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This article will be updated throughout the day. View the corona news here Monday May 17.
- RIVM reports a quarter fewer corona cases in the past week
- Number of neighbor quarrels reached record in corona year 2020
- Beds boss Kuipers optimistic about new eases from next week
- Coronavirus in Belgium beyond expectations, quickly on its return
Argentina reports a daily record in the number of corona deaths on Wednesday, namely 745 deaths from Covid-19. The country is in a second corona wave and also reports 35,543 confirmed infections.
In total, Argentina currently has 71,771 corona deaths and more than 3.3 million infections.
President Alberto Fernandez tells Argentine media that the rise in infections is because “people act as if nothing is wrong.” He called on the population to better adhere to the measures and to wear masks more often or to keep their distance.
A few weeks ago, Fernandez signed another package of measures to increase restrictions on leaving home and abolished physical school lessons in high-infected areas. This package expires Friday, but may be extended.
18.00 – ‘PCR tests for holidaymakers are going to fall in price’
The PCR corona test that unvaccinated holidaymakers have to purchase from a commercial test provider will become cheaper. That is what three test companies say to the ANP. Because more and more holidaymakers schedule a test appointment, the costs per test are reduced.
The European Parliament called for the PCR tests for a European travel certificate to be made free of charge. The travel industry also wants that, but Corona Minister De Jonge does not want to give in to the call. He thinks it is undesirable that the taxpayer should help pay for someone’s vacation and wants to protect the earnings model of commercial test companies. In addition, he said Monday, PCR tests are going to fall in price.
Now the cost of a corona test at a commercial company varies between 89 and 140 euros.
15.01 – RIVM reports a quarter fewer corona cases in the past week
The number of new corona cases has increased by approx decreased by a quarter compared to a week earlier. The RIVM reports 35,142 new infections between Tuesday morning last week and this Tuesday morning. The reproduction number has also fallen sharply, to 0.89. The so-called r-number was last this low on January 21.
14.50 – It was easy to get ahead at the corona pepper, invitation was online
For a long time, the letter inviting healthcare workers for a vaccination against the corona virus was easy to find online. This allowed others to pose as care workers and make an appointment for an injection, without being entitled to it, RTL Nieuws discovered.
Healthcare workers were the first in the Netherlands to be vaccinated at the beginning of January. Some healthcare institutions had put the invitation letter online for their employees. RTL reporter Daniël Verlaan was made aware of this and put such a letter in his own name. The GGD checked whether his name on the letter matched the name on his ID, but no one checked whether he worked in healthcare. He was also let through at the vaccination site itself. When he was about to get the shot, he said he was a journalist and someone else could get the vaccine.
14.35 – Young people from medical risk groups take their turn for corona peppers
Young people with high medical risks who live at home will receive an invitation for corona vaccination from Tuesday, the RIVM announced. These are young people born in 2003, 2004 and 2005.
With the invitation they can make an appointment with the GGD (Municipal Health Service). Young people with a neurological disorder who cannot come to the GGD receive a vaccination at home via a mobile vaccination team.
According to the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, this concerns a total of about 2500 young people. They receive the vaccine from BioNTech / Pfizer. Young people from this group who live in an institution have already had a first vaccination in recent weeks.
The young people concerned have an extra high risk of becoming seriously ill from the corona virus. These are young people living at home with a seriously compromised immune system and young people with a neurological disorder that affects breathing.
Young people with Down’s syndrome or morbid obesity, who also belong to the medical high-risk group, have already been invited via their GP.
13:56 – Temporary test location at FC Utrecht stadium for play-off duel
There is a rapid test location at FC Utrecht stadium De Galgenwaard on Tuesday and Wednesday. There, the maximum 3000 Utrecht fans who are allowed to attend the play-off duel for European football against FC Groningen can have themselves tested for free. The Open Netherlands Foundation (SON) currently has no test locations in Utrecht and wants to keep the travel time from postcode area to test location under 20 minutes.
Without the temporary test location, football fans had to have themselves tested in Breukelen or Amersfoort. The test location is provided by Spoedtestcorona, which is not actually responsible for free rapid tests in Utrecht. SON has appointed the German Ecolog for this. As a temporary solution, the choice fell on Urgent Test Corona, which has mobile test locations with space for an average of 1,600 rapid tests per day.
For the play-off game between Feyenoord and Sparta on Wednesday, where 6000 supporters are welcome, extra local test capacity has also been temporarily created. The test capacity in nearby Ridderkerk will be temporarily doubled to 4,000 rapid tests per day.
13.33 – Insiders: one shot will soon be enough for a corona travel certificate
One shot with a corona vaccine will soon be enough to get the corona pass that should make traveling in the European Union easier. The EU countries and the European Parliament agree on this, say EU sources.
12.29 – Austria stops AstraZeneca vaccine as soon as supplies run out
Austria will stop administering AstraZeneca’s corona vaccine once current stock has been used. The main reason is that the deliveries are not going well and there are far fewer doses of the drug than agreed.
