While the pandemic has killed more than three million people around the world, India, the new focus of the epidemic, yesterday recorded a world record of 310,000 new contaminations in 24 hours.
A virus that is galloping at full speed in this country of 1.3 billion inhabitants, of which only 0.1% of the population has received a first dose of vaccine.
The situation seriously worries the Old Continent, which is beginning its gradual deconfinement.
To discover
Covid-19: instructions for use of self-tests
Read also: Vaccines, hospital, incidence ... A real improvement, but slow and fragile
France begins its deconfinement
Reopening of schools with a "
very strict protocol
" and massive tests, end of daytime travel limits on May 3, gradual reopening of shops and places of culture in mid-May: Prime Minister Jean Castex unveiled on Thursday April 22 the first stages of the lifting of restrictions, judging that the peak of the 3rd wave of Covid-19 had passed.
The "
great novelty
" will be the deployment of self-tests in high schools: 64 million have been ordered for the staff of National Education then high school students.
Another novelty, the French over 55 years old will be able, "
from this Saturday
", to be administered the vaccine of Johnson & Johnson against the Covid-19, the fourth available on the territory.
The executive thus intends to accelerate once again the vaccination campaign, a pledge of a successful lifting of health measures.
Read also: Will the reopening of schools fuel the epidemic?
Italy and Greece are gradually reopening
In Italy, from April 26, restaurants will be authorized to open to the public for lunch, and also to dine only in the open air and in areas classified as “
yellow
”, presenting the lowest risk of contagion.
Cinemas, theaters and concert halls will also be able to reopen next Monday, respecting the distancing and remaining below 50% of their maximum capacity, while schools, colleges and universities will give priority to face-to-face lessons.
In Greece, the terraces of bars and restaurants will reopen on May 3, but travel between regions will be prohibited for the Easter holidays, celebrated on May 2 by the Orthodox.
On the other hand, the short-term economic outlook "
remains clouded by uncertainty
" in the euro area because of the persistence of the pandemic, said Thursday the president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde.
The Indian variant detected in Belgium
The "Indian" variant of the coronavirus was detected for the first time in Belgium among a group of students who arrived this month from India via the Parisian airport of Paris-Roissy Charles-de-Gaulle.
Read also: Indian variant: should flights be suspended and a quarantine imposed with India?
A total of 20 Indian students tested positive for the new variant and placed in quarantine in the Flemish cities of Aalst (11) and Leuven (9), where they arrived in mid-April for nursing training.
Daily record of contaminations in India
India continues to sink into a major health crisis, after breaking a world record of nearly 315,000 new cases of Covid-19 in 24 hours on Thursday.
The exponential increase in cases, with nearly 3.5 million new infections since the beginning of April, is notably attributed to a "
double mutation
" of the virus and to mass events, such as the Hindu religious festival Khumb Mela.
Read also: Covid-19: India becomes the new epicenter of the pandemic
Faced with an oxygen shortage, several hospitals and clinics in New Delhi, confined for a week, appealed to the central government to provide emergency supplies to feed hundreds of patients on ventilators.
Twenty-two patients died in a hospital, due to an oxygen supply cut-off to ventilators for half an hour.
In addition, a fire broke out in the suburbs of Bombay resulting in the death of 13 Covid-19 patients.
Plateau of 2,500 deaths per day in Brazil
Brazil has entered a very high plateau for a week at around 2,500 daily deaths from Covid-19, after several months of dizzying increases in death and contamination curves.
"
The curves have apparently stabilized, but at a very worrying level, with a still extremely high number of deaths
," Mauro Sanchez, epidemiologist at the University of Brasilia, told AFP.
Read also: Despite the pandemic, Brazil relaunches privatizations
In Colombia, the threshold of 70,000 deaths from Covid-19, including 430 in 24 hours, was crossed Thursday, April 22, a new record, while this country is facing a third wave of contagions which threatens to overwhelm its hospitals.
WHO requests more data on AstraZeneca
Vaccine experts at the World Health Organization (WHO) have deemed it necessary to collect more data on the incidence of blood clots in people who have received AstraZeneca's anti-covid vaccine outside of Europe.
For its part, the British regulator has identified 168 major cases of blood clots in the United Kingdom in patients who received the AstraZeneca vaccine against the coronavirus, including 32 fatalities, for more than 21.2 million first doses administered, according to a balance sheet published Thursday.
