Around the globe, virus cancels spring travel for millions

February 08, 2021

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — They are the annual journeys of late winter and early spring: Factory workers in China heading home for the Lunar New Year; American college students going on road trips and hitting the beach over spring break; Germans and Britons fleeing drab skies for some Mediterranean sun over Easter.

All of it canceled, in doubt or under pressure because of the coronavirus. Amid fears of new variants of the virus, new restrictions on movement have hit just as people start to look ahead to what is usually a busy time of year for travel.

It means more pain for airlines, hotels, restaurants and tourist destinations that were already struggling more than a year into the pandemic, and a slower recovery for countries where tourism is a big chunk of the economy.

Colleges around the U.S. have been canceling spring break to discourage students from traveling. After Indiana University in Bloomington replaced its usual break with three “wellness days,” student Jacki Sylvester abandoned plans to celebrate her 21st birthday in Las Vegas.

Instead she will mark the milestone closer to home, with a day at the casino in French Lick, Indiana, just 50 miles (80 kilometers) away. “I was really looking forward to getting out of here for a whole week. I wanted to be able to get some drinks and have fun — see the casinos and everything — and honestly see another city and just travel a little,” she said.

"At least it’s letting us have a little fun for a day in a condensed version of our original Vegas plans. Like, I’m still going to be able to celebrate. … I’m just forced to do it closer to home.” Flight cancellations will keep Anthony Hoarty, a teacher from Cranfield in England, from spending Easter with his family at their bungalow on the Greek island of Crete, a trip already postponed from last October. A trip to Mauritius last Easter also fell victim to COVID-19. “It’s the uncertainty,” he said. “You can’t plan things. It’s not knowing if the government is going to change its mind, if the other countries in Europe are changing their mind about travel.”

“I love going to our house - I'd walk if I could,” he said. They could holiday in Britain but with most people grounded, places may be booked up or expensive: “The chances of us doing anything are pretty remote, actually.”

At bus and train stations in China, there is no sign of the annual Lunar New Year rush. The government has called on the public to avoid travel following new coronavirus outbreaks. Only five of 15 security gates at Beijing’s cavernous central railway station were open; the crowds of travelers who usually camp on the sprawling plaza outside were absent.

The holiday, which starts Feb. 12, is usually the world’s single biggest movement of humanity as hundreds of millions of Chinese leave cities to visit their hometowns or tourist spots or travel abroad. For millions of migrant workers, it usually is the only chance to visit their hometowns during the year. This year, authorities are promising extra pay if they stay put.

The government says people will make 1.7 billion trips during the holiday, but that is down 40% from 2019. Each news cycle seems to bring new restrictions. U.S. President Joe Biden reinstituted restrictions on travelers from more than two dozen European countries, South Africa and Brazil, while people leaving the U.S. are now required to show a negative test before returning.

Canada barred flights to the Caribbean. Israel closed its main international airport. Travel into the European Union is severely restricted, with entry bans and quarantine requirements for returning citizens.

For air travel, “the short-term outlook has definitely darkened,” said Brian Pearce, chief economist for the International Air Transport Association. Governments have poured $200 billion into propping up the industry.

The United Nations World Tourism Organization says international arrivals fell 74% last year, wiping out $1.3 trillion in revenue and putting up to 120 million jobs at risk. A UNWTO expert panel had a mixed outlook for 2021, with 45% expecting a better year, 25% no change and 30% a worse one.

In Europe the outlook is clouded by lagging vaccine rollouts and the spread of the new variants. That means “there is a growing risk of another summer tourist season being lost” said Jack Allen-Reynolds at Capital Economics. “That would put a huge dent in the Greek economy and substantially delay the recoveries in Spain and Portugal.”

Travel company TUI is offering package vacations in the sun in Greece and Spain, but with broad cancellation provisions to attract cautious customers. Places that can be reached by car, such as Germany's North Sea islands and the Alps, are benefiting to some extent because they offer a chance to isolate. The German Vacation Home Association says the popular locations are 60% booked for July and August already.

Thailand, where about a tenth of the population depends on tourism for its livelihood, requires a two-week quarantine for foreigners at designated hotels costing about $1,000 and up. So far, only a few dozen people a day are opting to visit. Tourist arrivals are forecast to reach only 10 million this year from 40 million in 2019.

Gerasimos Bakogiannis, owner of the Portes Palace hotel in Potidaia in Greece's northern Halkidiki region, said he is not even opening for Western Easter on April 4 but will wait a month for Greek Orthodox Easter on May 2 — and, he hopes, the start of a better summer.

“If this year is like last year, tourism will be destroyed,” he said.

McDonald contributed from Beijing and Smith from Indianapolis. Elaine Kurtenbach contributed from Bangkok and Costas Kantouris from Thessaloniki, Greece.

UK PM Johnson faces criticism over Scotland trip in lockdown

January 28, 2021

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced accusations Thursday that he is not abiding by the country's lockdown rules as he visited Scotland to laud the rapid rollout of coronavirus vaccines across the United Kingdom.

With a raft of polling showing increased support for Scottish independence from the U.K., Johnson's visit to promote the benefits of the union stands to be overshadowed by the lockdown dispute. Although Scotland has its own government in Edinburgh that has an array powers from public health through to education, it remains part of the U.K. under which London still has huge influence.

“Mutual co-operation across the U.K. throughout this pandemic is exactly what the people of Scotland expect and it is what I have been focused on,” Johnson said. The U.K. has endured Europe's deadliest coronavirus outbreak with more than 102,000 virus-linked deaths but it has been among the world's leaders in rolling out a virus vaccination program.

During his trip, Johnson visited a laboratory at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, where coronavirus tests are processed, and met troops from the British Army who were setting up a vaccination center in the city, bumping elbows to greet some of the soldiers.

Johnson is arguing that Scotland is benefiting directly from his government’s approach to getting vaccine shots out quickly. Critics say the Conservative prime minister is politicking at a time when the U.K. is in a strict lockdown as a result of a huge resurgence of the virus that Johnson has largely blamed on a new variant first identified around London and southeast England.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has described Johnson's visit as “not essential,” in the same way that a visit by herself to another part of Scotland would not be deemed essential under current lockdown rules.

Sturgeon, whose Scottish National Party wants to hold another referendum on Scotland's independence, is way ahead in polls ahead of a general election in May, with some showing support at over 50%. Should the SNP win a clear majority, Sturgeon has said she will look to hold another vote on Scotland's future. Johnson, who under the law would have to back a referendum to make it legal, has indicated that he won't do so, arguing that as recently as 2014 Scotland voted to stay part of the U.K. by a clear majority.

Sturgeon argues the situation has changed dramatically since then because Britain has left the European Union, even though voters in Scotland overwhelmingly backed remaining part of the bloc. That break, which Johnson campaigned for, became a harsh business reality on Jan. 1.

In Scotland, Sturgeon's government has been widely seen as handling the pandemic well. At key moments, she is seen as having taken a more cautious approach than Johnson. Ahead of the visit, Michael Gove, a close ally of Johnson's, insisted the prime minister's visit was “absolutely essential” because Johnson has to ensure that the country's vaccine rollout is working properly.

“It’s critically important that the Scottish government and the U.K. government are working together to do everything we can to support the rollout and see what we can do to improve it," he told BBC radio.

Even Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labour Party, came to Johnson's support. “I’m with the prime minister on this one," he said on radio station LBC. “It’s important that he travels to see what is going on, on the ground.”

'Take every shift as it comes': No respite for UK hospitals

January 28, 2021

LONDON (AP) — When the U.K. surpassed 100,000 coronavirus dead this week, it was much more than just a number to Justin Fleming. Lying in a hospital bed with COVID-19, he knew how easily he could have become one of them, were it not for the medics and other staff who worked to save his life.

“I thought I might not see my partner again, my mum — be a dead friend, be just a stat,” said 47-year-old Fleming, who was rushed to King’s College Hospital in mid-January struggling for breath. His condition improved after two weeks of receiving oxygen on an acute care ward.

The scale of Britain’s coronavirus outbreak can seem overwhelming, with tens of thousands of new infections and more than 1,000 deaths added each day. But on hospitals' COVID-19 wards, the pandemic feels both epic and intimate, as staff fight the virus one patient at a time, and with no end in sight.

Fleming says he was amazed by the diversity of the “incredible” staff — including recently qualified medics, a nurse newly arrived from the Philippines and staff drafted from dental wards and brain injury teams — who eased his isolation and saved him from joining the roster of the dead.

“Because you have to be isolated (with COVID-19), you feel like you’ve just vanished,” he said. “It’s almost like you can become a non-person within a week." Fleming is one of more than 37,000 coronavirus patients being treated in Britain’s hospitals, almost double the number of the spring surge. King’s College Hospital, which sits in a diverse, densely populated area of south London, had almost 800 COVID-19 patients earlier this winter. A new national lockdown has seen the number fall to a still-challenging 630.

Critical care consultant Dr. Jenny Townsend works on a 16-bed intensive care ward that currently has 30 patients, with two beds squeezed into each bay designed for one. In normal times, one intensive care nurse looks after one patient. The ratio is now as high as one to four.

“We all feel very stretched and everyone’s mucking in to help each other with each of the roles that is required,” Townsend said. “We’re doing the best we can, and we’re doing it in very difficult circumstances. We try and deliver as close to what we do normally, but occasionally because of the number of patients, we have to prioritize what we can and can’t do," she said.

That is especially difficult because coronavirus care is labor-intensive. It takes a village of people and skills to treat each critically ill patient. One recent day on the ward, Townsend oversaw a tracheostomy, inserting a small tube into a patient’s windpipe to help him breathe without a ventilator — a small step toward possible recovery. Down the hall, family liaison officer Berenice Page held a video call to relatives from a patient’s bedside. More than half a dozen staff worked to “prone” another patient, carefully flipping them onto their stomach to help them breathe more easily.

Like others, this hospital had to adapt fast when COVID-19 first struck in early 2020, finding room for more patients and redeploying medical staff to work in unaccustomed roles. Wards were converted, staff were drafted in from other departments to the new COVID wards and expanded intensive care units.

Then, after a summer respite when cases plummeted, the hospital had to do it all over again when the virus came roaring back in the fall. Many staff find the struggle harder the second time around. “In the first wave, people’s energy levels were better because we were dealing with the unknown and we learned as we went along,” said Felicia Kwaku, the hospital’s associate director of nursing. “In this second wave it’s worse, because the patients are much sicker, the numbers are higher, the wave feels longer.”

Coronavirus patient Fleming, having seen the pandemic up close, says Britain’s overburdened medics “need credit now — and help and support.” “This is a significant historical moment and they protected the country," he said.

While the number of patients being admitted to London hospitals with COVID-19 is gradually diminishing, pressure on medics will only ease slowly because of the time lag between infections, hospitalizations and — for the sickest patients — transfers to intensive care.

That means ongoing challenges for staff like family liaison officer Page. Each day she phones patients’ relatives to update them on their condition, then takes a tablet computer around the ward, so that family members, barred from visiting, can at least see their unconscious loved ones.

“I find it a real privilege to be to be able to talk to them,” said Page, whose usual job is as a resuscitation coordinator. “You get a glimpse of the patient’s life when you’re doing the video calls, and you see (the relatives) sitting in their homes and some of them have got young children. And, yes, I do feel their despair. But I also I also know what a difference it makes," she said.

“We’re often talking to people whose relatives are going to die. It’s a very difficult situation. … I think that when they speak to us. I can say that they find some there’s some peace for them,” she added.

Kwaku said the pace of patients being admitted remains “relentless,” and implored lockdown-weary Britons to keep following social distancing rules. She said hospital workers take heart from the U.K.’s rapid rollout of coronavirus vaccines. More than 7 million people have received the first of two doses.

Kwaku says staff also get a boost from the patients who recover and go home, and take some comfort from those they offer “a good death,” free from struggle and fear. “You take every shift as it comes, you take every day as it comes,” she said. “You may fall down, and you get yourself up. You may feel low, you pick yourself up. You may have a cry. … But we’re here to care for patients and care for each other.”

Vaccine factory inspected amid EU dispute with AstraZeneca

January 28, 2021

BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgian health authorities said Thursday they have inspected a pharmaceutical factory to determine whether expected delays in the deliveries of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine are actually due to production issues amid a heated public dispute between the European Union and the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker.

The European Commission asked the Belgian government to inspect the factory in Belgium due to dissatisfaction with AstraZeneca’s explanations for its inability to deliver all the EU's expected doses on time. EU officials are under tremendous political pressures because the vaccine rollout in the 27-nation bloc has gone much more slowly than the ones in Israel and the U.K..

Chemical manufacturer Novasep's factory in the town of Seneffe is part of the European production chain for the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine. AstraZeneca said last week that it planned to cut initial deliveries in the EU from the scheduled 80 million doses scheduled to to 31 million doses because of reduced yields from its manufacturing plants in Europe. The EU said it would receive even fewer, just one-quarter of the doses that its member nations were supposed to get during January, February and March.

However, the bloc's executive commission said it remains confident that the AstraZeneca delay will not affect its plans to ensure that at least 80% of EU citizens over age 80 are vaccinated by March. Stefan de Keersmaecker, the Commission’s health policy spokesman, said that target is based on the availability of doses manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

“It is an ambitious target, but we believe it is a realistic one," he said. The EU, which has 450 million people, has signed deals for six different vaccines, but so far regulators have only authorized the use of two - one made by Pfizer and another by Moderna. The European Medicines Agency is scheduled to consider the AstraZeneca vaccine on Friday.

In total, the EU has ordered up to 400 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and sealed deals with other companies for more than 2 billion shots. A third round of talks between AstraZeneca and EU officials did not produce immediate results on Wednesday, but the commission still hopes the dispute can be resolved.

“What we have been discussing with AstraZeneca is how they can deliver to us as quickly as possible the doses which we believe are required in order to vaccinate the population," European Commission spokesperson Eric Mamer said. “We believe it is in the interest of European citizens."

More than 400,000 EU residents with COVID-19 have died since the beginning of the pandemic. According to the EU, the Belgian factory is one of four AstraZeneca sites included in the contract sealed by the commission and the company to produce vaccines for the EU market.

France Dammel, a spokesperson for Belgium's health minister, said experts from the federal medicine agency inspected the Novasep site. They will now work with Dutch, Italian and Spanish experts before delivering a report in the coming days.

“Manufacturing the COVID-19 vaccine is a pioneering process in terms of scale, complexity and quantity,” Novasep said in a statement to The Associated Press. “We have worked closely with AstraZeneca and conducted regular and coordinated reviews of the production processes to ensure the active drug substance was delivered on time and met the highest standards for quality and stability.”

Stella Kyriakides, the European Commissioner for health and food safety, said AstraZeneca should provide vaccines from its U.K. facilities if it it is unable to meet commitments from factories in the EU. She also made clear the EU would find out if some of the doses manufactured in the EU were diverted elsewhere.

“No company should be under any illusion that we don't have the means to understand what is happening," Kyriakides said. “We do have a knowledge of the production of the doses, where they were produced, and if they have bee sent anywhere, where this is."

Sylvain Plazy contributed to this story.

Dutch police clash with anti-lockdown protesters in 2 cities

January 24, 2021

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Rioters set fires in the center of the southern Dutch city of Eindhoven and pelted police with rocks Sunday at a banned demonstration against coronavirus lockdown measures, while officers responded with tear gas and water cannons, arresting at least 55 people.

Police in the capital of Amsterdam also used a water cannon to disperse an outlawed anti-lockdown demonstration on a major square ringed by museums. Video showed police spraying people grouped against a wall of the Van Gogh Museum.

It was the worst violence to hit the Netherlands since the pandemic began and the second straight Sunday that police clashed with protesters in Amsterdam. The country has been in a tough lockdown since mid-December that is due to continue at least until Feb. 9. The government beefed up the lockdown with a 9 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. curfew that went into force on Saturday.

Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhaus condemned the violence. “This has nothing to do with demonstrating against corona measures,” Grapperhaus said in a statement. “This is simply criminal behavior; people who deliberately target police, riot police, journalists and other aid workers.”

In Eindhoven, 125 kilometers (78 miles) south of Amsterdam, a central square near the main railway station was littered with rocks, bicycles and shattered glass. The crowd of hundreds of demonstrators also was believed to include supporters of the anti-immigrant group PEGIDA, which had sought to demonstrate in the city.

Eindhoven police said they made at least 55 arrests and warned people to stay away from the city center amid the clashes. Trains to and from the station were halted and local media reported plundering at the station.

A woman not involved in the protests was hospitalized after being injured by a police horse, police said. Police said more than 100 people were arrested in Amsterdam. Dutch media reported unrest in other Dutch towns Sunday night caused by people protesting against the curfew.

The violence came a day after anti-curfew rioters torched a coronavirus testing facility in the Dutch fishing village of Urk. Video from Urk, 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of Amsterdam, showed youths breaking into the coronavirus testing facility near the village’s harbor before it was set ablaze Saturday night.

The lockdown was imposed by the Dutch government to rein in the spread of the more transmissible variant of the coronavirus. Police said they fined more than 3,600 people nationwide for breaching the curfew that ran from 9 p.m. Saturday until 4:30 a.m. Sunday and arrested 25 people for breaching the curfew or for violence.

The police and municipal officials issued a statement Sunday expressing their anger at rioting, “from throwing fireworks and stones to destroying police cars and with the torching of the test location as a deep point.”

“This is not only unacceptable, but also a slap in the face, especially for the local health authority staff who do all they can at the test center to help people from Urk,” the local authorities said, adding that the curfew would be strictly enforced for the rest of the week.

On Sunday, all that remained of the portable testing building was a burned-out shell.

Peter Dejong reported from Urk.

Rioting youths in Dutch village torch virus testing center

January 24, 2021

URK, Netherlands (AP) — Rioting youths protesting on the first night of a Dutch curfew torched a coronavirus testing facility and threw fireworks at police in a Dutch fishing village. Police said Sunday they fined more than 3,600 people nationwide for breaching the curfew that ran from 9 p.m. Saturday until 4:30 a.m. Sunday and arrested 25 people for breaching the curfew or for violence.

Video from the village of Urk, 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of Amsterdam, showed youths breaking into the coronavirus testing facility near the village's harbor before it was set ablaze Saturday night.

The police and municipality issued a statement Sunday expressing their anger at rioting, “from throwing fireworks and stones to destroying police cars and with the torching of the test location as a deep point.”

“This is not only unacceptable, but also a slap in the face, especially for the local health authority staff who do all they can at the test center to help people from Urk,” the local authorities said, adding that the curfew would be strictly enforced for the rest of the week.

On Sunday, all that remained of the portable building used to administer coronavirus tests was a burned-out shell. Police in Amsterdam also were bracing for another protest Sunday, sending officers to a square where demonstrators clashed with police a week ago. The city's municipality designated the square a “risk area,” a move that gave police extra powers to frisk people.

Associated Press writer Mike Corder contributed from Otterlo, Netherlands.

Spain's virus surge hits mental health of front-line workers

January 24, 2021

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — The unrelenting increase in COVID-19 infections in Spain following the holiday season is again straining hospitals, threatening the mental health of doctors and nurses who have been at the forefront of the pandemic for nearly a year.

In Barcelona’s Hospital del Mar, the critical care capacity has more than doubled and is nearly full, with 80% of ICU beds occupied by coronavirus patients. “There are young people of 20-something-years-old and older people of 80-years-old, all the age groups,” said Dr. Joan Ramon Masclans, who heads the ICU. “This is very difficult, and it is one patient after another.”

Even though authorities allowed gatherings of up to 10 people for Christmas and New Year celebrations, Masclans chose not to join his family and spent the holidays at home with his partner. “We did it to preserve our health and the health of others. And when you see that this isn’t being done (by others) it causes significant anger, added to the fatigue,” he said.

A study released this month by Hospital del Mar looking at the impact of the spring's COVID-19 surge on more than 9,000 health workers across Spain found that at least 28% suffered major depression. That is six times higher than the rate in the general population before the pandemic, said Dr. Jordi Alonso, one of the chief researchers.

In addition, the study found that nearly half of participants had a high risk of anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks or substance- and alcohol-abuse problems. Spanish health care workers are far from the only ones to have suffered psychologically from the pandemic. In China, the levels of mental disorders among doctors and nurses were even higher, with 50% reporting depression, 45% reporting anxiety and 34% reporting insomnia, according to the World Health Organization.

In the U.K., a survey released last week by the Royal College of Physicians found that 64% of doctors reported feeling tired or exhausted. One in four sought out mental health support. “It is pretty awful at the moment in the world of medicine," Dr. Andrew Goddard, president of the Royal College of Physicians, said in a statement accompanying the study. “Hospital admissions are at the highest-ever level, staff are exhausted, and although there is light at the end of the tunnel, that light seems a long way away.”

Dr. Aleix Carmona, a third-year anesthesiology resident in Spain's northeastern region of Catalonia, didn’t have much ICU experience before the pandemic hit. But as surgeries were cancelled, Carmona was summoned to the ICU at the Moisès Broggi hospital outside Barcelona to fight a virus the world knew very little about.

“In the beginning, we had a lot of adrenaline. We were very frightened but we had a lot of energy,” Carmona recalled. He plowed through the first weeks of the pandemic without having much time to process the unprecedented battle that was unfolding.

It wasn’t until after the second month that he began feeling the toll of seeing first-hand how people were slowly dying as they ran out of breath. He pondered what to tell patients before intubating them. His initial reaction had always been to reassure them, tell them it would be alright. But in some cases he knew that wasn’t true.

“I started having difficulty sleeping and a feeling of anxiety before each shift,” Carmona said, adding that he would return home after 12 hours feeling like he had been beaten up. For a while he could only sleep with the help of medication. Some colleagues started taking anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs. What really helped Carmona, though, was a support group at his hospital, where his co-workers unloaded the experiences they had bottled up inside.

But not everyone joined the group. For many, asking for help would make them seem unfit for the job. “In our profession, we can handle a lot,” said David Oliver, a spokesman for the Catalonia chapter of the SATSE union of nurses. “We don’t want to take time off because we know we will add to the workload of our colleagues.”

The most affected group of health care workers, according to the study, were nurse's aides and nurses, who are overwhelmingly women and often immigrants. They spent more time with dying COVID-19 patients, faced poor working conditions and salaries and feared infecting family members.

Desirée Ruiz is the nurse supervisor at Hospital del Mar’s critical care unit. Some nurses on her team have asked to take time off work, unable to cope with the constant stress and all the deaths. To prevent infections, patients are rarely allowed family visits, adding to their dependency on nurses. Delivering a patient’s last wishes or words to relatives on the phone is especially challenging, Ruiz said.

“This is very hard for ... people who are holding the hand of these patients, even though they know they will end up dying,” she said. Ruiz, who organizes the nurses’ shifts and makes sure the ICU is always staffed adequately, is finding it harder and harder to do so.

Unlike in the summer, when the number of cases fell and health workers were encouraged to take holidays, doctors and nurses have been working incessantly since the fall, when virus cases picked up again.

The latest resurgence has nearly doubled the number of daily cases seen in November, and Spain now has the third-highest COVID-19 infection rate in Europe and the fourth-highest death toll, with more than 55,400 confirmed fatalities.

But unlike many European countries, including neighboring Portugal, the Spanish health minister has for now ruled out the possibility of a new lockdown, relying instead on less drastic restrictions that aren’t as damaging to the economy but take longer to decrease the rate of infections.

Alonso fears the latest surge of virus patients could be as detrimental to the mental health of medical staff as the shock of the pandemic's first months. “If we want to be cared for adequately, we also need to take care of the health care workers, who have suffered and are still suffering," he said.

UK chief scientist says new virus variant may be more deadly

January 22, 2021

LONDON (AP) — There is some evidence that a new coronavirus variant first identified in southeast England carries a higher risk of death than the original strain, the British government’s chief scientific adviser said Friday -- though he stressed that the data is uncertain.

Patrick Vallance told a news conference that “there is evidence that there is an increased risk for those who have the new variant.” He said that for a man in his 60s with the original version of the virus, “the average risk is that for 1,000 people who got infected, roughly 10 would be expected to unfortunately die.”

“With the new variant, for 1,000 people infected, roughly 13 or 14 people might be expected to die,” he said. But Vallance stressed that “the evidence is not yet strong" and more research is needed. In contrast to that uncertainty, he said, there is growing confidence that the variant is more easily passed on than the original coronavirus strain. He said it appears to be between 30% and 70% more transmissible.

Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization's technical lead on COVID-19, said studies were underway to look at the transmission and severity of new virus variants. She said so far “they haven’t seen an increase in severity” but that more transmission could lead to “an overburdened health care system” and thus more deaths.

The evidence for the new variant being more deadly is i n a paper prepared by a group of scientists that advises the government on new respiratory viruses, based on several studies. The British scientists said that although initial analyses suggested that the strain, first identified in September, did not cause more severe disease, several more recent ones suggest it might. However, the numbers of deaths are relatively small, and case fatality rates are affected by many things including the care patients get and their age and health beyond having COVID-19.

The British scientists stress that the information so far has major limitations, and that they do not know how representative the cases included in the analyses are of what’s happening throughout the country or elsewhere.

One analysis did not find an increased risk of death among people admitted to a hospital with the new strain. In another, the odds of being admitted to a hospital with the new strain compared to the previously dominant one were no different.

