Demonstrators of the "Io apro" (I open) movement face police during a protest against restriction measures to curb the spread of COVID-19, in Rome, Monday, April 12, 2021. Italian restaurant owners from all over Italy and others angry at having their businesses shut for weeks due to a virus lockdown scuffled with police Monday during a non-authorized protest nearby the Parliament in Rome. (Roberto Monaldo/LaPresse via AP) In this photo provided by the Michigan Office of the Governor, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer addresses the state during a speech in Lansing, Mich. Friday, April 9, 2021. Faced with the country's highest rate of new coronavirus infections, Whitmer on Friday urged a two-week suspension of in-person high school classes, all youth sports and indoor restaurant dining. (Michigan Office of the Governor via AP) Certified medical assistant Vernest Lacy administers a second dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to Theodore Heggler, of Benton Harbor, Mich., at InterCare Community Health Network, Friday, April 9, 2021, in Benton Harbor, Mich. (Don Campbell/The Herald-Palladium via AP) People wearing face masks walks past a beggar at a downtown street in Hong Kong, Thursday, April 8, 2021. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu) A member of the bar staff carries drinks to outdoor tables at the reopening of the Figure of Eight pub, in Birmingham, England, Monday April 12, 2021. Millions of people in England will get their first chance in months for haircuts, casual shopping and restaurant meals on Monday, as the government takes the next step on its lockdown-lifting road map. (Jacob King/PA via AP) A person receives the COVID-19 vaccine as members of the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra play at the vaccination center in Arena Nord in Frederikshavn, Jutland, Denmark, Monday April 12, 2021. (Henning Bagger/Ritzau Scanpix via AP) An elderly woman receives her first dose of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine at a clinic in Kitaaiki village, Nagano prefecture, central Japan, Monday, April 12, 2021. Japan started its vaccination drive with medical workers and expanded Monday to older residents, with the first shots being given in about 120 selected places around the country. (Yohei Nishimura/Kyodo News via AP) A health worker injects a Buddhist monk with dose of the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine in Bangkok, Thailand, Monday, April 12, 2021. Thailand's Health Ministry warned Sunday that restrictions may need to be tightened to slow the spread of a fresh coronavirus wave, as the country hit a daily record for new cases. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit) People wearing masks as a precaution against the coronavirus stand in a queue to board trains at Lokmanya Tilak Terminus in Mumbai, India, Monday, April 12, 2021. With its explosive surge in recent days, India's confirmed infections surpassed Brazil's total Monday as the second-worst hit country. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool) Devotees take holy dips in the Ganges River during Kumbh Mela, or pitcher festival, one of the most sacred pilgrimages in Hinduism, in Haridwar, northern state of Uttarakhand, India, Monday, April 12, 2021. Tens of thousands of Hindu devotees gathered by the Ganges River for special prayers Monday, many of them flouting social distancing practices as the coronavirus spreads in India with record speed. (AP Photo/Karma Sonam)
ROME — Police in Rome blocked hundreds of angry owners of shuttered establishments, such as restaurants and gyms, from reaching a square outside the Italian Parliament as frustration builds in business sectors over weeks of current pandemic lockdown measures.
The protesters took to the streets on Monday to demand that the government lift a decree that bans restaurants, cafes and bars from offering table or counter service through April. The owners say government promises of compensation for some of their lost revenues aren’t enough to feed their families and keep paying idle workers on payrolls.
Operators of gyms, cinemas, museums, theaters and concert halls are complaining they have not been given a firm date when they can open their doors to the public.
Premier Mario Draghi says unless the COVID-19 situation quickly improves and vaccination pace picks up, restrictions on dining at eateries will remain at least through this month. After being thwarted from demonstrating outside Parliament, many demonstrators moved to vast People’s Square to continue their protest.
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THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:
— Muslims are navigating coronavirus regulations for their second Ramadan in the shadow of the pandemic
— China's top disease control official said current vaccines offer low protection, mixing them is among strategies being considered to boost effectiveness
— Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine
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HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:
LONDON — An update to the U.K.’s official COVID-19 contact tracing mobile app has been halted because it apparently breached privacy rules laid down by Apple and Google.
The update was set to add new features to support the U.K.’s latest easing of lockdown restrictions on Monday.
The app, which runs on software jointly developed by Apple and Google, lets people record their visits to places like restaurants and bars by scanning codes. The updated version would ask users who test positive to upload a list of venues where they’ve checked in to help with tracing others with whom they might have come into contact.
But the BBC reports that would violate privacy-focused rules that ban the apps from using location data, so Google and Apple blocked the update.
