In Paris, restaurants, bistros and bars plead for work, aid

December 14, 2020

PARIS (AP) — While French chef Michel Solignac labored over his hot stoves, his baby son Nicolas would watch him from his playpen in the corner of the kitchen. The now 30-year-old Nicolas grew up with cooking in his genes and, quite naturally, took over the restaurant when his father hung up his apron a few years ago.

The coronavirus has now shattered their world. “A sledgehammer blow,” Michel Solignac says. The cash reserves that he squirreled away over decades for a rainy day when the restaurant was thriving have carried the business through this disastrous year. But the little that's left will be gone within six months if Nicolas can't reopen the restaurant and bring back paying customers soon, Solignac says.

“We have to cling on," he says. “His mother and I didn’t build all this just to watch it collapse.” Wearing his tall white chef’s hat, the 63-year-old retired restauranteur joined a protest Monday in Paris by bosses and workers from France's catering, hotel, event management and other service industries battered by the pandemic year, when the world-famous pleasures they offer have largely been put on hold in the name of curbing infections.

Ranging from mournful wedding organizers and out-of-work cocktail waiters to distraught chefs and anxious hotel directors, the crowd of around 1,000 people pleaded for respite, for more financial aid from the government and, for those forced by the government to close, to be allowed to earn a living again.

Waitress Sandra Barbette said she desperately misses “the sharing, the conviviality” of serving the regulars in her Paris restaurant shuttered like other French eateries and watering holes — except for takeout service — since October. That and other lockdown measures have helped bring down infections, but also have come at great cost to the French way of life.

“Clients have sent me text messages to say, ‘We miss you,’” Barbette says. “I love my job. I miss it so much.” Restaurant and bar owners who are getting government aid said the payments are merely keeping them on life support, but nothing more. The government has indicated that restaurants and bars might be allowed to reopen from Jan. 20 if infections don't surge again. But the economy minister said Monday that he couldn't guarantee that the date will hold.

While Solignac came to Paris to demonstrate, his son was back at their restaurant in the Correze region of south-central France, preparing takeout dishes. That lockdown business brings in only a fraction of the money they used to make, but it does help keep their minds off their many worries, Solignac says.

“Psychologically, I don't know how I would react if I was obliged to shut down," he says. “It really would hurt.”

London faces tightest restrictions; sees new virus variant

December 14, 2020

LONDON (AP) — London and its surrounding areas will be placed under Britain's highest level of coronavirus restrictions beginning Wednesday as infections rise rapidly in the capital, the health secretary said Monday, adding that a new variant of the virus may be to blame for the spread.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the government must take swift action after seeing “very sharp, exponential rises” in Greater London and nearby Kent and Essex. He said in some areas cases are doubling every seven days.

The surge of COVID-19 cases in southern England may be associated with a new variant of coronavirus, Hancock told lawmakers. He said officials are assessing the new strand, but stressed there was nothing to suggest it was more likely to cause serious disease, or that it wouldn’t respond to a vaccine.

“We’ve currently identified over 1,000 cases with this variant predominantly in the south of England, although cases have been identified in nearly 60 different local authority areas,” he said. Initial analysis suggests that the new variant is growing faster than existing variants, he added.

“The medical advice that we have is that it is highly unlikely that this new variant will impinge the vaccine and the impact of the vaccine,” he said. Britain started vaccinating people over age 80 and health care workers on Dec. 8 with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and its regulators are also evaluating other vaccines, including one developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University. Thousands have been vaccinated so far, but they must return in 21 days for a second shot. The National Health Service said hundreds of medical clinics across England were getting vaccine deliveries on Monday and would be offering shots by Tuesday.

Under Tier 3 restrictions, the toughest level in England’s three-tier system, people can't socialize indoors, and bars, pubs and restaurants must close except for takeout. People are told to minimize traveling within or to the area, and Hancock said people shouldn't take trips into central London to do Christmas shopping.

London is currently in Tier 2, or high alert, which applies to most of England. In November, the capital was among the areas with the lowest regional infection rates in England but some areas in and around London have now become virus hot spots.

Dr. Michael Ryan, the chief of emergencies for the World Health Organization, said the U.N. health agency was aware of the new strain reported in the U.K. and was working with British and other health authorities to assess if the reported mutations might change how the virus is behaving.

“This kind of evolution and mutations like this are quite common,” Ryan told reporters on Monday, adding there was “no information that suggests” this virus variant is more deadly or spreads more easily between people.

