El Nino weakening doesn't mean cooler temperatures this summer, forecasters say
As Canadians brace themselves for summer temperatures, forecasters say a weakening El Nino cycle doesn’t mean relief from the heat.
Greeks over 60 who refuse coronavirus vaccinations could be hit with monthly fines of more than one-quarter of their minimum pensions -- a get-tough policy that the country's politicians say will cost votes but save lives.
Weekly protests in the Netherlands over the country's 5 p.m. lockdown and other new restrictions have descended into violence, despite what appears to be overwhelming acceptance of the rules.
In Israel, the government on Thursday halted the use of a controversial phone-tracking technology to trace possible cases of the new coronavirus variant after a public uproar.
With the delta variant of COVID-19 pushing up cases in Europe and growing fears over the omicron variant, governments around the world are weighing new measures for populations tired of hearing about restrictions and vaccines.
It's a thorny calculus made more difficult by the prospect of backlash, increased social divisions and, for many politicians, the fear of being voted out of office.
"I know the frustration that we all feel with this omicron variant, the sense of exhaustion that we could be going through this all over again," British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Tuesday, two days after the government announced that masks would be mandatory again in stores and on public transportation and required all visitors from abroad to undergo a COVID-19 test and quarantine. "We're trying to take a balanced and proportioned approach."
New restrictions, or variations on the old ones, are cropping up around the world, especially in Europe, where leaders are at pains to explain what looks like a failed promise: that mass vaccinations would mean an end to widely loathed limitations.
"People need normality. They need families, they need to see people, obviously safely, socially distancing, but I really think, this Christmas now, people have had enough," said Belinda Storey, who runs a stall at a Christmas market in Nottingham, England.
In the Netherlands, where the lockdown went into effect last week, mounted police patrol the streets to break up demonstrations. But most people appeared resigned to rush through errands and head home.
"The only thing we can do is to listen to the rules, follow them and hope it's not getting worse. For me it's no problem. I'm a nurse. I know how sick people get," said Wilma van Kampen.
Huburt Bruls, who as mayor of the Dutch city of Nijmegen banned a protest last weekend, said he sympathized with the frustration but was prepared to carry out the national rules.
"There was a lot of disappointment in the effects of vaccination. Everybody did their best, we had one of the highest rates of vaccinations, and it wasn't enough. Infections are higher than ever. I myself was a little disappointed, but we have to look ahead," he said.
In Greece, residents over 60 face fines of 100 euros ($113) a month if they fail to get vaccinated. The fines will be tacked onto tax bills in January. About 17% of Greeks over 60 are unvaccinated despite various efforts to prod them to get their shots, and nine in 10 Greeks now dying of COVID-19 are over 60.
"I don't care whether the measure will cost me some extra votes in the elections," Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Wednesday after lawmakers passed the measure. "I am convinced that we are doing the right thing, and I am convinced that this policy will save lives."
Employing a carrot instead of a stick, Slovakia's government is proposing to give people 60 and older a 500-euro ($568) bonus if they get vaccinated.
In Israel, the government this week briefly resumed using a phone-monitoring technology to perform contact tracing of people confirmed to have the omicron variant, only to halt its use on Thursday.
"From the beginning I noted that use of this tool would be limited and brief -- for a few days, in order to get urgent information to halt infection with the new, unknown variant," Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said on Twitter.
In South Africa, which alerted the World Health Organization to the omicron variant, previous restrictions included curfews and a ban on alcohol sales. This time, President Cyril Ramaphosa is simply calling on more people to get vaccines "to help restore the social freedoms we all yearn for."
Germany on Thursday imposed strict new limitations on the unvaccinated, excluding them from nonessential stores, restaurants, and other major public venues. They can go to work only with a negative test.
The legislature is expected to take up a general vaccine mandate in coming weeks.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the measures were necessary because hospitals risked becoming overloaded: "The situation in our country is serious."
In the U.S., there is little appetite in either political party for a return to lockdowns or strict contact tracing. Enforcing even simple measures like mask-wearing has become a political flashpoint. And Republicans are suing to block the Biden administration's new get-vaccinated-or-get-tested requirement for large employers.
On Thursday, President Joe Biden, whose political fate may well hinge on controlling the pandemic, moved to tighten testing requirements for people entering the U.S., and recommended Americans wear masks indoors in public. But he said his new strategy "doesn't include shutdowns and lockdowns," and he hoped for bipartisan backing.
"It's a plan that I think should unite us," he said.
The rise of the new variant makes little difference to Mark Christensen, a grain buyer for an ethanol plant in Nebraska. He rejects any vaccination mandate and doesn't understand why it would be needed. In any event, he said, most businesses in his corner of the state are too small to fall under the regulations.
"If they were just encouraging me to take it, that's one thing," Christensen said. "But I believe in freedom of choice, not decisions by force."
Chile has taken a harder line since the emergence of omicron: People over 18 must receive a booster dose every six months to keep their pass that allows access to restaurants, hotels and public gatherings.
Dr. Madhukar Pai, of McGill University's School of Population and Public Health, said that masks are an easy and pain-free way of keeping transmission down, but that cheap, at-home tests need to be much more widespread, in both rich and poor countries.
He said both approaches give people a sense of control over their own behavior that is lost with a lockdown and make it easier to accept the need to do things like cancel a party or stay inside.
Pai said requiring boosters universally, as is essentially the case in Israel, Chile and many countries in Europe, including France, will only prolong the pandemic by making it harder to get first doses to the developing world. That raises the odds of still more variants.
Lockdowns, he said, should be the very last choice.
"Lockdowns only come up when a system is failing," he said. "We do it when the hospital system is about to collapse. It's a last resort that indicates you have failed to do all the right things."
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Associated Press journalists Nicholas Paphitis in Athens, Greece; Tia Goldenberg in Jerusalem; Aleks Furtula in Nijmegen, Netherlands; Zeke Miller in Washington; Frank Jordans in Berlin; Patricia Luna in Santiago, Chile; Grant Schulte in Lincoln, Nebraska; Andrew Meldrum in Johannesburg; Huizhong Wu in Taipei, Taiwan, and Chen Si in Shanghai contributed
As Canadians brace themselves for summer temperatures, forecasters say a weakening El Nino cycle doesn’t mean relief from the heat.
A 15-year old boy who was critically injured after a stabbing in Nepean on Thursday has died of his injuries, Ottawa's English public school board said Sunday.
Police say it’s fortunate no one was injured or killed in a collision at North Vancouver’s Park and Tilford shopping centre Saturday evening that sent one vehicle careening into a flower shop and another into a set of concrete barriers outside a Winners store.
The Maple Leafs battled back from a 3-1 series deficit against the Boston Bruins with consecutive 2-1 victories - including one that required extra time - in their first-round playoff series to push the club's Original Six rival to the limit before suffering a devastating Game 7 overtime loss.
Amid scientists' warnings that nations need to transition away from fossil fuels to limit climate change, Canadians are still lukewarm on electric vehicles, according to a study conducted by Nanos Research for CTV News.
Three people have died and two have been hospitalized after a speeding car struck a tree and landed on another vehicle in Fredericton Sunday morning.
A Montreal man is warning Tesla drivers about using the Smart Summon feature after his vehicle hit another in a parking lot.
Madonna put on a free concert on Copacabana beach Saturday night, turning Rio de Janeiro's vast stretch of sand into an enormous dance floor teeming with a multitude of her fans.
Thieves killed two Australians and an American on a surfing trip to Mexico in order to steal their truck, particularly because they wanted the tires, authorities said Sunday.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.