China reports its first deaths from COVID-19 since January 2021
BEIJING — China’s health authorities reported two COVID-19 deaths on Saturday, the first since January 2021, as the country battles its worst outbreak in two years driven by a surge in the highly transmissible omicron variant.
The deaths, both in northeastern Jilin province, bring the country’s coronavirus death toll to 4,638.
Both fatalities occurred in elderly patients and were the result of their underlying conditions, Jiao Yahui, an official with the National Health Commission, told a news briefing on Saturday. One of them had not been vaccinated for COVID-19, she said.
The majority of new 2,157 community transmissions reported Saturday came from Jilin. The province has imposed a travel ban, with people needing permission from police to travel across borders.
Nationwide, China has reported more than 29,000 confirmed cases since the beginning of March.
It has pressed on with its tried-and-true policy of lockdowns and mass testing of millions of people as part of a successful, if burdensome, “zero-COVID” strategy since the initial outbreak in Wuhan in 2019.
The country has seen relatively few infections from the virus so far because clusters are tamped down as quickly as they’re discovered. The strategy has received popular support and prevented the large numbers of deaths seen in other countries, many of which have started to forgo any kind of social distancing measures.
Hong Kong, which is facing its worst surge of the pandemic, recorded 16,583 new cases Saturday.
The city’s total coronavirus infections exceeded 1 million on Friday, and its number of deaths has already surpassed mainland China’s.
Mainland China’s COVID-19 data is counted separately from Hong Kong.
Marines killed: Four U.S. Marines were killed when their Osprey aircraft crashed in a Norwegian town in the Arctic Circle during a NATO exercise unrelated to Russia’s war in Ukraine, authorities said Saturday.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere tweeted that they died in the crash on Friday night. The cause was under investigation, but Norwegian police reported bad weather.
The Marines, assigned to 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, II Marine Expeditionary Force, were taking part in a NATO exercise called Cold Response.
The U.S. says the identities of the Marines wouldn’t be immediately provided in keeping with U.S. Defense Department policy of notifying relatives.
The aircraft was an MV-22B Osprey. It “had a crew of four and was out on a training mission in Nordland County” in northern Norway, the country’s armed forces said in a statement.
Unhappiest country: Afghanistan is the unhappiest country in the world — even before the Taliban swept to power last August. That’s according to a so-called World Happiness report released ahead of the U.N.-designated International Day of Happiness on Sunday.
The annual report ranked Afghanistan as last among 149 countries surveyed, with a happiness rate of just 2.5. Lebanon was the world’s
second saddest country, with Botswana, Rwanda and Zimbabwe rounding out the bottom five.
Finland ranked first for the fourth year running with a 7.8 score, followed by Denmark and Switzerland, with Iceland and the Netherlands also in the top five.
Researchers ranked the countries after analyzing data over three years. They looked at several categories, including gross domestic product per capita, social safety nets, life expectancy, and perceptions of internal and external corruption.
Texas wildfires: Fire crews in Texas made progress Saturday against a massive complex of wildfires that have killed a deputy sheriff and burned at least 50 homes, officials said.
“Progress has been made, but fire activity has picked up with rising temperatures and lower humidity,” said Matt Ford, spokesperson for Texas A&M Forest Services. He said about 25% of the
flames were contained, up from about 4% late Friday as the fire burned thick brush and grass fields.
The fires had burned about 130 square miles, including about 70 square miles in the Eastland Complex, according to the agency. That area is around 120 miles west of Dallas.
Gusty winds were expected to return Sunday, again raising the wildfire threat to critical levels in western and central Texas, Ford said.
The National Weather Service forecast for the area called for high temperatures in the low 80s Sunday with winds of 15-20 mph and gusts up to 30 mph.
Kentucky clerk: A federal judge has ruled that a former Kentucky clerk violated the constitutional rights of two same-sex couples who were among those to whom she wouldn’t issue marriage licenses — a refusal that sparked international attention and briefly landed her in
jail in 2015. Africa polio campaign:
U.S. District Judge David Five southeastern African Bunning in Ashland issued countries are set to begin the ruling Friday in two vaccination drives against lawsuits involving Kim polio after an outbreak was Davis, the former clerk of declared in Malawi last Rowan County, and two month, the World Health same-sex couples who sued Organization said. her. The outbreak was
With the decision, a declared after it was diagnosed jury trial will still need to in a child in Lilongwe. take place to decide on any The case was the first detection damages the couples could of the wild poliovirus in be owed. Africa since 2016 and almost
Bunning reasoned that two years after the continent Davis “cannot use her own was declared free of it. constitutional rights as a The immunization drive shield to violate the constitutional will begin in Malawi on rights of others Sunday, and will target 23 while performing her duties million children younger as an elected official.” than 5 in that country,
Soon after the 2015 Mozambique, Tanzania, Supreme Court decision Zambia and Zimbabwe. in which same-sex The campaigns will couples won the right to continue until July, aiming marry nationwide, Davis, to administer up to 80 a Christian who has a religious million doses of oral vaccine, objection to same-sex the WHO regional office for marriage, stopped issuing all Africa said in a statement marriage licenses. Friday.
She was sued by gay and Polio is an infectious straight couples, and spent disease that has no cure and five days in jail over her that can be fatal or cause refusal. lasting paralysis.