Coronavirus: US, UK, EU record horrific death toll as more virus mutations found
Coronavirus infections in the US, UK and EU continue to spike with the second wave now officially worse than the first, and more variants of the virus have been found.
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The US reported a record high of more than 4,300 new COVID-19 deaths, as all air travellers to the country will need to show a negative virus test from 26 January.
The highly contagious UK variant of the coronavirus has been detected in two New York City residents — one of whom recently travelled to the United Kingdom, Mayor Bill de Blasio revealed on Wednesday, local time.
According to the New York Post, 12 cases of the strain have been identified, and Mr de Blasio said two of those cases involve the NYC residents, marking the first known cases in the city.
The mayor, speaking during his daily City Hall press briefing, again urged the federal government to enact an immediate travel ban from the UK to the US,
“Here’s proof positive,” Mr de Blasio said. “Someone who was in the UK has brought the variant back here [to New York City]. We need that stopped.”
De Blasio continued, “Flights from the United Kingdom should be cancelled immediately by the federal government.”
The UK has recorded its highest number of daily deaths according to official figures with another 1,564 fatalities in the past 24 hours and 47,525 daily confirmed coronavirus cases.
It is the highest daily figure since the start of the pandemic.
But according to the BBC, Dr. Yvonne Doyle, medical director at Public Health England, said there have been now more deaths in the second wave of the pandemic than in the first.
England is considering putting COVID patients in hotels, as a study reveals deep trauma among ICU workers.
A majority of doctors and nurses have been traumatised by working in intensive care during the pandemic, a new study reveals, with almost half reporting symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety or depression, and 13 per cent feeling they would be better off dead.
The study was published on Wednesday by researchers at King’s College London and
shockingly revealed that almost one in seven of medical staff had considered harming themselves in the past two weeks.
Meanwhile, in Europe the pandemic worsens with Portugal on Wednesday setting a new daily record for COVID-19 related deaths and a new record number of daily infections, according to the Health Ministry.
Portugal has also recorded its highest daily case count with 10,556 new cases, with the total reaching 507,108.
The grim numbers come as a new lockdown is expected to be announced for Portugal later on Wednesday.
Switzerland has introduced further measures in response to the new coronavirus variant, President Guy Parmelin announced Wednesday, with all non-essential shops having to close next week.
The current closure of restaurants, sports sites and hotels will also be extended until the end of February.
Working from home will be mandatory, where possible.
U.S. RESEARCHERS FIND TWO NEW COVID STRAINS
Rsearchers in Ohion announced on Wednesday, local time, that they have found two new variants of the coronavirus in the US.
As with the mutant strain first detected in the UK, the US variants make the strain more contagious but vaccines still appear to be effective against them.
The researches, based at Ohio State University, issued a press release stating that the new variant has three other gene mutations “not previously seen together” in SARS-CoV2.
However, the “Columbus strain” named after Columbus, Ohio where it is spreading rapidly, most probably “arose in a virus strain already present in the United States.”
“We know this shift didn’t come from the U.K. or South African branches of the virus,” said Dr. Dan Jones, vice chair of the division of molecular pathology at the Ohio State Wexner Medical Centre.
PROBE INTO DOCTOR WHO DIED AFTER VACCINE
Pfizer says it is investigating the death of a Florida doctor who had received one dose of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine.
The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention is also reportedly looking into the death of Gregory Michael, a 56-year-old obstetrician who had taken the shot 16 days earlier, according to theNew York Post.
Pfizer said there is no evidence so far indicating Michael’s death was caused by the vaccine it developed with German biotech firm BioNTech.
Manhattan-based Pfizer called it a “highly unusual clinical case” of a condition called severe thrombocytopenia, which limits the body’s ability to clot blood and stop internal bleeding.
“To date, millions of people have been vaccinated and we are closely monitoring all adverse events in individuals receiving our vaccine,” Pfizer spokesman Jerica Pitts told The Post in a statement Wednesday.
“It is important to note that serious adverse events, including deaths that are unrelated to the vaccine, are unfortunately likely to occur at a similar rate as they would in the general population.”
The CDC is aware of the death and “will evaluate the situation as more information becomes available,” agency spokesman Tom Skinner told Bloomberg News.
Meanwhile, the production of the COVID-19 vaccine being developed by drugmaker Johnson & Johnson’s subsidiary Janssen appears to be behind schedule.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Operation Warp Speed’s lead manufacturing adviser Dr. Carlo de Notaristefani acknowledged a delay, but said the company might be able to catch up with its original production goals by March. The vaccine is delivered as a one-dose shot could help ramp up vaccination efforts.
