Currently, among the most affected nations are the US (29.7 million infected, 541,000 deaths), Brazil (11.8 million cases and a death toll of over 159,000) and India (11.5 million cases, 159,000 fatalities).
World Health Organisation (WHO) Secretary-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed concerns on Friday about a worrying trend in the development of the coronavirus pandemic, saying that the number of infections is growing in most regions.
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MOSCOW (Sputnik) - France’s Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot says she has tested positive for the coronavirus and is in isolation.
"After respiratory symptoms, I took a test which confirmed that I was positive for covid. In isolation, I will adjust my schedule for the coming week," Bachelot wrote on Twitter on Saturday evening.
GAZA (Sputnik) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been vaccinated against COVID-19, the official WAFA news agency reports.
Abbas called on Palestinians to follow health ministry guidelines in all that concerns vaccination and to adhere to all safety measures.
WAFA did not specify the vaccine that was administered to Abbas on Saturday.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - More than six million French people have been administered the first jab of a vaccine against the coronavirus, the French Health Ministry said on Saturday.
"Since the launch of the vaccination campaign in France, 6,137,375 people have received at least one injection (i.e. 9.2% of the total population and 11.7% of the adult population) and 2,444,473 people have received two injections (i.e. 3.6% of the total population and 4.7% of the adult population)," the ministry said in a statement.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The numbers of Polish citizens willing to receive a jab of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine have decreased due to fears of side effects, Michal Dworczyk, head of the Prime Minister's Office and government plenipotentiary for the national vaccination program, said on Saturday.
The AstraZeneca vaccine has been under intense scrutiny over the recent weeks in light of reports about some recipients developing blood clots after immunization.
"In recent days, the number of people registering for AstraZeneca vaccination has dropped by several dozen percent," Dworczyk said at a press conference in Warsaw, noting that the number of people who do not show up for the vaccination has been growing.
He noted that at the moment the authorities had at disposal of several hundred thousand doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which are not used due to lack of patients. Besides, the official went on, those who avoid receiving a jab now, "go to the end of the queue" for the vaccination.
A second person has died in Denmark shortly after receiving the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccination, national media reported on Saturday.
According to the Ekstra Bladet newspaper, two municipal workers in the capital region were hospitalized after developing blood clots following the inoculation. One of them has died.
Earlier in the month, a 60-year-old woman died in Denmark in less than 14 days after getting the AstraZeneca shot, prompting the country to suspend the use of the vaccine. After the European Medicines Agency on Thursday found no evidence that the vaccine is associated with increased risks of blood clot events, Denmark said that it would still keep the pause on the shots until at least next week.
China has authorized the emergency use of its first recombinant subunit protein vaccine against COVID-19, which is administered as a three-dose series separated by 28 days, the health committee of the eastern Anhui province said.
The vaccine, developed by Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical and the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, embarked on clinical trials in June. By October, it finished phase 1 and phase 2 trials. Phase 3 trials started in China’s Hunan Province in November and in Uzbekistan’s Tashkent in December. In March, Uzbekistan approved the vaccine.
"The results of the trials show that no serious adverse effects were detected after vaccination, and the level of produced neutralizing antibodies is comparable to other recombinant protein and mRNA vaccines used in the world," the committee said.
The Anhui authorities stressed that production of this vaccine does not require high biosafety-level facilities. The vaccine production is not associated with a biosafety risk and can be scaled up very quickly. Costs are significantly reduced, and the vaccine is easy to store and transport.
Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical has already built a production line with a capacity of 300 million vaccine doses a year, which is enough to vaccinate 100 million people.
With the emergency use approval of the recombinant protein vaccine, China added a fifth COVID-19 shot to its arsenal.
JUST IN | Residents of Edinburgh gather to protest against lockdown#SputnikUpdates https://t.co/3auORTmFin pic.twitter.com/yqyPoInrh5
— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) March 20, 2021
Arguments have broken about between the police and anti-lockdown protestors in Edinburgh#SputnikUpdates https://t.co/3auORTmFin pic.twitter.com/FIA3CdBvDO
— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) March 20, 2021
A rally against the nationwide lockdown and other stringent COVID-19 restrictions is underway in the Polish capital of Warsaw, a Sputnik correspondent reported on Saturday.
Health Minister Adam Niedzielski said this past Wednesday that Poland was going into a nationwide lockdown until April 9. The Warmian-Masurian, Pomeranian, Masovian and Lubusz voivodeships of the country, where the incidence of COVID-19 is at the highest level, have all closed down at different times. Hotels, cinemas, theatres, museums, gyms and shopping centres are closed. Grocery stores, pharmacies, book and pet stores are, however, exempt from the lockdown, while cafes, bars and restaurants continue operating for take-away orders only.
Hundreds of Poles gathered on Saturday at Parade Square in downtown Warsaw for a "Freedom March" to protest the measures. People are seen carrying posters with such slogans as "My Poland — My freedom," "Don't kill us and our business," or "Stop the fake pandemic."
Some of them defiantly ignore the mandatory mask rule. The police continue warning the protesters that gatherings of more than five people are banned.
The demonstrators demand that the government allow them to work despite the pandemic and pay compensation to affected businesses. They are also concerned that tourism, gastronomy, hotel and other industries will go bankrupt once and for all.
Half of the United Kingdom's adult population has received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Saturday.
"Yesterday we vaccinated more people than any day yet. I'm delighted to be able to say that we've now vaccinated HALF of all adults in the UK. The vaccine is a national success story & our way out of this pandemic. When you get the call, get the jab," Hancock tweeted.
The country is currently vaccinating those over 50. Since the beginning of the mass vaccination drive in February, the UK has inoculated over 26 million people with the first dose, and more than 2 million with the second one, according to the UK Department of Health and Social Care.
