use following the launch of the first phase of the vaccination program two weeks ago, the government, through the Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe, has also approved the use of Sinovac, also from China, Covaxin from India and Sputnik V from Russia.
With the second phase of the vaccination program having been approved, the government has also urged companies intending to buy vaccines for their employees to procure only those that are registered in the country, the state-run Herald newspaper reported Thursday.
