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MADRID (AP) — When the coronavirus pandemic was first declared, Spaniards were ordered to stay home for more than three months. For weeks, they were not allowed outside even for exercise.
NEW YORK (AP) — From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the top U.S. public health agency has been criticized as too slow to collect and act on new information.
Now, increasingly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also being criticized for moving too fast.
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — A dispute over COVID-19 testing fees for truckers has created a fuel crisis in Uganda, highlighting an economic impact of the pandemic in a landlocked country with virtually no fuel reserves of its own.
Some European countries such as Spain are making tentative plans for when they might start treating COVID-19 as an “endemic” disease, but the World Health Organization and other officials have warned that the world is nowhere close to declaring the pandemic over.
Emergency health workers in California Wednesday blasted hours-long waits to transfer patients from ambulances to hospital emergency rooms in what they said were chronic delays worsened by the nearly two-year coronavirus pandemic.
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has opened a new vaccine manufacturing facility that he says will boost the country's capacity to make its own inoculations for diseases including COVID-19.
AMSTERDAM (AP) — Amsterdam's Concertgebouw orchestra played second fiddle Wednesday to a pair of hairdressers. Vincent van Gogh's self-portraits were briefly upstaged by a nail salon and barber as civil disobedience to protest the Dutch coronavirus lockdown spread Wednesday to the cultural sector.
GENEVA (AP) — The number of new coronavirus cases globally rose by 20% last week to more than 18 million, marking a slowdown in the surge caused by the omicron variant's spread, according to the World Health Organization.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana House Republicans pushed through a proposal Tuesday that would severely limit workplace COVID-19 vaccination requirements even as the move faces resistance from Republican Gov.
GENEVA (AP) — The worst of the coronavirus pandemic — deaths, hospitalizations and lockdowns — could be over this year if huge inequities in vaccinations and medicines are addressed quickly, the head of emergencies at the World Health Organization said Tuesday.
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian authorities are shortening the required isolation period for people infected with COVID-19 from 14 to seven days as the country faces another surge of COVID-19 cases, this time driven by the highly contagious omicron variant.
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland's health officials say that the country has entered a new, fifth wave, in the coronavirus pandemic, predicting that it it will peak in mid-February at about 60,000 new infections per day or even more.
TOKYO (AP) — Japan's government is preparing social restrictions in Tokyo and other regions as the omicron variant of the coronavirus infects more people.
Japan has never had a lockdown during the pandemic but has focused instead on asking restaurants and bars to close early.
GENEVA (AP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping said Monday that his country will send an additional 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine to other countries, calling for global cooperation to tackle the pandemic and other challenges while urging other powers to discard a "Cold-War mentality” — a veiled swipe at the United States.
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told parliament on Monday that fighting the pandemic and strengthening defense are his government's top priorities.
Kishida delivered a speech opening this year's parliamentary session hours after North Korea test-fired two possible ballistic missiles — its fourth tests this month.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Her husband campaigned to help unite the country, but Jill Biden says “healing” a nation wounded by a deadly pandemic, natural and other disasters and deep political polarization is among her chief roles as first lady, too.
WASHINGTON (AP) — From the inaugural platform, President Joe Biden saw American sickness on two fronts — a disease of the national spirit and the one from the rampaging coronavirus — and he saw hope, because leaders always must see that.
WASHINGTON (AP) — From the inaugural platform, President Joe Biden saw American sickness on two fronts — a disease of the national spirit and the one from the rampaging coronavirus — and he saw hope, because leaders always must see that.
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Novak Djokovic was deported from Australia on Sunday after losing a bid to stay in the country to defend his Australian Open title despite not being vaccinated against COVID-19.
STRASBOURG, France (AP) — A World Health Organization official warned last week of a “closing window of opportunity” for European countries to prevent their health care systems from being overwhelmed as the omicron variant produces near-vertical growth in coronavirus infections.
COVID-19 infections are soaring again at U.S. nursing homes because of the omicron wave, and deaths are climbing too, leading to new restrictions on family visits and a renewed push to get more residents and staff members vaccinated and boosted.
HELSINKI (AP) — Denmark lifted a number of coronavirus restrictions and allowed the reopening of certain venues Sunday despite the spread of the omicron variant in the country.
Cinemas, zoos, museums and theaters were among the places that could welcome visitors again.
Get ready to learn more Greek letters. Scientists warn that omicron’s whirlwind advance practically ensures it won’t be the last version of the coronavirus to worry the world.
ROME (AP) — To mask or not to mask is a question Italy settled early in the COVID-19 outbreak with a vigorous “yes." Now the onetime epicenter of the pandemic in Europe hopes even stricter mask rules will help it beat the latest infection surge.
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's administration disputed the methodology and conclusions in a pending report that is expected to say there were thousands more coronavirus-related deaths tied to nursing homes and other long-term care facilities in Michigan than reported by the state health department.
The Czech Republic's new government won a mandatory confidence vote in the lower house of Parliament on Thursday with the coronavirus pandemic and soaring inflation presenting its immediate policy challenges.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two brand-new COVID-19 pills that were supposed to be an important weapon against the pandemic in the U.S. are in short supply and have played little role in the fight against the omicron wave of infections.
PARIS (AP) — French teachers voiced anger at the way the French government is handling the pandemic in schools, denounced confusing rules and called for more protection during a nationwide strike on Thursday.
Officials across the U.S. are again weighing how and whether to impose mask mandates as COVID-19 infections soar and the American public grows ever wearier of pandemic-related restrictions.
Distrust, misinformation and delays because of the holidays and bad weather have combined to produce what authorities say are alarmingly low COVID-19 vaccination rates in U.S. children ages 5 to 11.
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Spain’s medical community has scored a victory after a court ordered that a regional government must compensate doctors up to 49,000 euros ($56,000) each for having to work without personal protection suits during the devastating early months of the pandemic.
BERLIN (AP) — The Berlin International Film Festival is going to take place in person next month despite rising virus numbers in Germany, especially in the capital, organizers said Wednesday.
“We are aware of the challenges posed by the unpredictable course of the pandemic,” the festival management said in a statement, adding that strict pandemic measures would be applied to the 72nd edition of one of the world's most famous film festivals.
Scientists are seeing signals that COVID-19′s alarming omicron wave may have peaked in Britain and is about to do the same in the U.S., at which point cases may start dropping off dramatically.
GENEVA (AP) — The number of new coronavirus infections in the last week jumped by about 55%, although the number of deaths remained stable, the World Health Organization said in its latest pandemic report.
MUREHWA, Zimbabwe (AP) — Inside a sparsely furnished two-room home in rural Zimbabwe, a 3-month-old baby cries. His mother, Virginia Mavhunga, spends her days making trips to the well with a bucket on her head, selling fruits and vegetables at the roadside, cooking, cleaning, washing clothes — she has too much on her hands to offer her child, Tawananyasha, much comfort.
NEW YORK (AP) — For two years, coronavirus case counts and hospitalizations have been widely used barometers of the pandemic's march across the world.
But the omicron wave is making a mess of the usual statistics, forcing news organizations to rethink the way they report such figures.