Wuhan (China) (AFP)
WHO experts whose mission is to investigate the origin of the new coronavirus went to the Huanan market in Wuhan, central China, on Sunday, the starting point a year ago for the pandemic which, to date, has killed more than 2.2 million people.
Faced with the danger posed by the worrying evolution of the pandemic, in particular the circulation of new variants, several European countries have decided to increase their restrictive measures, particularly in terms of travel.
In Wuhan, the World Health Organization team, under close control by local authorities, "met with key people" and "asked questions to help better understand the factors that allowed the emergence of the disease. Covid, ”said one of its members, Peter Daszak, in a tweet.
Although a year has passed since the outbreak of the epidemic, Mr. Daszak said talking to staff and seeing the market had been "very informative."
The experts did not answer any questions from the journalists, kept aside by the police.
This visit is ultra-sensitive for Beijing, accused of having delayed reacting to the first cases.
If China has been able to limit the number of dead on its soil to 4,636, according to the official count, it continues to be particularly vigilant.
On Sunday, it decided to temporarily ban the entry into its territory of foreign nationals from Canada, even if they are in possession of valid residence permits, announced the Chinese embassy in Ottawa.
The rest of the world continues to fight against the virus and its variants which could further add to a dramatic toll.
France has asked its major shopping centers to lower their curtains on Sunday and it will close its borders to countries outside the EU from midnight, tightening the screws like Portugal, Germany and Canada to slow down the third wave of the Covid-19.
The Australian authorities for their part promptly confined Sunday for five days two million people in Perth after the detection of a single case.
"Our policy is that of a rapid and firm response (...) in order to regain control of the situation and not to witness the development of outbreaks of infection as we have seen elsewhere in the world", declared the Premier of State Mark McGowan.
- The hospitalized "Captain Tom" -
Become one of the symbols of the fight against the pandemic after collecting a record sum for the British health service, Captain Tom Moore, a hundred-year-old veteran, was hospitalized on Sunday after being in turn infected with the coronavirus.
A first case of contamination by the variant of the virus identified in South Africa was reported Sunday in Thessaloniki, the second largest city in Greece.
In Peru, the 10 million inhabitants of the capital Lima have started a mandatory quarantine to contain the second wave of the pandemic, which has reached 120,000 Peruvians this month.
After the recent riots in the Netherlands, governments are worried about the rejection of the restrictions by the populations.
In Vienna, a far-right demonstration against anti-Covid measures was banned on Sunday by police and, in Brussels, at least 200 people were preventively arrested on Sunday to prevent two prohibited gatherings.
Portugal ends non-essential trips abroad from Sunday.
The day before, Germany closed its territory to people from five countries strongly affected by the various variants of Covid-19.
Portugal is the hardest hit country in proportion to its population.
"There are so many deaths, we don't have places to store so many, everything is overcrowded. With Covid-19, I have already lost my aunt, my cousin, my father and my grandfather" , deplores Artur Palma, a funeral director in the suburbs of Lisbon.
In the United States, masks will be mandatory from Tuesday on public transport, planes, buses, trains, taxis and ferries.
New cases of Covid and hospitalizations there have been declining for two weeks.
According to experts, this improvement is linked to respect for barrier gestures as well as to the fact that the holiday season, favorable to gatherings, is now far away.
In Norway, the government on Saturday lifted semi-containment measures in Oslo and its region, taken last weekend after the detection of cases of the British variant.
Respite also in Rome where the Vatican Museums, including the famous Sistine Chapel, reopen Monday after 88 days of closure.
- Berlin threatens faulty laboratories -
The planet is counting on vaccination to stop the epidemic.
Algeria launched its vaccination campaign on Saturday with the Russian vaccine Sputnik V when Egypt waited Sunday for its first shipment of vaccines from the Anglo-Swedish laboratory AstraZeneca.
South Africa has ordered 20 million doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine against Covid-19.
Under pressure from the United Nations to facilitate the vaccination of Palestinians, Israel has announced its intention to provide them with 5,000 doses, a measure deemed "symbolic".
And Dubai has announced that it wants to "accelerate" the distribution of vaccines against the coronavirus around the world, in particular to "emerging countries", after the WHO called not to abandon the poorest states.
But the delivery delays worry the European Union, which maintains, however, as the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen stressed on Sunday, its goal of vaccinating 70% of adults by "the end of the summer".
Mrs von der Leyen at the same time assured that AstraZeneca would deliver to the EU nine million doses more than expected of its vaccine against the Covid, or 40 million doses in total, a figure up 30%.
burx / cac / ial / fio / bds
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