AstraZeneca is restarting its vaccine trials

A second wave of "Covid-19" in Austria ... and half of the injuries in Vienna

Parents and their children waiting to start school in a Vienna primary school.

Father

The death toll from "Covid-19" has increased in many countries of the world, including Austria, which announced yesterday that it is witnessing a new wave of the epidemic, while the pharmaceutical industry group "AstraZeneca" confirmed the resumption of its clinical trials in Britain and Brazil.

Austrian Prime Minister Sebastian Kurtz said yesterday: "We are at the beginning of the second wave" in the country of nine million people, and Friday night (Saturday) recorded about 870 new infections, more than half of them in the capital Vienna.

He warned that the number of infections may exceed 1000 a day soon, calling on the population to strictly adhere to anti-virus measures and reduce communications to a minimum.

However, in a hopeful news, the "AstraZeneca" group announced that it would resume its tests that were being conducted on tens of thousands of volunteers in the United Kingdom, Brazil, South Africa and the United States, after it stopped it last Wednesday due to a "inexplicable disease" of a participant in Britain. It may be one of the dangerous side effects of the vaccine.

The London pharmaceutical company said, the night before last, that it would resume its tests today (Monday) in Brazil, after it received the green light from local health authorities.

The same applies to Britain, where an independent committee set up to assess the risks associated with the vaccine has given a green light as well, according to AstraZeneca, which is conducting its experiments in cooperation with the prestigious Oxford University.

The University of Oxford confirmed, yesterday, the resumption of the experiments, noting that «in tests conducted on a large scale, it is expected that some of the participants will get sick».

Charlotte Summers, professor of intensive care medicine at the University of Cambridge, praised the resumption of the trials.

"To face the global pandemic, we need to develop vaccines and treatments that people feel comfortable using," she said.

"Maintaining the public's confidence to the point that we rely on evidence is vital," she emphasized.

The World Health Organization has identified 35 candidate vaccines that have been evaluated in human clinical trials in the world, nine in the final stage or about to enter them.

The European Medicines Agency said that "a vaccine against (Covid-19) may take until the beginning of 2021 at least to be ready for approval and available in sufficient quantities" for global use.

According to a toll drawn up by Agence France-Presse, based on official figures yesterday, that the new Corona virus has killed 916,372 people in the world within six months.

More than 28 million and 534 thousand and 330 people have been diagnosed with the virus since the beginning of the epidemic, and the health authorities consider that 19 million and 16 thousand and 500 of them have recovered.

The United States remains the most affected country in terms of the number of deaths, which reached 193,16, and the number of injuries, which reached six million 445,800, according to Johns Hopkins University figures.

And he announced the recovery of two million 417 thousand and 878 people.

It comes after the United States, Brazil (131 thousand and 210 deaths out of four million and 315 thousand and 687 injuries), India (77,472 deaths and four million and 659 thousand and 465 injuries), then Mexico (70,183 deaths and 658 thousand and 299 injuries), Britain (41,614 deaths and 361 thousand injuries) And 677 injuries).

In France, the number of injured exceeded the symbolic threshold of 10,000 yesterday, a record since the launch of tests on a large scale in the country.

In the face of these alarming numbers, states are stepping up measures aimed at protecting the population.

Yesterday, Latvia re-imposed a compulsory quarantine for 14 days for those coming from neighboring Estonia, due to the increase in the number of injuries in this country.

Riga welcomes visitors without restrictions from countries where the infection rate does not exceed 16 per 100,000 inhabitants.

That rate was 21.75 per 100,000 in Estonia last Friday.

On the French island of Guadeloupe in the West Indies, where about 800 injuries are recorded daily, new restrictions have been imposed in public places, and as of yesterday, institutions open to the public such as gyms, swimming pools, exhibition halls and others have been closed.

On the contrary, Ecuador announced, the day before yesterday, the lifting of the state of emergency imposed to prevent the spread of the epidemic at midnight on Sunday (Monday).

And in this South American country with a population of 17.5 million, more than 116,000 injuries and 10,864 deaths were recorded.

Curfews and traffic restrictions will be lifted in this country.

But bars and nightclubs will remain closed unless local authorities allow them to open, as will public show parties.

Once again, thousands demonstrated against the restrictive measures imposed to limit the spread of the epidemic in a number of German cities as well as in Warsaw.

In Munich (south) alone, where a demonstration of this kind was organized for the first time, the police counted 10,000 people.

And in London, despite measures such as taking the temperature at the entrance or putting on mandatory masks during the entire show, theater fans reassuredly headed to theaters.

"I missed the shows," said Claire Hutton, 36, who was wearing a T-shirt that read "The Show Must Go On."

However, due to sanitary measures, the vast majority of British theaters remain closed.

• The World Health Organization has identified 35 candidate vaccines that have been evaluated in human clinical trials in the world, nine in the last stage.

• The University of Oxford confirmed the resumption of the trials, noting that "it is expected that some of the participants will get sick."

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