Health Minister Wolfgang Mückstein said that the reputation of the drug also plays a role in the decision to stop, but that this was not a compelling reason. AstraZeneca is no longer used in a number of EU countries due to rare side effects.
From now on, Mückstein wants to focus more on mRNA vaccines such as those from Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna.
The European Union also announced earlier that it would no longer order corona vaccines from AstraZeneca due to the delivery problems. The British-Swedish pharmaceutical company delivers far fewer doses than agreed.
11.31 – Mandatory corona test for travelers continues to apply
Anyone who wants to travel to the Netherlands from a risk area must show a negative result of a corona test and a rapid test before departure. That obligation continues to apply, the court in The Hague ruled on Tuesday.
In summary proceedings, the Virus Truth action group demanded that the obligation be banned, but the court rejected this, as did the court earlier.
Virus truth also wanted the court to prohibit the state from basing the corona policy on the results of so-called PCR tests, but that claim was also rejected. The daily figures with the number of new corona cases mainly come from that commonly used method of testing. In a PCR test, people are given a test stick in the nose and throat to take a sample and determine whether they have the corona virus.
The court also did not respond to Virus Truth’s demand that the government be obliged to adjust communication about the corona virus.
09.54 – ‘Fiftigers already pinned before new advice about AstraZeneca comes’
If the Health Council advises that AstraZeneca’s corona vaccine should also be administered to people in their fifties, that advice may well come too late to use it. Almost all people in their fifties have already been vaccinated by the time the advice is published, writes de Volkskrant.
Outgoing Minister Hugo de Jonge (Public Health) asked on April 26 for a new age recommendation for the vaccine. The council expects to present this at the end of May.
Due to very rare but serious side effects, the Health Council had previously advised that the AstraZeneca vaccine should only be administered to people over 60 years of age. People under the age of 60 now receive the vaccine from Pfizer / BioNTech or Moderna in the GGD vaccination lines.
For the requested new advice, the Health Council wants to await the outcome of a number of investigations. “The committee is at work, but it is just not ready,” a spokesman for the council told the newspaper. “We are a scientific institute. When we are done, we are done. ”
Since Monday evening, residents born in 1965 (55 or 56 years old) can make an appointment for their first shot. Almost every two days it is now the turn of people from the next year of birth to make an appointment.
6.45 – No corona tests for Palestinians in Gaza
The only Palestinian site to conduct corona tests in Gaza has been shut down after an Israeli air strike on Monday, local authorities report. The clinic with a coronalab in the city of Al-Rimal was destroyed in an air raid, the Ministry of Health was also hit. Medical personnel of the ministry, among others, have been injured, some of them are in critical condition, Deputy Health Minister Yousef Abu al-Rish said.
Photo for illustration.
Ⓒ ANP / ZUMAPRESS
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According to a ministry spokesman in the Hamas-led enclave, the Israeli attacks threaten to “undermine the efforts of the ministry of health during the Covid pandemic.” Because of the seizures, the tests in the lab cannot continue. Before the violence flared up in Gaza last week, some 1,600 people were tested for corona every day.
Gaza has so far received 122,000 doses of corona vaccines per 2 million inhabitants. According to the World Health Organization, half of the vaccines have not yet been administered. The WHO says 103,000 people have tested positive for coronavirus in Gaza, of whom more than 930 have died.
Tensions in Gaza escalated last week when Palestinians threatened to be deported to make way for Jewish settlers. Since then, Hamas has fired missiles at Israel and Israel has already bombed 1,500 targets in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 212 people.
6.30 – Weekly figures RIVM: number of corona cases falls to below 40,000
The number of new corona cases in the Netherlands is falling rapidly. Less than 40,000 positive tests have probably been recorded in the past seven days. The exact figure comes on Tuesday from the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM).
The RIVM reported 47,108 positive corona tests last week. It was the first time in more than a month that the weekly figure dropped below 50,000. In the six days since then, 29,796 new cases were reported to the institute. That equates to an average of 4,966 cases per day. That picture was distorted by a disruption, which meant that Monday’s daily figure was lower than usual. These reports will be implemented in the coming days, but the number of new cases also went down before that outage.
In the weekly update, the RIVM also calculates how many people were admitted to hospitals in the past week because of Covid-19, the disease caused by the corona virus. Last week it involved 1,379 new hospital admissions, 304 of which ended up in intensive care. That was considerably less than in the previous week, and the decline appears to be continuing.
Furthermore, the RIVM will report on Tuesday how many people have died as a result of their corona infection. Last week, the institute reported 164 deaths, the week before 128. That number may have dropped to 120 this week.
Furthermore, RIVM will calculate the new reproduction number on Tuesday. That happens twice a week. Last Friday it was 0.95. That means that the outbreak can go out slowly. By default, RIVM looks back in time about two weeks, because otherwise it cannot provide a reliable figure. The reproduction figure of 0.95 therefore refers to the situation as it was on April 29.
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