Covid-19 has infected more than 335M people and killed over 5.5M worldwide. Here are some of the latest coronavirus-related developments:
Wednesday, January 19, 2022
WHO says pandemic ‘nowhere near over’
The World Health Organization has warned that the Covid-19 pandemic is far from over, as France, Germany and Brazil posted new records of infections in the past 24 hours.
The highly transmissible Omicron strain has spread unabated around the world, pushing some governments to impose fresh measures while speeding up the rollout of vaccine booster shots.
“This pandemic is nowhere near over,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters from the agency’s headquarters in Geneva.
Germany surpasses 100,000 daily cases for first time
Germany reported 112,323 new coronavirus cases, a fresh single-day record as the health minister said the peak had not been reached and compulsory vaccination should be introduced by May.
Germany’s tally of Covid-19 infections now stands at 8,186,850, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious disease said. The death toll also rose by 239 to reach 116,081.
Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said he expected the wave to peak in a few weeks as the highly infectious Omicron variant brought Germany’s seven-day incidence rate to 584.4 cases per 100,000 people.
Mexico reports over 49,000 new Covid cases
Mexico registered 49,343 coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, according to the country’s Health Ministry.
Battling the fourth wave of the pandemic, Mexico recorded the highest daily number of cases in recent weeks.
The total number of infections exceeded 4.43 million, while the recovery tally surpassed 3.47 million in the North American country.
Pakistan records highest daily cases since August
Pakistan reported almost 5,500 new coronavirus cases, the highest single-day tally since August last year.
The country registered 5,472 new infections with a 9.5 percent positivity rate in the last 24 hours, according to Health Ministry data. The total number of cases rose to nearly 1.14 million since March 2020.
Another eight people died due to Covid-19, pushing the death toll to 29,037.
Hong Kong’s Covid-19 hamster cull sparks fear of owners abandoning pets
A mass hamster cull in Hong Kong sparked fears among animal welfare groups that panicky people would abandon their pets after 11 of the rodents from one petshop in the city tested positive for Covid-19.
The local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), which runs veterinary clinics, told Reuters news agency it received “numerous” enquiries from worried pet owners, asking what to do about the latest scare.
“We urge the pet owners not to panic or abandon their pets,” SPCA said in a statement.
More Covid deaths feared in Australia
Australia should brace for more
Covid-19 deaths for the next few weeks, authorities have said, as record infections fuelled by the Omicron outbreak have overwhelmed health systems forcing Victoria to raise its
emergency status for hospitals.
“We have seen and we will continue to see deaths, mostly in
older people, mostly in people with other chronic diseases,”
Chief Health Officer Paul Kelly told broadcaster Australian
Broadcasting Corporation, a day after Australia
suffered its deadliest day with 77 deaths from the virus.
Amid record infections, Victorian state hospitals from
midday Wednesday will move to a ‘code brown’ status, usually
reserved for natural disasters or mass casualty events, while
reports said nurses had demanded the government to get the help
of the army.
UN to carry out relief operations for Tonga
The United Nations is preparing to carry out relief operations for Tonga at a distance to avoid a Covid-19 outbreak in the Pacific island nation reeling from a volcanic eruption and tsunami, an official has said.
All the homes on one of Tonga’s small outer islands have been destroyed and three people have died, the government said in its first statement after Saturday’s devastating eruption which it called “an unprecedented disaster”.
With communications badly hampered by the severing of an undersea cable, information on the scale of the devastation so far has mostly come from reconnaissance aircraft.
Paraguay’s Mario Benitez tests positive
Paraguay’s president has tested positive for Covid-19, the country’s Health Ministry announced.
Mario Abdo Benitez is showing mild symptoms and will self-isolate in accordance with current health protocols, the ministry said on Twitter.
More than 504,000 people in Paraguay have been infected with the disease and 16,866 have died.
Spain’s infection rate drops
Spain’s coronavirus infection rate has decreased for the first time since November, according to new data from the Health Ministry.
This suggests the country’s unprecedented sixth wave may have seen the infection rate peak Monday, with nearly 3.4 out of every 100 people infected in a two-week period.
On Tuesday, the country saw the number of daily infections decrease to just under 95,000.
Argentina is concerned over supply chain
Up to 2,000 trucks are backed up at Argentina’s main border crossing with Chile due to tougher Covid-19 testing requirements, Argentine haulers have said, adding that the supply chain could suffer.
Some 900 trucks a day usually pass through the Christ Redeemer crossing from the Argentine province of Mendoza into Chile.
But those have been backed up for two days due to tougher health controls imposed on Argentine haulers by Chile, the Argentine Federation of Freight Business Entities said in a statement.
WHO: 18M people infected last week
As Covid-19’s omicron variant continues sweeping the world with 18 million cases last week, people in countries with low coronavirus vaccination rates are at risk of severe illness and death, the head of the World Health Organization has said.
He reinforced comments from other WHO officials who spoke at the webinar, reiterating that the vast majority of coronavirus hospitalizations and deaths are from among the unvaccinated.
The WHO chief said the next few weeks remained critical for health workers and health systems in many countries.
Source: TRTWorld and agencies
WHO: Pandemic ‘nowhere near over’ – latest updates
Source: Pinay Pop Showbiz
