President Trump has announced sweeping changes to coronavirus vaccine rollouts, quickly making all vaccine supplies accessible, encouraging states to provide shots to residents 65 and older and cautioning states with slow vaccine rollouts that they could lose some of their supply to faster-moving states.
Here are some significant developments:
More than 92 million people around the world have been infected with the coronavirus since it emerged in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 and more than 1.9 million have died, according to Post data.
Increasing infections, deaths and virus mutations are pushing world leaders to implement new approaches to quell the impact of the virus.
Switzerland on Wednesday announced firmer restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the virus and its mutations, banning events and closing restaurants and nightlife establishments while avoiding a full lockdown, Reuters reported.
“Infection rates are stagnating at a very high level and with the new, much more infectious virus variants, there is a threat of a rapid resurgence,” the government said in a statement to the news outlet.
Switzerland, which has had less stern coronavirus measures compared with other countries, has reported more than 487,000 coronavirus infections and more than 8,400 related deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Entertainment, sports and leisure establishments will remain closed until the end of February.
In addition, Switzerland, which was the first country in continental Europe to start immunizing its citizens with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, will require companies to allow its employees to work from home when feasible, according to Reuters.
The country was hit with a second wave of infections starting in September but refrained from imposing a nationwide lockdown, opting for focused restrictions, according to the news outlet.
The threat of the variants emerging from the U.K. and South Africa has erased the possibility for German and Danish residents to see eased restrictions. Health measures were set to relax in Germany on Feb. 1, but Health Minister Jens Spahn said the risk the U.K. variant could pose could extend them for two or three months, Deutsche Welle reported.
Germany will also require travelers from other countries with high case counts to be tested upon entering the nation, according to Reuters.
Concerns about infection rates grew among Danish lawmakers as more than 200 cases of the new variant had been verified in the country, triggering leaders to extend its business and gathering restrictions by three weeks, according to the Local.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told Parliament on Wednesday that the extension of the restrictions was needed to prevent the spread of the U.K. mutation.