World Coronavirus Dispatch: Horror scenes in Lebanon intensive care wards

Britain will make citizens quarantine at hotels at their own expense, IMF warns pausing Covid rescue programmes will risk triggering market crash and other pandemic-related news across the globe

Vaccine shortage hits Spanish inoculation

A shortage of vaccines forced Madrid’s regional government to suspend inoculation for two weeks, dealing a blow to Spain's efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic. Taking into account the delivery of vaccine doses from Pfizer, the Spanish government had decided to allocate shots to regions based on the needs of the population, but later changed the numbers as the pharma giant delivered less than expected doses. Madrid complained that it received only half of the scheduled doses. The national government had set an ambitious target of inoculating 70 per cent of its 47 million population by the end of the summer. But the target remains a little far-fetched given that Spain had administered just under 1.3 million doses in a month.  Spain had seen 2,670,102 confirmed infections since the pandemic began, 57,291 have died of the disease so far. Read here

Let's look at the global statistics

Global infections: 100,886,015

Change over Yesterday: 599,372

Global deaths: 2,174,486

Nations with most cases: US (25,598,062), India (10,701,193), Brazil (8,996,876), Russia (3,733,692), United Kingdom (3,725,637).

Source: John Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center.

Britain will make citizens quarantine at hotels at their own expense

Rushing to control the fast-spreading coronavirus variants, Britain ordered a mandatory quarantine for travellers arriving in the country from 22 high-risk countries including South Africa and Brazil, and other South American nations. Incoming citizens will have to isolate in hotels for about 10 days at their own expense. With a few exceptions, non-British citizens from these 22 countries are already banned from traveling to Britain. Public health experts said the plan had too many loopholes, especially given London’s status as an international hub. Read here
 

Dozen people from Auckland hotel linked to variant spread travelled to Australia

Twelve people who quarantined at a Auckland hotel in New Zealand --- where the highly contagious South African coronavirus variant has spread --- travelled to Australia, before the travel bubble was suspended between both countries, authorities have revealed. Australia on Thursday said that it's suspension of the travel bubble would be extended for three more days after New Zealand recorded two additional cases of the variant linked to Auckland hotel. So far there is no evidence of transmission outside the hotel system in New Zealand. Read here

Keep Covid rescue programmes or risk triggering market correction: IMF

The international monetary fund (IMF) has warned that there might be a sharp market correction, if the central banks and governments pause the pandemic rescue programmes, indicating a genuine concern over share-price bubble. The organisation said that without continued low interest rates and government subsidies it was possible a in stock market crash would occur. In a report issued, the IMF said investors had ignored recent data showing major economies slowing as the pandemic persisted through the winter months. Read here

Horror scenes in Lebanon intensive care wards

Lebanon's intensive care wards are gripped with dreaded scenes, leaving the doctors and staff with no choice but to take life and death decisions about who should receive scarce medical resources and chose between two people on who to save and who to leave dying. Virus-stricken people are gasping for breath, in the horror hopsital scenes as rising cases, following Christmas holidays, swamped the scanty medical resources. The medics say they are on the edge of “the Italy scenario”. More than 1,000 people have died of Covid in Lebanon in January.  Read here