Brazil's Neymar plans huge New Year's party despite Covid pandemic, says media
The European Union began a vaccine rollout Saturday, even as countries in the bloc were forced back into lockdown by a new strain of the virus, believed to be more infectious, that continues to spread from Britain.
Across the world, people are being urged to respect social distancing guidelines, as the World Health Organisation urged people not to "squander" the "great, heart-wrenching sacrifices" people had made to save lives.
The coronavirus pandemic has claimed more than 1.7 million lives and is still running rampant in much of the world, but the recent launching of inoculation campaigns has boosted hopes that 2021 could bring a respite.
Hours before the first vaccine doses arrived in France, the country's health ministry confirmed late Friday that it had detected its first case of the new variant in a citizen returned from Britain.
Several countries have reported cases of the new strain, which has sent jitters through already overstretched health services.
New variant cases reported worldwide
The first French case of the new coronavirus variant was found in a citizen resident in Britain who arrived from London on December 19, the French health ministry said.
They are asymptomatic and self-isolating at home in Tours in central France, and contact-tracing has taken place for the health professionals who treated him.
The new strain of the virus, which experts fear is more contagious, prompted more than 50 countries to impose travel restrictions on the United Kingdom, where it first emerged.
But cases of the new variant have still been reported worldwide: on Friday, Japan confirmed five infections in passengers from the UK, while cases have also been reported in Denmark, Sweden, Lebanon, Germany, Spain, Australia and the Netherlands.
South Africa has detected a similar mutation in some infected people, but on Friday denied British claims its strain was more infectious or dangerous than the one originating in the UK.
The closure of the UK-France border for 48 hours led to a bottleneck of up to 10,000 lorries in southeast England, with drivers stranded for days over the festive period.
But the head of the Calais port operator told AFP that after the port remained open over Christmas specially, the "situation should be completely taken care of" soon.
Some countries that loosened restrictions slightly for Christmas have re-imposed them – Austria, for example, will see a curfew imposed from Saturday until 24 January.
Millions in the UK have been affected by a tightening of restrictions there – according to the BBC, more than 40 percent of England's population are now affected by the strictest measures – which include the closure of all non-essential businesses and a limiting of social contacts.
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New lockdowns also started in Scotland and Northern Ireland on Saturday, and Wales has re-imposed restrictions too after relaxing them for Christmas.
More than 25 million infections have been recorded in Europe, according to an AFP tally on Friday.
Vaccinations in all 27 European Union countries will begin on Sunday, after regulators approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on 21 December.
As vaccine rollout gets underway across the world, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned on Friday:
"Vaccines are offering the world a way out of this tragedy. But it will take time for the whole world to be vaccinated."
The pope's Christmas message also referenced the issue, with a plea for "vaccines for all".
"I call on everyone, on leaders of states, on businesses, on international organisations, to promote cooperation and not competition, to find a solution for everyone... especially the most vulnerable and most in need in all regions of the planet," Pope Francis said.
A 78-year-old woman became the first person vaccinated against Covid-19 in France when she received the country's first dose at René-Muret Hospital in Sevran, Seine-Saint-Denis, outside Paris, according to an AFP journalist on site.
"I am moved," said the woman, named only as Mauricette, a former housekeeper, who was inoculated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine around 11am on Sunday in the public hospital's long-term care unit. She smiled and was applauded by hospital staff after receiving the jab.
Some 20 seniors and healthcare workers are slated to receive the vaccine on Sunday during France's symbolic launch of the programme, in Sevran as well as in a geriatric care centre in Dijon.
Covid-19 jabs begin across Europe in 'moment of unity'
Martin Hirsch, head of public hospital group APHP, tweeted a picture of a woman receiving the vaccination Sunday morning and wrote, "A little jab from the nurse, a big step for immunity, we hope."
The French government is aiming to have an initial one million people – consisting of seniors, vulnerable individuals and healthcare workers – vaccinated against Covid-19 by the end of February in the country's 7,000 nursing homes and related facilities.
European Union countries on Sunday embarked on the vaccination campaign hailed as the "key" to defeating Covid-19, as the growing spread of a new coronavirus variant intensified fears the pandemic could wreak further devastation.
The jab is a glimmer of hope for a continent still battling the pandemic in earnest, with infection rates again on the rise, lockdowns imposed and Christmas and New Year plans left in tatters for many.
The numbers vaccinated in the programme's initial days with the Pfizer-BioNTech jab are largely symbolic and it will be months before enough are protected to envisage a return to normal from the pandemic that has killed 1.76 million people worldwide since emerging in China late last year.
Europe launches a cross-border vaccination programme of unprecedented scale on Sunday as part of efforts to end a Covid-19 pandemic that has crippled economies and claimed more than 1.7 million lives around the world.
