Austria suspends vaccination obligation

The Austrian government announced on Wednesday the suspension of the law on compulsory vaccination against Covid-19, in the face of the lesser danger of the Omicron variant.

The law entered into force on February 5, a measure unprecedented in the European Union and which had aroused strong opposition from part of the population of 8.9 million inhabitants.

The checks were to begin in mid-March, with penalties ranging from 600 to 3,600 euros.

Vaccination "scandalously unfair"

The distribution of vaccines on the planet remains "scandalously inequitable", UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday.

“Manufacturers produce 1.5 billion doses per month, but nearly three billion people are still waiting for their first vaccine”, he protested, referring to a “failure” due to “political and budgetary decisions which give prioritizing the health of people in rich countries over the health of people in poor countries".

This is a "recipe for more variants, more confinements and more grief and sacrifice in each country", he estimated.

Hong Kong backs down on massive screening

Hong Kong's leader backtracked on Wednesday saying mass testing for Covid-19 is not a priority, after explaining in February that her more than 7.3 million people would have to undergo three mandatory tests to end the coronavirus pandemic. deadliest wave of coronavirus for the city since the start of the pandemic.

A man stands at the entrance to a cabin in a temporary isolation center intended to house patients with Covid-19 in the Tsing Yi district of Hong Kong, March 8, 2022 DALE DE LA REY AFP

Hong Kong, which had recorded 12,000 cases of Covid in two years of the pandemic, has risen to more than 500,000 cases since the start of the Omicron wave in January.

Uncertainty over mixed messages from the government had prompted a rush for supermarket shelves as thousands of foreign residents fled the city.

France: "very degraded" psychological health

After two years of crisis, the psychological health of employees "remains very degraded", with a burn-out still "extremely high" and "pandemic fatigue", according to a survey carried out by OpinionWay for the firm Empreinte Humaine and published on Wednesday.

According to this survey, 41% of employees questioned say they are in "psychological distress", including 13% in high distress.

Women and young people under 29 are more affected.

More than a third (34%) of employees are affected by burnout, 13% of them severely, i.e. 2.5 million people.

More than 6 million dead

The pandemic has officially killed at least 6,011,769 people worldwide since the end of December 2019, out of more than 447 million confirmed contaminations, according to a report established by AFP on Wednesday at 11 a.m. GMT.

The United States is the country with the most deaths (961,935), ahead of Brazil (652,829) and India (515,355).

But compared to the population, the countries where the epidemic has caused the most damage are Peru with 641 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, Bulgaria (517) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (475).

Number of deaths linked to the coronavirus officially announced by country, as of March 9 at 11:00 GMT Simon MALFATTO AFP

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