Viruses like COVID-19 mutate constantly as they spread between people and scientists say most mutations have little impact on human disease. Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19, said the agency had “no evidence this variant behaves differently” and that it was similar to a variant initially reported among mink in Europe. She said scientists would further study the new variant to see if there might be any difference in how it prompted an immune response in people.

Local officials in some of London's boroughs had already advised schools to close and move to online learning as coronavirus cases spiked. On Sunday, officials in southeast London's Greenwich said the borough was experiencing “exponential growth” in cases, with infection rates now at their highest since March.

London Mayor Sadiq Kahn has suggested that the Conservative government ask all secondary schools and colleges in London to shut down early before Christmas because of outbreaks among students from 10 to 19 years old.

The tougher restrictions will be a further blow to restaurants, pubs and the West End's famous theaters, which have just reopened for business in the busy Christmas period after a four-week national lockdown lifted on Dec. 2.

“We’ve already put so much money into restocking — that’s where my heart bleeds a little bit,” said Clover Eziashi, who runs restaurant and bar Lounge Brixton. “We’ve geared up for Christmas, what are we going to do with all of this stock?”

On Sunday, Italy surpassed Britain to become the nation with the highest number of confirmed coronavirus deaths in Europe, but both have over 64,000 deaths each, according to Johns Hopkins University. Experts say those tallies still undercount the impact of the virus, due to limited testing and missed cases.

AP medical writer Maria Cheng contributed from Toronto.

Dutch leader announces tough new nationwide virus lockdown

December 14, 2020

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte imposed a tough new five-week nationwide lockdown Monday, saying schools, nonessential shops, museums and gyms will close down at midnight until Jan. 19.

“We have to bite through this very sour apple before things get better,” a somber Rutte said in a televised address to the nation. As Rutte spoke from his office in The Hague, protesters could be heard blowing whistles outside.

“The reality is that this is is not an innocent flu as some people — like the demonstrators outside — think,” Rutte said. "But a virus that can hit everybody hard.” From Tuesday, all non-essential shops will close until Jan. 19 along with businesses such as hair salons, museums and theaters. All schools and universities will have to switch to remote learning from Wednesday. Child daycare centers will be closed to all except children of key workers.

The government also urged people to receive a maximum of two guests over the age of 13 per day, but relaxed the rule slightly for Dec. 24-26, saying three people can visit on those normally festive days.

“We realize as a Cabinet how intense and drastic the measures we are taking today are,” Rutte said. “Especially so close to Christmas.” As news of the looming lockdown leaked out before Rutte’s speech, many people keen to take their last chance at Christmas shopping flocked into city centers.

Lines formed Monday afternoon at shops, museums and even pot-selling coffee shops as people tried to beat the lockdown. “It's ridiculous at the moment,” said Bart van der Wal at the Tweede Kamer coffeeshop in a narrow alley near Amsterdam's famous canals, where clients were lined up around the corner. “Everybody thinks the coffeeshops will be closed tomorrow.”

Van der Wal said he hoped coffeeshops would be allowed to stay open for takeout “because otherwise people will deal on the street.” Bars and restaurants have been closed since mid-October, although many restaurants, cafes and coffeeshops have offered takeout sales. The partial lockdown initially slowed high infection rates, but they have been rising again in recent days.

The 7-day rolling average of daily new cases in Netherlands has risen over the past two weeks from 29.22 new cases per 100,000 people on Nov. 29 to 47.47 per 100,000 people on Dec. 13. “It's serious. It's very serious,” Health Minister Hugo de Jonge said Monday ahead of a Cabinet meeting to discuss action to rein in the spread of the virus. “We see the infection numbers rising sharply in recent days, we see that hospital admissions are increasing again, the pressure on the health care sector remains high.”

Rutte's speech Monday evening came a day after neighboring Germany announced similar coronavirus restrictions in an attempt to reduce its stubbornly high infection rates. Those measures also go well into January.

And earlier Monday, British Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced that London and surrounding areas will be placed under the highest level of coronavirus restrictions from Wednesday in a bid to slow sharply rising infection rates.

Under Tier 3 restrictions, the toughest level in England’s three-tier system, people can’t socialize indoors and bars, pubs and restaurants must close except for takeout. Around 10,000 people in the Netherlands are confirmed to have died of COVID-19 since the start of the outbreak.

