The world records the worst daily mortality rate for coronavirus

Daily mortality from the action of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus reported its most serious data on the pandemic on Saturday, with 15,000 deaths from covid-19 disease in the last 24 hours. , while several countries around the world are already implementing aggressive vaccination plans.

For the World Health Organization (WHO), which reported the number at its traditional daily press conference from Geneva (Switzerland), it is a record figure that places the total death toll from the pandemic at 1.9 millions.

The health system of the United Nations system also stated that 800,000 new infections of the pathogen were also recorded, one of the highest daily figures in more than a year of health crisis, and that it leaves the global total and 87,500,000.

For its part, the figures given by Johns Hopkins University tend to approach those of the WHO, as they record that in the same period of time 14,858 people lost their lives to COVID-19, while present 812,212 infections.

According to the WHO report, in Europe, with a total of 28 million cases and 622,000 deaths, and which recorded 273,000 cases and 6,000 deaths between Friday and Saturday, there is no clear rise so far over the weeks. previous.

It is America that is most concerned with all the lines of the pandemic. 440,000 positive diagnoses and 7,800 deaths were added in a single day, bringing the continent to 38 million infections and more than 900,000 deaths in more than a year of pandemic.

Most experts are concluding that the December holidays, in which there were Christmas celebrations without respecting social distancing, the use of the mask and hand washing, are being reported in the increase in hospital admissions, which is causing systems, especially in Latin America, to collapse.

The United States remains the most affected country, with 21 million cases, followed by India (10 million) and Brazil, which last day reported a record number of daily cases (62,000, leaving more than 8 millions of infected).

The United Kingdom, where Prime Minister Boris Johnson again decreed a strict quarantine on January 4 in the face of the exponential increase in cases and deaths, maintains a steadily rising positive growth curve of 2.9 million, while Russia is going in the opposite direction with an accumulation of 3.3 million.

In France (2.7 million infections), Italy (2.2 million) and Spain (2 million) the daily positive curve rises again, but still does not reach the November highs.

Germany (1.8 million cases in total) shows some stabilization after weeks of sharp rise, while Colombia continues to release record daily figures and adds 1.7 million positives.

South Africa “leads” on its continent

Although Africa is one of the continents that has been least affected by the impact of the pandemic, health authorities are watching with concern the rise in infections and deaths, which have already reached 3 million and 72,000 respectively in all. the continent, according to Johns Hopkins University.

But 40.3% of all continent cases and 32,824 deaths are being accounted for in a single country: South Africa.

“The number of cases has increased rapidly in recent weeks as we were de-escalating and people began to move,” the director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Africa, John, told Efe today. Nkengasong.

South Africa is facing a second, more aggressive wave, in part due to the presence of the coronavirus variant N501Y, which would be more transmissible and be behind the more than 110,000 infections recorded in just the last week.

In South Africa it is followed by Morocco with nearly half a million infections, Tunisia (almost 155,000), Egypt (147,810) and Ethiopia (127,572).

Real vaccination and death of the papal doctor

Amid the total confinement in the United Kingdom, Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip of Edinburgh, received the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine this Saturday.

The 94-year-old sovereign and the 99-year-old duke were vaccinated by a royal doctor at their residence in Windsor Castle, just outside London.

Elsewhere in Europe, the Vatican reported that Fabrizzio Socorsi, Pope Francis’ personal physician, had died as a result of COVID-19.

Soccorsi, 78, was admitted to Gemelli Hospital for cancer and had been chosen as a personal physician by Francisco in 2015, when he was a consultant to the Vatican’s Health and Hygiene Directorate and director emeritus of Hepatology. of the Hospital Sant Camil in Rome.

On January 2, the Vatican announced that it will begin its coronavirus vaccination campaign predictably in the middle of the month and will give priority to public health and safety personnel, the elderly and workers in contact with the public.

Controversial party in Chile

A clandestine party in a mansion on the coast of Chile, attended by young people from wealthy families, is generating a great deal of controversy to end without detainees, unlike other illegal gatherings that ended this week with dozens of arrests.

In the last few hours, a video and audio of young people who were recently mentioned in a house in the exclusive spa of Cachagua, 180 kilometers northwest of Santiago, were circulating on social media to drink and dance without a mask or social distance. .

Among those in attendance were children of deputies and businessmen from Santiago’s wealthiest neighborhoods, graduating from the country’s best schools, according to local media.

There are already 20 confirmed cases of SARS-CoV-2 among those attending this party and the Ministry of Health is investigating the possibility of carriers with the British strain, characterized by its greater aggressiveness in infection. EFE