In the spotlight: global concern over the resurgence of the coronavirus
Audio 05:05
People sign up to be tested for Covid-19 at a mass testing center in Roubaix, northern France, Monday, January 11, 2021. AP - Michel Spingler
By: Véronique Rigolet Follow
10 mins
Publicity
As the spread of the virus accelerates around the world, not least because of its more contagious variants, much of the press today finds some solace in the new US strategy to fight the pandemic.
"
Biden launches an ambitious offensive against the Covid
", congratulates the Spanish daily
El Pais in this way
, while the
Financial Times
is delighted that "
the United States is joining the international effort to guarantee access to the vaccine
" in the whole world.
A position which takes the exact opposite of Donald Trump, and which opens according to the British daily "
a new era in health diplomacy
".
The FT which salutes the voluntarism of the new American administration,
"the war waged against the pandemic
" and its great return to the WHO, the World Health Organization.
Europe is tightening the screw a little more
"
We will probably still have to take very tough measures
", headlines
Die Welt
after a summit of 27 where the EU called in particular to avoid "
non-essential trips
" to face the threat of new variants.
"
Three things are now very clear,
" said the Berlin daily: "
the fear of political elites in the face of changes in the virus is greater than it has ever been, Europeans are constrained by the slowness of the approval of new vaccines
”, and finally“
most of the 440 million European citizens will soon face even more severe restrictions
”.
Paid self-containment in Great Britain?
In Great Britain, where despite the containment the epidemic seems almost out of control, all the press in the Kingdom is highlighting the track of a possible self-containment which could be paid by the State to the tune of 500 pounds sterling, 560 euros.
"
A cash machine of 500
", headlines the
Daily Mail
with information revealed by the
Guardian
who had the first access to a confidential document of the Ministry of Health.
Document which, among other suggestions, therefore proposes to pay any person positive to Covid who would agree to self-confine.
"
The government is concerned that according to a survey only 17% of people with symptoms get tested - for fear that a positive result will prevent them from working,
" said the
Guardian
.
This "
universal payment is the preferred proposal of the Ministry of Health,
" says the daily, and "
would cost 453 million pounds per week
", more than 500 million euros.
A proposal which "is
likely to meet resistance from the Treasury - the Ministry of the Economy,"
said the
Daily Mail
.
Jakarta: the hospital system on the verge of collapse
A report to read in
The Australian
, on the catastrophic situation in the Indonesian capital Jakarta, which has 10 million inhabitants and almost no intensive care beds available while the pandemic is raging.
“
Three days after the start of the year
,” says the correspondent of the Australian daily,
a 50-year-old man died of Covid in a taxi while he was struggling to breathe next to his daughter.
They had just left the 10th hospital which had refused them that day, and they never made it to the 11th
.
""
The hospital system has collapsed, there is no longer any emergency bed
, testifies an Indonesian doctor, who says that people leave with their patients to die at home.
The administration of the capital is overwhelmed by the speed at which the virus is spreading, reports
The Australian
, and the situation is expected to deteriorate further in the coming weeks.
Indonesia currently has 27,000 dead.
It will probably take three years to vaccinate at least 181 million people out of its 270 million inhabitants.
Islamic State group uses pandemic to destabilize Iraq
This is
Die Welt's
analysis
after the terrible double-bombing in Baghdad yesterday which left more than 30 dead and a hundred injured.
Attack claimed by ISIS "
which considers the pandemic as a special opportunity
", explains the German daily which quotes the bulletin "
Al-Naba
", the daily information of the group for whom "
the virus was sent by God to weaken the enemy ”
.
While popular discontent is growing in Iraq because of the health and economic crisis, the terrorist militia hopes with this attack to further destabilize the country "
to appear in this chaos as a force of order, and proclaim once moreover an Islamic state
”, explains
Die Welt
.
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