Coronavirus Live News: WHO Says Covid ‘War’ Can Be Won; White House predicts 90,000 more deaths in March | World news

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05:58

Australia hasn’t had any cases of coronavirus for maybe eleven days. But it still has these:











5:45 AM

South Korea said Thursday that it would start vaccinations against the coronavirus for the general public in the third quarter of this year, Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency director Jeong Eun-kyeong told a newsletter, per Reuters.

Vaccinations would begin in February, starting with key groups, including medical staff and the elderly in nursing homes, Jeong said.

The country said it was aiming to achieve a “herd immunity level” through massive vaccinations by November.

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05:28

Olympic qualifying event in Tokyo postponed to May

The qualifying event for the Olympic Games for Artistic Swimming, which will take place in Tokyo in March, has been postponed to May due to new coronavirus restrictions in Japan, Reuters reports.

The organizers of Tokyo 2020 and the Fédération Internationale de Natation (FINA) announced on Thursday that the tournament, which also serves as a test event for this summer’s Olympic Games in Tokyo, will now take place May 1-4.











4:58

The Philippine Food and Drug Administration has approved emergency use of AstraZeneca PLC’s Covid vaccine, the second to be approved in the Southeast Asian nation, Reuters reports.

The known and potential benefits of AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine outweighed the risks so far, FDA chief Rolando Enrique Domingo told a news conference.




People are lining up for a general check-up at a local health center in Manila, Philippines, wearing masks as a precaution against the coronavirus.

People are lining up for a general check-up at a local health center in Manila, Philippines, wearing masks as a precaution against the coronavirus. Photo: Eloisa Lopez / Reuters

The Philippines’ FDA has previously approved Pfizer’s and BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine. Covid vaccines from Gamaleya in Russia, Sinovac Biotech in China and Bharat Biotech in India are awaiting approval.
AstraZeneca’s vaccine was easy to transport and store and did not require ultra-cold temperatures, Domingo said. “It also has very good protection against severe Covid,” he said.











4:40

Vietnam reports its first community case in months

Rebecca Ratcliffe

Vietnam has reported its first cases of community transmission in months after two infections were discovered in the northern provinces of Hai Duong and Quang Ninh just weeks before the Lunar New Year holiday.

Although the number of new cases is very small, they have raised concerns in Vietnam, which had passed 55 days without any local contamination. The country is lauded for its rigorous quarantine and contact tracking efforts, which have helped it successfully limit the spread of the virus over the past year. 1,551 cases and 35 related deaths have been recorded since the start of the pandemic.

Contacts are underway in both affected provinces, while a village in Hai Duong has been shut down. One of the cases has been linked to the more contagious strain of the virus that originated in the UK.




A man in a face mask walks past a banner of a public health campaign to stop the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus in Hanoi on Jan. 28, 2021.

A man in a face mask walks past a public health campaign banner to stop the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus in Hanoi on Jan. 28, 2021. Photo: Nhac Nguyen / AFP / Getty Images

“We must do everything possible to locate the infected areas within 10 days to stop the outbreak,” Vu Duc Dam, head of the national Covid-19 task force, said in a statement from the Ministry of Health.

According to local media, one of the patients, a 34-year-old factory worker, had been in contact with another worker who tested positive for Covid-19 after arriving in Japan last week. The second case concerns a man who works at Van Don International Airport in Quang Ninh province, where many repatriation flights arrive.

The cases were discovered a few weeks before the Lunar New Year, when meetings are expected, and just as the ruling Communist Party is meeting in Hanoi for its five-yearly convention, an event attended by 1,600 delegates from all over the country.











4:12

Mexico reports new daily record of nearly 28,000 coronavirus cases

Mexico posted its highest one-day total of newly confirmed coronavirus cases on Wednesday, with 27,944 infections and a nearly record 1,623 confirmed deaths.

AP: That brings the country’s total to just over 1.8 million cases and 153,639 deaths so far. However, Mexico has an extremely low number of tests, and excess death estimates suggest the actual toll is over 195,000.




People are waiting Tuesday, January 26, 2021 to refill oxygen tanks for family members who are sick with the coronavirus in the Iztapalapa district of Mexico City.

People are waiting Tuesday, January 26, 2021 to refill oxygen tanks for family members sick with the coronavirus in the Iztapalapa district of Mexico City. Photo: Marco Ugarte / AP

A group of more than a dozen of the country’s top universities and medical institutes also recommended on Wednesday that the use of face masks be made mandatory in Mexico, a move that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his advisers have long opposed.

The president himself rarely wears a mask and tested positive for Covid over the weekend.

The president’s top pandemic adviser, Hugo López-Gatell, said the 67-year-old president was doing well and was active, with almost no symptoms, aside from the occasional mild fever.

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3:58

Podcast: Why Brazilians Should Take Control of the Covid Crisis

Tom Phillips, The Guardian’s Latin American correspondent, looks at the wave of infections in the Brazilian state of Amazonas, which has left many hospitals without the most basic of supplies and sparked further protests against Bolsonaro:











3:16

Hospital incidents by Covid deniers put lives at risk, health leaders say

Lives are being endangered and patient care disrupted by a spate of hospital incidents from Covid-19 deniers whose online activity sparks hatred of NHS staff, heads of health care and police say.

In the latest example of a growing trend, last week a group of people were sent away by security from a Covid-19 ward when one of them filmed the staff, claimed the virus was a hoax and demanded that a critically ill patient go home was sent

“He will die if he is taken out of here,” an advisor tells the man on footage, which was later shared on social media. After contacting the Guardian, Facebook took down footage and other shocking reports in which conspiracy theorists described NHS staff as “ventilator killers.”

Ben Quinn and Denis Campbell’s report from The Guardian:











2:57

Police have raided a party at a bar at a popular resort in southern Thailand and have arrested 89 foreigners for violating coronavirus rules, AP reports.

The Tuesday night raid of Three Sixty Bar on Koh Phangan also spawned 22 Thais, including one identified as the owner of the bar and another who sold drinks there, said police Colonel Suparerk Pankosol, inspector at the provincial immigration office.

He said the meeting was illegal under a national emergency declared in March 2020 to combat the coronavirus.

Those arrested were from more than 10 countries, including the US, Britain, Switzerland and Denmark, Suparerk said. Photos of the raid circulated by police showed a dark, crowded room with casually dressed partygoers, almost all of them wearing face masks:











2:25

Dominic Rushe

Apple ended 2020 with its most profitable quarter ever as sales of its high-end iPhones, tablets and laptops surged during the pandemic.

The company announced that revenues for the three months ended December 26, 2020 totaled $ 111.4 billion and had made profits of $ 28.7 billion, 29% more than the same period last year.

The holiday season is a pivotal time for Apple, accounting for 30% of its sales, and 2020’s bumper quarter was boosted by strong sales of its latest iPhone:











2:03

Japan faces the Olympic task with a slow start to the Covid vaccinations

Justin McCurry

Japan was one of the first countries to report cases of Covid-19 after the world was made aware of the virus in December 2019. But just over a year later, it’s the last major economy to adopt a vaccine – a measure widely recognized as the best hope for a return to something resembling a normal life.

The first round of injections is not expected to begin in Japan until the end of February, months after the US and UK – which have registered much higher death tolls and caseloads – began their vaccination programs.

In explaining the apparent lack of urgency, officials have pointed to Japan’s relative success in averting a catastrophic outbreak, with 373,000 cases and 5,300 deaths recorded so far.

But the gun vaccination has also been delayed by clinical trials on Japanese people that must be completed before it can be approved, and a history of vaccine hesitation among large sections of the public:

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