LONDON – Thousands of people aged 80 and over have started receiving invitations to receive the coronavirus vaccine in England, officials said on Sunday, as Britain intensified its national vaccination program in an attempt to meet its goal of inoculating about 15 million people by mid-February.
More than 600,000 invitations are expected to arrive at doors across England this week, asking seniors to apply for vaccines at new mass vaccination centers near them.
The government has given the first dose of the vaccine to more than 1.2 million people so far.
The seven new large-scale vaccination centers join about 1,000 other locations across the country, including hospitals, general clinics and some drug stores.
Officials hope that a rapid implementation of mass vaccination will help lift Britain out of its third national blockade, which was ordered this month to contain an alarming increase in COVID-19 infections and deaths. Britain saw 81,000 deaths in the pandemic, according to a Johns Hopkins University count.
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THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:
– California reports record a day’s total of 695 coronavirus deaths
– UK PM Boris Johnson under fire while Britain faces the attack of COVID-19 again
– Overburdened hospitals in Ukraine see the consequences of widespread new year festivities
– Israelis protest Netanyahu amid third virus blockade
– The night pandemic curfew comes into effect in Quebec
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Follow AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic, https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
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HERE WHAT’S MORE HAPPENING:
BERLIN – More than 40,000 people died of COVID-19 in Germany.
The sad record of 40,343 deaths was reached on Sunday, when the country’s disease control center reported 465 new deaths.
Germany initially managed to keep the death toll low compared to its European neighbors, but since October, both new infections and deaths have steadily increased. On Sunday, Germany reported 16,946 new infections.
The country entered a second rigid blockade last month, which was recently extended to the end of January. Schools and most stores are closed, the country’s hospitals are on the edge, and some morgues don’t have enough space to cool the relentless flow of incoming bodies.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that the coming weeks will be the most difficult in the pandemic. However, the chancellor also said that the mass vaccinations, which started in late December, will eventually bring relief.
“A few hundred thousand have been vaccinated and there will be more each day. The speed will increase, ”said Merkel in her weekly podcast.
Germany and the European Union have already approved Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. More than 530,000 people, mostly seniors and medical staff, had been vaccinated by Saturday.
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LVIV, Ukraine – A medical school in western Ukraine has been transformed into a temporary hospital while the coronavirus floods the country in Eastern Europe.
The college lobby in the city of Lviv has 50 beds for COVID-19 patients, and an additional 300 are placed in classrooms and auditoriums to accommodate the influx of people seeking care in a crowded emergency hospital nearby.
The head of the hospital’s therapy division, Marta Sayko, said the college space doubled the treatment capacity. She expects a broad blockade ordered on Friday to ease the burden on the Ukrainian health system.
Many medical professionals criticized the government for ordering the blockade only after the Christmas and New Year holidays, instead of risking angering the public.
“We saw large-scale New Year festivities in almost every city,” said Borys Ribun, head of the regional pathology office in Lviv. “I think there will be consequences. We should see them in a week or two. “
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BEIJING – More than 360 people tested positive in a growing coronavirus outbreak south of Beijing, in neighboring Hebei province.
The National Health Commission of China reported on Sunday that 69 new cases were confirmed, including 46 in Hebei.
The outbreak was of concern because of Hebei’s proximity to the country’s capital. Travel between the two was restricted, with Hebei workers having to show proof of employment in Beijing to enter.
Hebei recorded 183 confirmed cases and 181 additional asymptomatic cases in the past eight days. China does not include those who test positive, but have no symptoms in their official case count.
Almost all cases are in Shijuazhuang, the provincial capital, which is 260 kilometers (160 miles) southwest of Beijing. A handful were also found in Xingtai. Both cities carried out mass tests of millions of residents, suspended public transport and restricted residents to their communities or villages for a week.
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MEXICO CITY – Mexico recorded another daily record of new confirmed cases of coronavirus, with 16,105 new infections reported on Saturday, and an almost record 1,113 COVID-19-related deaths in the last 24-hour period.
The country has already overcome 1.5 million total infections and more than 133,000 deaths so far in the pandemic. Given Mexico’s extremely low level of testing, official estimates suggest that the actual death toll is over 180,000.
Health officials said 6,722 doses of coronavirus vaccine were administered on Friday, totaling about 75,000 so far. In Mexico City, the current center of the pandemic in Mexico, 90% of hospital beds are occupied.
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MONTREAL – A curfew to contain a rising tide of COVID-19 cases took effect in Quebec on Saturday night.