There is a lag in reporting hospitalizations after infection, and a further lag from infection to death, so officials expect to learn more in several weeks. Paul Hunter, Professor in Medicine at the University of East Anglia, said “there is quite a bit of difference in the estimated increased risk of death between the different analyses, though most, but not all, show increased risk of death,” he said.

Ian Jones, professor of Virology at the University of Reading, said “the data is limited and the conclusions preliminary. However, an increased case fatality rate is certainly possible with a virus that has upped its game in transmission.”

British officials say they are confident that the vaccines that have been authorized for use against COVID-19 will be effective against the new strain identified in the country. But Vallance said scientists are concerned that variants identified in Brazil and South Africa could be more resistant to vaccines, adding that more research needs to be done.

Concerns about newly identified variants have triggered a spate of new travel restrictions around the world. Many countries have closed their borders to travelers from Britain, and the U.K. has halted flights from Brazil and South Africa.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said there could be further restrictions. “We may need to go further to protect our borders," he said. Britain has recorded 95,981 deaths among people who tested positive for the coronavirus, the highest confirmed total in Europe.

The U.K. is currently in a lockdown in an attempt to slow the latest surge of the coronavirus outbreak. Pubs, restaurants, entertainment venues and many shops are closed, and people are required to stay largely at home.

The number of new infections has begun to fall, but deaths remain agonizingly high, averaging more than 1,000 a day, and the number of hospitalized patients is 80% higher than at the first peak of the pandemic in the spring.

Johnson, who has often been accused of giving overly optimistic predictions about relaxing coronavirus restrictions, sounded gloomy. “We will have to live with coronavirus in one way or another for a long while to come," he said, adding that "it’s an open question” when measures could be eased.

“At this stage you’ve got to be very, very cautious indeed," he said. Vallance agreed, “I don’t think this virus is going anywhere," he said. “It’s going to be around, probably, forever.”

AP Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione and Medical Writer Maria Cheng contributed to this story.

German virus death toll tops 50,000 even as infections sink

January 22, 2021

BERLIN (AP) — The death toll from the coronavirus in Germany has passed 50,000, a number that has risen swiftly over recent weeks even as infection figures are finally declining. The country’s disease control center, the Robert Koch Institute, said Friday that another 859 deaths were reported over the past 24 hours, taking the total so far to 50,642.

Germany had a comparatively small number of deaths in the pandemic’s first phase and was able to lift many restrictions quickly. But it has seen much higher levels of infections in the fall and winter. Hundreds of deaths, sometimes more than 1,000, have been reported daily in the country of 83 million people over recent weeks. Germany hit the 40,000 mark on Jan. 10.

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will leave a light shining in a window at his Bellevue palace in Berlin every evening starting Friday in memory of the dead and those fighting for their lives, his office said. He encouraged other Germans to do the same.

Steinmeier plans to lead a central memorial event for the dead after Easter. The lights are meant as a sign that “the dead in the corona pandemic are not just statistics for us,” Steinmeier said. “Even if we don't know their names and families, we know that every figure stands for a loved one whom we miss infinitely.”

Chancellor Angela Merkel echoed those comments this week, describing the recent death figures as “terrible.” Still, she said that daily infections are dropping and somewhat fewer people are receiving intensive care than over Christmas.

In Europe, the U.K., Italy, France and Spain, all of which have smaller populations, still have higher death tolls. The head of the Robert Koch Institute, Lothar Wieler, said this week the explanation for the high death figures is “relatively simple but relatively depressing.”

“The increase is simply linked to the fact that the case numbers went up so much,” he said. New infections peaked in December. On Friday, the Robert Koch Institute reported 17,862 new cases, down from 22,368 a week ago. Germany’s total so far is a bit over 2.1 million. The number of new cases per 100,000 residents over seven days stood at 115.3, after reaching nearly 200 a month ago. It’s still well above the government’s target of a maximum 50.

Germany's current lockdown was extended this week until Feb. 14 amid concern about the possible impact of virus mutations such as the one first detected in England. Authorities are trying to encourage more people to work from home, thus reducing the numbers who use public transport. Restaurants, bars, sports and leisure facilities have been closed since early November. Schools and nonessential shops followed in mid-December, and professional sports events are taking place without spectators.

Merkel says everyone in Germany will be offered a vaccination by late September. There has been frustration with the slow start to vaccinations; by Wednesday, 1.32 million people had received a first dose.

Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report.

Portugal sets records in one of world's worst virus surges

January 20, 2021

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Portugal’s new daily COVID-19 cases jumped to more than 14,600 to set a new national record Wednesday, as the country weathers one of the worst pandemic surges in the world. Health authorities officially reported 14,647 new infections — about 3,600 more than the previous daily record set four days ago.

The surge shows no sign of easing, with the government and health experts predicting it will peak next week. The number of COVID-19 patients in hospital and in intensive care also rose to new record highs, with 5,493 and 681, respectively.

“The gravity of the situation is clear for everyone to see,” Health Minister Marta Temido told reporters. The public and private health sectors and the military are all collaborating to meet needs, she said, but added that “resources are finite."

The pandemic has gained momentum in Portugal since Christmas, when restrictions on gatherings and movement were eased for four days. Portugal has the highest seven-day average rate in the world of new cases per 100,000 population and the second-highest rate of new deaths, according to data collated through Tuesday by Johns Hopkins University.

Overall, the country of 10.3 million people has 581,605 confirmed cases, and 9,465 confirmed deaths. In another worry for Portuguese authorities, a study by the country’s leading disease control agency said a new variant of the virus first identified in southeast England could represent 60% of new COVID-19 cases in Portugal within two weeks.

The study by the Dr. Ricardo Jorge National Institute of Health, based on data collected since Dec. 1, was published Tuesday. The surge is pushing the public health system, especially hospitals, to the limit of its capacity, and the government is scrambling to keep pace.

The assistant secretary of state for health, António Lacerda Sales, said the system is at full stretch. “We are doing everything in our power to increase the system’s capacity,” he told reporters. A field hospital with 58 beds was due to open later Wednesday in the capital, on the grounds of the Lisbon University campus.

To further relieve pressure on hospitals, authorities are opening more temporary medical installations at sites outside the health sector. The government said Wednesday facilities in such places as hotels, university residences and church premises will soon have 2,300 beds where patients can be kept under observation.

Meanwhile, authorities launched a program of rapid COVID-19 tests at schools in hardest-hit areas amid a severe surge in cases. Portugal is in lockdown, but the government is reluctant to close schools. It says that if schools close there are children who won’t get proper meals, who have no computer, no access to the Internet, and who don’t have their own room at home and get no help with their studies.

Some teachers are unhappy about the policy, however, and are pressing for a national school closure.

Germany to extend virus shutdown until mid-February

January 19, 2021

BERLIN (AP) — Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday that Germany is extending its pandemic restrictions, including the closure of schools and stores, until mid-February amid concerns that new mutations of the coronavirus could trigger a fresh surge in cases.

Germany's infection rate has stabilized in recent days, indicating that existing restrictions may have been effective in bringing down the numbers. On Tuesday, the country's disease control center reported 11,369 newly confirmed infections and 989 deaths, for an overall death toll of 47,622.

“All our efforts to contain the spread of the virus face a serious threat,” Merkel told reporters in Berlin, noting that experts have linked surging infections in Britain and Ireland to the appearance of a more contagious virus variant there.

“Now is the time to guard against the danger posed by this mutated virus,” she said. While individual instances of new variants have been found in Germany, scientists have said it isn't dominant yet, she added.

“There's still time, so to speak, to contain the risk,” said Merkel. In addition to extending the closure of restaurants, most stores and schools until Feb. 14, Merkel and the governors of Germany's 16 states agreed to require people to wear the more effective FFP2 or KN95 masks on public transport and stores. Employers will also be ordered to let staff work from home, wherever possible, to avoid office-driven infections.

Merkel said the goal remains to have fewer than 50 new coronavirus cases a week per 100,000 inhabitants. Germany's nationwide average is currently 131. The governor of the eastern state of Saxony, which until recently had the highest rates of infection in the country, said it was important to drive the number of new cases down further.

“We're currently seeing in Britain what happens when a mutation occurs, when the numbers explode," he told news channel n-tv. “We can't remain at this level.” Medical workers have been demanding an extension or toughening of the shutdown since many hospitals are still on edge, with intensive care wards and even crematoriums reaching their limits in some areas.

“The current measures on limiting social contacts seem to be showing an effect,” Susanne Johna, the head of the physicians' association Marburger Bund, told the dpa news agency, adding that the measures should continue to be upheld to further reduce new infections.

