EU leaders on Thursday “strongly discouraged” Europeans from non-essential travel and warned tougher restrictions on trips could come within days if efforts to curb the coronavirus fell short.
EU chiefs Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel issued the warning after a four-hour summit by video link with the heads of government of the 27-nation bloc focused on responding to the second wave of the pandemic.
The tone of urgency was fuelled by fears over the spread of highly contagious coronavirus variants that could send already high infection rates skyrocketing and strain hospitals, as is happening in former EU member Britain.
“All non-essential travel should be strongly discouraged both within the country and of course across borders,” von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, told a media conference.
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Michel, president of the European Council, said: “It will be probably necessary to take additional restrictive measures in order to limit the non-essential travels and that is the orientation that we are taking.”
Both added that further coordination on that issue would be made in “the next days”.
But both also said the EU wanted to avoid a repeat of the height of the first wave, in March last year, when several member states panicked and closed off national borders unilaterally, triggering travel and economic chaos.
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“It is absolutely important to keep the single market functioning,” von der Leyen said, so that workers and freight can continue to cross borders.
The European Union is “one epidemiological zone,” she said.
“We will only contain the virus if we have targeted measures, and not unnecessary measures like a blanket closure of borders, which would severely hurt our economy, but not very much restrict the virus.”
But to avoid closing the intra-EU borders in the passport-free Schengen zone, testing needs to be stepped up, leaders agreed.
From Sunday, anybody arriving from outside the EU — possible only for those with essential reasons — could have to have a test for Covid-19 before departure, von der Leyen said.
Within the EU, some countries will apply prior testing for cross-border trips that do not come under essential categories such as workers and truck drivers.
From Sunday France will require a negative PCR test 72 hours before departure for most European arrivals other than those on essential travel, President Emmanuel Macron told the European Council, according to his office.
A statement from Macron’s office said “some of his European counterparts” have also chosen this approach.
Variant spreading in Portugal
The summit also backed wider use of antigen tests in other situations deemed low-risk. Those tests, often using saliva samples, are cheaper and faster — though less reliable — than nose-probing PCR tests.
Thursday’s summit started just as the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said there was a “very high” probability of the more contagious variants spreading in the European Union.
These mutations — which emerged in Britain, South Africa and Brazil — have already prompted bans or restrictions on travellers from those countries.
Belgium — wedged between Germany, France and the Netherlands — had gone into the summit pleading for a “temporary” closure during its February holiday period.
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz had also voiced support “for stricter entry controls and testing requirements to keep virus mutations out”.
Currently, the concerning variants remain a tiny proportion of overall cases in most of the EU.
But Portugal is serving as an early warning of what may be to come.
Its government ordered schools closed for two weeks because of the rapid spread of the British variant, which Prime Minister Antonio Costa said accounted for 20 percent of infections and could make up 60 percent as soon as next week.
While there was no indication as yet the new variants were more deadly, there were concerns their faster spread could overload hospital intensive care capacity.
Vaccine certificates
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After a disappointingly slow start to vaccination in the EU, the European Commission has been urging greater speed from member states.
It hopes to soon authorise more vaccines beyond the BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna ones currently being injected, and aims to inoculate 70 percent of adults in the EU before September.
The leaders also discussed vaccine certificates, something tourism-dependent countries such as Greece hope might ease travel curbs and save what looks like another disastrous summer vacation period.
But EU leaders decided it was too early and too many questions remained for such a certificate to be used as anything more than a health record.
From Lady Gaga to Lin-Manuel Miranda, Bruce Springsteen to Katy Perry, top performers delivered musical messages of diversity, unity and hope in a star-studded, socially distanced extravaganza celebrating US President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
The cultural events, bringing together some of America’s biggest stars, marked a sharp contrast with Donald Trump’s 2017 inauguration, which was low on celebrity power.
A full-throated, supremely confident Lady Gaga belted out the national anthem at President Joe Biden’s inauguration in a very Gaga way — with flamboyance, fashion and passion.
The Grammy winner wore a huge dove-shaped brooch and a billowing red sculpted skirt as she sang into a golden microphone, delivering an emotional and powerful rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” She was followed at Wednesday’s ceremony by Jennifer Lopez, dressed all in white, who threw a line of Spanish into her medley of “This Land is Your Land” and “America the Beautiful” — a pointed nod to multiculturalism, just two weeks after white supremacists and other violent rioters stormed the Capitol in an effort to undermine the peaceful transfer of power.
Netherlands begins Covid-19 vaccinations, later than other EU nations
Nearly two weeks after most other European Union nations, the Netherlands on Wednesday began its Covid-19 vaccination program, with nursing home staff and frontline workers in hospitals first in line for the shot.
Sanna Elkadiri, a nurse at a nursing home for people with dementia, was the first to receive a shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at a mass vaccination center in Veghel, 120 km (75 miles) southeast of Amsterdam.
