More than 224 million people have tested positive for the virus worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University. More than 4.6 million infected people have died. More than 5.6 billion vaccine doses have been administered worldwide.
Protests against tighter Corona rules in France again brought more than a hundred thousand people to the streets for the ninth weekend in a row. However, participation in the demonstrations, which were spread across the country, dropped again on Saturday (Sept. 11). According to France’s Interior Ministry, 121,000 people protested, 20,000 fewer than the previous week and about 50,000 fewer than three weeks ago. The resentment is directed against the health passport required by President Emmanuel Macron and the government to prove vaccination, recovery or negative test. The proof requirement exists for almost all areas of public life. Mandatory vaccination for certain professions, including healthcare workers, also faces opposition.
Hundreds of opponents of Corona vaccinations hurled stones and other objects at police outside the entrance to the fairgrounds of the port city of Thessaloniki on Saturday night (Sept. 11). Security forces used tear gas and water cannons to disperse the rioters, state television showed. Among the rioters were numerous religious zealots carrying icons, as well as nationalist and far-right extremists, according to reporters’ reports. At the time of the riot, the head of the Greek government, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, was giving a speech in a hall of the grounds of this, Greece’s largest trade fair, on economic and financial policies for the coming months in Greece. The speech was not disrupted.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators joined DJs and musicians in the Netherlands on Saturday (9/11) to demand the lifting of Corona restrictions on the events industry. Organizers had called for protests in ten cities, including Amsterdam, The Hague, Groningen and Maastricht. In several places, the processions were accompanied by music floats, according to the ANP news agency. Clubs and discos were allowed to reopen in the Netherlands at the end of June, but infections rose sharply again shortly afterwards, prompting the government in The Hague to pull the emergency brake. In the meantime, an advisory committee is examining whether nightclubs could reopen at the end of September. In mid-August, the closure had been ordered until November 1.
Biontech founder Özlem Türeci expects the vaccine for five- to 11-year-olds to be available in just a few weeks. The results from the study with children will be presented to authorities worldwide in the coming weeks, Türeci said in an interview with Der Spiegel on Friday (Sept. 10). “Furthermore, we will apply for approval, including here in Europe.” The vaccine is the same as administered to adults, he said, but it has a lower dosage and must be filled differently. According to the Spiegel article, study data on children six months and older are also expected by the end of the year.
A commission of the World Health Organization (WHO) has called on its member states to undertake comprehensive reforms of their healthcare systems. Despite repeated warnings of a global pandemic, the world was not prepared for the coronavirus, the WHO Regional Office for Europe said Friday (Sept. 10). The occasion is the publication of a final report by the commission headed by former Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, which was set up during the pandemic. Contradictory and flawed policy steps had led to the consequences of Covid-19 being catastrophic and continuing to be so. More than 1.2 million people had died in association with Corona disease in the European region, he said, and the economy had also experienced an unprecedented downturn that dwarfed even the 2008 global financial crisis.
- source: nzz.ch/picture: pixabay.com
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