Lima, PeruPeru announced a sharp increase in its Covid-19 death toll, saying there have been more than 180,000 fatalities since the pandemic hit the country early last year.
Bolivian resident Elisabeth Ticona gets a shot of the Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine during vaccinations for people over age 50, on the border that connects Desaguadero, Bolivia, with Desaguadero, Peru, Friday, May 21, 2021.
The announcement was made in the presidential palace during the presentation of a report by a working group commissioned to analyse and update the death toll. The results of the study put the new toll at 180,764 in a population of about 32.6 million, compared to recent data indicating that 69,342 people had died from Covid-19.
Health Minister Oscar Ugarte said the criteria for assigning the new coronavirus as a cause of death were changed. Previously, only those who had a positive diagnostic test were considered to have died from the virus, but other criteria have since been incorporated.
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The new toll from Covid-19 includes deaths reported between March 2020 and May 22 of this year. Among Latin American countries, only Brazil and Mexico have reported higher death tolls from the disease.
In this March 20 photo, a worker digs a grave in the San Juan Bautista cemetery in Iquitos, Peru, amid the new coronavirus pandemic.
GENEVA, Switzerland The head of the World Health Organisation has hailed passage of a historic resolution by WHO member states that aims to improve preparedness for massive viral outbreaks like Covid-19 and stepped up calls for the passage of an international pandemic treaty.
In the wake of a patchy international response to the coronavirus with WHO at its centre, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the comments as the UN health agency closed its annual assembly.
Among other things, the assembly, which brings together all WHO member states, passed a $6.1 billion budget for the agency over the next two years. That was a 16 per cent increase from the previous biennial budget.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization,
The assembly also selected the government of Syria, where health care workers and other civilians have been killed, injured and driven from their homes in a decade-long civil war, as a member of the WHOs executive board.
A resolution offered few concrete steps to tackle pandemics aside from creating a six-person working group to pull together various proposed reforms and report back next year.
Supporters of the resolution acknowledged it broke little new ground and aimed mostly to garner commonality of purpose amid the economic and human devastation of the pandemic.
The WHO has announced a new nomenclature for the Covid-19 variants that were previously, and somewhat uncomfortably, known either by their technical letter-number codes or by the countries in which they first appeared.
Hoping to strike a fair and more comprehensible balance, WHO said it will now refer to the most worrisome variants, known as variants of concern, by letters in the Greek alphabet.
So the first such variant of concern, which first appeared in Britain and can be also known as B.1.1.7, will be known as the alpha variant.
The second, which turned up in South Africa and has been referred to as B.1.351, will be known as the beta variant.
A third that first appeared in Brazil will be called the gamma variant and a fourth that first turned up in India the delta variant. Future variants that rise to of concern status will be labelled with subsequent letters in the Greek alphabet.
The WHO said a group of experts came up with the new system, which will not replace scientific naming systems but will offer simple, easy to say and remember labels for variants.
Infections have swelled in India since February in a disastrous turn blamed on more contagious variants as well as government decisions to allow massive crowds to gather for religious festivals and political rallies.
ANKARA, Turkey Turkey announced a further easing of its Covid-19 restrictions, including a relaxing of nighttime and weekend curfews, following a decline in the number of infections.
Following a Cabinet meeting, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said restaurants and cafes, which were only able to open for delivery or takeaway food, would be allowed to accept sitting customers until 9pm. Businesses such as gyms and amusement parks would also be allowed to reopen until 9pm.
The start of nighttime curfews was pushed back by an hour, to start at 10pm Erdogan said Sunday (local time) curfews are to remain in place, but people will be free to leave their houses on Saturdays. Civil servants will continue working remotely or in shifts in offices.
Presidential Press Service/AP
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during the inauguration ceremony for a public garden, in Ankara, Turkey, June 5, 2020.
Meanwhile, the countrys education minister said primary and secondary school students would return to their classes for in-person education two times a week. In less populous towns and villages, schools would reopen full time.
Earlier this month, the number of daily Covid-19 infections dropped to below 10,000 for the first time since March 1, after reaching a record-high of more than 63,000 daily cases in mid-April.