“We urgently need further relief,” Johna said. Merkel acknowledged growing concern in Germany about the impact that the restrictions are having on students, who face a further four weeks of home schooling.

“It's a big strain for schools, the eight weeks,” she said. “But if we had conditions like in London then ... we wouldn't be talking about schools anymore, we'd be talking about ambulances and overflowing hospitals. And we have to avoid that at all cost.”

Polling booths go to voters in Portugal's pandemic election

January 19, 2021

MONTIJO, Portugal (AP) — Local councils in Portugal sent out teams Tuesday to gather votes from people in home quarantine and from residents of elderly care homes before a presidential election being held amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Authorities have taken exceptional measures to ensure that voting in Sunday's ballot is possible, even with the country currently in lockdown. For 48 hours across the country, crews wearing protective clothing and accompanied by a police officer were collecting the votes of people who had registered for the service. The voters are given a ballot paper and privacy to mark their choice.

At an elderly care home in Montijo, a town 30 kilometers (18 miles) east of Lisbon, the visiting team set up a makeshift polling booth for eight voters Tuesday. Olivia Bibe, an 87-year-old resident of the home, went to the booth in her wheelchair and was thrilled to have her say.

“I was very interested to vote for a person I like very much and that I know will do a lot for everyone," she said. Her son-in-law, António Porfírio, said Bibe and her friends at the home were keen to vote.

“These small things matter a lot to them," he said. "They feel they are not forgotten and it is important while they are confined here in this period to feel that support and participate as usual.” All votes are kept for days in a locked box until deemed safe to handle and count.

The election is taking place against a backdrop of almost daily records of new COVID-19 cases, deaths and hospitalizations in Portugal. Tuesday's total of 218 deaths in 24 hours — a fatality every seven minutes — was a new high.

But fewer than 13,000 people -- about 15% of those eligible -- signed up for the vote-collecting service, officials said, amid complaints from voters that they were given too little notice about the possibility.

Authorities pointed out that residents of care homes were often outside their officially registered voting district, making it impossible for them to cast their ballot where they are living. On Sunday, 12,000 polling stations will be open, 2,000 more than usual, to help avoid large gatherings of people.

Early voting last Sunday drew a record turnout, with long queues forming in some areas. Some 10.8 million people, 1.5 million of them living abroad, are eligible to vote in the ballot, which will elect a head of state for a five-year term.

Barry Hatton reported from Lisbon.

Spain's rising cases give pandemic hospital a second chance

January 19, 2021

MADRID (AP) — As soon as the lifeless body is silently pushed away on a stretcher, a cleaning battalion moves into the intensive care box. In a matter of minutes, the bed where the 72-year-old woman fought for over two weeks for another breath gets rubbed clean, the walls of glass isolating it disinfected with a squeegee.

There is little time to reflect on what has just happened, as death gives way to the possibility of saving another life. “Our biggest source of joy is obviously emptying a bed, but because somebody is discharged and not because they have passed away,” said Ignacio Pujol, the head of this Madrid ICU. “That's a little space there for somebody else to get another chance.”

As a surge of infections is once again putting Spain’s public health system against the ropes, the Nurse Isabel Zendal Hospital that employs Pujol, a project seen by many as an extravagant vanity enterprise, is getting a fresh opportunity to prove its usefulness.

Named after the 19th-century Spanish nurse who took smallpox vaccination across the Atlantic Ocean, the facility was built in 100 days at a cost of 130 million euros ($157 million), more than twice the original budget. It boasts three pavilions and support buildings over an area the size of 10 soccer fields, looking somewhere between a small airport terminal and an industrial warehouse, with ventilation air ducts, medical beds and state-of-the-art equipment. The original project was for 1,000 beds, of which roughly half have been installed so far.

The Zendal opened to a roar of competing fanfare and criticism on Dec. 1, just as Spain seemed to dampen a post-summer surge of coronavirus infections. By mid-December, it had only received a handful of patients.

But Spain on Monday recorded over 84,000 new COVID-19 infections, the highest increase over a single weekend since the pandemic began. The country’s overall tally is heading to 2.5 million cases with 53,000 confirmed virus deaths, although excess mortality statistics add over 30,000 deaths to that.

As the curve of contagion steepened after Christmas and New Year's, the Zendal has gotten busy. On Monday, 392 patients were being treated, more than in any other hospital in the region of 6.6 million.

Spain's surge follows similar infection increases in other European countries, most notably in the U.K. following the discovery of a new virus variant that experts say is more infectious. The London Nightingale, one of the temporary hospitals across Britain designed to ease pressure on the country's overwhelmed health care system, has also reopened for patients and as a vaccination center.

Spain's top health officials insist they have found no evidence that new variants wreaking havoc elsewhere are contributing in any way to its own rocketing infections. Some experts dispute that, claiming the country's limited ability to sequence coronavirus cases is distorting reality and that a new stay-at-home order is necessary.

On the ground, increasing hospitalizations for the virus already surpass the peak of the second resurgence. Nearly one out of every five hospital beds has a patient with COVID-19. The new illness is also taking up one-third of the country's ICU capacity and non-urgent surgeries are already being called off.

Joined by some medical experts, left-wing politicians and workers’ unions accuse Madrid's conservative government of spending on vote-attracting hardware instead of reinforcing a public health system they have underfunded for years. Investing in contact tracing and primary care previously, they say, could have averted the need for a Zendal altogether.

“Rather than the success they boast, the filling up of this makeshift hospital represents a tremendous failure of those at the helm of the pandemic's response, and also a failure of all of us as a society that could have done better," said Ángela Hernández, a spokeswoman for Madrid's main medical workers' union, AMYTS.

The last straw for the unions, she said, has been the regional government laying off medical staff who refuse to abandon their positions in regular hospitals when they are reassigned to the Zendal. "The project has been nonsense from beginning to end," Hernández said. "A few beds without adequate personnel don't make a hospital.”

Fernando Prados, Zendal's manager, says he doesn't mind the debate but the 750 patients treated over the last month and a half have already taken significant pressure off other hospitals. “We have already contributed in one way or another," Prados said. "We know that we will continue to have COVID patients and once the pandemic is over this infrastructure will be here for any other emergency.”

Past automatic glass doors, patients recover in modules of 8 beds, leaving little space for privacy but providing better monitoring of possible complications in their recovery, said Verónica Real, whose challenge as the head nurse has been to organize staff teams drawn from other hospitals.

“Some of the sanitary workers arrive with a degree of anger for all the noise out there about our hospital,” Real said. “But once here, the attitude completely changes.” The Zendal's managers say a modern ventilation system renews the entire facility's air every 5 minutes, which contributes to a safer work environment. But they are most proud of the expansion of the intermediate respiratory care unit, where patients receive varying types of assisted respiration to overcome lung inflammation.

The unit's chief, Pedro Landete, says by admitting potentially worsening patients in one of its 50 highly-equipped beds, they are reducing the number of people who later require the more demanding intensive care.

José Andrés Armada arrived with mild symptoms at the facility after all his family was infected despite what he said was a very careful approach to the pandemic. But the 63-year-old's health quickly deteriorated and last week he was on the brink of being intubated in one of the Zendal's dozen ICU boxes.

“I know that the economy is something to safeguard, but health is more important. We should be in lockdown by now. You can’t have bars and other places open," the former entrepreneur said. “I never imagined it could attack you in such a way."

AP reporter Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.

UK bans travel from South America over Brazil variant fears

January 15, 2021

LONDON (AP) — The United Kingdom is banning travel from the whole of South America and Portugal amid concerns over a new variant of the coronavirus in Brazil, authorities announced Thursday. British Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said that as of 4 a.m. Friday, arrivals from more than a dozen countries, including Argentina, Chile and Peru, will be halted “following evidence of a new variant in Brazil.” Outside South America, the Cape Verde islands off the west coast of Africa and Panama in Central America were also slapped with travel bans.

And in a move that prompted consternation in Portugal, Shapps said travel from that country would also be halted because of its close links with Brazil, though there are exemptions for truck drivers from Portugal transporting essential goods. He said on Twitter that the move is "another way to reduce the risk of importing infections.”

The restrictions also apply to the Portuguese archipelagos of Madeira and the Azores. The ban does not apply to British and Irish nationals and third country nationals with residence rights in the U.K. However, anyone returning from the banned destinations must quarantine themselves for 10 days with their households.

The announcement comes just a few weeks after many countries banned travel from the U.K. following the discovery of another variant of the virus around London and southeastern England, which has been blamed for a sharp in new coronavirus infections and deaths related to COVID-19.

