Paris (AFP)
New measures, new reports and highlights: an update on the latest developments in the Covid-19 pandemic around the world.
- Demonstration in London against containment and vaccine passports
Five people have been arrested and eight police officers injured in London, according to police, following incidents during the large-scale protest against the latest health restrictions imposed in England, the wearing of compulsory masks and the possible introduction of "vaccine passports".
- One billion doses of vaccines administered
More than a billion doses of anti-Covid vaccines have been administered worldwide, less than five months after the start of the first mass vaccination campaigns in December, according to an AFP count on Saturday at 5.45 p.m. GMT.
- Demonstration in Switzerland against health restrictions
A demonstration banned by the authorities brought together thousands of people in eastern Switzerland on Saturday protesting against the anti-coronavirus restrictions in the country.
Rarely wearing masks, protesters marched through the small town of Rapperswil-Jona, in the northwest of the country, displaying Swiss flags and shouting "Freedom".
- 23 dead in the fire of a hospital in Iraq
At least 23 people were killed in a fire started overnight from Saturday to Sunday in an intensive care unit treating Covid-19 patients in Baghdad, medical and security sources told AFP.
- Johnson & Johnson in Belgium and France
Belgium announced on Saturday the deployment for adults of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine after the conclusions of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) believing that it benefited from a favorable benefit / risk ratio despite a "very rare" risk of clots blood.
French people over 55 can now also receive this vaccine.
- Decrease in hospitalizations in Mexico City
The number of hospitalizations of Covid-19 patients in Mexico City has reached its lowest level since the start of the epidemic in April 2020.
On April 21, 2,118 people were hospitalized in public establishments in the city, including 725 on respiratory assistance, according to an official report published on Friday.
- Germany: tightened restrictions
Germany entered a new phase of lockdown on its public life on Saturday including national curfews after the adoption of a controversial law but deemed "urgent" by Angela Merkel to break the third wave of the pandemic.
Germany, however, plans to relax certain health rules currently in force for people considered to be immune to Covid-19.
- New monthly record of deaths in Brazil
Brazil reached 67,977 deaths from Covid-19 on Saturday since the beginning of April, surpassing the record for March when more than 66,000 deaths from the coronavirus had been recorded, according to figures from the Ministry of Health.
- Double mask compulsory for shopping in Peru
Peru has ordered the compulsory use from Monday of two masks simultaneously, inside shops and other heavily populated places, as a response to a sharp increase in deaths and infections from Covid-19.
- Over three million deaths in total
The Covid-19 pandemic has killed at least 3,088,103 people around the world, according to a report established by AFP from official sources Friday in the middle of the day.
The United States is the country with the highest death toll with 571,910 deaths, followed by Brazil (389,492), Mexico (214,504), India (189,544) and the United Kingdom (127,385).
These figures are globally underestimated.
They are based on daily reports from national health authorities, without including reassessments based on statistical bases.
burx / cn / nzg
© 2021 AFP