Prime Minister François Legault says the measure is necessary to avoid meetings that have fostered the widespread spread of the virus. The French-speaking Canadian province has a population of over 8.4 million
The rules will cause most residents to face police issues or fines of up to $ 6,000 Canadian ($ 4,728) if they leave between 8:00 pm and 5:00 am in the next four weeks. There are exceptions for essential workers, people who walk dogs and those who have medical reasons to be out, like a doctor’s appointment.
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TOKYO – Japanese opposition lawmakers criticized the government’s emergency declaration on Sunday as too late to contain the growing case of the coronavirus.
They have also pushed for more tests, which are lagging behind in Japan, being expensive and difficult to obtain unless they are seriously ill.
“It is essential to consider the worst case scenario, but the response has always been based on an overly optimistic outlook,” Yukio Edano, a former Economy Minister, told NHK TV.
Opposition lawmakers Toranosuke Katayama and Kazuo Shii also criticized the state of emergency as too limited in scope, area and duration. The statement, which began on Friday, calls for restaurants to close at 8 pm, lasts for a month and is concentrated in the Tokyo region.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga defended the focus of the statement and said the growing curve in the spread of the infection would flatten out in a month.
COVID-19-related deaths have totaled about 4,000 across the country so far. Concerns are growing about hospitals becoming increasingly narrow. Tokyo cases have recently increased to more than 2,000 a day.
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PROVIDENCE, RI – Rhode Island Governor Daniel McKee is quarantined at home after coming into close contact with someone who later tested positive for COVID-19, officials said on Saturday.
The vice governor learned of the close contact on Saturday morning. Since then, the test has been negative and has no symptoms, officials said. It will continue to be tested and quarantined until midnight on January 12, officials said.
McKee is expected to serve the remaining two years of governor Gina Raimondo’s term, after Raimondo was named Democratic candidate Joe Biden as secretary of commerce.
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LAS VEGAS – Nevada is reporting one of the state’s biggest daily increases in coronavirus deaths since the pandemic began, and its worst week.
The state on Saturday reported 2,648 additional known COVID-19 cases and 56 additional deaths. This is close to the record 60 deaths reported on Wednesday alone. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that the total of 299 deaths from COVID-19 in one week was the worst so far.
Nevada has had 246,309 known cases of COVID-19 and 3,450 deaths since the pandemic began.
The seven-day moving average of new daily cases in Nevada increased from 2,115.3 on December 25 to 2,373.6 on Friday, while the continuous average of daily deaths increased from 33.6 to 35.4, according to data from Johns Hopkins University and The COVID Tracking Project.
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LOS ANGELES – California health officials on Saturday reported a record 695 deaths from coronaviruses, as many hospitals suffered an unprecedented burden of cases.
The state Department of Public Health said the number had increased to 29,233 the death toll in the state since the pandemic began.
A spate of cases after Halloween and Thanksgiving has produced a record hospitalization in California, and now the most seriously ill patients are dying in unprecedented numbers.
Many hospitals in Los Angeles and other hard-hit areas are already struggling to stay updated and alerted that they may need to ration care, as intensive care beds are shrinking.
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OKLAHOMA CITY – An Oklahoma judge extended a temporary restraining order allowing bars and restaurants in Oklahoma to stay open after Governor Kevin Stitt’s 11 pm curfew in November in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
District judge Susan Stallings listened to the case’s arguments on Friday and extended the order of business on December 29, while considering the decision on the action of bar owners who argue that the governor has no legal authority to impose the touch to collect, according to court records.
The governor’s lawyers say state law gives Stitt “the necessary broad and flexible authority” to fight the spread of the virus.
On Saturday, Oklahoma has the sixth highest number of new cases per capita in the country, with 1,218.16 per 100,000 residents, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The state health department reported on Saturday 2,738 deaths since the pandemic began.
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JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received the second dose of the coronavirus vaccine on Saturday after becoming the first Israeli to be vaccinated last month.
Israel is in the middle of a third national blockade after seeing an increase in cases, despite triggering one of the fastest vaccination campaigns in the world. The country gave the first of two doses of the vaccine to almost 20% of its population. Netanyahu said on Saturday that he had guaranteed enough vaccines to inoculate the entire adult population by the end of March.
Netanyahu put the vaccination campaign at the center of his re-election campaign in March, when Israel will hold its fourth national vote in less than two years. In the meantime, he asked the Israelis to make “one last big effort” to stop the broadcast, adhering to the stricter restrictions.
Most schools and businesses were closed from Friday, with people forced to stay less than 1,000 meters (yards) from home, except for essential needs. Public meetings are highly restricted and public transport is limited. The restrictions must last for at least two weeks.