The epidemic is growing rapidly around the world, with a new daily record of over 18,000 deaths and variants, much more contagious, which continues to spread to more and more countries to close their borders.

In the vaccine race, one of the manufacturers, Britain’s AstraZeneca, found itself at the heart of tensions with the European Union on Wednesday.

Day by day, the situation is deepening: the world’s number of officially recorded cases has exceeded 100 million and, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), new versions of coronovirus continue to spread: the British to 70 countries And South Africa on 31st.

According to AFP calculations on Wednesday, since the onset of the epidemic, 18,109 deaths were recorded worldwide on Tuesday.

This figure confirms the trend seen since the beginning of January: the death rate has risen sharply, the daily death threshold has passed more rapidly and the plateau has set at an increasingly higher level (24 hours from 22 January) 14,000 deaths on average in late November against 10,000).

In total, 2.16 million deaths have been recorded in the world.

“We are fighting the battle of our lives”, but “We can defeat the virus – and we will defeat the virus” and its variants, assured technical manager, Maria Van Kerakhov, in the WHO for the fight against Kovad-19 . In China at the end of 2019.

In this regard, the World Health Organization’s investigation in this country on the origin of the epidemic should be “thorough and clear”, a White House spokesman on Wednesday, Jane Saki said. “It is important that we get to the bottom of it.”

– Governments under pressure –

This situation puts governments under pressure to find new solutions.

In Britain, Macabre is the first European country to pass the 100,000 death mark, with the government imposing a hotel quarantine on residents of 22 countries in the UK where types of the virus “pose a risk”, such as South Africa, Portugal and Country. South America. Arrival from these states is already prohibited for people not residing in the United Kingdom.

These passengers will be transported directly from the airport to the hotel, said Prime Minister Boris Johnson, underestimating the extent of the crisis in the spring, too late and deconfined too early to ignore the advice of scientists has given.

Relatively troubled by the epidemic, Finland has tightened restrictions on its borders: it now bans “non-essential” travel to its territory.

Even the tight turn of the screw in Norway, which closes its borders to “almost all non-residents” from Thursday night to Friday midnight.

In France, where the death toll continues to climb (around 75,000), the government said on Wednesday that it was studying several scenarios to prevent the spread of Kovid-19, including a new “very tight” imprisonment , From 6:00 pm to 6:00 pm in the current evening the fire is not working well enough.

If President Emanuel Macron asked for “additional analysis” on various scenarios before making a decision, “the maintenance of the current structure seems unlikely”, warns government spokesman Gabriel Attal.

There is no ambiguity in Slovakia, which has so far tightened its imprisonment regime by requiring negative tests to be able to leave home.

In Lebanon, more than 220 people were injured on Wednesday in violent clashes – the third consecutive evening – in Tripoli (North), amid protests between police and protesters against stern protests and the economic crisis.

Also limited from late December, Israel on Wednesday decided to close its borders with Jordan and Egypt. Authorities had already suspended international flights until at least 31 January.

As an exception, the city of Moscow continued on Wednesday to ease restrictions in force for months.

– Tension with AstraZeneca –

The massive vaccination campaign remains one of the rare rays of hope to get out of the crisis. In this regard, the British laboratory AstraZeneca was at the center of tension with the European Union. In question: Announcement of delay in schedule of vaccine delivery.

According to AstraZeneca, vaccine production in UK factories is being reserved for the UK, which took place with London three months before the contract signed with the European Union. What Brussels disputes.

The EU demands that AstraZeneca distribute it as agreed with Kovid-19 vaccines produced at two British factories, while the group now plans to provide only “a quarter” of the promised dose in the first quarter is.

According to a calculation done by AFP from official sources at 11:00 GMT on Wednesday, at least 79.2 million doses of the Kovid vaccine have been administered in at least 69 countries or regions.

But currently vaccination is a prerogative of countries with “high income” (within the meaning of the World Bank), which concentrate 62% of the administered dose in the world, while they only cover 16% of the world’s population.

WHO’s director of emergency operations Michael Ryan believes that “if we come to a situation in the developed world where fully healthy people are vaccinated and frontline workers and vulnerable people (poor from countries) are not Yes, it is not fair.

He called for sharing access to vaccines, because “by doing so we will end the problem faster. So it’s not only good, it’s smart.”

For American philanthropist Bill Gates, the world must now prepare for the next pandemic as it prepares for a war, which will have to be turned into billions of dollars of investment each year.

burx-blb / cls / mba / bds