The latest:
- Toronto Raptors get green light to play at Scotiabank Arena this upcoming season.
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Denmark’s high vaccination rate has allowed the Scandinavian country to become one of the first European Union nations to lift all domestic restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The return to normality has been gradual, but as of Friday, a digital pass showing proof of vaccination is no longer required when entering nightclubs, making it the last virus safeguard to fall.
More than 80 per cent of people above the age of 12 have had the two shots required. As of midnight, the Danish government no longer considers COVID-19 “a socially critical disease.”
Health Minister Magnus Heunicke said last month that “the epidemic is under control” but warned: “we are not out of the epidemic” and the government will act as needed if necessary.
Jens Lundgren, a professor of viral diseases at the Copenhagen University Hospital, said the government would be “quite willing” to reintroduce restrictions if infections spike again.
What’s happening across Canada
- More than 80 per cent of Manitoba’s 105 new cases are among unvaccinated.
- N.B. sees 24 new cases as Ottawa stops vaccine shipment to province.
- P.E.I. announces 4 new cases, 3 of them involving children.
- N.S. logs 11 new cases, 10 in the province’s central zone.
What’s happening around the world
As of Friday, more than 223.2 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University’s COVID-19 case tracking tool. The reported global death toll stood at 4.6 million.
In Africa, South Africa has started vaccinating children and adolescents as part of the global Phase 3 clinical trials of China’s Sinovac Biotech shot for children aged six months to 17 years. The global study will enroll 2,000 participants in South Africa and 12,000 others in Kenya, the Philippines, Chile and Malaysia.
In Europe, France announced new restrictions for unvaccinated U.S. travellers. Meanwhile, former French health minister Agnes Buzyn has been put under formal investigation over her handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, a court official told Reuters on Friday.
In Asia, Sri Lanka is extending a lockdown for another week as it struggles against a coronavirus surge. The lockdown was first imposed on Aug. 20. Doctors and trade unions have warned that hospitals and morgues have reached their maximum capacities during the ongoing surge caused by the delta variant of the coronavirus.
In the Americas, U.S. President Joe Biden called some Republican governors “cavalier” on Friday for resisting his call for far-reaching new federal coronavirus vaccine requirements he hopes will curb the surging delta variant. The expansive rules mandate that all employers with more than 100 workers require them to be vaccinated or test for the virus weekly, affecting about 80 million Americans.