“...We remain in discussions with our partners to provide beneficial updates to the app which protect the public," the Department of Health and Social Care said in a statement.
Apple did not respond immediately to a request for comment and Google referred inquiries to the Department of Health.
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WASHINGTON – A top Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official says surging vaccines to Michigan would not help the hard-hit state control the latest COVID-19 wave that has strained its hospitals and is raising concerns nationwide, because vaccines take two to six weeks to confer protection.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told reporters during a White House coronavirus briefing Monday that the answer in a crisis situation such as Michigan is facing is to go back to virus control basics and order lockdowns.
“I think if we tried to vaccinate our way out of what is happening in Michigan, we would be disappointed that it took so long for the vaccine to work, to actually have an impact," Walensky said.
Walensky explained that at the same time, diverting vaccines away from other states where the situation isn’t as dire right now could unwittingly seed the ground for future outbreaks elsewhere.
Michigan’s Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has called for the federal government to surge vaccines to her state, but the White House said last week Michigan had not ordered its full allotment of available vaccines. Federal officials say the current population-based formula is still the fairest way to distribute vaccines to states. Whitmer has shied away from ordering lock downs.
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NEW YORK — New government reports further highlight the differences in how severely the coronavirus has hit different racial and ethnic groups.
One study released Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that Hispanic Americans, Native Americans and Alaska Natives visited hospital emergency departments at a rate 1.7 times higher than white Americans did. That study was based on hospital data from 13 states in the last three months of 2020.
A more national report looked at hospitalizations from March through December of last year. It found that in every region of the country, the proportion of patients hospitalized with COVID-10 was highest for Hispanic Americans. It found the disparity eased a bit — but never ended — in the second half of the year.
The researchers said that the narrowing gap does not stem from any reduced risk for Hispanic people or those in other racial or ethnic groups. They wrote that it was more likely due to increasing hospitalizations of white patients during the surge in cases late in the year.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Monday that racial gaps continue, including in disproportionately lower numbers of Black and Hispanic Americans being vaccinated against the virus compared to white people.
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HONG KONG — Hong Kong’s leader says fully-vaccinated residents could soon be allowed to form “vaccination bubbles” that would allow socializing in larger groups during the pandemic, as part of incentives to encourage more people to get inoculated.
So far, only about 8% of the population has been inoculated since Hong Kong began its vaccination program in late February.
But the city’s chief executive Carrie Lam said in a news conference Monday that it would establish a travel bubble with Singapore, and that details would be announced soon. Similar plans for such an air bubble fell through last November following a surge of cases in Hong Kong, which led to months of stringent social-distancing measures.
Cases have since come down, and the city recorded no untraceable cases over the last few days.
Plans are also in place to allow a limited number of travelers from mainland China to enter Hong Kong without quarantine from mid-May as the mainland has achieved “zero infection.”
A ban on flights from Britain will also be lifted in May, although travelers will still be required to be quarantined for 21 days at designated hotels. Quarantine restrictions for fully-vaccinated travelers from low-risk and medium-risk countries such as Singapore, New Zealand and Australia could also be reduced.
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BRUSSELS — The one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccines have started to be delivered to the European Union on Monday, the first of 55 million doses which are expected to be provided to the bloc before the end of June.
EU Commission spokesman Stefan De Keersmaecker said the Johnson & Johnson deliveries “are indeed on track as agreed.”
About 105 million vaccine doses were delivered in the first quarter, a bitter disappointment since Anglo-Swedish company AstraZeneca fell about 90 million doses short of an initial commitment of 120 million. The other doses were delivered by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna with 65 million and 10 million doses respectively.
In the second quarter the EU is counting on 200 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, 35 million of Moderna, 70 million from AstraZeneca and 55 million from Johnson & Johnson.
The EU, with a population of 450 million, hopes to have 70 percent of its adults vaccinated by the end of summer.
Because it relies only on one shot, the Johnson & Johnson jabs are a key component of the EU’s vaccine strategy.
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LISBON, Portugal — The European Union’s crime agency says the COVID-19 pandemic has opened up new sources of revenue for organized crime, from online fraud to fake vaccines and illegal digital content.
Europol says “criminals were quick to adapt … in order to exploit the fear and anxieties of Europeans and to capitalize on the scarcity of some vital goods during the pandemic.”
The agency says the pandemic acted as a “catalyst” for new online fraud schemes and the sale of counterfeit medical equipment such as face masks, while unlawful sanitary waste treatment and disposal has become a focus of police investigations.
