Reopened UK to rely on testing ramp-up

LONDON－British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday that everyone in England will be able to take a COVID-19 test twice a week in a new drive to track the pandemic as society reopens and the vaccine rollout continues at its rapid rate.

The new mass testing program would break the chain of transmissions and spot those people with without symptoms, Johnson said. The announcement comes as the UK has set a tentative date of May 17 to relaunch international travel.

As much of Europe enters new lockdowns to tackle surging cases, Johnson has set out a staggered plan to ease restrictions in the coming months, a huge boost for one of the worst-hit countries during the pandemic.

"As we continue to make good progress on our vaccine program and with our roadmap to cautiously easing restrictions underway, regular rapid testing is even more important to make sure those efforts are not wasted," Johnson said in a statement.

Junior Health Minister Edward Argar said the tests would be sent to homes or businesses, or picked up from pharmacies or test centers.

The increased testing will help health officials to track the pandemic as the country slowly reopens from a strict four-month lockdown.

Vaccine passports are also being trialled for mass events while a traffic-light system for countries based on infection and vaccination levels will be used for international travel.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are following their own, similar paths out of a strict lockdown that was imposed at the beginning of this year.

Britain is able to pursue a recovery after it gave shots of vaccines from AstraZeneca and Pfizer to well over half the adult population. A reopening of schools in March has also not yet led to a spike in cases, despite increased testing.

Extended lockdown

Elsewhere in the world, the Philippines on Monday extended a lockdown by another week after an alarming spike in coronavirus infections has started to overwhelm many hospitals in the capital and outlying regions.

President Rodrigo Duterte placed Metropolitan Manila and four outlying provinces, a region of more than 25 million people, under lockdown last week as daily infections breached 10,000.

Officials would inaugurate a 110-bed intensive-care unit in a hospital in the capital region on Monday and were planning to launch mobile COVID-19 intensive-care centers, according to presidential spokesman Harry Roque.

In Cambodia, Phnom Penh Municipal Governor Khuong Sreng ordered a 14-day closure of Orussey Market, one of the largest markets in the capital, after several vendors and guards tested positive for COVID-19.

He said in a statement on Saturday that the closure would last till April 17 in order to curb the spread of the virus.

Chinese vaccines

The Nepali government said it would begin on Wednesday to administer supplies of a COVID-19 vaccine donated by China amid a resurgence in infections in the Himalayan country, an official of the Ministry of Health and Population said.

The Chinese vaccine, which was developed by Sinopharm and arrived on March 29, would be administered from designated hospitals in the Kathmandu Valley.

"Those involved in essential services, students studying in China under the Chinese government scholarship but who are currently stuck in Nepal due to pandemic, Nepali students preparing to leave for China for the higher study and people involved in cross-border trade between Nepal and China will be inoculated with the Chinese vaccine," said Jageshwor Gautam, a Health Ministry spokesperson.

In Jordan, the first batch of the Sinopharm vaccine purchased from China arrived in the capital Amman on Sunday, as the kingdom endeavors to strengthen its mass inoculation campaign against the pandemic.

In El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele said on Sunday that China will donate 150,000 doses of a vaccine from Chinese drugmaker Sinovac Biotech to the Central American nation, on top of the 2 million Sinovac jabs his government already purchased.

Agencies - Xinhua