Coronavirus Live News: Lowest Global Weekly Cases Since October; Biden will pledge $ 4 billion to the Covax plan | World News

Reported daily coronavirus infections have been falling around the world for a month and hit their lowest level since mid-October on Tuesday, figures suggesting the seasonality of the virus show.

Reuters: But optimism about a way out of the crisis has been tempered by new variants of the virus, raising concerns about the efficacy of vaccines, Reuters reports.

“Now is not the time to let our guard down,” Maria Van Kerkhove, World Health Organization technical leader on Covid-19, said at a briefing in Geneva. “We cannot afford to get into a situation where we have cases again.”

351,335 new infections were reported worldwide on Tuesday in an average of seven days, the number dropped from 863,737 on January 7. There were 17,649 deaths on January 26, falling to 10,957 on February 16.

Covid infections are on the decline in the US, with 77,883 new infections reported on average each day. That’s 31% of the highest daily average reported on January 8.

So far, 85 countries have started vaccinating people against the coronavirus and have administered at least 187,892,000 doses, according to Reuters figures.

Hello and welcome to today’s coronavirus pandemic step by step with me, Helen Sullivan.

There is good news today (but the WHO has warned us not to lower our guard): the weekly average of coronavirus infections has fallen to the lowest level since October, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University, and Joe Biden has committed $ 4,000 million for the Covax scheme, which is meant to ensure access to coronavirus vaccines for people in poor countries.

As always, it would be great to hear from you – scream from the void on Twitter. @helenrsullivan.

Here are the other key developments of the last few hours:

• Doctors and public health officials have begged Germans to take AstraZeneca Covid vaccines. AFP reports that officials in Italy, Austria and Bulgaria were also beginning to signal some public resistance to the British vaccine, with France’s health minister Olivier Véran taking the hit live on television to gain support, amid reports similar in Sweden.
• It appears that a nightly curfew to limit coronavirus transmissions will remain in effect in the Netherlands. as most parties in parliament expressed support for an emergency government bill that would circumvent a court order withdrawing the measure.
• A laboratory study suggests that the South African variant of the coronavirus may reduce the antibody protection of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine by two-thirds., and it is unclear whether the injection will be effective against the mutation, the companies said.
• The Vatican moved to clarify a decree that implied that employees could lose their jobs if they refuse to be vaccinated against Covid. without legitimate health reasons, after criticism.
• The World Health Organization urged Covid vaccine producing nations not to distribute them unilaterally but donate them to the global Covax scheme to ensure equity.
• Protesters in Spain circumvented coronavirus restrictions for the second night in a row to demonstrate against the imprisonment of a rapper that he had published tweets insulting the police and the Spanish monarchy, with more than 50 people arrested and dozens of injuries after clashes with agents.
• Reported daily coronavirus infections have been falling around the world for a month and hit their lowest level since mid-October on Tuesday., figures that suggest the seasonality of the virus.