UK hits record levels of COVID-19 with almost 5M infections
LONDON — The prevalence of COVID-19 in the U.K. has reached record levels, with about 1 in 13 people estimated to be infected with the virus in the past week, according to the latest figures from Britain’s official statistics agency.
Some 4.9 million people were estimated to have the coronavirus in the week ending March 26, up from 4.3 million recorded in the previous week, the Office for National Statistics said Friday.
The latest surge is driven by the more transmissible omicron variant BA.2, which is the dominant variant across the U.K.
Hospitalizations and death rates are again rising, although the number of people dying with COVID19 is still relatively low compared with earlier this year.
The figures came on the same day the government ended free rapid COVID19 tests for most people in England, under British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s “living with COVID” plan.
“The government’s ‘living with COVID’ strategy of removing any mitigations, isolation, free testing and a considerable slice of our surveillance amounts to nothing more than ignoring this virus going forwards,” said Stephen Griffin, associate professor at the University of Leeds’ medical school.
More than 67% of people 12 years old and above in the U.K. have been vaccinated and had their booster or a third dose of the coronavirus vaccine.
Parents can now also book a low-dose vaccine for children between 5 to 12 years old in England.
James Naismith, a biology professor at the University of Oxford, said he believed that except for those who are completely shielded or not susceptible to the virus, most people in the country would likely be infected with the BA.2 variant by the summer.
Guantanamo prisoner: An Algerian man imprisoned at the Guantanamo Bay detention center for nearly 20 years has been released and sent back to his homeland.
The Department of Defense announced Saturday that Sufyian Barhoumi was repatriated with assurances from the Algerian government that he would be treated humanely there and that security measures would be imposed to reduce the risk that he could pose a threat in the future.
The Pentagon did not provide details about those security measures, which could include restrictions on travel.
Barhoumi was captured in Pakistan and taken to the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2002. The United States eventually determined he was involved with various extremist groups but was not a member of al-Qaida or the Taliban, according to a report by a review board at the prison that approved him for release in 2016.
Barhoumi’s release brings the total held at the U.S. base in Cuba to 37 men.
Submarine commissioned: In a public ceremony delayed two years by the pandemic, President Joe Biden on Saturday commissioned the USS Delaware, a nuclear attack submarine, saying it would enhance national security, though he made no reference to the global turmoil from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“As the commander in
chief, I believe it is our sacred obligation as a nation to prepare and equip those troops that we send into harm’s way and to care for them and their families when they return home,” he told a crowd of invited guests and dignitaries in Wilmington, Delaware.
In April 2020, with the coronavirus pandemic spreading across the United States, the Delaware was commissioned while underwater.
With a crew of 136 sailors, the 377-foot-long Delaware is the 18th Virginia-class fast attack submarine, which is designed to seek and destroy enemy submarines and surface ships, and can fire Tomahawk cruise missiles, the Navy says.
The ship can dive to depths greater than 800 feet and operate at speeds in excess of 25 knots submerged.
Journalist found dead: A Ukrainian photojournalist who went missing last
month while documenting the Russian invasion of Ukraine near the capital, Kyiv, has been found dead, according to the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general.
Maks Levin, 40, was a prominent freelancer who had spent years covering the conflict in Ukraine. There had been fears for his safety after he and a colleague went missing while reporting near the frontline of Russian fighting in the Vyshhorod area.
His body was found Friday in a village north of Kyiv, according to the Institute of Mass Information, a Ukrainian civil society organization focused on press freedom.
He is survived by his wife, four sons and his parents.
The prosecutor’s office said that based on preliminary information, Levin was shot by Russian armed forces with “small-arms fire” and a criminal investigation into his death was underway.
Levin’s colleague, Oleksiy Chernyshov, has not been found, the institute said.
China backing Myanmar: China says it will back neighbor Myanmar “no matter how the situation changes,” in the latest show of unequivocal support for the ruling military that seized power last year.
China “has always placed Myanmar in an important position in its neighborly diplomacy” and wants to “deepen exchanges and cooperation,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Myanmar counterpart Wunna Maung Lwin on Friday, according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency.
Myanmar’s military, which ousted the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021, has continued to face popular resistance that amounts to what some U.N. experts have characterized as a civil war. The government is also facing genocide accusations
at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Hungary election: A diverse coalition of opposition parties made their final appeal to Hungarian voters Saturday ahead of the country’s fiercely fought election that will decide whether nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban continues his autocratic rule for a fourth consecutive term.
Several hundred supporters of the six-party coalition, United For Hungary, gathered in Budapest ahead of Sunday’s vote. The movement’s leader, Peter MarkiZay, said the election was about bringing an end to “the most corrupt government in our 1,000-year history.”
The six parties, which include the liberal Democratic Coalition, the centrist Momentum and the rightwing Jobbik, as well as smaller green parties and Socialists, are running against Orban’s right-wing Fidesz party as a united bloc.