The rise of the Delta forces new virus restrictions as England hosts “Freedom Day”

On Monday, France and Greece joined countries in imposing stricter restrictions on COVID-19 to curb the rise in Delta variant infections that threaten the global fight against the pandemic.

The virus has killed more than four million people since it first appeared in China in late 2019, and attempts to stop its spread are hampered by mutations that create highly contagious variants like Delta, seen for the first time. time in India.

Vaccines are considered the best way to allow economies to reopen while maintaining public safety. But the irregular deployments of the spikes, either for lack of supplies, hesitation or slow government responses: threaten global efforts to escape the pandemic.

European governments are resorting to more coercive measures to get more of their populations enrolled in the trials.

The cautious approach in the EU contrasts with that in London, where the government confirmed its plans to lift most borders in England on July 19, a day that Prime Minister Boris Johnson has dubbed “World Day”. Freedom “.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland established their own COVID response policies.

While some scientists are concerned that final measures such as mandatory mask use and social distancing pose problems, Health Secretary Sajid Javid said the link between infections and deaths was “severely weakened”, with more two-thirds of the fully protected British population,

There are more than 30,000 new infections a day in the UK, with an average of one death in single digits, according to NHS data.

Worrying data

French President Emmanuel Macron, in a national speech, said that health personnel, employees of retirement homes and other people working risk population it will have to be punctured in September.

He also announced that from August, anyone who wants to go out to eat or drink, visit a mall or attend a festival, theater show or movie screening will have to show a vaccination test or a negative test. .

The possibility of having to do a test for every food or drink seemed to have an instant impact on many unvaccinated French.

Doctolib’s site for booking photos said after Macron’s address that 20,000 record appointments were being taken every minute.

Greece also orders mandatory vaccinations against COVID-19 to all health workers, including those working in residences, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Monday.

Only 4.3 million of Greece’s 10.7 million population have been completely vaccinated.

“The country will not close because of the attitude of some people,” Mitsotakis said.

And the Spanish tourist regions of Catalonia and Valencia also announced new measures.

“The data is more than worrying, frankly very, very bad,” said the Secretary of Public Health of Catalonia, Josep Maria Argimon, who announced the slowdown.

Reward “civility”

Macron said his government’s goal was to recognize the “civility” of those who had been vaccinated while “imposing restrictions on the unvaccinated rather than everyone else.”

About 35.5 million people (just over half the population of France) have received at least one dose of vaccine, while 27 million have had two.

Highlighting the strong divisions the pandemic has created globally, UN agencies warned that the outbreak threatened a lasting calamity for the world’s children and fueled historic peaks of famine.

Schools remain closed in 19 countries and affect 156 million children at risk of being a “generational catastrophe,” warned the heads of two UN agencies, UNICEF and UNESCO.

Another UN report on Monday said the pandemic had caused an estimated 18 per cent increase in the number of hungry people.

The World Health Organization took a look at the senseless “greed” of rich countries leaving wide stretches of the world’s poor unprotected.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the pandemic would end soon “but for lack of decisive global leadership”.

Vaccine nationalism “prolonged the agony” and there was only “one word that could explain it … it’s greed,” Tedros said.

WHO scolds vaccine manufacturers

Although it did not designate countries, the WHO attacked those who were considering booster vaccines against COVID-19, while the most vulnerable of other nations were exposed to the virus.

Israel, for example, announced plans to begin administering a third shot of the Pfizer / BioNTech coronavirus vaccine to patients with compromised immune systems.

The UN health agency also scolded vaccine manufacturers for prioritizing offers for promoters over the first and second vaccines for unvaccinated health workers and older people in the poorest nations.

“Instead of Moderna and Pfizer prioritizing the supply of vaccines as drivers to countries with relatively high population coverage, we need them to do everything possible to channel supply to Covax,” he said.

He was referring to the international program that seeks to provide equitable access to doses for the most vulnerable.

Two Chinese vaccine manufacturers, Sinovac and Sinopharm, have agreed to start manufacturing more than 100 million COVID immediately vaccine doses available from Covax.

“Thanks to this agreement … we can start delivering doses to countries immediately,” said Seth Berkley, who runs the Gavi alliance, one of the partners behind Covax.

© 2021 AFP