Beijing under the threat of confinement, London criticized for its management of the Covid, the health authorities who want to facilitate the prescriptions of Pfizer pills ...
Le Figaro
takes stock this Monday, April 25 on the latest information related to the Covid pandemic -19.
Read the dossierCovid-19: the coronavirus pandemic in figures and infographics
Health authorities want to make it easier to prescribe Pfizer pills
The High Authority for Health (HAS) issued an opinion on Monday aimed at facilitating the prescription of Paxlovid, the anti-Covid pill developed by the Pfizer group.
"The HAS is in favor of the reimbursement of Paxlovid"
, announced the authority in a press release, recalling however that only patients at risk of serious complications are concerned.
The Paxlovid is, in fact, already reimbursed in France.
But these are emergency procedures, known
as “early access”
.
By issuing this opinion, which must now be ratified by the government, the HAS is in favor of entry into common law.
Concretely, this development would make prescription much easier for doctors, who currently have to follow a complex procedure for each prescription of Paxlovid, in particular via an online questionnaire.
"Registration for reimbursement of this treatment should facilitate the prescription of Paxlovid in community medicine and therefore its access for patients"
, explained the HAS.
Indeed, prescriptions for this drug remain rare: a few thousand, while every day several tens of thousands of new cases of Covid are reported.
However, this pill had justly been praised by the government, which ordered 500,000 doses, for its ease of oral administration.
Beijing under threat of containment
Screenings in the street to identify positive cases, rush in supermarkets: Beijing lives on Monday under the threat of confinement after a rare epidemic outbreak in the Chinese capital.
Beijingers fear a scenario à la Shanghai, where almost all of the 25 million inhabitants have been confined since the beginning of April, often with difficulties in accessing food and non-Covid medical care.
A total of 51 new deaths were still announced there on Monday by the Ministry of Health - a record in the Chinese economic capital.
China is facing an epidemic outbreak that affects, to varying degrees, almost the entire country.
She tries to overcome it with her zero Covid strategy.
London has gone too far in air travel restrictions, says parliamentary report
The health restrictions on air travel imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic by the British government were
“disproportionate”
and caused
“a serious financial shock”
to the sector, the Parliamentary Transport Committee estimated on Monday.
The decision-making process in the matter was also
“neither transparent, nor coherent, nor based on scientific consensus”,
tackled the authors of the report in a press release, calling on the executive to now help the sector to rebound.
While the government has since the start of the year lifted travel restrictions,
"ministers must protect the sector from future economic shocks"
and guarantee
“that restrictions would only be implemented in the future in extreme circumstances”
, insists Huw Merriman, chairman of the Transport Committee.
The aviation sector has been one of the hardest hit by Covid, which has grounded a large proportion of planes over lockdowns and travel restrictions, leading airlines and airports to lay off thousands of workers.
British Airways, Easyjet and Ryanair have in particular regularly denounced the restrictions imposed by London: tests with private laboratories at often exorbitant prices, compulsory quarantines in hotels from certain countries or sudden changes in the rules.
Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa has
“defeated the Covid”
The Spanish-Peruvian Nobel Prize for Literature Mario Vargas Llosa, 86, has
“defeated Covid-19”
and will be discharged from the Madrid hospital where he was admitted last week, his son announced on Monday.
The writer
“defeated the Covid-19.
Now the recovery will continue at home”
, rejoiced Álvaro Vargas Llosa on Twitter by posting a photo showing him with his brother and sister alongside their father.
“Thank you to life-saving science and medical staff for their dedication.
We will always be grateful to you”
, he added.
Mario Vargas Llosa was hospitalized last week in Madrid, where he lives, due to complications caused by Covid-19.
Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010, Vargas Llosa is the last representative of the generation of Latin American writers known as the "Boom" to which also belonged the Colombian Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Argentinian Julio Cortazar or the Mexican Carlos Fuentes.
