COPENHAGEN, Denmark – Finland plans to reinstate a state of emergency that would allow the Nordic country to close restaurants for three weeks from March 8th as it battles the variant first discovered in the UK.
“I know you are tired. Me too. But we have to be strong and now the situation is more difficult, ”Prime Minister Sanna Marin said at a press conference on Thursday. The variant “is more difficult to master, the old tools are not enough. Closed borders are not enough. “
The new measures require students over 13 to switch to distance learning and stop their leisure activities. A public ban on gathering for more than six people is introduced and people are encouraged to avoid private gatherings. People in Finland would still have to work remotely and wear face masks.
A formal text will be presented to Parliament next week.
In March, the Finnish legislature passed the emergency powers to deal with the coronavirus crisis. The country has seen 757 virus deaths in the pandemic
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– Follow all of AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic, https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
HERE HAPPENS WHAT ELSE HAPPENS:
AMSTERDAM – Amsterdam is restricting access to a large park after thousands of people gathered there on Wednesday, many of whom are violating social distancing rules.
With the warm spring weather in the Netherlands expected to last much of Thursday, the side entrances to Amsterdam’s Vondelpark will be closed and the town hall says it is closely monitoring the main gates.
The community says if the lawns and ponds near the city’s museum district get too crowded, the park will be closed completely. The city says it “will not accept willful violations of the rules, with all the ensuing public health risks.”
The Netherlands has been in a difficult situation since mid-December. Public support for the measures has waned in recent weeks as the number of infections has steadily declined.
Despite a surge in infections over the past week, the government announced Tuesday that students would be allowed to return to their classrooms for at least one day a week starting next Monday. Businesses like hair and beauty salons are also reopening.
BERLIN – A silver lining for measures to block coronaviruses: With fewer vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians on the street, the German authorities report the lowest number of road deaths since the statistics began.
The Federal Statistical Office reported on Thursday that 2,724 people died as a result of road accidents in Germany in 2020, 10.6% fewer than in 2019 and the lowest number since the Wiesbaden authority began more than 60 years ago.
“This is particularly due to the fact that, due to the coronavirus pandemic, significantly fewer kilometers were driven on German roads in 2020 than in the previous year,” said the agency.
Numbers were particularly low at the start and end of the year, when Germany put in place strict lockdown measures, and rose in the summer when the measures were relaxed.
PRAGUE – The Czech government is banning its citizens and residents from entering countries affected by highly contagious variants of coronavirus and tightening rules on face covering.
As of Thursday, people will have to wear better masks in places where large numbers congregate, including shops, hospitals, and public transportation. Cloth masks are no longer good enough and medical masks, respirators, or two surgical masks must be used instead.
The changes are due to one of the hardest hit countries in the European Union being exposed to a fast-spreading variant of coronavirus originally found in the UK.
As of Friday, Czechs and foreigners will no longer be allowed to travel to eleven countries due to concerns about the coronavirus variants first discovered in South Africa and Brazil.
The cabinet is also preparing new restrictions, which Prime Minister Andrej Babis said will include restrictions on movement.
The daily increase in newly confirmed cases in the country reached 13,657 on Wednesday, about 2,700 more than a week ago. The nation of 10.7 million had nearly 1.2 million cases with 19,835 deaths.
NAIROBI, Kenya – The director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that it would be a “fatal mistake” for developed countries to adopt the stance, “We’re going to vaccinate our people, and people in other parts of the world can get together take care of their own. “
John Nkengasong, who spoke to reporters on Thursday, added that “it is of no concern to anyone that we continue to find ourselves in this tense situation,” and said that more could be done to address the global inequality of COVID-19 – Eliminate vaccines.
However, he celebrated Ghana becoming the first country in the world to receive vaccines through COVAX’s global effort to distribute doses to low-income countries. He hoped vaccinations would start in Ghana on Thursday and that vaccine shipments to other African countries would arrive in the coming days.