Organizers of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics decided on Saturday that the foreign spectators would not be allowed to attend the summer games, the Kyodo news agency reported, citing the organizing committee.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC), the International Paralympic Committee, the Tokyo Games organizing committee, the Japanese government, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government convened earlier in the day to discuss how they plan to move forward with the games.
According to the media outlet, the organizers agreed that the games had to proceed without overseas spectators over the health safety concerns amid the pandemic.
It is possible, however, that foreigners who are part of the Olympics will be allowed in, the Tokyo 2020 CEO Muto said, as quoted by Reuters.
Denmark has reported two cases of hospital staff with blood clots and cerebral haemorrhage after receiving the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccination.
According to the Capital Region of Denmark, both hospital staff had received the AstraZeneca vaccine less than 14 days before getting ill. One of them died.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto got vaccinated with Russia's #SputnikV vaccine against COVID-19. #SputnikVaccinated pic.twitter.com/unCVEvltJf
— Sputnik V (@sputnikvaccine) March 20, 2021
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan tested positive for COVID-19 just two days after he was inoculated with the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine, Faisal Sultan, special assistant to the Pakistani prime minister on health, said on Saturday.
PM Imran Khan has tested positive for Covid-19 and is self isolating at home
— Faisal Sultan (@fslsltn) March 20, 2021
On Thursday, Khan got the first shot of the two-dose Sinopharm jab, the only vaccine currently available in Pakistan.
Pakistan launched the COVID-19 vaccination campaign in early February, two days after receiving 500,000 vaccine doses from China. Along with the 79-percent efficient Sinopharm vaccine, Pakistan approved the use of the UK-Swedish AstraZeneca and Russian Sputnik V.
The city of Amalner in the Indian state of Maharashtra has introduced a three-day lockdown due to a surge in the COVID-19 cases, a Sputnik correspondent reported on Saturday, citing authorities.
All food markets, shopping centers, gyms, theaters, temples and educational institutions will be closed from Saturday until Monday, while pharmacies, hospitals, police and fire departments, as well as food delivery services, will continue to operate. Those who violate the lockdown regime face up to two years in prison.
Maharashtra leads the country's coronavirus case tally, with more than 178,000 patients currently receiving treatment. The state registered the all-time high daily increase of some 25,800 COVID-19 cases over the past day alone.
Russia registered 9,632 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, down from 9,699 the day before, taking the overall tally to 4,447,570, the coronavirus response centre said on Saturday.
"Over the past day, 9,632 coronavirus cases were confirmed across 85 Russian regions, including 1,135 cases (11.8 percent) without clinical symptoms," the centre said, adding that the cumulative case count has now reached 4,447,570, with the rate of increase at 0.22 percent.
Moscow confirmed 1,728 new coronavirus cases over the given period, down from 1,809 the day before. The Russian capital was followed by St. Petersburg with 899 new cases, down from 921 the day before, and the Moscow Region with 651 new cases, up from 605 on Friday.
The response centre reported 392 COVID-19 fatalities, down from 443 the day before, raising the country's death toll to 94,659.
Total recoveries increased by 11,279 over the given period, down from 12,337 the day before, and reached 4,060,652.
Former US President Donald Trump's Palm Beach club at Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida has been partially closed after some of its staffers contracted COVID-19, The Washington Post newspaper reported on Saturday, citing informed sources.
"As some of our staff have recently tested positive for COVID-19, we will be temporarily suspending service at the Beach Club and a la carte Dining Room," club management said in an e-mail, obtained by The Washington Post.
It added that banquet and event services were still running.
According to the Trump Organization's spokeswoman, some of the employees were quarantined.
Trump bought Mar-a-Lago estate in 1985 and turned it into a social club in 1993. Forbes estimates the mansion is worth $160 million.
India has confirmed 40,953 new cases of the coronavirus over the past 24 hours, with the total number of those infected having reached 11,555,284, the country's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Saturday.
The death toll from the disease has reached 159,558 people, with 188 new fatalities being recorded over the past day. More than 11.1 million people have recovered in India since the start of the outbreak.
A day earlier, the country confirmed 39,726 new coronavirus cases, with 154 fatalities.
India comes third in terms of the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, following the United States and Brazil, with more than 29.72 million and 11.87 million COVID-19 patients, respectively.
The car manufacturing giant Volkswagen said it would suspend the operation of its plants in Brazil for 12 days starting from Wednesday over the increasing number of new COVID-19 cases in the country.
“Volkswagen in Brazil announces the suspension of manufacturing activities in all its units in the country, located in the state of Sao Paulo and Parana, for 12 days in a row starting from March 24, 2021,” the company said in a statement on late Friday.
Administrative staff will be working remotely within these 12 days, Volkswagen added.
Within the past 24 hours, Brazil has registered 90,570 new COVID-19 cases, marking the largest daily increase since the start of the outbreak. The total number of cases in the country has reached 11,871,390, with 190,314 fatalities.
The Japanese government expects that the number of foreign citizens who will attend the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo will not exceed 90,000, Japanese media reported on Saturday.
Some 15,000 foreign athletes will compete in the Olympics and Paralympics, while the other 75,000 include coaches, referees, representatives of media and sponsors, the Sankei Shimbun newspaper reported citing its sources.
According to the Kyodo news agency, the Japanese government and the organizing committee of the games decided not to invite foreign volunteers, which is a common practice for the Olympics.
On Saturday, organizers of the Tokyo Olympics are expected to hold talks to decide whether to allow foreign spectators to the games amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Olympic Games in Tokyo were initially to be held in 2020 but postponed to July-August 2021 over the pandemic.