It comes as China’s COVID-19 vaccine was proven to be just 50.38 per cent effective in late-stage trials in Brazil, significantly lower than earlier results showed.
PUTIN ORDERS MASS VACCINATION
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his government to step up its inoculation efforts, launching a “mass vaccination” push that will start next week.
“I ask [you] to prepare the necessary infrastructure. Thank God, our vaccine does not require any unusual conditions for transportation, like [storing it at] -50 C, -70 C, everything is much simpler and more efficient with us,” Mr Putin said on Wednesday in a televised government meeting.
“So I ask you to start mass vaccination of the entire population from next week and build an appropriate schedule, as we do with other diseases, for example, the flu,” Putin added.
Russia approved its first COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V, in August. The news of its approval ahead of large-scale Phase 3 trials necessary to test its safety and efficacy drew considerable criticism from scientific and medical circles.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said that by this Thursday, an additional 600,000 doses of vaccine will be dispatched to the country’s regions.
“By the end of January … there will be 2.1 million doses of vaccine, and we will seriously need to step up the vaccination campaign,” she added.
On Sunday, the head of Russia’s health regulator Rospotrebnadzor said that the new variant of coronavirus detected in the United Kingdom has been discovered in Russia in a patient who recently returned from the country.
Speaking on Wednesday, Putin said he is “concerned” about the spread of coronavirus in the UK
BORIS SLAMS CHINA FOR VIRUS
Boris Johnson has blasted the “demented” beliefs of Chinese medicine for causing the coronavirus crisis.
As Britain upped the ante with Beijing, the UK Prime Minister pointed the finger at the Chinese for “grinding up pangolin scales” and unleashing the deadly virus on the world.
According to The Sun, in a thinly veiled attack Mr Johnson told the One Planet Summit: “One final thought, don’t forget that the coronavirus pandemic was the product of an imbalance in man’s relationship with the natural world.
“Like the original plague which struck the Greeks I seem to remember in book one of the Iliad, it is a zoonotic disease.
“It originates from bats or pangolins, from the demented belief that if you grind up the scales of a pangolin you will somehow become more potent or whatever it is people believe, it originates from this collision between mankind and the natural world and we’ve got to stop it.”
Mr Johnson has always been a fan of pangolins, an endangered anteater known for its scales, and kept a plush toy pangolin on his desk during his time as Foreign Secretary.
Coronavirus is believed to have originated in bats, and passed to humans through a live pangolin being sold to eat in a market in the Chinese city of Wuhan – the pandemic’s epicentre.
Mr Johnson told Beijing it was their fault for failing to protect the animals.
And the International Trade Secretary Liz Truss followed Mr Johnson’s lead, criticising China’s use of Uighur Muslims as slaves in Xinjiang province: “It’s not right that … goods can come into this country that have been produced through forced labour in our abhorrent conditions.
“We need to think radically about how we generate economic growth, and how we are going to use our new global platform in 2021 – to promote free and fair trade and how we are going to take on those countries who tried to cheat, and to undermine free enterprise.
“Allies like Australia, South Korea, and India will be key to forging that group of democratic nations who can stand up for democracy, for human rights, for fair and free trade and of course, we’re very committed to working with them.”
It comes as Mr Johnson held a Cabinet meeting of his top team on Tuesday as he weighed implementing tougher lockdown rules to try and curb rising infections.
The UK PM gathered his ministers for a discussion of the national lockdown, which saw shops, schools and sports facilities shut across England, with people told to stay at home once again at least until the middle of February.
Ministers want to wait to see the impact of the latest moves first before making any further decisions, and Mr Johnson urged everyone to stay at home as much as possible to save lives.
US COVID-19 DEATH TOLL ‘LIKE 9/11 EVERY DAY’
The US has averaged more than 3,000 COVID-19 deaths per day for the past week, and has reported more than 200,000 new infections for seven straight days.
The severity of the toll is now the equivalent of experiencing the 9/11 attacks every day.
The US averaged more than 3,223 COVID-19 deaths a day over the past seven days, according to Johns Hopkins University.
That’s a few hundred more per day than the 2001 terrorist strikes.
Also in the past week an average of 248,650 new infections have been reported every day.
“This is what we were afraid of — people letting their guard down over Christmas and New Year’s,” New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said.
Southern California, especially Los Angeles expects another surge as it takes at least a fortnight before people’s symptoms become severe enough to seek hospital treatment.
Hospitals have run out of rooms in their ICU’s with beds being placed in corridors and other unusual places.