The Dutch government has come under fierce criticism for its late start to vaccinations. Prime Minister Mark Rutte told lawmakers in a debate Tuesday that authorities had focused preparations on the easy-to-handle vaccine made by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, which has not yet been cleared for use in the EU, and not the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Dutch Health Minister Hugo de Jonge did not comment on the criticism as he spoke before Elkadiri rolled up the left sleeve of her purple nurse’s uniform to receive the first shot. Instead, he looked forward to a future with the virus under control.
“Finally, after 10 months of crisis, today we are starting to end this crisis,” De Jonge said. But he warned that, “it will take a while before we have all the misery behind us. ”
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which requires ultra-cold storage before it is used, is the only shot that has been approved so far by the EU’s medicines agency. The European Medicines Agency on Wednesday was considering approving another coronavirus vaccine, one made by Moderna.
“I’m very disappointed that we are two weeks behind other countries,” Rutte said in the Dutch parliament.
The Netherlands is in the midst of a five-week tough lockdown imposed when infection rates were spiking across the country. In recent days, infection rates have been edging lower, but the country’s public health institute said Tuesday that the lockdown has not yet produced a clear effect on infection rates.
Nearly 12,000 people are confirmed to have died of Covid-19 in the Netherlands since the pandemic started, though the true number is higher because not all people who died with symptoms were tested.
Andre Rouvoet, chairman of the umbrella organisation of local health authorities, welcomed the first vaccinations, which were aired live on Dutch television.
“It is symbolic of the hundreds of thousands — millions — of vaccinations that will be administered in the Netherlands in coming months,” he said.
Worldwide crisis shows no signs of slowing
Worldwide, the Covid-19 crisis has shown no signs of slowing, with known infections nearing 86 million and more than 1.8 million deaths, even as many nations ramp up their vaccination rollouts.
England began its third national lockdown Tuesday as alarm grew in Britain over the latest surge in cases which is threatening to overwhelm its National Health Service, piling on the misery for people growing tired of social distancing and the economic cost.
“It’s just exasperating, because I don’t know if people can just go that extra mile another six weeks with this lockdown. It’s just crazy,” said Alex, a 65-year-old retiree and one of the few people out on the streets of London on Tuesday.
A senior government minister has warned the lockdown could last into March.
Denmark and Germany also extended and increased coronavirus measures on Tuesday, as concerns grew about the surge on the continent and the European Union falling behind other advanced nations in its vaccination drive.
There are hopes the bloc’s medical regulator will authorise the Moderna vaccine when it reconvenes on Wednesday. It had approved the Pfizer-BioNTech shot last month.
Limited supplies are a major hurdle for nations trying to accelerate their rollouts.
Britain and Denmark have said they will wait for longer than the recommended 21-28 days between jabs so they can focus on giving more people their first dose — a move that has divided experts.
But World Health Organization experts on Tuesday gave cautious backing “in exceptional circumstances” to delaying the second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Beijing blocks WHO mission
Meanwhile, an expert mission to China to find the origins of the pandemic stumbled before it even began, with the head of the WHO complaining that Beijing was blocking the team from entering the country.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was “very disappointed” with the last-minute bar on entry, in a rare castigation of Beijing from the UN body.
Spurred on by new variants that are believed to be more contagious, the virus situation in some countries is as bad as it has ever been.
The United States broke its own record for the number of daily deaths from Covid-19 yet again Tuesday, recording 3,936 fatalities in 24 hours, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.
In California, the new US epicentre, Los Angeles ambulance workers have been told to stop transporting some patients with extremely low survival chances to hospitals, and to limit oxygen use, as medical resources are overwhelmed.
The world’s worst-hit nation is ultimately counting on its vaccination campaign, which began mid-December, to end the crisis.
But less than two percent of the population has so far been covered, with 4.8 million people having received the first of two doses.
Israel is out front with vaccinations, having covered some 13.5 percent.
But it came under fire from Amnesty International on Wednesday for failing to provide coronavirus vaccine doses to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
Melbourne stadium scare
The spikes in caseloads around the world have disrupted the few entertainment and sports events that had managed to resume after shutdowns earlier in the pandemic.
The English Premier League, one of the world’s most-watched football competitions, said a record 40 players and staff have tested positive in the last two rounds of testing, but insisted the football season will continue.
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And spectators at Australia’s showpiece Boxing Day cricket Test against India in Melbourne were warned they must get tested and isolate after a fan at the stadium tested positive.
The Grammy music awards, slated for January 31 in Los Angeles, were also postponed until March over the Covid-19 situation in California.
Europe launches a cross-border vaccination programme of unprecedented scale on Sunday as part of efforts to end a Covid-19 pandemic that has crippled economies and claimed more than 1.7 million lives around the world.
The region of 450 million people has secured contracts with a range of suppliers for over two billion vaccine doses and has set a goal for all adults to be inoculated during 2021.
While Europe has some of the best-resourced healthcare systems in the world, the sheer scale of the effort means that some countries are calling on retired medics to help out while others have loosened rules for who is allowed to give the injections.
With surveys pointing to high levels of hesitancy towards the vaccine in countries from France to Poland, leaders of the 27-country European Union are promoting it as the best chance of getting back to something like normal life next year.
