《TAIPEI TIMES》 US marks new year with 20 million cases

/ AFP, WASHINGTON

The US marked the new year on Friday by passing the extraordinary milestone of 20 million COVID-19 cases, after global celebrations were largely muted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The US has floundered in its efforts to quell the virus, which is spreading rapidly across the country and has caused more than 347,000 deaths — by far the highest national death toll.

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Worldwide hopes that COVID-19 vaccines will bring a rapid end to the pandemic this year have been shaken by the slow start to the US vaccination program, which has been beset by logistical problems and overstretched hospitals.

Nearly 2.8 million people in the US have already received their first jabs, but the figure fell well behind the 20 million inoculations that US President Donald Trump’s administration promised by the end of last year.

The desperate race to vaccinate is set to dominate the coming year, with COVID-19 already having killed at least 1.8 million people since emerging in China in December 2019, according to a tally compiled from official sources.

German firm BioNTech said it was racing to ramp up production of its COVID-19 vaccine to fill a shortage left by the lack of other approved vaccines in Europe.

Countries including, Canada, the UK and the US approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine earlier, and have since also greenlighted jabs by US firm Moderna or Oxford-AstraZeneca.

“The current situation is not rosy. There’s a hole because there’s an absence of other approved vaccines and we have to fill this gap,” BioNTech cofounder Ugur Sahin told Der Spiegel.

Criticism of the slow pace of the vaccine rollout has grown louder in the past few days.

In Germany, senior doctors have complained that hospital staff are left waiting for vaccines, despite being in a priority group.

France has seen similar complaints, prompting the government to announce that health workers aged 50 or older could receive the shot from tomorrow — sooner than originally planned.

“The virus is continuing to spread ... but with a disparity between regions,” said a French government spokesman, confirming that theaters, cinemas and concert halls would not be allowed to reopen on Thursday next week, the most recent earliest date given.

Worldwide, normally extravagant New Year’s Eve celebrations in cities such as Edinburgh, New York, Rio de Janeiro and Sydney were scaled back or canceled, and crowds banned from attending.

Rio saw one upside: 89 percent less garbage on Copacabana Beach, which is left clogged with trash each year after its New Year party.

“We were ready for any scenario, but congratulations to the people of Rio, who listened to the authorities’ calls to avoid large crowds and stay home,” municipal sanitation chief Flavio Lopes said.

The UK on Thursday said that it had vaccinated almost 950,000 people, as a surge in COVID-19 cases prompted the reopening of field hospitals.

Norway, which has one of the lowest infection rates in Europe, was yesterday to begin requiring COVID-19 tests upon arrival into the country.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES