WHO expects 100 million COVID-19 cases worldwide by end of January

The World Health Organization (WHO) chief said on Thursday that the global COVID-19 caseload is expected to hit 100 million by the end of January, but vaccines have the potential to bring the pandemic under control.

In his address to the extraordinary meeting of the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that more than two million people have died from COVID-19 worldwide, and by the end of this month, "we expect to reach 100 million reported cases."

However, COVID-19 vaccines have the potential to bring the pandemic under control. And the development and approval of safe and effective vaccines less than a year after the emergence of a new virus is a "stunning scientific achievement, and a much-needed source of hope," he noted.

COVID-19 vaccination is now underway in more than 50 countries, said Tedros, yet all but two of them are high- or upper-middle income countries.

According to the latest WHO data, as of 17:29 CET (1629 GMT) on Thursday, there have been 95,612,831 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 2,066,176 deaths worldwide.

Biden lays out plans for COVID-19 testing, vaccinations and masks

U.S. President Joe Biden moved swiftly to coordinate a federal effort to fight the COVID-19 pandemic on Thursday, his first full day in office, with steps to expand testing and vaccinations and increase mask-wearing.

At a White House event, Biden said the rollout of the vaccine in the United States has been a "dismal failure so far." 

"Things are going to continue to get worse before they get better," Biden said of the toll from the virus.

He also made a personal plea to all Americans to wear masks over the next 99 days to stop the spread of the virus, which has killed 405,000 people and infected more than 24 million in the United States, the highest numbers anywhere in the world.

Millions of Americans have been thrown out of work due to lockdowns.

EU proposes 'dark red' COVID-19 zones with stricter travel restrictions

Hotspots of COVID-19 infections in the European Union will be labelled "dark red" zones, and travelers from those areas will be required to take a test before departure and undergo quarantine, the chief of the bloc's executive said on Thursday.

"A dark red zone would show that in this zone, the virus is circulating at a very high level," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told a news conference after a meeting of EU leaders.

"Persons travelling from dark red areas could be required to do a test before departure, as well as to undergo quarantine after arrival."

This system would apply for traveling within the EU, she said.

France to make PCR tests compulsory for travelers from EU countries

French President Emmanuel Macron told his European Union counterparts France would make PCR tests compulsory for all travelers into France from Sunday, including from fellow EU countries, his office said on Thursday.

Cross-border workers and land transportation will be exempt from that obligation, the French presidency added. The test will have to be carried out no later than 72 hours before departure, it said after a video summit of EU leaders. 

Africa struggles during COVID-19 'second wave’

Health systems in Africa hobbled by shortages of oxygen and other resources are struggling with COVID-19's "second wave," pushing the fatality rate above the global average, the continent's health watchdog said Thursday.

Africa has so far recorded around 3.3 million cases of COVID-19 and nearly 82,000 deaths, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).

These figures represent small fractions of the global totals, but cases have increased by an average of 14 percent each week for the past month.

Africa CDC Director John Nkengasong told a press conference Thursday that the continent-wide case fatality rate was now 2.5 percent above the global average of 2.2 percent.

Last week the African Union announced it had secured 270 million doses of coronavirus vaccines, which will complement those secured via COVAX, the globally-pooled vaccine procurement and distribution effort.