Join Hafta-Ichi to Research the article “Coronavirus live news: inoculation in EU begins as UK set to approve second Covid vaccine | World news”
08:23
New strain detected in Canada
Cases of the new variant strain first detected in the UK have been confirmed across Europe including in France, Spain, Denmark, Italy, Iceland, Switzerland, Sweden and the Netherlands, as well as around the globe in Australia, Japan and Lebanon.
And Dr Barbara Yaffe, the associate chief medical officer of Canada’s Ontario province, said the first two confirmed cases were a couple from the country’s Durham region with no known travel history, exposure or high-risk contacts.
People living in Ontario, like those in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and much of England, are now living under lockdown measures aimed at curbing the spread of the virus.
08:20
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis receives a shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the Military University Hospital in Prague Photograph: Martin Divíšek/EPA
The Czech Republic started administering vaccinations against the new coronavirus on Sunday, part of a push against the pandemic across the European Union.
Prime Minister Andrej Babis was the first to get the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at the Central Military Hospital in Prague, just before other hospitals in the capital and second-largest city Brno started to distribute the 9,750 doses the country has received so far.
“The vaccine which arrived from the European Union yesterday, that is a hope, a hope that we will return to a normal life,” Babis said before taking the jab.
Emilie Repikova, 95, a World War Two veteran, was also one of the first to be inoculated, shortly after Babis.
The country closed non-essential shops, services and ski lifts and enforced a stricter curfew from Sunday as it seeks to curb another rise in COVID-19 infections and hospitalisations.
08:13
Summary
Welcome to a Sunday edition of our Coronavirus live blog covering both the UK and global developments on the virus.
The official vaccination programme against coronavirus gets underway in several EU countries today. In some places inoculations began last night when health workers in Hungary, Slovakia and Germany got their first injections of the Pfizer/BioNtech jab. The Czech prime minister, Andrej Babis, was vaccinated this morning at a military hospital in Prague.
In the UK there is speculation in the Sunday papers that the Oxford/AstraZeneca will get approval for use this week and perhaps as early as tomorrow.
Meanwhile, the largest hospital in Wales has used social media to appeal for help from medical students to treat intensive care patients.
Cardiff & Vale UHB (@CV_UHB)
Our Critical Care Department is urgently looking for assistance from medical students or other staff groups who have previously supported with proning patients. If you are fit tested and available at 9am/5pm over the next few days call 02921 841174 or bleep 5490. Thank you. pic.twitter.com/HoZ5aJsIZ6
