Lhe international community is mobilizing against the Covid-19 pandemic: the IMF on Friday proposed a $ 50 billion plan to end it, while three of the main laboratories have promised 3.5 billion doses of vaccines at cost price to poor countries.
These announcements come as several European countries, including Spain, have announced that they will lift their travel restrictions in the hope of saving the tourist season which is just starting.
Spain announced on Friday that it would allow all those vaccinated to enter its territory from June 7.
On the occasion of the world health summit organized in Rome within the framework of the G20, the International Monetary Fund unveiled a major plan, the funding of which is estimated at $ 50 billion, with a vaccination target of at less 40% of the world’s population by the end of the year.
The plan aims to vaccinate at least 60% of the world’s population by the end of 2022 to enable a sustainable global economic recovery.
At the end of April, less than 2% of the African population had been vaccinated, recalls the IMF, while more than 40% of the population in the United States and more than 20% in Europe had received at least one dose of Covid vaccine.
Faced with this situation, the producers of vaccines against the Covid-19 Pfizer / BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, for their part, pledged Friday during the G20 summit to provide at cost price or reduced 3.5 billion doses to poorest countries in 2021 and 2022.
About 1.3 billion doses are expected to be delivered this year, the rest in 2022.
“30 million doses”
France, it will give by the end of 2021 “at least 30 million doses of different vaccines” to the Covax program, the global mechanism for the supply of vaccines to poor countries, President Emmanuel Macron announced on Friday before the summit. .
“We do not have the right to store vaccines in some countries while others lack them,” he said in a video speech.
The President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen for her part announced at the start of the summit that the EU would provide 100 million doses of vaccine against Covid-19 to the poorest countries.
“Everyone, everywhere” must have access to vaccines, she said in Rome.
If the situation remains critical in certain parts of the world, in Europe, the time has come for deconfinement.
Spain, the second largest tourist destination in the world before the pandemic, announced that it would allow all vaccinated people to enter its territory from June 7, “regardless of their country of origin”.
The British, who normally provide the first contingent of tourists in this country, will for their part be allowed to come freely from Monday, added the head of government Pedro Sanchez.
In Germany, many anti-Covid measures were lifted on Friday, ahead of the Pentecost long weekend.
In Berlin, outdoor beer bars, such as restaurant terraces or swimming pools, closed since November, have been able to reopen, however still with strict sanitary rules.
Relaxations were also planned for Friday in the most populous region, North Rhine-Westphalia, as well as in other Länder, including Thuringia, Saxony and the city of Hamburg.
Norway, where the pandemic seems under control, for its part announced on Friday a new reduction in its health measures from May 27. Bars will be able to sell alcohol until midnight (compared to 9:00 p.m. currently) with no obligation to serve food.
The recommended limit for the number of guests at home will also be raised from five to ten people – those vaccinated or immunized not counting – and non-essential travel within Norway will no longer be discouraged.
High excess mortality
The World Health Organization (WHO) for its part said on Friday that the excess mortality caused by the pandemic was two to three times higher than the deaths attributed to the coronavirus since the appearance of the first cases at the end of 2019 in China.
The Covid-19 has killed more than 3.43 million people worldwide since its appearance at the end of 2019, according to a report established by AFP on Friday from official sources.
The pandemic has slowed down sharply in the world this week, with 638,600 contaminations recorded daily, Europe concentrating the strongest decreases, according to an AFP report stopped on Thursday.
India remains, by far, the country with the highest number of new infections in absolute terms over the week (295,500 daily cases).
Already overwhelmed by a second wave of very aggressive coronavirus, this country is now a victim of murcomycosis, a rare fungal infection, commonly known as “black fungus”, which is however starting to proliferate at a worrying rate, especially among convalescents from Covid-19. 19.
To the point that Thursday, at least nine states had classified the infection as an epidemic and, on social networks, calls for antifungal treatments kept coming.
burx-slb/lb
21/05/2021 16:44:10 – Rome (AFP) – © 2021 AFP
–
