US daily cases decline as 70% back Biden’s virus response
With cases declining and vaccines rolling out, several US states being jettisoning mask-wearing rules — much to the chagrin of Biden, who called the move ‘Neanderthal thinking’
The United States recorded fewer than 40,000 new daily cases of COVID-19 for the first time in five months on Thursday, a piece of promising news as countries across the globe struggle to hold off another infection surge before inoculations become widespread.
With frustration over restrictions having long weighed on populations worldwide, leaders were seeking to balance demands for easing rules while not unleashing another explosion in cases.
In the United States, the world’s hardest-hit country, the number of daily cases peaked at nearly 300,000 in early January following the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s holidays.
With cases declining and vaccines rolling out, several US states have begun jettisoning mask-wearing rules — much to the chagrin of President Joe Biden, who called the move “Neanderthal thinking.”
Joe Biden has a 60% approval rating of his job performance from Americans and even more backing for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
That’s according to a new poll from The Associated PRESS-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research. Support for Biden’s pandemic response extends across party lines. Overall, 70% of Americans back his handling of the virus response, including 44% of Republicans.
Biden has made the pandemic his central focus, urging Americans to follow stringent social distancing and mask guidelines and vowing to speed up distribution of critical vaccines. He’s also argued that until the spread of the virus is under control, the economy won’t fully recover.
Overall, 48% of Americans say the country is headed in the right direction, compared with 37% in December.
While Biden’s administration says its promise to vaccinate 100 million people in its first 100 days is ahead of schedule, Europe is facing heavy criticism over delays in its inoculation campaign.
Australia is seeking assurances from the European Union’s executive arm that future shipments of vaccines will not be blocked, after Italy banned a large export of the Astrazeneca coronavirus shots.
The shipment to Australia of more than a quarter-million doses was blocked from leaving the 27-nation bloc — the first use of an export control system instituted by the EU to make sure big pharma companies respect their EU contracts.
The ban was requested by Italian authorities and approved by the EU in a move that frustrated the Australian government.
“The world is in uncharted territory at present, it’s unsurprising that some countries would tear up the rule book,” finance minister Simon Birmingham told Sky News Australia on Friday.
Birmingham ackhnowledged, however, that Australia received 300,000 doses of the Astrazeneca vaccine last week, and “that will see our current distribution plan work.”
Following several other European countries, Danish health officials on Friday approved the use of the Astrazeneca COVID-19 vaccine for people over 65, citing evidence from a study on the vaccine in Scotland.
Until now, the Scandinavian country has argued there was insufficient evidence for the effectiveness of the British-swedish pharmaceutical company’s vaccine to recommend to people over the age of 65.
“The results from Scotland are pleasing. They show a strongly reduced risk of hospitalisation for COVID-19, also among the elderly,” Bolette Soborg, director of the Danish Health Authority, said in a statement.
“We could also see a tendency to this from the limited data we had from the approval studies for the vaccine. This is now confirmed on a large scale,” she added.
Meanwhile, the San Diego zoo has vaccinated nine great apes for the coronavirus after a troop of gorillas in its Safari Park became infected.
Officials said four orangutans and five bonobos received COVID-19 injections in January and February.
Three bonobos and a gorilla also are expected to receive the vaccine, which is experimental.
The vaccinations followed a January outbreak of COVID-19 at the zoo’s Safari Park. Eight western lowland gorillas got the virus, probably by exposure to a zookeeper who tested positive for COVID-19.