While Europe has some of the best-resourced healthcare systems in the world, the sheer scale of the effort means that some countries are calling on retired medics to help out while others have loosened rules for who is allowed to give the injections.
With surveys pointing to high levels of hesitancy towards the vaccine in countries from France to Poland, leaders of the 27-country European Union are promoting it as the best chance of getting back to something like normal life next year.
"We are starting to turn the page on a difficult year," Ursula von der Leyen, president of the Brussels-based European Commission coordinating the programme, said in a tweet.
"Vaccination is the lasting way out of the pandemic."
After European governments were criticised for failing to work together to counter the spread of the virus in early 2020, the goal this time is to ensure that there is equal access to the vaccines across the entire region.
But even then, Hungary on Saturday jumped the gun on the official roll-out by starting to administer shots of the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech to frontline workers at hospitals in the capital Budapest.
Countries including France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Portugal and Spain are planning to begin mass vaccinations, starting with health workers on Sunday. Outside the EU, Britain, Switzerland and Serbia have already started in recent weeks.
The distribution of the Pfizer-BioNTech shot presents tough challenges. The vaccine uses new mRNA technology and must be stored at ultra-low temperatures of around -80 degrees Celsius (-112°F).
France, which received its first shipment of the two-dose vaccine on Saturday, will start administering it in the greater Paris area and in the Burgundy-Franche-Comte region.
Germany, meanwhile, said trucks were on their way to deliver the vaccine to care homes for the elderly, which are first in line to receive the vaccine on Sunday.
Beyond hospitals and care homes, sports halls and convention centres emptied by lockdown measures will become venues for mass inoculations.
In Italy, temporary solar-powered healthcare pavilions will spring up in town squares around the country, designed to look like five-petalled primrose flowers, a symbol of spring.
In Spain, doses are being delivered by air to its island territories and the North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. Portugal is establishing separate cold storage units for its Atlantic archipelagos of Azores and Madeira.
"A window of hope has now opened, without forgetting that there is a very difficult fight ahead," Portuguese Health Minister Marta Temido told reporters.
A 101-year-old woman became the first German to receive a vaccine against the coronavirus on Saturday, a day ahead of the official start of the country’s vaccination campaign, local broadcaster MDR reported.
The woman, from Halberstadt in the Harz hill range, lives in a care home for elderly people, where 40 residents as well as 11 staff were vaccinated, MDR reported.
German Health Minister Jens Spahn said earlier on Saturday that trucks were on their way to deliver the vaccine to nursing homes, which are first in line to receive the vaccine.
The federal government is planning to distribute more than 1.3 million vaccine doses to local health authorities by the end of this year and about 700,000 per week from January.
“There may be a few hiccups at one point or another in the beginning, but that is quite normal when such a logistically complex process begins,” Spahn said.
Germany, with a population of 83 million, has built up more than 400 vaccination centres, including in venues like Berlin’s former Tegel and Tempelhof airports and Hamburg’s trade fair hall.
Vaccinations will be free and available to everyone from mid-2021, when the priority groups are expected to have finished vaccination campaigns. There is no obligation to be inoculated.
The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Germany rose by 14,455 to 1,627,103, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Saturday. More than 29,000 people in total have died.
A 78-year-old woman became the first person vaccinated against Covid-19 in France when she received the country's first dose at René-Muret Hospital in Sevran, Seine-Saint-Denis, outside Paris, according to an AFP journalist on site.
"I am moved," said the woman, named only as Mauricette, a former housekeeper, who was inoculated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine around 11am on Sunday in the public hospital's long-term care unit. She smiled and was applauded by hospital staff after receiving the jab.
Some 20 seniors and healthcare workers are slated to receive the vaccine on Sunday during France's symbolic launch of the programme, in Sevran as well as in a geriatric care centre in Dijon.
Covid-19 jabs begin across Europe in 'moment of unity'
Martin Hirsch, head of public hospital group APHP, tweeted a picture of a woman receiving the vaccination Sunday morning and wrote, "A little jab from the nurse, a big step for immunity, we hope."
The French government is aiming to have an initial one million people – consisting of seniors, vulnerable individuals and healthcare workers – vaccinated against Covid-19 by the end of February in the country's 7,000 nursing homes and related facilities.
European Union countries on Sunday embarked on the vaccination campaign hailed as the "key" to defeating Covid-19, as the growing spread of a new coronavirus variant intensified fears the pandemic could wreak further devastation.
The jab is a glimmer of hope for a continent still battling the pandemic in earnest, with infection rates again on the rise, lockdowns imposed and Christmas and New Year plans left in tatters for many.
The numbers vaccinated in the programme's initial days with the Pfizer-BioNTech jab are largely symbolic and it will be months before enough are protected to envisage a return to normal from the pandemic that has killed 1.76 million people worldwide since emerging in China late last year.
