People wear face mask as they walk in a path of the Tuileries garden in Paris, April 1, 2021. (PHOTO / AP)

WASHINGTON / AMSTERDAM - France reported on Friday that 5,254 people were in intensive care units with COVID-19, an increase of 145 people in one day and the highest daily increase in five months.

The risk of emergency wards being unable to cope was one of the main reasons for President Emmanuel Macron to order a third nationwide lockdown this week, after unsuccessfully trying for months to contain the epidemic with a curfew and regional lockdowns.

From next week, France starts a third lockdown, with schools and non-essential businesses closed nationwide for four weeks.

Announcing the lockdown on Wednesday, Macron said the number of ICU beds will be raised from 7,000 to over 10,000.

At the peak of the first lockdown in spring 2020, France saw a high of 7,148 COVID-19 patients in ICUs, but that fell back to a few hundred in August following the strict first lockdown.

During November’s less restrictive lockdown, ICU numbers peaked at just under 5,000, but since then they have only briefly dipped below 3,000 in December.

With new infections rising sharply, doctors expect the third wave of the virus will peak in the coming two weeks, with a further increase in ICU numbers.

On Friday, new confirmed cases jumped by the highest week-on-week rate since the end of November, when France was in its second nationwide lockdown.

The ministry reported 46,677 new cases, 6.2 percent more than a week ago, taking the total to 4.74 million cases.

France favors a COVID-19 tracing app rather than health passes for entry into restaurants, museums or other public places once lockdown restrictions are eased, Junior Tourism Minister Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne said Friday on France Info radio.

Kenya

The International Monetary Fund approved a US$2.34 billion financing package for Kenya to support the country’s COVID-19 response and address an urgent need to reduce debt vulnerabilities.

Approval of the so-called Extended Credit Facility and Extended Fund Facility will enable immediate disbursement of about US$307.5 million for budget support in the East African nation, the Washington-based lender said Saturday in an emailed statement.

“Kenya was hit hard at the onset by the COVID-19 pandemic,” the IMF said. “With a forceful policy response, the economy has been picking up heading into 2021 after likely posting a slight contraction of 0.1 percent in 2020. Even with this recovery, challenges remain in the return to durable and inclusive growth, and past gains in poverty reduction have been reversed.”

Kenya’s debt remains sustainable, although it is at high risk of debt distress, the IMF said. Fiscal and balance-of-payments financing needs remain sizable over the medium term. Support from the G-20 under the Debt Service Suspension Initiative and development partners will contribute to closing the financing gap in 2021, along with financing from capital markets, according to the lender.

Public debt in East Africa’s largest economy stood at 7.35 trillion shillings (US$67.5 billion) as of end-January, according to the Central Bank of Kenya. Total debt increased by 659.5 billion shillings from the start of the fiscal year in July. Domestic debt rose 11 percent in the seven months through January to 3.53 trillion shillings. Public and publicly guaranteed external debt increased 5.1 percent to US$34.68 billion at the end of January, from $33.01 billion at the end of June.

Confirmed coronavirus cases in Kenya are at 136,893, with 2,186 fatalities as of April 2, according to the health ministry.

US

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday said fully vaccinated people can safely travel at “low risk” after the agency had held off for weeks on revising guidance that discouraged all non-essential trips.

The announcement lifting the agency’s guidance that all Americans should avoid non-essential travel should be a shot in the arm for a US travel industry still significantly struggling since the COVID-19 crisis began in early 2020. The new CDC guidance specifically greenlights vaccinated grandparents getting on airplanes to see grandchildren.

A group representing major US airlines including American Airlines, Delta Air lines, United Airlines Southwest Airlines and other trade groups on March 22 had urged the CDC to immediately update its guidance to say “vaccinated individuals can travel safely.”

The new guidance will also say fully vaccinated people do not need to get a COVID-19 test before or after travel and do not need to self-quarantine after travel.

The CDC said grandparents that have been fully vaccinated can fly to visit grandkids without getting a COVID-19 test or self-quarantining as long as they follow CDC advice for traveling safely.

