Paris (AFP)

New measures, new reports and highlights: an update on the latest developments in the Covid-19 pandemic around the world.

- WHO in Wuhan: hospital and exhibition -

First hospital to have received Covid patients and propaganda exhibition: WHO experts in China followed up visits to Wuhan on Saturday, on the second day of their field investigation into the origin of the coronavirus.

This visit by the World Health Organization (WHO) is ultra-sensitive politically for Beijing, accused of having been slow to react to the first cases of Covid reported at the end of 2019 in the immense metropolis of central China.

- German borders closed -

This decision, valid until February 17 at first, concerns the United Kingdom, Ireland, Brazil, Portugal and South Africa.

- New restrictions in France -

France will close from Sunday its borders to countries outside the European Union, "unless there is a compelling reason", in an attempt to curb the spread of the epidemic.

The government has also decided to close non-food shopping centers of more than 20,000 m2 as of this Sunday and to strengthen attendance gauges in all supermarkets.

- Lightened semi-containment in Oslo -

The Norwegian government announced on Saturday the lifting of several semi-containment measures in Oslo and its region, taken last weekend after the detection of cases of the British variant of the coronavirus in a locality near the capital.

- The EU establishes export controls for vaccines -

Criticized for the slowness of vaccinations, the EU is imposing safeguards on exports of anti-Covid vaccines from Saturday to keep control of the doses intended for it, a device denounced by the WHO.

However, it gave up on including Northern Ireland, after British criticism accusing it of compromising the agreements made in the context of Brexit.

- Valentine's Day in New York -

New York restaurants, which could no longer serve indoor customers since mid-December, should be able to reopen for Valentine's Day on February 14, thanks to the decline in the pandemic, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Friday.

New Covid cases and hospitalizations have been declining for two weeks in the United States, even though the total number of daily positive cases is even higher than in the summer.

- Chinese vaccine for Peru -

A first batch of one million doses of the vaccine from the Chinese laboratory Sinopharm against Covid-19 will arrive in Lima on February 9, and will allow the immunization of 500,000 people, announced the Peruvian government.

This batch is part of a total purchase of 38 million doses, the remainder of which is expected to arrive before the second half of the year.

- More than 2.2 million dead -

The pandemic has killed more than 2.2 million people worldwide since the end of December 2019, according to a report established by AFP from official sources, Saturday at 11:00 GMT.

More than 102 million cases of infection have been diagnosed.

The United States is the country with the most deaths (436,810), followed by Brazil (222,666), Mexico (156,579), India (154,147) and the United Kingdom (104,371).

The global death toll is globally underestimated.

It is based on the daily reports from the national health authorities.

burs-paj / cds / esp

© 2021 AFP