As hospital pressure stabilizes, the government has begun lifting health restrictions. Follow here all the news related to the health situation in France and around the world.
9:16 p.m.
The pressure due to Covid-19 continues to fall in hospital services, particularly in intensive care, seeming to confirm that the ebb of the fifth wave is well underway, according to official figures on Saturday.
French hospitals are currently welcoming 31,522 patients with Covid (including 1,329 who arrived in 24 hours), down from Friday (31,939) and last week (32,867).
6:54 p.m.
Icelandic Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir has tested positive for Covid-19 from a family member, she wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday.
“My youngest son tested positive for Covid-19 on February 1. Since then, another member of our household has also contracted the virus; so it was no big surprise when I tested positive last night,” she wrote. The 46-year-old head of government will self-isolate at home for at least five days, in line with national recommendations.
2:43 p.m.
Norway lifted its latest anti-Covid restrictions on Saturday by removing social distancing instructions and the wearing of masks in crowded spaces, despite a spike in infections with the Omicron variant. “The distance meter is disappearing. We are removing the social distancing recommendation,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store told a news conference.
“We can now have social interactions like before, participating in night outs, cultural events and the like. And also when going to work on buses, trains and ferries,” he added.
09:22
Thousands of demonstrators marched in the Australian capital Canberra on Saturday towards Parliament to denounce the obligation to vaccinate against Covid-19, following the example of other such rallies organized around the world.
Protestors gathered, some with their children, outside Parliament, sometimes waving the Australian Red Ensign, a version of the Australian flag with a red background associated with the ‘sovereign citizens’ movement who believe that national laws do not not apply to them.
08:05
To lovers who are about to treat themselves to a romantic and torrid night for Valentine’s Day, health authorities in Thailand have repeated that when it comes to sex, you have to go out covered, including wearing a mask during lovemaking. .
“COVID is not a sexually transmitted disease, but you can catch Covid by breathing closely or exchanging saliva,” director of the Office of Reproductive Health Bunyarit Sukrat told AFP.
He therefore recommends that couples take an antigen test before their romantic night to avoid contamination.
07:50
Pfizer’s pill to treat Covid will arrive in China: the national medicine agency authorized it on Saturday “conditionally”, in this country where foreign vaccines remain awaiting a green light.
This antiviral treatment, to be administered orally, is marketed under the name Paxlovid. It was authorized at the end of December in the United States and in around forty countries since, including in the European Union. Studies have indicated that it significantly reduces hospitalizations and deaths in patients at risk of developing a severe form of the disease.