Rutte said that with vaccinations starting in the new year, 2021 would be a year “of hope, of light at the end of the tunnel.”

Italy surpasses UK for worst COVID-19 death toll in Europe

December 13, 2020

ROME (AP) — Italy on Sunday eclipsed Britain to become the nation with the worst official coronavirus death toll in Europe. Italy, where the continent's pandemic began, registered 484 COVID-19 deaths in one day, one of its lowest one-day death counts in about a month.

Still, those latest deaths pushed Italy's official toll up to 64,520, while Britain's stood at 64,267, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Both numbers understate the true toll of the pandemic. Counting criteria differ in the two countries, and many coronavirus deaths, especially early in the pandemic, are believed to have gone undetected, including those of elderly people in nursing homes who were not tested for COVID-19.

Among the reasons cited for Italy's high death toll was it that was the first country in Europe to be slammed in the pandemic, leaving health workers to grapple with a largely unknown virus. Italy also has a lower ratio of medical staff to patients compared to other European nations.

Germany, a nation much bigger than Italy, has a death toll one-third of Italy's or Britain's. A little more than half of Italy's known COVID-19 deaths were registered in the first surge. On Sunday, Italy reported another 17,938 coronavirus infections to raise its official tally to 1.84 million.

By far, the region registering the highest number of new infections was the northern region of Veneto. Italy's Lombardy region has the highest number of cases and deaths overall. Largely heeding the advice of medical experts, Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte has tightened travel rules for the period straddling Christmas, New Year's and Epiphany Day holidays. Starting on Dec. 21 and running through Jan. 6, people in Italy won't be able to travel between regions except for work or urgent reasons such as health problems.

On the holidays themselves, under the nationwide restrictions, Italians can't leave their towns, as the government seeks to discourage families and friends from gathering in large numbers indoors.

Italy's staggering virus toll poses uncomfortable questions

December 13, 2020

ROME (AP) — Italy is reclaiming a record that nobody wants — the most coronavirus deaths in Europe — after the health care system again failed to protect the elderly and government authorities delayed imposing new restrictions.

This wasn't supposed to happen. Italy was the first country in the West to be slammed by COVID-19 and, after suffering a huge wave of death in spring, brought infections under control. Italy then had the benefit of time and experience heading into the fall resurgence because it trailed Spain, France and Germany in recording big new clusters of infections. Yet the virus spread fast and wide, and Italy has added nearly 29,000 dead since Sept. 1.

“Obviously there needs to be some reflection,” Guido Rasi, former executive director of the European Pharmaceutical Agency, told state TV after Italy reported a pandemic-high record of 993 deaths in one day. “This number of nearly 1,000 dead in 24 hours is much higher than the European average.”

Italy added 649 more victims Saturday, bringing its official total to 64,036. According to the official British government total of 64,024, Italy did overtake Britain, though the Johns Hopkins University tally late Saturday still showed Britain leading Europe with 64,123 dead. Both numbers are believed to greatly underestimate the real toll, due to missed infections, limited testing and different counting criteria.

Italy is taking over the dishonorable ranking despite having 6 million people fewer than the U.K.'s 66 million, to trail only the much larger U.S., Brazil, India and Mexico. According to the Hopkins tally, Italy has the most deaths per 100,000 population among the most affected countries.

Public health officials argue that Italy has the world's second-oldest population after Japan, and the elderly are the most vulnerable to the virus. The average age of Italian victims has hovered around 80. In addition, 65% of Italy’s COVID-19 dead had three or more other health problems before they tested positive, such as hypertension or diabetes, according to Italy’s Superior Institute of Health.

But that doesn’t explain the whole picture. Germany has a similarly old demographic and yet its death toll is one-third of Italy's despite its larger population of 83 million. Germany recorded its highest daily number of coronavirus victims Friday — 598 — but has 21,500 dead overall.

Analysts point to Germany’s long-term higher per-capita spending on health care, which has resulted in greater ICU capacity, better testing and tracing capabilities and higher ratios of doctors and nurses to the population. But Germany also imposed an earlier, lighter lockdown this fall and is now poised to tighten it.

“If you can act sooner, even a bit lighter in the measures, they work better than acting harshly a bit later or too late,” said Matteo Villa, research fellow at the Institute for International Political Studies, a Milan-based think tank.

