Month: December 2020

LONDON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) – British negotiators arrived in Brussels on Sunday for a last-ditch attempt to strike a Brexit trade deal with the European Union and avert a chaotic parting of ways at the end of the year.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-talks/britain-and-eu-resume-trade-talks-in-final-throw-of-the-dice-idUSKBN28F0SY?il=0

Sacramento, Calif. (Reuters) – California’s two most densely inhabited regions and its agricultural breadbasket will be under stay-at-home orders by Sunday night as the COVID-19 pandemic strains hospitals in the most populous U.S. state, officials said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-usa/most-of-california-to-be-under-stay-at-home-orders-as-covid-19-surges-idUSKBN28F0WC

California has reported a new record high of 25,068 new coronavirus cases on Saturday.

The state also reported that an additional 325 Covid-19 patients are hospitalized. That brings the statewide total to 10,273 people across the state in hospitals.

https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-12-05-20-intl/index.html

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea will impose heightened social distancing rules for the capital Seoul and surrounding areas, health officials said on Sunday, as authorities struggle to contain the nation’s largest wave of coronavirus infection in nine months.

https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-southkorea/south-korea-tightens-curbs-in-seoul-as-covid-19-cases-hit-9-month-high-idUSKBN28G016?il=0

German hospitals are getting overwhelmed by the sharp rise of Covid-19 patients requiring intensive care as opposed to the early months of the pandemic, a hospital association head told local media.

“In states like Saxony, the number of patients in intensive care is five times higher than it was in April. Hospitals are either reaching their capacity limits or have already exceeded them,” Gerald Gass, the head of the German Hospital Federation (DKG), an umbrella group uniting regional hospital associations, told the newspaper Welt am Sonntag.

London (CNN) – When the United Kingdom became the first Western nation to approve a Covid-19 vaccine earlier this week, the news was greeted with praise from some health officials across the pond. But there was one notable exception.

Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths are at record-high levels nationwide, and officials expect the US will soon bear the full brunt of another surge of infections fueled by Thanksgiving gatherings.

“We have not yet seen the full effect of a potential surge upon a surge,” Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN Friday night. “The travel associated with Thanksgiving, the congregating at family and social gatherings with people indoors, sometimes without masks. So that may peak two to three weeks from now.”

Pennsylvania has reported another record day of new Covid-19 cases, recording 12,884 additional cases, according to the state’s health department.