KINGSTON, Nov 22 (IPS) – When face-to-face Cabinet meetings resumed in Jamaica following more than a year of virtual meetings due to COVID-19, Ministers lined up to have their immunisation cards inspected.
Several nations in the Asia-Pacific region, richer and poorer, had slow starts to their immunization campaigns but have since zoomed past the United States and many nations in Europe.
The route is increasingly being used by wealthier Afghans, Iraqis, Iranians and Kurds aboard new or nearly new sailboats that can more easily avoid detection by authorities.
German Health Minister Jens Spahn has said that everyone will be immunized or succumb to the coronavirus in the coming months as he urged the public to get the shot.
“Probably by the end of this winter, as is sometimes cynically said, pretty much everyone in Germany will be vaccinated, cured or dead,” Spahn said on Monday.
The minister once again urged everyone to get vaccinated, but remained skeptical about making the shots compulsory. The minister said that herd immunity will be achieved, and “no compulsory vaccination will break this wave” of infections.
Spahn made his comments as some leading politicians, including those from the outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), have been calling for a vaccine mandate for all citizens amid the rise in Covid-19 infections.
Bavaria’s Minister-President Markus Soeder said on Friday the seven-day infection-incidence rate has “shot through the roof” among the unvaccinated.
“I believe that in the end, we will not get around a general vaccination obligation,” he said.
Similar rhetoric was recently used by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Speaking to Kossuth radio on Friday, he lashed out at anti-vaxxers, branding them a threat and saying they “will realize that they will either get vaccinated or die.”
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The number of musk deer in Mongolia has plummeted by some 83 per cent since the 1970s, landing them on the country’s red list of critically endangered species. A UN-supported biodiversity initiative is helping to stop the deer from disappearing altogether.
WASHINGTON DC/SAN DIEGO, Nov 22 (IPS) – The COVID-19 pandemic has had devastating effects across the globe, but the data and evidence show that women have borne the brunt of the crisis. While inequalities in health, economic power, and other areas existed long before the pandemic began, the pandemic has widened these gaps.