In Africa, the number of new cases fell last month after infections increased sharply again due to a more infectious variant of the coronavirus discovered in South Africa. The continent exceeded 100,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths this month.
ISLAMABAD – Pakistan will resume regular classes in all schools five days a week from March 1 as the number of COVID-19 deaths and cases of coronavirus continues to decline.
Education Minister Shafqat Mahmood made the announcement on Twitter on Thursday.
Pakistan closed classrooms in November as infections increased. Later schools opened in phases, but regular classes were not allowed.
Authorities announced Wednesday that they will allow parks, cinemas, and indoor and wedding receptions to open from March 15.
Pakistan has reported 12,772 deaths from the coronavirus. Pakistan is currently vaccinating health workers and the elderly with the China-donated Sinopharm vaccine.
TAIPEI, Taiwan – Taiwan will slightly ease restrictions on foreign visitors coming to the island starting Monday.
According to the Central Epidemic Command Center, foreigners wishing to come to Taiwan on business can apply for special permits at the island’s representative offices abroad.
You must show negative coronavirus test results obtained three days prior to travel and will be retested after two weeks of quarantine. Travelers from a list of countries and regions with a low or medium risk of COVID-19 can request shortened quarantine periods of between five and seven days.
These include New Zealand, Macau, Australia, Singapore, Vietnam, and Cambodia.
Rule changes also allow foreigners in tour groups to switch flights in Taiwan, making it easier for Chinese citizens to visit for personal reasons and Chinese students to return to Taiwanese universities.
Taiwan took stricter measures on January 1 to protect itself against variants of the coronavirus. The island of 23 million people has only recorded 946 cases and nine deaths from COVID-19.
JUNEAU, Alaska – A member of the Alaska House tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19, according to Louise Stutes, Alaska House spokeswoman.
She asked members and staff not to enter the Capitol on Thursday unless it was necessary to enable tracing and cleaning of contacts. Further details were not immediately available.
The announcement came the same day that Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy’s office announced he had COVID-19. His office says the 59-year-old Republican is in quarantine at his home and has mild symptoms.
At least nine U.S. state governors have tested positive for the coronavirus.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand – New Zealand’s success in fighting the coronavirus has sparked an unexpected problem: skyrocketing house prices.
When the pandemic first hit, most experts predicted that house prices would fall. Instead, prices have increased more than 19% over the past year, making them out of reach for many people looking to buy their first home.
The government, increasingly criticized for its response to the housing crisis, announced Thursday that the first of a series of measures would be a solution to the problem by asking the country’s central bank to assess the impact on property prices to consider when making decisions.
Reserve bank governor Adrian Orr welcomed the new policy, which is “in line” with his own advice to the government.
New Zealand has managed to eradicate the spread of the virus in the community, allowing most aspects of life to return to normal, and its economy has rebounded significantly as a result. GDP grew a record 14% in the December quarter, erasing most of the virus-induced contraction from a year earlier. Unemployment remains relatively low at 4.9%.
LOS ANGELES – Los Angeles County reports another 806 coronavirus deaths during the winter flood, bringing California’s number to over 50,000, or about one-tenth of the US total from the pandemic.
The county, home to a quarter of the state’s 40 million residents, announced Wednesday that it was reviewing retarded death certificates and identifying the deaths, most of which occurred between December and earlier this month.
Johns Hopkins University puts the death toll from COVID-19 in California at 50,890. The dismal number comes just days after the US recorded half a million deaths.
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden plans to distribute millions of face masks to Americans in coronavirus-affected communities.
It is part of his effort to make the government’s response to the pandemic fair. Biden aims to reach underserved communities and those who are bearing the brunt of the outbreak. His plan will not distribute masks by mail, but through state-qualified health centers and the country’s food bank and pantry.
The White House announced that it will sell more than 25 million American-made cloth masks in both adult and child sizes.
Biden has asked everyone to wear face masks for the first 100 days of his tenure. He must also wear masks in federal buildings and on public transport.
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