VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis says he is happy to be back to greet the faithful in St. Peter’s Square for his traditional Sunday afternoon blessing after weeks of lockdown measures.
Italy will begin phasing out some anti-pandemic restrictions later this month, making it possible, for example, to eat outside in cafes and restaurants in parts of the country where the COVID-19 outbreak is showing signs of improvement.
Several hundred people, including nuns and families, standing at a safe distance from each other in the sprawling square, appeared to see the Pope speaking from a window of the Apostolic Palace. “Thank goodness we can meet again in this square,” said Francis. “I have to say, I miss the square.”
In recent weeks, Francis has been spotted standing at a lectern in the palace to give his Sunday afternoon remarks via TV, radio, and the Internet.
“Thank God and thank you for being here,” Francis said to those who showed up despite an impending cloudburst in Rome.
THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:
– The global death toll from COVID-19 has passed a whopping 3 million
– AP PHOTOS: Photographers contemplate a single shot of a pandemic
– The fashion industry is evolving as viruses force a rethink
– Clammers keep digging through the pandemic, but find less shellfish
Follow AP’s full pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus vaccine
HERE’S WHAT ELSE HAPPENS:
JERUSALEM – Israel has lifted a public mask mandate and completely reopened its education system in the latest relaxation of coronavirus restrictions following its massive vaccination campaign.
All primary and secondary school grades went back to class on Sunday, and health officials ended the obligation to wear a mask in public areas for a year. Masks are still mandatory indoors and in large gatherings.
Israel has rapidly vaccinated a majority of its population against the coronavirus in a world-leading vaccination campaign. It has lifted most of its coronavirus restrictions and announced last week that it would reopen the country to vaccinated foreign tourists starting in May.
Israeli coronavirus tsar Nachman Ash told Israeli public radio on Sunday that removing required masks outdoors and restarting classroom studies was a “calculated risk.”
Since the pandemic began last year, Israel has recorded more than 836,000 cases of the coronavirus and at least 6,331 deaths, according to the Ministry of Health. More than 53% of the 9.3 million residents have received two injections of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine.
In the months since Israel launched its vaccination campaign in December, there have been sudden severe cases and deaths, allowing the economy to fully reopen.
The vaccination campaign in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza was slow to get off the ground, with Israel being criticized for not sharing more of its supplies.
ISLAMABAD – Pakistan has the highest one-day death toll reported from COVID-19, bringing the total number of deaths in the country during the pandemic to nearly 162,430.
Federal authorities said on Sunday that 149 new deaths were recorded in 24 hours confirmed. They also confirmed more than 6,000 new cases of coronavirus since the day before, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in Pakistan to more than 756,285.
The authorities in Pakistan decided on Saturday to vaccinate people aged 50 to 59 years next week.
Pakistan relied largely on donated or imported Chinese vaccines, offered only to health workers and the elderly. But those groups have not responded in overwhelming numbers to the vaccination campaign, prompting officials to offer the vaccines to a younger cohort.
Pakistan, with a population of 220 million, hopes to receive 15 million COVID-19 vaccine doses next month through the UN-backed COVAX program.
HUTCHINSON, Minn. Prosecutors have accused a Minnesota man of assault and allege that he assaulted a hardware store employee and a police officer after the store employee told him to wear a mask.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that the incident began Wednesday afternoon when a cashier at a Menards in Hutchinson told 61-year-old Luke Oeltjenbruns that he couldn’t check out unless he put on a mask, according to a criminal complaint. Oeltjenbruns tried to leave with his merchandise, prompting the cashier to grab his cart.
The complaint alleges that Oeltjenbruns hit the cashier with a piece of wood. Police later found Oeltjenbruns sitting in his pickup truck in the parking lot of another store.
After a slow speed chase, officers surrounded his truck with their police cars, but he refused to get out. Officer Steven Sickmann stepped onto the truck’s footboard and reached through the window. The complaint says that Oeltjenbruns closed the window on the officer’s arm, trapped him and drove away, bumping into police cars.
According to the complaint, Sickmann tried to use a rescue hammer to break the window, but Oeltjenbruns took over and hit him on the head with it.
Oeltjenbruns was eventually arrested. The complaint says the officer’s injuries included a head wound.
TORONTO – New pandemic restrictions imposed by Canada’s most populous province have met immediate resistance. Police departments on Saturday insisted that they would not use new powers to randomly stop motorists, and health experts complained that the rules focus on outdoor activities rather than more dangerous indoor environments.
Ontario Prime Minister Doug Ford announced on Friday that it will give police the power to require anyone who is not at home to explain why he is absent and provide his address. Tickets can be written.
But at least a dozen military forces across Ontario, including in the capital, Toronto, said there will be no random stops of people or cars.
“We are all going through a gruesome year of COVID-19 and are all associated with it together. The (department) will NOT randomly stop vehicles for no reason during the pandemic or after, ”tweeted Steve Tanner, Halton police chief.
The new rules restrict outdoor gatherings to people in the same household and close off playgrounds and golf courses. The decisions sparked widespread criticism in a province that was already closed. Restaurants and gyms are closed, as well as classroom education. Most non-essential employees work from home.
ALBUQUERQUE, NM – The US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case that will determine who is eligible for more than $ 530 million in federal virus control funding set aside for strains more than a year ago.
More than a dozen Native American tribes have sued the United States Treasury Department to keep money from Alaska Native corporations, which provide services to Alaska Natives but have no government-to-government relationship with the United States.
The question raised for oral arguments in the case Monday is whether the companies are strains for the purposes of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, which defines “strains” under a 1975 law that is intended to strengthen their ability to govern themselves.
The case has practical consequences. Native Americans have become disproportionately ill and killed by the pandemic – despite extreme precautions such as curfews, roadblocks, universal testing, and business closures – and historically have limited financial resources. About $ 530 million of the $ 8 billion set aside for tribes has not been distributed.
HARARE, Zimbabwe – Zimbabwe has begun to release about 3,000 prisoners under a presidential amnesty aimed at easing congestion to reduce the threat of COVID-19 in the country’s overcrowded prisons.
About 400 inmates were released on Saturday from Chikurubi prison and other prisons in the capital, Harare, with more from other prisons across the country.
Zimbabwe’s prisons have a capacity of 17,000 inmates, but some 22,000 were held before the amnesty was announced by President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The freedmen had been convicted of nonviolent crimes.
The amnesty “will go a long way” in reducing spending and the threat of the virus spreading in prisons, said Alvord Gapare, the prison commander in Harare. He said prisons in the capital recorded 173 confirmed infections and one death.
Zimbabwe has registered 37,534 cases of COVID-19, including 1,551 deaths on April 17, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
RICHMOND, Va. – The first cases of the so-called Brazil COVID-19 variant have been identified in two samples from Virginia residents, health officials said Friday.
In a press release, the Virginia Department of Health said one case related to the P.1 variant was identified in an adult Northwest Region resident who had a history of domestic travel during the exposure period. The second case was identified in an adult resident of the eastern region with no travel history, the department said.
According to the department, neither case had a record of COVID-19 vaccination before the onset of the disease.