Monday Morning News and Numbers
The number of variant infections in Denmark grows
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Denmark’s Health Minister Magnus Heunicke updated the COVID variant situation yesterday. On Twitter he confirmed a 2nd confirmed case of the Brazilian P1 variant in the country.
Heunicke says the new P1 infection is directly linked to the first case “with a known history of travel” adding “fortunately there are no signs of community infection.”
He added that 15 new variant infections were confirmed over the weekend with “several” being the South African variant. He says sequencing is being done to determine the exact strain of the others.
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It is a big day today for elderly residents of Danish nursing homes. As of this morning the Danish Agency for Patient Safety has lifted COVID visitation restrictions. Seniors will now be able to see friends and family.
The assembly ban remains in place, as do hygiene and social distancing guidelines. Health authorities recommend getting a COVID rapid test before visiting. While well over 80% of nursing home residents have had at least once vaccination dose, some are still unvaccinated.
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Over the weekend Denmark added 907 COVID infections and two more coronavirus deaths.
394 infections were reported on Saturday while Sunday saw 513 infections and two more virus deaths.
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On Facebook yesterday Statsminister Mette Frederiksen said another vaccination milestone has been reached with over 500,000 people receiving at least one vaccination dose.
She again emphasized that vaccine production is much too slow and a lot more work needs to be done to bulk up the supply chain. Frederiksen said, “Exciting things have already been set in motion”, including the establishment of a public-private partnership with the Danish life-science sector to explore opportunities to establish production capacity here in Denmark.
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On the vaccination front as of Sunday, 527,469 1st vaccine doses (9% of population) and 199,176 2nd doses (3.4% of population) have been administered.
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A Danish COVID vaccine, called ABNCoV2, is ready to go to trials. According to a stock exchange announcement by Danish pharmaceutical company Bavarian Nordic, human trials will begin “shortly.” In clinical trials the vaccine has proven to be very effective with one dose and even more so with two.
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The blue bloc, a group of five right of center political parties in Denmark, have made clear their priorities for the next reopening phase. Venstre chairman Jakob Ellemann-Jensen posted the demands to Facebook.
The five parties want primary schools and efterskoler reopened along with hairdressers and other businesses in the “liberal profession.” Negotiations among the political parties continues to determine what the next phase of lifting the lockdowm restrictions will look like.
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COVID restrictions could be tightened in Norway by as early as this week. Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg addressed the nation in a televised speech last night.
“Ahead of us is another hill to climb, probably with tighter national measures before we can ease and then lift the restrictions.”
She did not provide any details on how or what restrictions would be tightened.
The U.K. variant is now the dominant strain in the country’s most populace region as infections rise amid worries of a third infection wave.
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Hundreds of protestors clashed with police in Stockholm over the weekend as they railed against the country’s COVID restrictions. Six police officers were injured as they clashed with protesters before dispersing the crowd.
Tomorrow Sweden will update its coronavirus numbers for the first time since Friday.
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Vaccinations using a batch of the AstraZeneca vaccine have been suspended in Austria as a precaution after one death and another illness.
Austrian authorities say both cases involve two female nurses working in the same clinic. One, a 49 year old woman, died as a result of “severe coagulation disorders.” The other, a 35 year old woman, developed a pulmonary embolism and is recovering. Blood clots are not a side effect of any of the vaccines in use.
Health officials call the investigation a precaution saying ““Currently there is no evidence of a causal relationship with the vaccination.”
There were 2,199 new infections and another 19 virus deaths in Austria yesterday as its numbers steadily increase.
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The pandemic situation in the Czech Republic remains dire. Yesterday it recorded 9,092 new infection cases and 152 more corona deaths.
“Most critical”. That is how the Czech Republic’s Health Minister Dr. Jan Blatný described what the next few weeks will be for the country’s strained hospitals.
In a TV interview last night, he said, it’s not just ICU capacity challenges due to soaring infection numbers it is also a huge shortage of health care staff.
Blatný said the country needs another 300 doctors and another 1,000 nurses to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
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COVID infections are soaring in Hungary as it registered another 6,201 new infections and 108 corona deaths yesterday.
Hungary’s mass vaccination campaign suffered a major setback over the weekend. A bureaucratic error disrupted the distribution of the AstraZeneca vaccine affecting tens of thousands of people who were expecting to be vaccinated.
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Greece reported 1,142 new infections and 53 virus deaths yesterday. That is the highest number of coronavirus deaths in the country since January 4th.
Yesterday the Greek government extended corona related domestic and international flight restrictions. Only essential domestic flights will be allowed until at least March 16th. International flight restrictions continue until at least March 22nd. The mandates include COVID testing requirements, quarantine upon arrival, and an approved reason for entering the country.
National ICU capacity in the public system now exceeds 60% as the hospitalizations rise, further straining the system. The Greek Health Ministry is doing an inventory of all available beds in the private health sector in case they need to hit the panic button.
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In South America coronavirus infections are running rampant in Brazil again as it registered 80,024 new infections and another 1,054 deaths yesterday.
That is the second highest number of daily new infections in the country to date.
Total infections in Brazil now exceed 11 million, the 3rd highest in the world, while the total number of COVID deaths in the country now exceeds 265,000.
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The United Arab Emirates remains a global COVID hot spot.
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Cuba also continues to see infections in exponentially higher numbers than any previous outbreak on the island nation.
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Children in Britain will flood back to school today as the country begins to dismantle its COVID restrictions. Students in high school and colleges will be tested at school three times this week. Should they all come back negative the school year will resume in earnest with mandated twice weekly coronavirus testing. The testing will be done at home with rapid test kits supplied by the state.
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Canada is a big laggard when it comes to sharing its COVID genome data among countries taking part in the Global Influenza Surveillance & Response System, or GISAID. The agency promotes the rapid sharing of all clinical and epidemiological data from human, avian, and animal viruses to help better understand how viruses evolve and spread during epidemics and pandemics. Among all participant countries Canada has the worst record in sharing its COVID data.
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An anomaly or a warning sign? Yesterday Ontario reported 1,299 new infections, the highest daily accumulation of corona infections in three weeks, and a steep increase from Saturday’s 990 infections.
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B.C. will report its coronavirus numbers later today for the first time since Friday but there was still big news on the COVID front there yesterday. Health authorities across the province will begin booking vaccination appointments today for people 90 years old and older and Indigenous residents over the age of 65.
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Ethiopian Airlines is dramatically changing its business model to rely not on passengers for revenue but vaccine doses. The company has inked deals to ferry shipments of COVID vaccines by air to a number of international destinations. It is currently retrofitting passenger aircraft into cold storage cargo planes.