One CNN correspondent saw a family holding a funeral service in a parking lot.
Juliana Jimenez Sesma’s mother and stepfather died of COVID-19 within 11 days of each other.
Her family had to hold their funeral in a parking lot so the family could socially distance while grieving.
“If you truly love your loved ones, don’t let this be you. Continue to take all the precautions. Take extra precautions,” Ms Sesma said.
Correspondent Sara Sidner warned people to not let their guard down during the coronavirus pandemic.
“This is the tenth hospital that I have been in, and to see the way that these families have to live after this and the heartache that goes so far and so wide, it’s really hard to take,” Ms Sidner said between tears.
“These families should not be going through this. No family should be going through this. So, please, listen to what this family is saying.”
MODERNA CLAIMS VACCINE LASTS FOR A YEAR
Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine should provide immunity from the virus for at least one year after vaccination, the company announced at a conference Monday
Speaking at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference on Monday, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said immunity from the pharmaceutical company’s vaccine, one of just two approved for emergency use in the US, should last for at least a year — however, new vaccinations would be needed after this time, particularly with new variants of the disease circulating globally.
Moderna said it is well positioned to respond to these new and highly contagious variants of coronavirus, such as those currently sweeping through South Africa and the UK because of the adaptable mRNA technology used to develop the vaccine.
However, the World Health Organisation has warned that herd immunity won’t happen in 2021, and social distancing measures will need to stay in place “for the rest of this year,” despite vaccine progress.
CHINA ALLOWS EXPERTS TO PROBE PANDEMIC CAUSE
On the one-year anniversary of Beijing announcing the first COVID death in Wuhan, China has agreed to allow a team of World Health Organisation experts to enter the country to investigate the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.
The news came just days after the United Nations agency’s top official criticised Beijing for holding up the mission.
Many western leaders are keen to learn whether the virus came from a wet market in Wuhan, or from a laboratory in the same city.
The WHO experts are scheduled to start their mission on Thursday and will be working with Chinese scientists in studying the contagion’s origins, China’s National Health Commission said in a brief statement.
The timing was rich in irony, coming on the one-year anniversary since China announced the first COVID death in Wuhan.
And Beijing has gone into a major lockdown as the government tries to head off a breakout ahead of next month’s Chinese New Year holiday.
A health commission official earlier said the WHO team would be travelling to the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first detected and which became the first COVID hot spot.
The world has debated for the past 12 months whether the virus originated from a wet market in Wuhan, or was developed in laboratories in that city.
A WHO spokeswoman said the agency welcomed China’s announcement.
“We look forward to working closely with our Chinese counterparts on this critical mission to identify the source of the virus and its route of introduction to the human population,” she said.
Last week, in a rare rebuke against Beijing, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus voiced disappointment that China still hadn’t given permission to the UN agency’s investigators to enter the country — an unusual sign of tensions between the WHO and one of its most important members.
The WHO has been negotiating with China’s government over the past year to get information on how the coronavirus might have first crossed into humans, as well as access to sites in Wuhan.
Answers could help prevent another virus lurking in animals from making a similar leap, epidemiologists say, as well as help clear up questions over how long the virus had been circulating, or which early mutations enabled it to spread and kill more than 1.9 million people worldwide as of Monday.
Dr Tedros said last week that several scientists on the WHO team started travelling from their home countries last week after Beijing had agreed to allow entry.
But the UN’s top health agency was then told Chinese officials hadn’t completed the necessary permissions for the team’s arrival.
Dr Tedros said Chinese officials have assured him that “China is speeding up the internal procedure” that would allow the mission to begin.
China’s Foreign Ministry said last week that Beijing and the WHO were still discussing details such as when the scientists would visit the country.
The WHO rarely criticises the national governments that fund its budget and elect its leaders, though the agency has at times struggled to get Beijing’s co-operation on issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In late January of last year, the WHO panel tasked with declaring a public health emergency expressed frustration that epidemiological data sent from China was too imprecise and paltry to act upon.
BIDEN GETS SECOND JAB LIVE ON TV
Joe Biden has received a second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 on camera in a bid to reassure Americans the vaccine is safe.
The US President-elect was given the shot in his left arm by Ric Cuming, chief nurse executive at ChristianaCare’s Christiana Hospital in Newark, Delaware, according to Biden’s transition team.
Mr Biden received the first dose of the vaccine last month on live national television.
The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, like the vaccine developed by Moderna, requires two doses administered several weeks apart in order to reach nearly 95 per cent efficacy.
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