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Tens of thousands were left without electricity and planes were delayed or forced to re-route Sunday as storm Bella caused torrential rain and heavy winds in much of France.
Brittany and Normandy in the north and west of France were the first regions to suffer power cuts, but "18,000 households were reconnected" later on Sunday, said power company Enedis.
However, some 34,000 households in the east and centre of France were still without power as the storm made its way across the country.
Over a third of flights from France's main airport of Charles de Gaulle north of Paris had suffered delays of an average of 50 minutes due to the storm.
However, airport operator ADP said "air traffic has now returned to normal".
Three flights heading to the airport were re-routed to Paris Orly airport south of Paris, while an Aeroflot flight landed in Amsterdam and a plane heading from Luxemburg turned back.
A top flight rugby clash between Pau and Stade Francais scheduled for the afternoon was delayed by three hours after the storm prevented the Paris-based team from taking off.
The winds and rains abated in some areas by the late afternoon, but heavy snow was forecast on higher ground in the south of the country heading into Monday.
Similar troubles were seen in the south of England where winds reaching 170 kilometres (105 miles) an hour were recorded on the Isle of Wight overnight Saturday to Sunday.
Meanwhile some 20,000 households in Wales had their electricity cut while delays were also seen on railways due to trees falling on the line.
The European Union began a vaccine rollout Saturday, even as countries in the bloc were forced back into lockdown by a new strain of the virus, believed to be more infectious, that continues to spread from Britain.
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Across the world, people are being urged to respect social distancing guidelines, as the World Health Organisation urged people not to "squander" the "great, heart-wrenching sacrifices" people had made to save lives.
The coronavirus pandemic has claimed more than 1.7 million lives and is still running rampant in much of the world, but the recent launching of inoculation campaigns has boosted hopes that 2021 could bring a respite.
Hours before the first vaccine doses arrived in France, the country's health ministry confirmed late Friday that it had detected its first case of the new variant in a citizen returned from Britain.
Several countries have reported cases of the new strain, which has sent jitters through already overstretched health services.
New variant cases reported worldwide
The first French case of the new coronavirus variant was found in a citizen resident in Britain who arrived from London on December 19, the French health ministry said.
They are asymptomatic and self-isolating at home in Tours in central France, and contact-tracing has taken place for the health professionals who treated him.
The new strain of the virus, which experts fear is more contagious, prompted more than 50 countries to impose travel restrictions on the United Kingdom, where it first emerged.
But cases of the new variant have still been reported worldwide: on Friday, Japan confirmed five infections in passengers from the UK, while cases have also been reported in Denmark, Sweden, Lebanon, Germany, Spain, Australia and the Netherlands.
site::
South Africa has detected a similar mutation in some infected people, but on Friday denied British claims its strain was more infectious or dangerous than the one originating in the UK.
The closure of the UK-France border for 48 hours led to a bottleneck of up to 10,000 lorries in southeast England, with drivers stranded for days over the festive period.
But the head of the Calais port operator told AFP that after the port remained open over Christmas specially, the "situation should be completely taken care of" soon.
Some countries that loosened restrictions slightly for Christmas have re-imposed them – Austria, for example, will see a curfew imposed from Saturday until 24 January.
Millions in the UK have been affected by a tightening of restrictions there – according to the BBC, more than 40 percent of England's population are now affected by the strictest measures – which include the closure of all non-essential businesses and a limiting of social contacts.
New lockdowns also started in Scotland and Northern Ireland on Saturday, and Wales has re-imposed restrictions too after relaxing them for Christmas.
More than 25 million infections have been recorded in Europe, according to an AFP tally on Friday.
Vaccine hope
Vaccinations in all 27 European Union countries will begin on Sunday, after regulators approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on 21 December.
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As vaccine rollout gets underway across the world, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned on Friday:
site::
"Vaccines are offering the world a way out of this tragedy. But it will take time for the whole world to be vaccinated."
The pope's Christmas message also referenced the issue, with a plea for "vaccines for all".
"I call on everyone, on leaders of states, on businesses, on international organisations, to promote cooperation and not competition, to find a solution for everyone... especially the most vulnerable and most in need in all regions of the planet," Pope Francis said.
Two years ago, a group of young French Jews and Arabs decided to put up a united front against anti-Semitism and racism, through an SOS Racisme initiative. Through their different backgrounds and religions, they set out on a nationwide awareness campaign in a bid to open up an unfiltered dialogue in communities where these topics have become completely taboo. Reporter Hanna Assouline followed the youths on their mission to make people open up and talk.
Demand for Covid-19 tests is soaring in France ahead of the Christmas and New Year’s Eve celebrations. Testing laboratories are often fully booked, with whole families sometimes undergoing tests before visiting elderly relatives.
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