Brazil, for example, temporarily suspended flights from or via the U.K. as of Dec. 25 over concerns over that variant, which is believed to be around 50% more contagious. Portuguese Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva called the U.K. decision “absurd” and “without logic” and said he would seek clarification from his British counterpart.

In an interview with news agency Lusa published online by the newspaper Diario de Noticias, he said there was no evidence the variant found in Brazil had reached Portugal and stressed that all passengers traveling from Brazil to Portugal must be tested for the coronavirus within 72 hours of their departure.

“Suspending flights from Portugal with the argument of the connections between Portugal and Brazil is, with all due respect, completely absurd,” the foreign minister was quoted as saying.

Spain rejects virus confinement as most of Europe stays home

January 15, 2021

MADRID (AP) — While most of Europe kicked off 2021 with earlier curfews or stay-at-home orders, authorities in Spain insist the new coronavirus variant causing havoc elsewhere is not to blame for a sharp resurgence of cases and that the country can avoid a full lockdown even as its hospitals fill up.

The government has been tirelessly fending off drastic home confinement like the one that paralyzed the economy for nearly three months in the spring of 2020, the last time Spain could claim victory over the stubborn rising curve of cases.

Infection rates ebbed in October but never completely flattened the surge from summer. Cases started climbing again before the end of the year. In the past month, 14-day rates more than doubled, from 188 cases per 100,000 residents on Dec. 10 to 522 per 100,000 on Thursday.

Nearly 39,000 new cases were reported Wednesday and over 35,000 on Thursday, some of the highest daily increases to date. The surge is again threatening intensive care unit capacity and burdening exhausted medical workers. Some facilities have already suspended elective surgery, and the eastern city of Valencia has reopened a makeshift hospital used last year.

Unlike Portugal, which is going on a month-long lockdown Friday and doubling fines for those who don't wear masks, officials in Spain insist it will be enough to take short, highly localized measures that restrict social gatherings without affecting the whole economy.

“We know what we have to do and we are doing it,” Health Minster Salvador Illa told a news conference Wednesday, ruling out a national home confinement order and advocating for "measures that were a success during the second wave.”

Fernando Simón, the government's top virus expert, has blamed the recent increase in cases on Christmas and New Year's celebrations. “The new variant, even if it has an impact, it will be a marginal one, at least in our country," he said this week.

But many independent experts disagree and say Spain has no capacity to conduct the widespread sequencing of samples to detect how the new variants have spread, and that 88 confirmed and nearly 200 suspected cases that officials say have largely been imported from the U.K. are underestimating the real impact.

Dr. Rafael Bengoa, former director of Healthcare Systems at the World Health Organization, told The Associated Press the government should immediately enact "a strict but short” four-week confinement.

“Trying to do as little as possible so as not to affect the economy or for political reasons doesn’t get us where we need to be,” said Bengoa, who also oversaw a deep reform in the Basque regional health system.

The situation in Spain contrasts starkly with other European countries that have also shown similar sharp leaps in cases, increasingly more of them blamed on the more contagious variant first detected in the U.K.

The Netherlands, which has been locked down for a month, has seen the pace of infections starting to drop. But with 2% to 5% of new COVID-19 cases from the new variant, the country is from Friday requiring air passengers from the U.K., Ireland and South Africa to provide not only a negative PCR test taken a maximum of 72 hours before departure but also a rapid antigen test result from immediately before takeoff.

France, where a recent study of 100,000 positive tests yielded about 1% of infections with the variant, is imposing curfews as early as 6 p.m., and Health Minister Oliver Veran has not ruled out a stay-at-home order if the situation worsens.

Existing lockdowns or the prospect of mandatory confinement have not been questioned or turned into a political issue in other European countries. Ireland instituted a complete lockdown after widespread infections were found to be tied to the new variant. Italy has a color-coded system that activates a strict lockdown at its highest — or red — level, although no areas are currently at that stage.

In the U.K., scientific evidence of the new variant has silenced some critics of restrictions and spurred Prime Minister Boris Johnson to impose measures that are strict but slightly milder than the nation's first lockdown. People have been ordered to stay home except for limited essential trips and exercise, and schools have been closed except for some exceptions.

In Germany, where the 7-day rolling average of daily new cases has recently shot up to 26 per 100,000 people, many high-ranking officials are arguing that the existing strict confinement order needs to be toughened and extended beyond its current end-of-January expiration.

Nordic countries have rejected full-on mandatory lockdowns, instead instituting tight limitations on gatherings and certain activities. Residents have been asked to follow specific recommendations to limit the spread of the virus.

In Sweden, the issue is both legal and political, as no law exists that would allow the government to restrict the population's mobility. While urging residents to refrain from going to the gym or the library, Swedish Prime Stefan Lofven said last month, “we don’t believe in a total lockdown,” before adding, “We are following our strategy.”

Policymakers in Spain seem to be on a similar approach, although it remains to be seen if the results will prove them wrong. On Thursday, they insisted that vaccinations will soon reach “cruising speed.”

But Bengoa, the former WHO expert, said vaccinations won't fix the problem immediately. “Trying to live with the virus and with these data for months is to live with very high mortality and with the possibility that new variants are created,” he said, adding that the new variant of the virus widely identified in the U.K. could make the original version start to seem like "a good one.”

Dr. Salvador Macip, a researcher with the University of Leicester and the Open University of Catalonia, says the combination of spiraling infections and the uncertainty over the new variants should be enough for a more restrictive approach, but that pandemic fatigue is making such decisions more difficult for countries like Spain, with polarized politics.

“People are fed up with making sacrifices that take us nowhere because they see that they will have to repeat them," Macip said.

Associated Press writers across Europe contributed.

Myanmar security forces disperse anti-coup protesters

February 26, 2021

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Security forces in Myanmar's largest city on Friday fired warning shots and beat truncheons against their shields while moving to disperse more than 1,000 anti-coup protesters.

The demonstrators had gathered in front of a popular shopping mall in Yangon, holding placards and chanting slogans denouncing the Feb. 1 coup even as the security presence increased and a water-cannon truck was brought to the area.

When around 50 riot police moved against the protesters, warning shots could be heard, and at least one demonstrator was held by officers. Security forces chased the protesters off the main road and continued to pursue them in the nearby lanes, as some ducked into houses to hide.

The confrontation underscored the rising tensions between a growing popular revolt and Myanmar's generals who toppled the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in a takeover that shocked the international community and reversed years of slow progress toward democracy.

On Thursday, supporters of Myanmar’s junta attacked people protesting the military government, using slingshots, iron rods and knives to injure several of them. Photos and videos posted on social media showed groups attacking people in downtown Yangon as police stood by without intervening.

The violence erupted as hundreds marched in support of the coup. They carried banners in English with the slogans “We Stand With Our Defense Services” and “We Stand With State Administration Council,” which is the official name of the junta.

Late Thursday, police turned out in force in Yangon’s Tarmwe neighborhood where they tried to clear the streets of residents protesting the military’s appointment of a new administrator for one ward. Several arrests were made as people scattered in front of riot police who used flash bang grenades to disperse the crowd.

No pro-military rally appeared to be scheduled for Friday. In Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city, anti-coup protesters also took to the streets Friday. They included a contingent of Buddhist nuns holding placards that read “We Immediately Need Action by Force from US Army.” Other demonstrators carried signs reading “Free our leader Aung San Suu Kyi,” “Pray for Myanmar,” and “Reject Military Coup.”

By midday, security forces had blocked the main road in downtown Mandalay to prevent the protesters from gathering. Suu Kyi has not been seen since the coup. Around 50 of her supporters held a prayer Friday opposite her home in Yangon. The rambling mansion on University Avenue is where she spent many years under house arrest during previous military governments, and the residence has long had iconic status among her supporters.

“Because of the situation, on this day of the full moon we are sending love to, and reciting Buddha’s teachings for Mother Suu, President U Win Myint and all those unlawfully detained,” said Hmuu Sitt yan Naing, who joined the prayer group.

It is believed Suu Kyi is currently being detained in the capital Naypyitaw. She is due to face a court on Monday on charges brought against her by the military junta that are widely seen as politically motivated.

Several Western countries have imposed or threatened sanctions against Myanmar’s military. On Thursday, Britain announced further measures against members of the ruling junta for “overseeing human rights violations since the coup.”

Amid the international outrage, Facebook also announced Thursday it would ban all accounts linked to the military as well as ads from military-controlled companies.

Protests swell after Myanmar junta raises specter of force

February 23, 2021

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Protesters gathered in Myanmar’s biggest city on Monday despite the ruling junta’s threat to use lethal force against people who join a general strike against the military's takeover three weeks ago.

