While Covid-19 has claimed the lives of nearly two million people around the world, after the emergence of new British and South African strains, it is now Japan's turn to worry about a mutation.
A pandemic that gallops and hits the United States head-on with a new daily record of 4,500 deaths, against which the vaccine race continues.
Read also: Vaccines: is France catching up with other countries?
4,500 deaths and mandatory entry PCR in the United States
The United States, the country most affected by the coronavirus, largely exceeded its previous record of Covid-19 deaths on Tuesday, January 12 in a single day.
More than 235,000 new contaminations and 4,470 deaths have been recorded.
Never, until now, has this country been faced with an outbreak of the epidemic which it has not been able to regain control since the fall.
In the hope of curbing contagions, federal authorities have decided that all travelers wishing to travel to the United States by plane should now test negative for Covid-19 from January 26 in order to be authorized. to travel.
This test must be completed within three days of departure for the United States.
Airlines will be responsible for verifying that a test has been carried out before boarding.
Read also: United States: Donald Trump muzzled and threatened with impeachment
Decisive defense council in France
With 20,000 new daily contaminations and the fear of the spread of the British variant on French territory, the time has come for consultation two weeks after the end of the year holidays.
Should the government put in place new restrictive measures?
Curfew or re-containment?
To answer these questions, Emmanuel Macron meets on Wednesday January 13 a Defense Council whose conclusions will be presented the next day by Jean Castex and Olivier Véran during the traditional weekly press conference.
The head of government, who ruled Tuesday that the French had
behaved
"
well
" on this occasion, indicated the day before that "
the curfew is sufficient
", seeming to rule out a third reconfinement immediately.
On the other hand, the addition of territories to the 25 departments already under curfew from 6 p.m., or even its generalization to the whole country, is envisaged, according to several sources close to the government.
Read also: Covid-19: the shadow of reconfinement hangs over France
Appearance of a new variant in Japan
After the United Kingdom and South Africa, it is Japan's turn to seek to isolate a new variant of the coronavirus, recently detected in four people who arrived in the archipelago from Brazil, in order to be able to analyze it more, local authorities said on Tuesday.
This variant of SARS-CoV-2 results from an evolution of “
a viral line from Brazil, which circulates in the Amazon
”, provisionally called “
B.1.1.28
”, affirmed the Brazilian researcher Felipe Naveca, who collaborates with the 'Fiocruz institute.
Read also: Covid-19: do we really manage to follow the circulation of the English variant in France?
Brazil: the Chinese vaccine effective at 50.38%
The Chinese CoronaVac vaccine has shown an overall efficacy of 50.38% against Covid-19 during clinical trials carried out in Brazil, announced the Butantan Institute responsible for its production in the country.
According to him, the vaccine, developed by the Chinese laboratory Sinovac, prevents 78% of those vaccinated who have nevertheless contracted the virus from needing to be hospitalized and 100% of them from developing serious forms of the disease.
For its part, the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine has applied for authorization from the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
A verdict expected on January 29.
This vaccine is cheaper to produce than its rivals and easier to store.
At present, only the vaccines of Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna are administered in the European Union.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose country has so far failed to obtain any dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, called on the European Union to help Kiev and five other former Soviet republics (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia and Moldova) to vaccinate their populations.
Read also: Vaccination: a trompe-l'œil acceleration
Tunisia confined
The Tunisian Ministry of Health has decided to impose a general four-day confinement from Thursday, January 15 to limit the spread of the Covid-19 which has reached records, resulting in a “
very dangerous
” situation in Tunisia.
These containment measures, which include a reinforced curfew, come into force on the tenth anniversary of the Revolution, hampering any commemoration of the flight of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali on January 14, 2011, in a context of social tensions.
To read also: "Confinement, curfew: home prison"
Recovery plan and government crisis in Italy
While Italy, which has deplored nearly 80,000 deaths since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the government has adopted an ambitious stimulus plan of 222.9 billion euros to revive an economy damaged by the pandemic. "
The Council of Ministers has approved the #RecoveryPlan, the largest investment plan ever undertaken in Italy,
" announced the Minister of the Economy, Roberto Gualtieri. This “
Recovery plan
”, which has yet to pass to parliament, could however spell the end of the governmental alliance between center-left parties and lead to a reshuffle, with a rise in power of ministers appointed by Italia Viva. Several big names in the majority have called on party leaders to take responsibility as Italy mobilizes to speed up its mass vaccination program.