By The Associated Press
MANILA, Philippines â The Philippine government extended a lockdown by another week Monday after an alarming spike in coronavirus infections continued to surge and started to overwhelm many hospitals in the capital and outlying regions.
President Rodrigo Duterte placed Metropolitan Manila and four outlying provinces, a region of more than 25 million people, back under lockdown last week as daily infections breached the 10,000-mark. Leaders of the dominant Roman Catholic church shifted its Holy Week and Easter events online after all public gatherings, including in places of worship, were temporarily banned.
The government-run Lung Center of the Philippines became the latest hospital in the capital region to announce over the weekend that it can no longer accept walk-in patients after its COVID-19 ward reached full capacity while its emergency room was now handling twice its capacity.
ROME â Priests, nuns and other people living in community settings are among the vaccination priority groups permitted under Italyâs revised national rollout. The country s Piedmont region is going a step further by opening a special vaccine center just for the leaders of religious communities.
Medical personnel at the Cottolengo hospital complex in Turin are set to administer the vaccine to official representatives of Buddhist, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, as well as Waldensian and other non-Catholic institutions in Piedmont starting Wednesday.
The shots must be given in accordance with the national plan that requires the general population to be vaccinated in descending order of age, beginning with individuals 80 or older or have grave disabilities, then moving down the rollcall to those in their 70s,
WASHINGTONâ The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized two changes to Modernaâs COVID-19 vaccine that can provide extra doses from each vial.
The agency said late Thursday it approved new vials from Moderna that can contain up to 15 doses each, compared with the original vials designed to hold 10 doses. Additionally, regulators said providers can safely extract up to 11 doses from the original 10-dose vials. Those changes will be added to instructions for health care workers.
The dosing updates should help bolster U.S. supplies and speed vaccinations as the U.S. nears 100 million inoculations against COVID-19. President Joe Biden has vowed to provide enough shots to vaccinate all U.S. adults by late May and recently set a new goal of administering 200 million injections within his first 100 days in office.
CARSON CITY, Nev. — Nevada is making all residents ages 16 and older eligible for the coronavirus vaccine starting April 5 as part of its efforts to inoculate the population
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Police inspect vehicles at a checkpoint as curfew is imposed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in metro Manila, Philippines a year after the country imposed a lockdown on Monday, March 15, 2021. The Department of Health has been reporting a surge in infections for more than a week, adding to concerns over a sluggish start of a vaccination campaign that has faced supply problems and public reluctance.
Aaron Favila - staff, AP
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks to the media during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Wednesday, March 17, 2021. Morrison said Australian government is ramping up its COVID-19 vaccination support for Papua New Guinea in a bid to contain a concerning wave of infections in a near-neighbor.