“We are starting to turn the page on a difficult year,” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the Brussels-based European Commission coordinating the programme, said in a tweet.
“Vaccination is the lasting way out of the pandemic.”
Today, we start turning the page on a difficult year. The #COVID19 vaccine has been delivered to all EU countries.
Vaccination will begin tomorrow across the EU.
The #EUvaccinationdays are a touching moment of unity. Vaccination is the lasting way out of the pandemic.
After European governments were criticised for failing to work together to counter the spread of the virus in early 2020, the goal this time is to ensure that there is equal access to the vaccines across the entire region.
But even then, Hungary on Saturday jumped the gun on the official roll-out by starting to administer shots of the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech to frontline workers at hospitals in the capital Budapest.
Countries including France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Portugal and Spain are planning to begin mass vaccinations, starting with health workers on Sunday. Outside the EU, Britain, Switzerland and Serbia have already started in recent weeks.
The distribution of the Pfizer-BioNTech shot presents tough challenges. The vaccine uses new mRNA technology and must be stored at ultra-low temperatures of around -80 degrees Celsius (-112°F).
France, which received its first shipment of the two-dose vaccine on Saturday, will start administering it in the greater Paris area and in the Burgundy-Franche-Comte region.
Germany, meanwhile, said trucks were on their way to deliver the vaccine to care homes for the elderly, which are first in line to receive the vaccine on Sunday.
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Beyond hospitals and care homes, sports halls and convention centres emptied by lockdown measures will become venues for mass inoculations.
In Italy, temporary solar-powered healthcare pavilions will spring up in town squares around the country, designed to look like five-petalled primrose flowers, a symbol of spring.
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In Spain, doses are being delivered by air to its island territories and the North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. Portugal is establishing separate cold storage units for its Atlantic archipelagos of Azores and Madeira.
“A window of hope has now opened, without forgetting that there is a very difficult fight ahead,” Portuguese Health Minister Marta Temido told reporters.
Travellers to the US will be required to quarantine on arrival while masks will be mandated on many domestic trains, planes and buses, President Joe Biden said Thursday as he signed a raft of new executive orders to curb the Covid pandemic.
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The new leader of the world’s hardest-hit country has made fighting the coronavirus one of his top priorities, describing the endeavor as a “wartime undertaking” as he spoke to reporters from the Oval Office.
More than 408,000 people have died from the disease in the US, which is more than the total military fatalities the country experienced in World War II.
“In addition to wearing masks, everyone flying to the United States from another country will need to test before they get on that plane, before they depart, and quarantine when they arrive in America,” he said.
The testing requirement was announced by the previous administration of Donald Trump, but quarantine was only a recommendation.
It comes as alarming, more contagious new variants of the virus have emerged around the world. One particular mutation from South Africa has raised concerns over vaccine effectiveness.
Tune in as President Biden provides an update on the Administration’s COVID-19 response.
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 21, 2021
Biden added he was signing a new order “to extend masking requirements on interstate travel, like on trains, planes and buses.”
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The measures are part of Biden’s national strategy that is outlined in a 200-page document that foresees scaling up vaccinations, testing, returning students to school and rebuilding trust with the public among other goals.
The president is also seeking $1.9 trillion from Congress for a Covid relief package.
The administration plans to invoke emergency legislation called the Defense Production Act to increase industrial output of vaccines and other medical supplies, while also setting up thousands of federal testing sites.
The pardons and commutations for 73 additional people, including Bannon, were announced after midnight Wednesday in the final hours of Trump’s White House term.
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“Prosecutors pursued Mr. Bannon with charges related to fraud stemming from his involvement in a political project. Mr. Bannon has been an important leader in the conservative movement and is known for his political acumen,” said a statement published on the official White House website.
The latest clemency list of 73 people did not include members of Trump’s family or his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who was at the forefront of unsuccessful efforts to get the results of the 2020 presidential election overturned.
The outgoing US president also pardoned Elliott Broidy, a former top fundraiser for Trump who pleaded guilty last year to violating foreign lobbying laws, and former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who was serving a 28-year prison term on corruption charges.
Trump leaves office on Wednesday, when Joe Biden is sworn in as the nation’s next president.
White House aides advised against Bannon pardon
Bannon, who was a key adviser in Trump’s 2016 presidential run, was charged last year with swindling Trump supporters over an effort to raise private funds to build the president’s wall on the US-Mexico border. He has pleaded not guilty.
White House officials had advised Trump against pardoning Bannon. The two men have lately rekindled their relationship as Trump sought support for his unproven claims of voter fraud, an official familiar with the situation said.
Bannon, 67, is the latest prominent political ally to receive clemency from Trump, who has often used the powers of the executive branch to reward loyalists and punish his enemies.
Prominent allies also pardoned
As part of more than 140 pardons and commutations in his final days in office, Rappers Lil Wayne and Kodak Black who were prosecuted on federal weapons offenses, were also granted clemency.
Giuliani, who has been at the forefront of Trump’s unsuccessful efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, has not been charged with a crime, but investigators have been probing his activities in Ukraine.
