VIENNA (AP) – Austria is implementing a lockdown for unvaccinated people in two hard-hit regions next week and looks poised to move forward with similar measures nationwide, Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg said Friday.
An NHS chief has been accused of spreading fake news after she claimed that 14 times more people are hospitalised with COVID than last year.
The UK will look to become the first country to make the coronavirus an endemic disease with annual vaccine booster shots, said Nadhim Zawahi.
The UK is set to change the definition of ‘fully vaccinated’ to mean three jabs and will impose travel restrictions on people with only two.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) – While people are now able to travel freely in Australia’s more populated east, COVID-19-free Western Australia will maintain its tight restrictions into next year, state leaders said Friday.
LONDON (AP) – Britain has granted a conditional authorization to Merck’s coronavirus antiviral, the first pill shown to successfully treat COVID-19. It is the first country to OK the treatment, although it was not immediately clear how quickly the pill would be available.
BERLIN (AP) – Germany’s outgoing health minister is calling on state governments to reactivate some specialized COVID-19 vaccination centres that were closed in the late summer to help administer booster shots as new coronavirus infections increase rapidly.
Security breaches in the EU’s vaccine passport system has resulted in health passes being granted to Spongebob, Hitler, and Mickey Mouse.
The West faces descending into a two-tiered society of the “jabbed” and “jabbed-nots” in which the unvaccinated will become “modern-day social lepers”, Brexit leader Nigel Farage has warned.
Mask-wearing has once again become mandatory in Britain’s House of Commons – for everyone except Members of Parliament.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) – New Zealand’s government said Tuesday it will expand a vaccine mandate to include thousands of workers who have close contact with their customers — including employees at restaurants, bars, gyms and hair salons.
An impact assessment conducted by the British government has reportedly found that rather than slowing the spread of the Wuhan virus, vaccine passports may serve to increase its transmission.
The first official weekend of enforcement of Scotland’s vaccine passport system has been described as an “unmitigated disaster” with foot traffic falling by as much as 40 per cent at some venues.
Failed U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has called on British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to “mandate vaccines” and to force companies to fire employees who do not take the jab.
People in Austria who have not been vaccinated for the Chinese coronavirus could face lockdown restrictions if hospitals are overrun, Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg said.
The French government is considering requiring a third jab of a coronavirus vaccine in order for people to continue to qualify for the country’s vaccine passport, which is required to access many public spaces including cafes, bars, and restaurants.
Dr. Anthony Fauci and National Institutes of Health (NIH) drew heat Thursday over a document that reveals gain-of-function research was funded at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Communist China.
The British government’s business secretary has seemingly “ruled out” lockdown restrictions being imposed during the winter months.
Members of the House of Commons were seen laughing as they extended emergency coronavirus powers for the government without an official vote.
Some workers of the Azienda Trasporti Milanesi (ATM), Milan’s public transportation company, are threatening to strike as the mandatory coronavirus pass comes into force in Italian workplaces.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) – Sydney will end hotel quarantine for vaccinated passengers when scheduled international flights restart in Australia within two weeks, officials said on Friday, while maintaining some restrictions on foreigners entering the country.
LONDON (AP) – British health officials said Friday that an estimated 43,000 people may have been wrongly told they don’t have the coronavirus because of problems at a private laboratory.
The Australian police officers who sprayed an elderly woman in the face as she was on the ground with pepper spray are under investigation.
LONDON (AP) – The British government waited too long to impose a lockdown in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, missing a chance to contain the disease and leading to thousands of unnecessary deaths, a parliamentary report concluded Tuesday.
(AFP) — Elated Sydneysiders were emerging from almost four months of “blood, sweat and no beers” early Monday as a long coronavirus lockdown was lifted in Australia’s largest city.
Sir Graham Brady said he will resist the mission creep of coronavirus vaccine passports into a social credit score “at all costs”.
Boris Johnson’s government has once again raised the spectre of imposing a vaccine passport scheme under a so-called “Plan B” for the winter.
London’s Metropolitan Police shut down a peaceful protest against vaccine passports and other coronavirus restrictions on Saturday.
Johnson’s government is counting on vaccines to do the heavy lifting against the virus, supplemented by voluntary “common sense” behaviour.
Unvaccinated Austrian populist Freedom Party (FPÖ) leader Herbert Kickl could be banned from attending large political events as the city of Vienna tightens its Wuhan virus rules.
Anti-lockdown protesters faced off with Melbourne police, forcing police vehicles to retreat as they smashed windows and hurled projectiles.
A frustrated Boris Johnson plans to press Joe Biden over his failure to act on a pledge to ease travel restrictions on British citizens, months after Britain did the same for American citizens.
Tony Blair said the government should begin vaccinating nursery age children and begin imposing vaccine passports to stop another lockdown.
Nigel Farage said that he will not “obey” any future coronavirus lockdowns if Boris Johnson once again backtracks on his freedom promises.
(AFP) – Officers used pepper spray and made over 200 arrests in Melbourne as several hundred protesters flouted stay-at-home orders and marched through an inner-city suburb.
The streets of France were flooded for the ninth straight week with protesters against President Emmanuel Macron’s vaccine passport scheme.
The British government will not mandate vaccine passports for nightclubs, cinemas, and other large public venues in England, Sajid Javid said.
Former Conservative Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith had begged his government to stop and reconsider what it would mean to introduce domestic vaccine passports, questioning whether it would be a “criminal offence” to go to a football match without one.
The government of Sweden announced all remaining coronavirus restrictions will be lifted this month, following a similar plan from Denmark.
“What a load of rubbish!” a lockdown-sceptic Tory MP replied when Vaccine Minister Nadhim Zahawi defended the introduction of domestic vaccines passports for nightclubs and claimed that it was not discriminatory.