More than 100 million people in the United States have received at lease one dose of COVID-19 vaccine as of Friday, according to data of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

About 157 million COVID-19 vaccine shots have been administered as of Friday, while more than 204 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been distributed across the country, CDC data show.

A total of 101,804,762 Americans have received at lease one dose, while over 57.9 million Americans have been fully vaccinated. The fully vaccinated people are about 17.5 percent of the whole population.

Russia

Russia’s death toll from COVID-19 grew to 24,369 in February, nearly double initial reports, in a stark illustration of the price the country is paying for opting not to lock down during the pandemic’s second wave.

The data released by the Federal Statistics Service on Friday includes people who were infected with the virus though it was not regarded as the cause of death. They raised overall fatalities in Russia linked to the epidemic to 225,572 after the death toll for January was revised up slightly.

President Vladimir Putin opted against a return to lockdown as cases began to rise late last year, helping cushion the economic impact of the pandemic but contributing to the third-most deaths globally after the US and Brazil.

The health crisis has eased recently, with the number of new daily infections currently under 10,000 from nearly 30,000 at the end of December, the deadliest month of the pandemic.

Russia remains well behind many other nations in its vaccination campaign, sparking fears of a third wave of Covid-19 infections. Only about 4.3 percent of the population has had a first dose of vaccine, compared to 11 percent in Turkey, 30 percent in the US and nearly half of the UK.

Argentine 

Argentine President Alberto Fernandez has tested positive for the new coronavirus, is waiting for the result to be confirmed and is in good spirits despite having a light fever, the first-term Peronist leader tweeted on Saturday.

“I am in good physical condition,” the president, who turned 62 on Friday, said in a tweet. He had received Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine against the coronavirus early this year.

ALSO READ: WHO: European virus vaccine campaign 'unacceptably slow'

Netherlands

The Netherlands on Friday temporarily suspended use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for people under 60 following the death of a woman who had received a shot, the Health Ministry said.

About 10,000 scheduled appointments for vaccinations were to be scrapped as a result of the decision, news agency ANP reported.

The decision was made following new reports from medicine monitoring agency Lareb and discussions with health authorities, a Health Ministry statement said.

AstraZeneca said it was working with Dutch authorities to address any questions they had.

“Authorities in the UK, European Union, the World Health Organization have concluded that the benefits of using our vaccine to protect people from this deadly virus significantly outweigh the risks across all adult age groups,” it said.

Dutch agency Lareb, which tracks medication side effects, said earlier on Friday that it has received five reports of extensive thrombosis with low platelet counts after vaccinations with the AstraZeneca vaccine, including in a woman who died.

Brazil

Brazil, one of the worst COVID-19 hot spots around the globe, reported 70,238 cases in the last 24 hours, according to Health Ministry data. The country’s death toll rose by 2,922. President Jair Bolsonaro promised in a tweet that the government would make nearly 3,000 more doctors available to fight the outbreak.

READ MORE: Leaders pitch unity to head off future pandemics

Germany

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and the premier of the neighboring German state of North Rhine-Westphalia appealed to citizens to avoid non-essential travel and stay home over the Easter vacation.

“We are in the third wave and must therefore exercise great caution,” Rutte and NRW Premier Armin Laschet said in a statement. Staying at home will help avoid restrictions on border traffic, they said.

Germany’s Case Count Is Now Too High to Ignore: Bloomberg Intelligence

UK

The UK reported 25 new cases of rare blood clots possibly linked to AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine, raising the total to 30, but the country’s drugs regulator said the benefits of the shot continue to outweigh the risks.

People “should continue to get your vaccine when invited to do so” and “all vaccines and medicines have some side effects,” the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency said in a statement Thursday.

The Netherlands temporarily halted vaccinations of people younger than 60 with AstraZeneca’s vaccine after reports of a handful of severe blood-clotting events associated with a low platelet count. The Dutch Health Ministry reported five cases in Dutch women between the ages of 25 to 65.