Adds truckers protest in Ottawa, updates tolls in US and Brazil
PARIS (awp/afp) – New measures, new reports and highlights: an update on the latest developments in the Covid-19 pandemic around the world.
Canada: demonstration of truckers against the vaccination obligation
Canadian flags, “Freedom” signs and slogans against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: thousands of people and hundreds of trucks blocked the center of Canada’s capital, Ottawa, on Saturday to protest against health measures.
Starting from the grumbling of truckers against the compulsory vaccination imposed to cross the border between Canada and the United States, the movement then extended to broader demands.
Since mid-January, Canada and the United States have imposed vaccination on truckers crossing the border between the United States and Canada, the longest in the world at nearly 9,000 km.
Record daily infections in Russia
Russia surpassed the symbolic bar of 100,000 daily Covid-19 infections for the first time on Saturday, a record that illustrates the strength of the new wave due to the highly contagious Omicron variant.
This is a record for the ninth consecutive day in the European country with the most deaths in absolute value (330,111).
“Sixth wave” in Iran
Iran is facing a new outbreak of the coronavirus due to the Omicron variant, described as a “sixth wave” by the authorities.
Since the start of the pandemic, Iran has officially deplored 132,380 deaths according to the Ministry of Health but, by the admission of several Iranian officials, this statistic is largely underestimated.
Cases surge in the Solomon Islands
A team of Australian doctors arrived in the Solomon Islands on Saturday to help authorities tackle a sudden spike in Covid-19 cases.
Until last week, this country of 700,000 inhabitants, which had been hermetically cut off from the world at the start of the pandemic, had recorded no deaths and only 31 cases. The contaminations then exploded and, on Friday, the balance sheet stood at nearly 900 cases and five deaths.
France: new demonstrations against the vaccine pass
Opponents of the vaccine pass demonstrated on Saturday in several cities in France, a few days after the entry into force of this device which hardens the health pass in force since the summer of 2021 to encourage anti-Covid vaccination.
Joni Mitchell in turn retires from Spotify
Country singer Joni Mitchell announced on Friday that she was removing her music from Spotify due to Covid-19 “lies” being broadcast on the streaming platform, as Neil Young had done shortly before.
These initiatives aim to protest against the daily podcast of the American host Joe Rogan – the most listened to on the platform in 2021 – accused of having discouraged vaccination among young people and of having pushed for the use of a unauthorized treatment, ivermectin.
JO-2022: five Canadians tested positive
Five members of the Canadian delegation, among those who arrived in Beijing for the Winter Olympics (February 4-20), tested positive for Covid-19, the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) announced on Friday, without specifying whether they were athletes, coaches or supervisors.
According to figures communicated by the organizing committee of the 2022 Olympics, out of 5,092 tests carried out on athletes or members of delegations, 23 were found to be positive.
More than 5.64 million dead
The pandemic has officially killed more than 5.64 million people worldwide since the end of December 2019, out of more than 368 million confirmed contaminations, according to a report established by AFP on Saturday at 3:00 p.m. GMT.
The United States is the country with the most deaths (883,864), ahead of Brazil (626,524) and India (493,198).
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, taking into account the excess mortality directly and indirectly linked to Covid-19, that the toll of the pandemic could be two to three times higher than that officially established.
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