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Belgium joined a growing list of countries on Monday to launch vaccination campaigns against Covid-19, as a new variant of the coronavirus considered to be more infectious spreads further and other countries have stepped up restrictions.
Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has boasted of a “world record” vaccination campaign that has vaccinated 380,000 of its 8.7 million people by Monday, has started firing shots at soldiers in 17 centers across the country.
While the IDF is “one of the first armies in the world to launch a vaccination campaign for its soldiers,” it will take “months” before all are protected, said doctor Yael Arbel of the army medical staff.
The Middle Eastern country began its third coronavirus lockdown on Sunday, while Poland entered three weeks of new restrictions on Monday.
As vaccination campaigns accelerate, global infections have topped 80 million and nearly 1.8 million deaths.
Fears have been raised by a new strain of Covid-19 first detected in Britain and seen by experts as potentially more transmissible.
After its spread to several European countries as well as to Japan and Canada, South Korea on Monday became the last country to detect the variant of the virus, in three people from a family based in London who arrived in the country the last. last week.
Five cases have also been identified in the southern region of Andalusia in Spain.
Itself hard hit by the strain, South Africa has become the first African country to record a million cases, according to official data on Sunday.
Authorities have considered reimposing restrictions to tackle the second wave of infections, as leaders around the world face similar dilemmas over unpopular and economically damaging lockdowns.
– Withholding of vaccine –
Most European countries started their vaccination campaigns over the weekend, raising hopes for an end to the pandemic, especially in some of the hardest-hit regions on the continent.
“Today is a great time when you think back to everything we’ve been through,” said Isabella Palazzini, an Italian nurse in Cremona who has lost three colleagues to Covid-19.
Belgium has become the latest EU member to join the bloc’s coordinated vaccination campaign.
With the residents of nursing homes on the front line, followed by caregivers, medical staff and social workers, “I think it’s a relief … Covid has been a real trial for residents and staff,” said said the Brussels Minister of Health, Alain Maron.
But pharmaceutical company Pfizer has warned of delays in some shipments of the vaccine to eight countries from its plant in the north of the country.
A “minor logistical problem” has meant that some vaccine deliveries have been “postponed”, Pfizer spokesman Andrew Widger said, but insisted the problems had been “resolved”.
– ‘Critical point’ –
In the United States, the worst-affected country in the world, known coronavirus infections topped 19 million on Sunday after adding a million cases in less than a week.
US cases have increased at an alarming rate in recent months. The world’s largest economy has added at least one million new cases per week since early November, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
But Americans were relieved on Sunday when President Donald Trump finally signed a $ 900 billion stimulus bill, a long-awaited boost for millions of people whose livelihoods have been squeezed by the pandemic.
As the United States also began vaccinations, senior government scientist Anthony Fauci warned on Sunday that the worst of the pandemic could be yet to come, bringing the country to a “tipping point” as travel from holidays are spreading the coronavirus.
About two million Americans have been vaccinated to date, well below the 20 million the Trump administration has promised by the end of the year.
But Fauci downplayed the shortfall as a normal hiccup in a hugely ambitious project, saying he was “fairly confident” that by April all priority people could get vaccinated, paving the way for the general population .
– ‘Food for thought’ –
Vaccination campaigns also began in China, Russia, Canada, Singapore and Saudi Arabia, and there was hope for another effective vaccine on the horizon.
But the public is worried about vaccine hesitancy or outright refusal – especially because of anti-vaccine misinformation campaigns.
Polls have shown that many Europeans are unwilling to take the vaccine, which could hamper efforts to beat the virus and achieve widespread vaccination.
A young German pilot has found a unique way to raise awareness by tracing a giant syringe in the sky to mark the start of the vaccine rollout in his country.
“I wanted to give people food for thought for the day the vaccine became available,” Samy Kramer, 20, student and amateur pilot said Sunday.
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