Italy, he said, waited too long after infections started ticking up in September and October to impose restrictions and didn't reinforce its medical system sufficiently during the summertime lull. “If you look at France and the U.K., you can see Italy did fare much worse,” he said. “And if you look at a comparable population with similar demographics, which is Germany, Italy did a lot worse.”

With another wave of infections feared to be just around the corner with Christmas visits and the winter flu season, many are wondering how many more will die. Doctors have blamed systemic problems with Italy’s health care system, especially in hardest-hit Lombardy, for failing to respond adequately. They have cited the growth of private hospitals in Lombardy in recent years at the expense of public ones. Brain drain and bureaucratic obstacles have resulted in fewer doctors going into practice, while general practitioners have complained of a lack of support despite being the backbone of the system.

Nearly 80,000 Italian health care workers have been infected and 255 doctors have died. “We asked for a lockdown at the start of November because the situation inside hospitals was already difficult,” said Dr. Filippo Anelli, head of the country's doctors' association. “We saw that it worked in the spring and allowed us to get out from under COVID. If this had been done, probably today the numbers would be coming down.”

But the Italian government resisted re-imposing a nationwide lockdown this fall, knowing the devastating impact on an economy that was just starting to come back to life after the springtime shutdown.

Instead, on Nov. 3 the government divided the country into three risk zones with varying restrictions. But by then infections had been doubling each week for nearly a month and hospitals were already overwhelmed in Milan and Naples.

Italy also went into the pandemic poorly prepared. It had fewer per capita ICU beds than the average of developed countries. And in recent weeks, investigative news reports have noted that Italy hadn’t updated its influenza pandemic preparedness plan since 2006 — which could help explain its critical shortage of protective equipment early on and its chaotic initial response to the pandemic.

A World Health Organization report, which was posted and then immediately taken down from the WHO website, noted that Italy's 2006 plan was merely “reconfirmed in 2017” without being updated. The report said the plan was “more theoretical than practical” and that when COVID-19 hit, all hell broke loose.

“Unprepared for such a flood of severely ill patients, the initial reaction of the hospitals was improvised, chaotic and creative,” said the report. The U.N. health agency said it removed the report because it contained “inaccuracies and inconsistencies,” and then decided not to republish it because it developed other ways to assess countries’ responses.

Italy also ranked 31st — between Indonesia and Poland — in a 2019 survey of 195 countries compiled by the Global Health Security Index assessing abilities to respond to a pandemic or other health care crisis. Italy scored particularly poorly in emergency response, preparedness, and communications with health care workers during a crisis.

Government officials admit they were caught unprepared but have strongly defended their response to the resurgence as scientifically sound and proportional to prevent the economy from collapsing. Domenico Arcuri, the government’s virus commissioner, said Thursday that the November restrictions were flattening Italy's infection curve.

“Daily infections are coming down, hospital admissions are coming down, the number of people who unfortunately are admitted to intensive care (is) coming down,” Arcuri said. That is small comfort to Marcella Polla, who announced the death of her 90-year-old aunt on Facebook Dec. 6, saying she caught the virus in a hospital in October after complications following an angioplasty.

“My aunt was tough, made of Trentino fiber,” Polla wrote in explaining the extraordinary photo she posted of her aunt, holding herself up on a set of gymnastics rings this year. “I want to remember her like this, even though the thought of her and so many others dying alone and then being put in a body bag torments me.”

Italians told to celebrate Christmas at home to fight virus

December 03, 2020

MILAN (AP) — Italy recorded a pandemic-high daily death toll Thursday, providing a grim backdrop for Premier Giuseppe Conte’s cheerless announcement of restrictions for the Christmas holidays that will make it difficult for extended families to celebrate together as is customary.

Italians like to say, “Christmas with family, Easter with whomever you please,’’ underlining the sacrosanct notion of spending Christmas and St. Stefano’s feast day on Dec. 26 with as much far-flung family as possible. Even regional governors, including Luca Zaia of Veneto and Attilio Fontana of Lombardy, pushed vainly for more flexibility.

Conte stood firm. While Italy has managed to slow the fall resurgence with a month of tiered restrictions, without resorting to last spring’s 10-week total lockdown, the death toll remains stubbornly high. A total of 993 people died in the previous 24 hours, officials reported Thursday, eclipsing the previous high of 969 hit March 27 as Italy struggled to contain the first deadly peak.