More than 1,000 protesters gathered near the U.S. Embassy in Yangon despite barriers blocking the way, but left to avoid a confrontation after 20 military trucks with riot police arrived nearby. Protests continued in other parts of the city, including next to Sule Pagoda, a traditional gathering point.

Factories, workplaces and shops were shuttered across the country Monday in response to the call for a nationwide strike. The closings extended to the capital, Naypyitaw. The junta had warned against a general strike in a public announcement Sunday night on state television broadcaster MRTV.

“It is found that the protesters have raised their incitement towards riot and anarchy mob on the day of 22 February. Protesters are now inciting the people, especially emotional teenagers and youths, to a confrontation path where they will suffer the loss of life,” the onscreen text said in English, replicating the spoken announcement in Burmese.

The junta’s statement also blamed criminals for past protest violence, with the result that “the security force members had to fire back.” Three protesters have been fatally shot. Trucks cruised the streets of Yangon on Sunday night, blaring similar warnings.

The protest movement, which seeks to restore power to the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and have her and other leaders released from detention, has embraced nonviolence. The nationwide strike was dubbed Five-Twos, for the five number twos in the numeric form of Monday’s date.

“I am joining the 22222 nationwide protest as a citizen of the country. We must join the protest this time without fail,” said 42-year-old Zayar, who owns a bottled water business in the capital. “So I’ve closed down my factory and joined the demonstration.”

Zin Mi Mi Aung, a 27-year-old saleswoman, also joined the strike. “We don’t want to be governed by the regime," she said as people marched and chanted behind her. "We will fight against them until we win.”

Thousands of people gathered in the capital’s wide boulevards, many on motorbikes to allow swift movement in the event of any police action. Reports and photos of protests in at least a dozen cities and towns were posted on social media. Overhead views, some shot from drones, showed massive crowds in six cities appearing to number in the tens of thousands.

There were pictures of a particularly colorful event in Taunggyi, the capital of Shan state, where scores of small red hot-air balloons were set aloft. A bigger one was adorned with a drawing of the three-finger salute adopted by the anti-coup movement. The city is famous for its annual hot-air balloon festival.

In Pyinmana, a satellite town of Naypyitaw, police chased people through the streets to arrest them. Reports on social media, including from worried family members, said police had arrested 200 people or more, mostly young people, and sent them to a military base. If confirmed, it would be the biggest mass arrest since the protests started.

The general strike was an extension of actions called by the Civil Disobedience Movement, a loosely organized group that has been encouraging civil servants and workers at state enterprises to walk off their jobs. Many transport workers and white collar workers have responded to the appeal.

On Saturday, a General Strike Committee was formed by more than two dozen groups to provide a more formal structure for the resistance movement and launch a “spring revolution.” The United States and several Western governments have called for the junta to refrain from violence, release detainees and restore Myanmar's elected government. On Monday, the U.S. said it was imposing sanctions against more junta members because of killings of peaceful protesters by security forces.

Lt. Gen. Moe Myint Tun and Gen. Maung Maung Kyaw add to other military leaders and entities facing U.S. sanctions, and Britain and Canada have taken similar action since the military takeover. The U.S. condemned the attacks on protesters, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement vowing to take further action if more violence occurred. “We call on the military and police to cease all attacks on peaceful protesters, immediately release all those unjustly detained, stop attacks on and intimidation of journalists and activists, and restore the democratically elected government,” he said.

Myanmar has been ruled by the military for most of its history since gaining independence from Britain in 1948. A gradual move toward democracy in the past decade allowed Suu Kyi to lead a civilian government beginning in 2016, though the generals retained substantial power under a military-drafted constitution.

Her party won last November's election by a landslide, but the military stepped in before Parliament was to convene on Feb. 1, detained Suu Kyi and other government officials and instituted a one-year state of emergency. It contends the vote was tainted by fraud and plans to reinvestigate those allegations before a new election is held.

Myanmar anti-coup protesters honor woman shot dead by police

February 20, 2021

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Anti-coup protesters in Myanmar's two largest cities on Saturday paid tribute to the young woman who died a day earlier after being shot by police during a rally against the military takeover.

An impromptu memorial created under an elevated roadway in Yangon attracted around 1,000 protesters. A wreath of bright yellow flowers was hung beneath a photograph of Mya Thwet Thwet Khine, who was shot in the capital Naypyitaw on Feb. 9, two days before her 20th birthday.

Her death on Friday, announced by her family, was the first confirmed fatality among thousands of protesters who have faced off against security forces since the military took power on Feb 1. Protesters at the memorial chanted and held up signs that read “End the dictatorship in Myanmar" and “You will be remembered Mya Thwet Thwet Khine.” The supporters also laid roses and rose petals on images of the woman.

Video from the day she was shot show her sheltering from water cannons and suddenly dropping to the ground after a bullet penetrated the motorcycle helmet she was wearing. She had been on life support in a hospital for more than a week with what doctors said was no chance of recovery.

U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price offered his government’s condolences Friday and reiterated calls on the military to refrain from violence against peaceful protestors. In Mandalay, the country's second-largest city, a protest led by medical university students drew more than 1,000 people, many of whom also carried flowers and images of Mya Thwet Thwet Khine.

Others held signs saying “CDM,” referring to the nationwide civil disobedience movement that has encouraged doctors, engineers and others to protest the coup by refusing to work. Across the country protests showed no signs of slowing down on Saturday despite recent crackdowns by the military government — including a sixth consecutive night in which the internet was cut for many hours.

Demonstrators also gathered elsewhere in Yangon, chanting and holding placards and images of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, whose democratically elected government was overthrown. Aerial images taken Friday showed streets in Yangon painted with the words “The military dictatorship must fall” in Burmese, and “We want democracy” and “Free our leaders" in English.

Security forces have been relatively restrained so far in confronting protesters in Yangon, but appeared to be toughening their stance in areas where there is less media presence. Police used force for a second day Friday to arrest protesters in Myitkyina, the capital of the remote northern state of Kachin. The Kachin ethnic minority has long been in conflict with the central government, and there has been intermittent armed struggle against the army there for decades.

The junta seized power after detaining Suu Kyi and preventing Parliament from convening, saying elections in November were tainted by voting irregularities. The election outcome, in which Suu Kyi’s party won by a landslide, was affirmed by an election commission that has since been replaced by the military. The junta says it will hold new elections in a year’s time.

The U.S., British and Canadian governments have imposed sanctions on the new military leaders, and they and other nations have called for Suu Kyi’s administration to be restored. The coup was a major setback to Myanmar’s transition to democracy after 50 years of army rule. Suu Kyi came to power after her National League for Democracy party won a 2015 election, but the generals retained substantial power under the constitution, which was adopted under a military regime.

Armenian PM slams 'coup attempt' as political tensions rise

February 25, 2021

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Armenia's prime minister accused top military officers on Thursday of attempting a coup after they demanded he step down, adding fuel to months of protests calling for his resignation following the country's defeat in a conflict with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has faced opposition calls to step down ever since he signed a Nov. 10 peace deal that saw Azerbaijan reclaim control over large parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas that had been held by Armenian forces for more than a quarter-century.

The opposition protests gathered pace this week, and the feud with his top military commanders has weakened Pashinyan's position, raising concerns about stability in the strategic South Caucasus region, where shipments of Azerbaijan’s Caspian crude oil pass through on their way to Western markets.

The immediate trigger for the latest tensions was Pashinyan’s decision earlier this week to oust the first deputy chief of the military's General Staff that includes the armed forces' top officers. In response, the General Staff called for Pashinyan's resignation, but he doubled down and ordered that the chief of the General Staff be dismissed.

After denouncing the military’s statement as a “coup attempt,” Pashinyan led his supporters at a rally in the capital, and he addressed them in a dramatic speech in which he said he had considered — but rejected — calls to resign.

“I became the prime minister not on my own will, but because people decided so,” he shouted to the crowd of more than 20,000 people in Republic Square. “Let people demand my resignation or shoot me in the square.”

He warned that the latest developments have led to an “explosive situation, which is fraught with unpredictable consequences.” In nearby Freedom Square, over 20,000 opposition supporters held a parallel rally, and some vowed to stay there until Pashinyan stepped down. Demonstrators paralyzed traffic all around Yerevan, chanting “Nikol, you traitor!” and “Nikol, resign!”

There were sporadic scuffles in the streets between the sides, but the rival demonstrations led by Pashinyan and his foes later in the day went on in different parts of the capital. As the evening fell, some opposition supporters built barricades on the central avenue to step up pressure on Pashinyan.

