THURSDAY AUGUST 6 - CORONAVIRUS GLOBAL UPDATE

in-cyprus 6  August 2020 - by Annie Charalambous

Drugmakers will likely have tens of millions of doses of a coronavirus vaccine early next year, top U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci told Reuters, as the global death toll crossed 706,000.

EUROPE

* France’s daily COVID-19 infections reached the highest in more than two months on Wednesday.

* Greece‘s prime minister warned of new restrictions if a worrying rise in daily cases does not abate.

* Germany’s foreign ministry revised its travel guidance for Belgium, warning against all non-essential travel to the province of Antwerp.

AMERICAS

* Facebook and Twitter on Wednesday took down posts by U.S. President Donald Trump, citing violation of rules against sharing misinformation about the coronavirus.

* U.S. Representative Rodney Davis said he tested positive for COVID-19, making him at least the 15th U.S. lawmaker to be infected or presumed to have the disease.

* Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled that President Jair Bolsonaro’s government must adopt measures to stop the spread of novel coronavirus to the country’s vulnerable indigenous communities.

ASIA-PACIFIC

* Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike is expected to urge residents of the Japanese capital to stay home as much as possible over an upcoming major holiday amid a surge in coronavirus cases, local media reported.

* A new outbreak in Vietnam has spread to two more provinces, the country’s health minister said, after the contagion was declared “under control” in the central city where the outbreak began.

* North Korea’s test results for its first suspected case were inconclusive, though authorities have quarantined over 3,635 primary and secondary contacts, a WHO official told Reuters.

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

* Gambia imposed a three-week curfew after cases surged over 60% in the last seven days to nearly 800.

* Three South African provinces considered hotspots have seen new infections slow in recent weeks, the health minister said.

* Doctors in Turkey’s hotspots say hospitals are filling up with more cases than reflected in the official nationwide count.

MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS

* Novavax Inc said it has entered a supply and license agreement with Serum Institute of India for the development and commercialization of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate.

* Moderna Inc said smaller volume agreements for its experimental vaccine have been priced in the range of $32 to $37 per dose, higher than the price set by the U.S. deal for Pfizer’s vaccine candidate.

* The U.S. government will pay Johnson & Johnson over $1 billion for 100 million doses of its potential vaccine.

* Canada has signed separate deals with Pfizer and Moderna to supply millions of doses of their experimental vaccines.

ECONOMIC FALLOUT

* The dollar languished and just about everything else rose on Thursday, as markets took patchy U.S. economic data as a harbinger of ever more stimulus and brinkmanship on Capitol Hill as a sign that a deal on a new U.S. stimulus package is close.

* The Bank of England looks set to hold off from taking further action to help Britain’s economy through the coronavirus pandemic as it waits to see the scale of an expected surge in unemployment.

* Unemployment in Australia will peak at about 10% as a result of restrictions designed to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said.

(Reuters)

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POLICE CONTINUE CRACKDOWN ON HEALTH OFFENDERS NATIONWIDE

in-cyprus 6 August 2020 - by Annie Charalambous

As police in Cyprus continue their crackdown on health offenders they inspected a total of 967 establishments and individuals island-wide over the past 24 hours.

And they booked 13 premises and 43 persons who violated state restrictions aiming to contain a recent spike in Covid-19 cases, Philenews also reported on Thursday.

Specifically, out of 120 checks in Nicosia five premises and 15 individuals were booked. In Limassol, 318 inspections led to two premises and 17 individuals getting booked.

In Larnaca, 200 inspections took place with no premises fined, but five individuals were.

In Paphos, out of 47 inspections, five premises were booked along with four individuals.

In Famagusta, 133 checks led to one establishment getting booked, along with one individual.

In Morfou, 149 inspections were carried out and no establishment or an individual were fined.

In addition, a total of nine persons were booked at the airports of Larnaca and Paphos for either not wearing a mask or not having filled a Cyprus flight pass – both of which are mandatory.

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DOCTORS SAY TURKISH COVID-19 OUTBREAK WORSE THAN REPORTED

in-cyprus 6 August 2020 - by Annie Charalambous

Doctors in Turkey‘s coronavirus hotspots say hospitals are filling up with more cases than are reflected in the official nationwide count, which resurged above 1,000 this week.

