UK readies for ‘V-Day’ of Covid mass vaccination campaign
Germany is looking to impose tougher curbs; S Korea fears medical collapse
LONDON/BERLIN: Britain will hold its biggest ever immunisation campaign on Tuesday, but health officials warned the drive to inoculate millions against Covid-19 would be a “marathon” stretching well into next year.
The world-first rollout of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is dubbed “V-Day” by health secretary Matt Hancock, who has volunteered to take it live on television to assuage any public doubts over the rapid approval.
Croydon University Hospital in south London is one of 50 clinical hubs that started receiving the country’s initial consignment of 800,000 doses over the weekend, from a Pfizer plant in Belgium. The vaccine roll-out coincides with the endgame of Brexit talks on Britain’s future trading relationship with the European Union.
Germany looking at tougher restrictions Germany is looking to impose tougher restrictions on movement after a nationwide partial shutdown failed to bring contagion rates down to manageable levels.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief of staff called for a meeting between the federal government and heads of the country’s 16 states, which could be convened before Christmas, to decide on a plan.
“Because a lockdown of this kind doesn’t work in the long run, we have to really tighten things up again, at least in the hot spots,” Helge Braun, said in an online interview with Bild newspaper.The paper also reported that Germany aims to vaccinate 10 million people in the first three months of 2021.
Global coronavirus cases surpassed 67 million, with record infections sweeping across US states and hospitalisations rising by almost 2,000 a day.
Fresh lockdown starts in southern California Southern California went into a strict lockdown on Monday, with more than 20 million people under stay-at-home orders triggered after hospitals faced being overwhelmed by record Covid-19 cases. Governor Gavin Newsom last week announced new statewide bans on gatherings and “non-essential” activities would come into effect once 85%of intensive care unit beds have been filled. Under the lockdown, most offices will close and gatherings of people from different households are banned. Bars and personal services such as hair salons will be temporarily closed.
Surge threatens ‘medical collapse’ in South Korea South Korean President Moon Jae In called on Monday for expanded virus testing and more thorough tracing as the country struggles to control its latest and largest wave of infections. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency reported 615 new coronavirus cases as of midnight Sunday, capping a month of triple-digit daily increases that have led to 8,311 confirmed patients in quarantine, the most ever.
The surge in cases has delivered a blow to South Korea’s vaunted pandemic-fighting system, which used invasive tracing, testing, and quarantines to avoid lockdowns.