The crisis has its roots in Armenia's humiliating defeat in heavy fighting with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh that erupted in late September and lasted 44 days. A Russia-brokered agreement ended the conflict in which the Azerbaijani army routed Armenian forces — but only after more than 6,000 people died on both sides.

Pashinyan has defended the peace deal as a painful but necessary move to prevent Azerbaijan from overrunning the entire Nagorno-Karabakh region, which lies within Azerbaijan but was under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994.

Despite the simmering public anger over the military defeat, Pashinyan has maneuvered to shore up his rule and the protests died down during winter. But the opposition demonstrations resumed with new vigor this week — and then came the spat with the military brass.

Pashinyan fired the deputy chief of the General Staff, Lt. Gen. Tiran Khachatryan, earlier this week after he derided the prime minister's claim that only 10% of Russia-supplied Iskander missiles that Armenia used in the conflict exploded on impact.

The General Staff responded Thursday with a statement demanding Pashinyan's resignation and warned the government against trying to use force against the opposition demonstrators. Immediately after the statement, Pashinyan dismissed the General Staff chief, Col. Gen. Onik Gasparyan.

The order is subject to approval by the nation's largely ceremonial president, Armen Sarkissian, who hasn't endorsed it yet, prompting an angry outburst from Pashinyan. “If he doesn't sign my proposal to dismiss Gasparyan, does it mean that he joins the coup?” Pashinyan asked at the rally of his supporters. He urged the chief of the General Staff to resign voluntarily, adding that “I won’t let him lead the army against the people.”

The prime minister warned that authorities now will move more forcefully to disperse the opposition protests and arrest its participants. He bluntly rejected their demand for early parliamentary elections.

The political crisis is being watched closely, particularly in Russia and Turkey, which compete for influence in the South Caucasus region. Russia, worried about its ally plunging deeper into turmoil, voiced concern about the tensions and emphasized that Armenia must sort out its problems itself. “We are calling for calm and believe that the situation should remain in the constitutional field,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone with Pashinyan and called for the “preservation of calm and order in Armenia,” Peskov said. While the Kremlin emphasized stability, the Russian military didn't miss a chance to slap the Armenian leader on the wrist for debasing the Iskander missile, a state-of-the-art weapon touted by the military for its accuracy.

The Russian Defense Ministry said it was “bewildered” to hear Pashinyan's claim because the Armenian military hadn’t fired an Iskander missile during the conflict. It added that the Armenian prime minister had apparently been misled.

Armenia has relied on Moscow's financial and military support and hosts a Russian military base — ties that will keep the two nations closely allied regardless of the outcome of the political infighting.

And even though the peace deal is widely reviled in Armenia with many calling it a betrayal, it's unlikely to be revised — no matter who is in charge — following the fighting that demonstrated Azerbaijan's overwhelming military edge.

Turkey, which backed its ally Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, would relish instability that would further weaken Armenia. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said his country strongly condemns the coup attempt in Armenia and stands against all coup attempts anywhere in the world.

The U.S. Embassy in Yerevan urged all parties in Armenia to “exercise calm and restraint and to de-escalate tensions peacefully, without violence.” In Brussels, European Commission spokesman Peter Stano also called on rival sides to “avoid any rhetoric or actions that could lead to further escalation.”

Associated Press writers Vladimir Isachenkov and Daria Litvinova in Moscow and Zeynep Bilginsoy in Istanbul, Turkey, contributed.

Armenian PM faces military's demand to resign, talks of coup

February 25, 2021

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Armenia's prime minister spoke of an attempted military coup Thursday after the military's General Staff demanded that he step down after months of protests sparked by the nation's defeat in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan.

The General Staff issued a statement calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, which was signed by top military officers. The move was triggered by Pashinyan's decision earlier this week to oust the first deputy chief of the General Staff.

Pashinyan described the military's statement as a “military coup attempt” and ordered the firing of the General Staff's chief. He urged the military to only listen to his orders and called on his supporters to come to the streets to back him.

Meanwhile, throngs of opposition demonstrators swarmed the streets of the Armenian capital, chanting “Nikol, you traitor!” and “Nikol, resign!” Opposition supporters blocked the streets around Yerevan, paralyzing traffic all around the capital.

The quick-paced developments came after Armenia saw a spike in demonstrations this week demanding that Pashinyan step down. Protests calling for Pashinyan's resignation began immediately after he signed the Nov. 10 peace deal that saw Azerbaijan reclaim control over large parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas. The Russia-brokered agreement ended 44 days of fierce fighting in which the Azerbaijani army routed Armenian forces.

Pashinyan has defended the peace deal as a painful but necessary move to prevent Azerbaijan from overrunning the entire Nagorno-Karabakh region. Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan but was under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994. That war left Nagorno-Karabakh itself and substantial surrounding territory in Armenian hands.

Heavy fighting that erupted in late September marked the biggest escalation of the decades-old conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, killing more than 6,000 people on both sides. Despite the simmering public anger over the military defeat, Pashinyan has maneuvered to shore up his rule and the protests died down amid the winter's cold. But the opposition demonstrations resumed with new vigor this week, and the spat between Pashinyan and the top military commanders has weakened his position.

Pashinyan fired the deputy chief of the General Staff, Lt. Gen. Tiran Khachatryan, earlier this week after he derided the prime minister's claim that just 10% of Russia-supplied Iskander missiles that Armenia used in the conflict exploded on impact.

The General Staff responded Thursday with a statement demanding Pashinyan's resignation and warned the government against trying to use force against the opposition demonstrators. Immediately after the statement, Pashinyan fired the General Staff chief, Col. Gen. Onik Gasparyan.

Cyprus activists: Hunters' lead pellets threaten flamingos

February 21, 2021

LARNACA, Cyprus (AP) — Conservationists in Cyprus are urging authorities to expand a hunting ban throughout a coastal salt lake network amid concerns that migrating flamingos could potentially swallow lethal quantities of lead shotgun pellets.

Martin Hellicar, director of Birdlife Cyprus, said flamingos are at risk of ingesting the tiny pellets lying on the lakebed as they feed. Like other birds, flamingos swallow small pebbles to aid digestion, but can’t distinguish between pebbles and the lead pellets.

“Last year, we had tens of losses of flamingos,” Hellicar said. Cyprus is a key stop on the migration path for many types of birds flying from Africa to Europe. The Larnaca Salt Lake, a wetlands network of four lakes, typically welcomes as many as 15,000 flamingos from colder climates to the southern coast of the island nation in the eastern Mediterranean. They stay through the winter and leave in March. Other water fowl frequenting the lake include ducks, waders and seagulls.

Hunting is banned around most of the salt lake, but hunters are still allowed to shoot ducks in the network’s southern tip. The government's Game and Fauna Service says in the first two months of last year, 96 flamingos were found dead in the Larnaca Salt Lake wetlands as a result of lead poisoning. Cyprus Veterinary Services official Panayiotis Constantinou, who has conducted autopsies on flamingos, said lead from the pellets poisoned the birds.

The high number of deaths is mainly attributed to heavy winter rain two years ago that stirred up the lake sediment and dislodged embedded lead shot. A sport shooting range near the lake's northern tip closed nearly 18 years ago and authorities organized a clean-up of lead pellets in the lakebed there.

But Hellicar says the clean-up was apparently incomplete. A European Union-funded study is underway to identify where significant amounts of lead pellets remain so they can be removed. Preliminary results of the study showed “very high” lead levels in the wetland's southern tip and continued duck hunting there could compound the problem, Hellicar said.

“The problem is pronounced," he said. "The danger is real for the flamingos and other birds that use the area.” Cyprus Hunting Federation official Alexandros Loizides disagrees, saying that hunting in a 200-meter northern swath is not a problem due to the limited number of hunters. He said he’s unaware of any flamingo deaths in the area and faults pesticide and fertilizer runoff from nearby farms for creating any pollution problems hurting wildlife.

“I think the effect of hunting there is very small on the specific part of the lake,” said Loizides. “It’d be a shame for hunters to lose the only area where hunting is permitted near wetlands.” A ban on the use of lead pellets near wetlands has been in force in Cyprus for several years. A similar, EU-wide ban took effect last month but conservationists believe the laws are not being enforced enough.

Pantelis Hadjiyeros, head of the Game and Fauna Service, said it’s less important to ban hunting in the area than to convince hunters to stop using shells with lead pellets. “It should be drummed into people that the use of lead pellets is prohibited near wetlands and that only steel pellets are permitted,” Hadjiyeros told The Associated Press.