Covid-19 news on March 18: Italy is about to lift the restriction order

“The government of Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi will meet to discuss the approval of a plan to lift restrictions. Mr. Draghi and Health Minister Roberto Speranza will then hold a press conference to announce the decisions taken,” the Italian government said in a statement.

According to Channel News Asia, the move was made in the context of the number of infections and deaths due to Covid-19 recorded in Italy since the beginning of this year has decreased sharply.

Italian doctors take care of the sick. Photo: AP

Many other European countries have also recently gradually lifted restrictions, such as the French government on March 14 allowing people to not carry a certificate of vaccination when entering restaurants, bars, etc. cinema, theater…

However, the Italy-based Gimbe Foundation medical research organization still warned that the number of Covid-19 infections may increase again. Therefore, the Rome government should be cautious in lifting the restriction order. “Measures can be relaxed based on scientific evidence, not in competition with other countries,” the Gimbe Foundation report states.

China calculates strongly to prevent Covid-19 epidemic

Chinese President Xi Jinping on March 17 called on the country’s authorities to apply more effective measures to prevent the Covid-19 epidemic, and at the same time to minimize the impact of the epidemic on the country. With economic development, in the context that the “billion-people nation” is facing the biggest wave of epidemics since the blockade of Wuhan city in 2020.

“I call for further innovation in science and technology in the research and development of vaccines, test kits, and therapeutics to make disease prevention and control more effective. We need to take more epidemic prevention measures to achieve maximum effectiveness in prevention and control at the lowest cost, as well as reduce the impact of the epidemic on socio-economic development. as much as possible,” Xinhua quoted Xi as saying.

According to Channel News Asia, while many countries around the world have eased or even lifted restrictions on Covid-19 prevention, millions of people living in northeast China are still complying with the measures. blockade to prevent the epidemic, causing a series of business and transportation activities to be affected.

Some other developments on the epidemic

Updated at 5 am on March 18 of the Worldometers global statistics page, the Covid-19 epidemic is raging in 220 countries and territories, infecting more than 465.4 million people and claiming lives. of more than 6 million patients. The number of recoveries reached more than 397.3 million cases.

According to Yonhap news agency, the number of new Covid-19 infections recorded by South Korean authorities on March 17 was 621,328 cases, the highest since the outbreak of the disease in the country and about 55% more than the number of cases. The case was detected the day before.

Leading Korean medical experts said that the number of new Covid-19 infections in this country recently increased so sharply because the Omicron variant continued to raging. It is expected that this wave of epidemics in South Korea will peak next week.

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Tuan Tran