Intensive care units (ICUs) and emergency rooms in hospitals set aside for COVID-19 patients are at capacity in the capital Ankara and the southeastern city of Gaziantep, medics associations from those regions told Reuters this week.

The government, which lifted a partial lockdown in June to restart the economy, sounded its own warning on Tuesday when the health minister described the 1,083 new COVID-19 cases as a “severe” rise after a four-day holiday weekend.

In response, authorities rolled out new inspections and enforcement measures, including fines for not wearing masks or maintaining social distancing. New cases had hovered just below 1,000 for more than three weeks, according to official figures.

But Aysegul Ates Tarla, head of the Gaziantep-Kilis Medics’ Chamber, said a single hospital in the region logged 200 new COVID-19 cases in one day recently, with the infectione rate among health workers especially high.

In Ankara, Ali Karakoc, general secretary of its Medics’ Chamber, said roughly 1,000 people test positive in the capital each day and he blamed what he called a premature easing of lockdown measures in June.

“Patients are being made to wait on gurneys for hours or are being sent home. Even those who have pneumonia are sent home because they cannot find a place,” he said, adding COVID-dedicated beds were now full.

The health ministry, which divides cases by regions in daily updates, was not immediately available for comment.

According to a document seen by Reuters, Ankara’s provincial health authority requested all hospitals set aside 50% of clinic beds and all empty ICU beds for COVID-19, and asked for delays in all elective surgeries and admissions for internal medicine.

Separately, the authority said 63% of ICU beds in Ankara were occupied while 50% of all hospital beds were occupied. “The pandemic is still under control in our province,” it said.

Official figures indicate the new coronavirus has killed 5,765 people and infected 234,934 in Turkey, putting the country 17th globally in a Reuters tally of total cases.

President Tayyip Erdogan’s government has lobbied hard for countries to allow tourists to visit Turkey again to shore up the economy, and on Tuesday Germany lifted travel warnings for some Turkish regions.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca has said the bump in cases is due mainly to individuals ignoring rules.

In July, he posted a photo on Twitter of tightly packed soccer fans watching a game with the question: “Did everyone hold their breath for 90 minutes?”

The government said Thursday would mark the most intensive inspections to date of marketplaces, businesses, restaurants and other public areas.

Karakoc of the Ankara medics group said the government could do more. “If you let people sit side by side on public transportation, if you make them work shoulder to shoulder in factories, people will ignore it when you warn them,” he said.

In Gaziantep, Ates Tarla said authorities would probably raise the bed capacity in COVID-19 units by 25% to free up space ahead of what she expects will be a jump in infections two weeks after the holiday.

(Reuters)

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RUSSIAN SHIPOWNER LINKED WITH BEIRUT PORT BLAST HOLDS NO CYPRIOT PASSPORT

in-cyprus 6 August 2020 - by Annie Charalambous

The Russian owner of the impounded ship where 2,700 tonnes of ammonium nitrate were taken from and stored in the now devastated port of Beirut has no Cypriot passport.

This is what Interior Minister Constantinos Petrides said on Thursday following press reports both at home and overseas alleging this.

Igor Grechushkin, owner of the Rhosus ship carrying the deadly cargo from Georgia to Mozambique, had declared bankruptcy on an unscheduled stop and was forced to abandon it there six years ago.

Initial investigations into the Beirut port blast indicate years of inaction and negligence over the storage of highly explosive material caused the explosion that killed more than 100 people

 

 

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PLEASE BE ON THE LOOKOUT

Please be on the lookout for a man, mid 30's, driving a red vehicle, trying to obtain money under false pretences.    

He has been seen in the Chlorakas area.

If you see him, or he approaches you, please be very careful and ring the Police on 112.

Also, it appears that the men trying the windscreen wiper con are back in operation.  They seem to target lone women, or elderly people.   If you see them, please phone the Police on 112.

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Wear a Mask

Wear a Mask

Keep Safe from COVID-19

Photo Shoot Summer 2020