Europol’s Serious and Organized Crime Threat Assessment, published every four years and launched in Lisbon, Portugal on Monday, noted one setback for criminals, however: there have been generally fewer house burglaries because many people are working from home during
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BERLIN — The German government aims to agree on a bill Tuesday that would shift more powers from state to federal authorities to set pandemic restrictions.
The country’s decentralized political system has resulted in an often confusing patchwork of rules and regulations to reduce coronavirus infections in Germany’s 16 states.
Government spokesperson Steffen Seibert told reporters on Monday that the goal of the bill is to have a single nationwide rule for all areas where there are more than 100 new weekly cases per 100,000 inhabitants. Currently more than half of Germany’s 400 cities and counties have higher infection rates.
Some regions in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein with lower infection rates began reopening open-air dining in cafes and restaurants Monday.
The proposed bill would need to be passed by Parliament. Seibert said the government is already in talks with all parties to ensure that happens quickly.
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SEOUL, South Korea — Health officials in South Korea say Maryland-based Novavax has agreed to a licensing arrangement that will allow a South Korean biotech firm to produce its coronavirus vaccines for later this year.
Kwon Deok-cheol, South Korea’s health minister, said Monday that SK Bioscience plans to produce 20 million Novavax shots through September, all of which will be used locally. Production could start as early as June.
Food and Drug Safety Minister Kim Gang-lip, who joined Kwon in a news conference, said Novavax’s vaccines are currently being reviewed by regulators in Europe and Britain, but didn’t speculate on when the shots would be approved in major countries.
SK Bioscience is already producing vaccines developed by AstraZeneca at its manufacturing facility in Andong. South Korea has mainly relied on these shots since it launched its mass immunization campaign in February, but there are fears over possible shortages as officials wrestle with a slower vaccine rollout than many other developed economies.
While South Korea hopes to get 150 million doses of coronavirus vaccines this year through bilateral deals with pharmaceutical companies and the WHO-backed COVAX program, it has got just over 3 million doses so far.
A little over 1.15 million people have received their first doses as of Monday. Officials have so far maintained their goal of vaccinating 70% of the country’s 51 million people before the start of the new influenza season around November.
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MADRID — A Spanish pharmaceutical company says it’s setting up a new production line that would produce millions of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine doses on European Union soil later this year.
Rovi’s existing facility in southern Spain’s Granada will receive an undisclosed investment to produce the active ingredient of Moderna’s jab, the company announced Monday in a press release.
The expected output will be up to 100 million vaccine doses per year starting in the third quarter of 2021, Rovi said, adding that the production will be destined to markets outside the United States.
The facility will be the first of its kind in the EU, adding to the production facilities that the Swiss biotech company Lonza has been operating there.
Rovi had until now operated production lines to fill vials with Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, but the active component had to be imported into the country.
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LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has urged people to “behave responsibly” as shops, gyms, hairdressers, restaurant patios and beer gardens reopen after months of lockdown.
Monday sees the easing of restrictions that have been in place in England since early January to suppress a surge in coronavirus infections linked to a more transmissible new variant of the virus.
Many people were planning outdoor meals and drinks, despite unseasonably cold weather that brought snow to London and many other areas.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — are following their own, broadly similar plans to ease lockdown.
Britain has had Europe’s worst coronavirus outbreak, with more than 127,000 confirmed deaths.
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GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — The Gaza Strip has recorded the highest daily deaths since the coronavirus broke out in the Palestinian enclave.
The Health Ministry reported Monday that 17 Palestinians have died from COVID-19, bringing the death toll to 694.
Gaza is under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade and its Hamas rulers had managed to keep it relatively free of the virus by imposing obligatory quarantine on the few dozens returnees who cross in via Israel or Egypt.
But in August, the virus escaped the walls of the isolation centers and spread rapidly. After a significant decrease of infections in February, Hamas removed all precautionary measures and cases resurged.
The vaccination rollout is limited. The territory of 2 million people has received vaccines for only 40,000 people, including a shipment via the global COVAX program.
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TOKYO — Tokyo has adopted tougher measures against the coronavirus as it struggles to curb the rapid spread of a more contagious variant ahead of the Olympics in a country where less than 1% of people have been vaccinated.
Japan expanded its vaccination drive Monday to older residents, with the first shots being given in about 120 selected places around the country.
The tougher COVID-19 rules allow Tokyo’s governor to mandate shorter opening hours for bars and restaurants, punish violators and compensate those who comply.
Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike urged residents to be cautious while vaccinations are in an early stage. “We are still unarmed as we fight against the resurgence of the infections," she said.
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