Australia has reached its second vaccine milestone with the country's first AstraZeneca COVID-19 jabs to be poked into South Australian arms today.
The community of Murray Bridge will lead the nation in the rollout of the new vaccine with one thousand doses arriving into regional South Australia today.
A frontline health worker in the town will become the first person in the country to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine.
The days of shelling out €25 or even €50 ($30-60) for a rapid test may be numbered. The latest pandemic plan agreed to late Wednesday between Chancellor Angela Merkel and 16 state leaders, puts forward a complex, step-by-step guide to moving Germany out of lockdown. But little can happen without sufficient testing.
The federal government is expected to start picking up the tab for rapid tests starting next week.
Every person in Germany will be entitled to a weekly test, either from a test center, medical practice, or place of work, administered by trained personnel.
They seemed very tired after yet another meeting to tackle the coronavirus pandemic. Once again, they addressed the cameras and thanked the citizens of Germany, cited numbers and pronounced many "if and whens" — it's becoming almost routine. And once again, there was no genuine passionate appeal.
Chancellor Angela Merkel and her co-chairs, Bavarian state minister Markus Söder of the Christian Social Union (CSU) party and Berlin mayor Michael Müller of the Social Democrats (SPD), were exhausted after nine hours, and well over 20 crisis meetings over the past 12 months.
The numbers are alarming. On Tuesday, a new daily record was broken when 1,726 people died of COVID-19 in Brazil. The average death rate over the past week was 1,274. That's almost 25% higher than two weeks ago.
"We are currently experiencing the worst moment of the pandemic, with daily death tolls breaking new records and overburdened intensive care units all over the country," microbiologist Natalia Pasternak told DW.
Over 257,000 Brazilians have died of COVID-19 already. But the spread of the virus has picked up dramatically. On Tuesday, almost 60,000 new cases were registered.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday that the country has more than 2,500 cases of coronavirus variants that can spread more easily and dodge some treatments and immunities.
USA TODAY: US variant cases have increased fivefold in a month, CDC says: Latest COVID-19 updates https://t.co/E5sUwcay14
— Mix World Tw!tter (@Mix_World_Blog) March 3, 2021
More than 100 new cases of the B.1.1.7 variant first seen in the United Kingdom were reported just since Sunday, bringing the nation's total to 2,506. Illinois reported 27 new cases to reach 69; Maryland reported 21 more to reach 89; and Georgia reported 18 more to reach 137.
