While the restrictions are lifted at regular intervals, the trend that saw new contaminations decline has slowed in recent days. In France, the number of positive cases has increased compared to last week. The incidence rate is still higher, in most regions, than 500 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. In Martinique, it tripled because of carnival festivities that took place from February 27 to March 2. Germany is also noticing an epidemic rebound. The situation is deteriorating even faster in Oceania and Asia, where China has resolved to confine a city of nine million inhabitants. All over the world pandemic background.
- Contaminations on the rise in France
“We are currently seeing a rebound, in France, in the countries around us. That is to say that the Covid is no longer decreasing, it is even increasing”, declared Olivier Véran. The Minister of Health, traveling this Friday in Isère, however specifies that “the hospital load continues to drop but the pace of this reduction has started to slow down, so we are extremely vigilant”. According to the epidemiologist report published Thursday March 10 by Santé Publique France, “the incidence rate remained above 500 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the majority of regions and increased sharply in Martinique where it exceeded 2,400”. New cases reached 74,818 on Thursday evening, up from 60,225 a week earlier.
“It is too early to turn the Covid page even if we really want to! We must remain vigilant”, reacted on Twitter Rémi Salomon, president of the establishment committee of the AP-HP (Hospitals of Paris). If he also calls for caution, the Minister of Health indicated that the schedule of health restrictions is maintained. The latest measures announced by Prime Minister Jean Castex, namely the end of wearing a mask and the suspension of the vaccination pass, will be effective Monday March 14.
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- “Critical situation” in Germany
Germany is in a “critical” health situation due to the increase in the number of Covid-19 cases, warned the Minister of Health. “The situation is objectively much worse than the general atmosphere,” lamented Karl Lauterbach, noting that “the state of mind of the population and part of the political landscape is that we would have brought the pandemic under control”.
Germany, which plans to ease a number of restrictions from March 20, recorded more than 250,000 new cases of Covid-19 on Friday and the incidence rate over the past week exceeded 1,400. Authorities continue to rely on compulsory vaccination. The vote on this law, promised by Chancellor Olaf Scholz for the end of 2021, should take place in early April in Parliament.
- China reconfigures Changchun
Faced with its worst epidemic outbreak in two years, China had to resolve to confine the large city of Changchun, in the northeast of the country, populated by nine million inhabitants.
Since this Friday, only one person per household is allowed to go out, once every two days, to ensure supplies, said the town hall, which is preparing to screen the entire population. Authorities have also ordered the closure of schools, businesses and public transport. It is forbidden to leave the city. This confinement is the largest announced in the country since that of the metropolis of Xi’an (North) and its 13 million inhabitants at the end of last year.
More broadly, as it experiences an outbreak of cases due to the Omicron variant, China has announced that it will introduce, for the first time, the use of rapid antigen tests for Covid-19.
- Valneva vaccine: deliveries in Europe in spring 2022
The Franco-Austrian laboratory Valneva plans to deliver the first doses of its vaccine once morest Covid-19 in Europe in the second quarter of 2022, the company said in a press release. This vaccine is “currently the only inactivated and adjuvanted vaccine candidate once morest Covid-19 in clinical development in Europe”, she continues. The laboratory indicates that it has signed an agreement with the European Commission “for the supply of a maximum of 60 million doses” over two years, including 24.3 million in 2022. Last September, the United Kingdom terminated a contract for out of 100 million doses of this vaccine candidate.
- The pandemic is accelerating once more around the world
With 1.59 million contaminations recorded every day worldwide, the indicator is on the rise once more (+8% compared to the previous week) following five weeks of decline, according to an AFP report stopped on Thursday. However, daily contaminations remain half as numerous as during the peak at the end of January. The evolution of the situation also remains uneven on the planet. It is deteriorating much more in Asia and Oceania, with respectively 27% and 20% more contamination compared to the previous week, than in Africa (+3%) or Europe (+1%). The figures are improving in the United States and Canada (-30%), in the Middle East (-27%) and in the Latin America/Caribbean zone (-12%).
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The Covid-19 pandemic would have caused more than 18 million deaths worldwide between the beginning of 2020 and the end of 2021, according to a study published in the journal Lancet. That is to say more than three times the official balance sheet, which the authors of the study considered to be very underestimated.
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