China is once again mass testing an entire city, Italians are more afraid of bankruptcy than the virus, and the White House says it is pointless to try to control the epidemic. According to the WHO, European countries have seen the largest increase in the number of cases in recent days. At the same time, the United States, India, and Brazil continue to lead the world in the number of cases and deaths. According to Johns Hopkins University, there have been 43.1 million cases of coronavirus infection and over 1.1 million deaths worldwide.
Doctors in the Belgian city of Liege are being asked to continue working even if they have been diagnosed with Covid-19. This is due to a sharp increase in the number of new infections in the city and a large number of patients. Approximately one-quarter of medical staff are reported to be on sick leave due to coronavirus infection. In 10 hospitals, administrators have informed medical staff that employees should return to work if they do not have symptoms of the disease.
In an interview with the BBC, the head of the Belgian Federation of Medical Unions stated that there is no other way and that it is not possible to allow the hospital system to collapse. A doctor at one of the local hospitals, Philippe Devos, said that there was definitely a risk of transmitting the virus to patients. In Liege, one out of every three Covid-19 tests is positive. Hospitals are forced to transfer patients and cancel scheduled surgeries. Earlier, the country’s health minister, Frank Vandenbroucke, said that Belgium is on the verge of a true infection tsunami, when the authorities will no longer be able to control the situation.
The English city of Nottingham, with a population of 330,000, and some districts of the county of Nottinghamshire have been assigned the third highest level of threat of infection in the country’s regional classification. Nottingham, as well as Rashcliffe, Gedling and Broxtowe, are under the strictest restrictions. The new rules come into effect Wednesday night and will be in place for 28 days. The city has repeatedly recorded one of the highest infection rates in England. Currently, a total of 7.9 million people in England live in areas where the third threat level is in effect. Pubs cannot operate there unless they serve food, and there are restrictions on people from different households coming together.
In Italy and Spain, people took to the streets to protest the tougher measures introduced the previous day in response to an increase in coronavirus cases. In Italy, starting today, bars and restaurants will only be open until 18:00. Gyms, swimming pools, theaters and cinemas are closed until November 24, and the government may extend this period. The daily number of infections has consistently exceeded 20,000 people in recent days, and authorities are asking Italians to understand and comply with the new restrictive measures.
Many Italian businessmen say they fear bankruptcy more than illness. However, small and medium business owners in Naples protested yesterday, demanding compensation from the government. Similar protests are expected in Milan and Turin on Monday. Since Sunday night, a nationwide curfew has been in effect in Spain from 23:00 to 6:00. The only exception is the Canary Islands. Individual regions also impose restrictions on crossing their borders. The number of people living under one roof should not exceed 6. Last week, Spain passed the one million mark of people infected since the beginning of the pandemic. The daily rate of new infections has increased significantly. On Monday, protests were held in Barcelona against the measures taken.
The temporary hospital on the outskirts of Prague is ready to receive patients. In the Czech Republic, the country hardest hit by the second wave of the epidemic, cafes and restaurants are serving takeout only, non-essential businesses are closed, and schools have gone back to online mode. A temporary 500-bed hospital has been built on the outskirts of Prague, as officials anticipate a large influx of patients. French health officials say the true number of new cases per day may be twice as high as the official statistics. They estimate that about 100,000 people are infected each day in the country, including asymptomatic and undiagnosed cases.
In some U.S. states, the number of infected people continues to rise sharply. Chief White House advisor Mark Meadows said that the US authorities do not plan to control the situation with Covid-19. According to him, the only factors that can defeat the epidemic are vaccines and therapy. Donald Trump’s rival in the presidential race, Democrat Joe Biden, responded by saying that the current administration had given up without a fight. The statistics of diseases in the country continue to rise, with 83.7 thousand cases identified in the United States in the past day. The United States remains the leader in the total number of cases and deaths worldwide – 8.6 million cases and 225.2 thousand deaths, respectively.
In China, an entire city is again being tested for coronavirus. This time it is Kashgar, a city of 4.7 million people. The decision to conduct mass testing was made by the authorities in connection with the outbreak in the Xinjiang province. The first case in Kashgar was detected a few days ago in a garment factory worker. Her illness was asymptomatic, and the diagnosis was made when she came in for a routine checkup. By the second half of Sunday, more than 2.8 million tests had been conducted in Kashgar, and authorities plan to complete testing of the entire population by the end of Tuesday. To date, 138 asymptomatic cases of the disease have been identified in the city. All schools are closed and no one can leave the city without a negative test result. Chinese authorities do not include asymptomatic patients in the statistics on the spread of Covid-19. According to official data, since the beginning of the pandemic, 85.8 thousand people have been infected in the country, and 4.6 thousand have died.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will not prioritize vaccinating actors playing Christmas characters in exchange for their participation in vaccine propaganda. The plan has been canceled, along with the entire $250 million advertising campaign of which it was a part. The chairman of the Order of the Real Bearded Santas in Bratsk, Rick Ervin, called the news extremely disappointing. “They cheated Santa a little bit,” Erwin told the Wall Street Journal. “And we were hoping so much before Christmas 2020!” According to him, about a hundred performers have already signed up as volunteers to play Santa.
Young Britons between the ages of 16 and 25 from less privileged backgrounds have become the pandemic’s main hostages, and its effects on them will be the longest lasting, according to investigative journalists from the BBC’s Panorama program who conducted their own investigation. This group was twice as likely as older workers to lose their jobs during the shutdown. Income fell significantly for 6 out of 10 respondents. School closures and temporary online learning will not go unnoticed by 16- to 18-year-old teenagers. Research has shown that children from disadvantaged families have fallen behind much more than their more affluent peers. For many, this may mean that they have permanently lost even the slightest chance of attending university in the future. And although the study was conducted among the British, its authors believe that a similar situation is being observed worldwide, and that the term “COVID generation” will soon be firmly established in our lexicon.
Recent research by scientists at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology has shown that only 4% of the adult population in the city of Wuhan, where the Covid-19 epidemic began to spread worldwide, have antibodies against the virus. According to the scientists, this fact casts doubt on the strategy of countries that have focused on developing so-called “herd immunity” rather than a vaccine.
The latest research confirms the majority view that the vaccine is the only way to stop the pandemic. The authors of the study tested more than 35,000 people who had recovered from Covid-19. Previously, it was believed that the blood of those who had recovered would necessarily contain two types of antibodies – immunoglobulin M and G. However, during the latest study, type M was not found in any of the participants, type G was detected in 3.2%, and the presence of both types of antibodies was found in less than 1%. According to one of the authors of the Wuhan study, such dynamics make the idea of “herd immunity,” which is supposed to occur naturally, increasingly illusory. The study also showed that people with mild or asymptomatic forms of the disease may not develop long-term immunity to the virus at all. There are already known cases of re-infection after a short interval.