On Tuesday, the Health Ministry posted 6,933 new cases and 122 deaths in the past 24 hours. The total death toll in the country stands at 47,527 with more than 5.2 million infections.
VATICAN CITY Pope Francis is praying for an end to the coronavirus pandemic and the economic, social and interpersonal problems it has caused.
Francis presided over a special evening ceremony in the Vatican Gardens that featured recitation of the Rosary, Scripture readings and hymns sung by some 300 people. It was the conclusion of a monthlong prayer marathon that began May 1 with a similar service in St Peters Basilica.
Pope Francis arrives to lead the prayer to mark the end of the month of worldwide prayers to stop the pandemic in the Vatican gardens.
Francis sat before a reproduction of one of his favourite icons of the Madonna, known as Mary Untier of Knots. Those devoted to the icon pray for Marys intercession to help resolve their problems.
Opening the service, Francis said there were many knots tightening around our existence and tying up our activities: they are the knots of egoism, indifference, economic and social knots, knots of violence and war.
PARIS, FranceFrance opened up virus vaccinations to adults of all ages starting Monday (Tuesday NZ time), earlier than originally scheduled, as vaccine deliveries have picked up speed.
More than 48 per cent of Frances adult population has had at least one dose, and more than 20 per cent have had two, according to public health authorities.
After a slow start blamed on bureaucracy and delayed deliveries, France has now administered more than 36 million vaccine doses.
Anyone 18 and over can sign up for an injection. And 12 to 15-year-olds should have access soon too, after the European Medicines Agency authorised use of the Pfizer vaccine for that age group last week. Prime Minister Jean Castex said the horizon is clearing but warned be people to stay vigilant.
France has registered more virus infections than any European country, and more than 109,000 deaths linked to Covid-19.
Virus patients still occupy more than half of the intensive care beds France had before the pandemic but their numbers have been falling for weeks and the country is gradually reopening its restaurants, businesses and tourist sites.
A person prepares a coronavirus vaccine shot at a surge vaccine operation set up at Twickenham rugby stadium, south-west London.
LONDON, England British health authorities are aiming to vaccinate 15,000 people in one day at Londons Twickenham rugby stadium as part of a race to contain a fast-spreading coronavirus variant.
The strain, first identified in India, accounts for a majority of new cases in the UK, which is seeing a rise in infections after weeks of decline. Scientists say the variant is more transmissible than even the previously dominant strain first found in the UK but current vaccines are effective against it.
Many scientists are urging the Conservative government to delay plans to lift social distancing and other restrictions on June 21, arguing that more people need to be vaccinated before measures can be eased safely. The government will announce its decision on June 14.
A surge vaccine operation set up at Twickenham rugby stadium, south-west London.
Three-quarters of UK adults have had one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, and almost half have had both doses.
The Twickenham walk-in vaccination centre is offering jabs without an appointment on Monday to people from northwest London, a hotspot for the Indian-identified variant.
Health officials in the northwest England town of Bolton, which had the highest rates of the new variant, say infections are starting to fall after a mass testing and surge vaccination campaign.
Up to 15,000 doses of vaccine are ready to be administered at the walk-in centre which has been set up for residents of north-west London in response to an increase in the number of coronavirus cases in the area.
BERLIN, Germany German Chancellor Angela Merkel says a rule that allowed the federal government to require strict pandemic measures in regions with high rates of infection can expire at the end of June, as the country has seen a steady decline in Covid-19 cases in recent weeks.
Merkel told reporters in Berlin that the so-called emergency brake she pushed through despite resistance from some state governors had indeed had an effect in flattening the curve of infections.
German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, right, points as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, arrives for a virtual Plenary Session of the Franco-German Council of Ministers in Berlin, Germany.
Germanys disease control agency said it received reports of 1,978 new cases of Covid-19 and 36 deaths Sunday (local time).
A total of 88,442 people have died as a result of a coronavirus infection in Germany and the country has recorded almost 3.7 million cases since the start of the pandemic.