Tension rises in Ottawa

The police regained control of a major axis in front of the Canadian Parliament on Saturday, using "irritating substances" to dislodge the hundreds of truckers who paralyze the center of Ottawa, protesting for more than three weeks against the sanitary measures.

The authorities arrested 47 people, some of whom were carrying fireworks.

Minimized at the start by the authorities, this movement called "Convoy of freedom", initiated at the end of January, started from truckers protesting against the obligation to be vaccinated to cross the border between Canada and the United States.

The demands extended to a refusal of all health measures and, for many demonstrators, to a rejection of the government of Justin Trudeau.

Arrest of demonstrators against health restrictions in the Canadian capital in Ottawa where truckers have been protesting for more than three weeks, February 19, 2022 ANDREJ IVANOV AFP

New anti-pass demonstrations in Paris

Opponents of the vaccine pass and the health policy of the French government marched again in the streets of Paris and several other cities on Saturday, convinced that the announced reductions in restrictions linked to Covid-19 are only an "electoralist" promise. .

France: drop in new hospitalizations

While contaminations have been falling since the end of January in France, hospital pressure also continues to decrease, according to figures published on Saturday by Public Health France.

French hospitals currently have 28,632 patients with Covid, compared to 31,522 a week earlier.

This downward trend is also found in critical care services, which receive the most serious cases, in particular in intensive care, with 2,918 patients, against 3,324 a week ago.

As for contaminations, the daily average over seven days stands at 86,509, against 145,619 the previous week.

More than 5.87 million dead

The pandemic has officially killed more than 5.87 million people worldwide since the end of December 2019, out of more than 420 million confirmed contaminations, according to a report established by AFP on Saturday at 7:00 p.m. GMT.

The United States is the country with the most deaths (934,546), ahead of Brazil (643,029) and India (511,230).

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, taking into account the excess mortality directly and indirectly linked to Covid-19, that the toll of the pandemic could be two to three times higher than that officially established.

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© 2022 AFP