Health experts and policy makers alike remain concerned that a Christmas “as usual” would bring a third surge to Italy, the first Western country to confirm a locally spread case of COVID-19 on Feb. 21. Italy’s death toll stands at 58,038, second in Europe to Britain, while 1.6 million Italians have been infected -- one out of every 35 residents.

“There is still a long way to go out of the pandemic,’’ Conte said. “We must avoid the risk of a third wave that could arrive as early as January. It could be just as violent as the first and the second.”

New measures that take effect Friday include a ban on traveling outside home regions from Dec. 21 through Jan. 6, even to second homes. No ski lifts can operate until Jan. 7, after the Epiphany holiday marking the end of the school break. No one is permitted to leave their towns or cities of residence on Dec. 25-26 and Jan. 1.

Despite threats otherwise, the government is allowing hotels to stay open. But anyone planning to celebrate New Year’s Eve at a hotel will have to count on room service: Parties are prohitibed. Conte noted that the most painful sacrifice — and hardest to control — will be the traditional celebratory lunches and dinners.

“We cannot enter in houses and set strict limits,’’ Conte said. But he asked that everyone respect a “strong recommendation” not to invite anyone over, and limit any festivities to members of the same household.

Just so no one can label the government a Christmas Grinch, Conte said that stores can stay open until 9 p.m. starting Friday. “We don’t want to limit shopping, and the tradition of exchanging gifts.” Still, shopping malls will be closed on weekends, except for supermarkets, pharmacies and newsstands.

“It will be a Christmas different than all the others -- not less authentic," Conte said.

Turkey announces vaccination plan for Chinese CoronaVac

December 03, 2020

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey’s health minister has announced a plan to start using an experimental Chinese COVID-19 vaccine later this month amid a surge in infections and deaths. Fahrettin Koca had previously announced an agreement with China’s Sinovac Biotech for 50 million doses of CoronaVac, which is currently in late stage trials. Koca said in a statement late Wednesday that the first shipment of the vaccine will arrive in Turkey after Dec. 11.

The minister said early use authorization would be granted after Turkish labs confirm the shots are safe and after assessment of initial results from the latest trials. “If developments continue positively as we expect, Turkey would be among the first countries in the world to begin vaccinations in the early phase,” Koca said.

In November, The Lancet published a study about the efficacy of Sinovac’s vaccine candidate based on initial clinical trials. The study said the efficacy was determined to be moderate, and that the vaccine produced lower levels of antibodies than those that have been found in recovered COVID-19 patients.

“The protective efficacy of CoronaVac remains to be determined,” the study said. Candidates from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have said that they have more than 90% efficacy rates. The U.K.’s AstraZeneca have an efficacy rate of 70-90%, again based on limited clinical trials.

Vaccination efforts would be rolled out in four stages, the minister said. The first group includes health care workers, citizens above age 65, and people living in homes for the elderly, disabled or other protective care homes.

Next would be essential workers and people above 50 with at least one chronic disease. Third, people younger than 50 with at least one chronic illness, young adults and other workers would be vaccinated. The fourth and final phase would be for the rest of the population.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday the vaccine would be administered free of charge. Other COVID-19 vaccines would be sold at pharmacies, according to the health minister. “We will take delivery of at least 10 million doses of the vaccine in December and likely 20 million. Another 20 million doses in January and 10 million in February,” Koca said earlier this week. Turkey's population is more than 83 million.

The CoronaVac, which is a so-called inactivated vaccine, will be delivered in two doses per person. Inactivated vaccines are made by growing the whole virus in a lab and then killing it. Safely brewing and then killing the virus can take longer than newer technologies. But inactivated vaccines give the body a sneak peek at the germ itself rather than just the single spike protein, which mediates the entry of the coronavirus.

Koca had previously announced an agreement for 1 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to be delivered in December. He said Wednesday that negotiations were ongoing for more vaccines that introduce a so-called messenger RNA, or mRNA, sequence coded for a disease specific antigen, which prompts the body to have an immune response.

Turkey was included in the trial phases of both vaccines and is also developing a local vaccine. Vaccine trials usually take years but have been drastically sped-up in wake of the global pandemic. Turkey has reported record fatalities for 10 consecutive days, with 193 new deaths Wednesday, bringing the total death toll in the country to 14,129.

The daily number of infections has also hit a record high of 31,923, as Turkey resumed reporting all positive cases last week after four months of only releasing the numbers of symptomatic patients. The new daily infection numbers put Turkey among the worst-hit in the world.