Day: June 18, 2021

Turkey has administered over 40 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines since it launched a mass vaccination campaign in mid-January, the Turkish health minister announced on Friday.

“Among 206 countries, we are the ninth country with the most vaccines administered,” Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter.

On some days, Turkish health personnel vaccinated 6,000 people per minute, Koca added.

More than 25.7 million people have received their first doses, while over 14.2 million have been fully vaccinated, showed the Health Ministry data.

Turkey’s overall case tally is now over 5.3 million, while the nationwide death toll has reached 49,012 with 62 new fatalities as of Thursday.

To fight the spread of the virus, Turkey currently has a curfew from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. on Monday to Saturday and a full lockdown on Sundays.

Since December 2019, the pandemic has claimed over 3.8 million lives in 192 countries and regions, with more than 177.5 million cases reported worldwide, according to the US-based Johns Hopkins University.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The Moscow mayor on Friday extended the coronavirus restrictions for 10 more days in an attempt to contain the deteriorating situation in the Russian capital.

In a decree, Sergey Sobyanin announced that food courts, children’s playrooms and zoos will remain closed for visitors till June 29, while parks continue to be open for walks only.

The catering services, nightclubs, bars, discos, and karaoke venues are prohibited from receiving visitors from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. [2000-0300GMT]. Only takeaway service is allowed during these hours.

The decree introduced a limit on the number of people who can simultaneously be present at entertainment events with 1,000 people and banned zones that do not provide seats, including fan zones and dance floors. The rule also covers EURO 2020 fan zones.

In the meantime, the Moscow authorities agreed with the suggestion that some restaurateurs hold an experiment of organizing “COVID Free” food service points to support businesses.

The experiment starts on June 19 and it will be held in 15-20 restaurants for the beginning.

The experiment suggests canceling the restrictive measures for the restaurants that will only serve people who can confirm receiving the second dose of a coronavirus vaccine.

The vaccination is supposed to be confirmed by showing a special QR code, generated with the State Services mobile application.

Individuals under 18 years old can visit such eating places without providing QR code but only when accompanied by their vaccinated parents or other legal representatives, who can confirm having received the jab.

The restaurants taking part in the experiment must check the validity of QR codes and correlation between the data in the QR code and ID card, prevent people who fake the vaccination confirmation from entering.

Only restaurants that have no more than two violations of restrictive measure in 90 days prior to the experiment are eligible for applying to take part in the experiment.

The list of restaurants joining the experiment will be published on the Moscow City Hall website after the officials check the applications and choose the most suitable venues.

On Friday, Russia has registered the biggest daily spike since Feb. 1 as 17,262 people tested positive for COVID-19 over the last 24 hours, taking the caseload to 5.28 million.

Recoveries grew by 10,954 over the past day to reach 4.85 million while fatalities went up by 453, taking the death toll to 128,445.

Moscow, for its part, has seen the biggest number of infections since the beginning of the pandemic — 9,056 people contracted the virus since Thursday.

Source: Anadolu Agency

After weeks of listening to the main players in the conduct of the pandemic in Brazil, a Senate investigative commission announced Friday that 14 people are now formally investigated by the actions and negligence in confronting COVID-19.

Current Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga, and two former ministers, Eduardo Pazuello (Health) and Ernesto Araujo (Foreign Affairs) are in the list.

Brazil already has almost 500,000 COVID-19 deaths and shows no signs of a slowdown in the contagion. The country has over 17 million cases. About 37% of the population took only the first dose of vaccines and just over 11% are fully immunized.

The Senate commission’s rapporteur, Renan Calheiros, said that Queiroga’s testimonies were “poor and ridiculous”.

“In his first statement, [Queiroga] tried to say he would have the autonomy that [Nelson] Teich and [Luiz Henrique] Mandetta lacked.

“The facts showed otherwise,” said Calheiros. Mandetta and Teich were both ministers before Pazuello and Queiroga.

The rapporteur also stated that Queiroga acquired batches of vaccines 20% more expensive than previous contracts, in addition to, in talks with the World Health Organization (WHO), having defended the so-called “early treatment”.

Pazuello will be investigated for negligence in the Manaus crisis earlier this year, when the city ran out of oxygen, leading to dozens of deaths, for suspicion of having propagated the thesis of “herd immunity” and for delays in negotiating vaccines.

Araujo is suspicious of failure in obtaining supplies for producing vaccines from abroad, mainly from China, after fighting the Asian country in an ideological confrontation on social networks. The Senate committee wants to find out whether his ideological line may have hindered talks.

Some of those now investigated are members of the so-called “parallel cabinet”, an informal advisory group, which operated outside the Health Ministry, to guide President Jair Bolsonaro in dealing with the crisis, such as doctors Nise Yamaguchi, advocate of hydroxychloroquine; Paolo Zanotto; and Luciano Dias Azevedo, who tried to change the leaflet for hydroxychloroquine.

According to Calheiros, there is already “enough evidence” gathered that justify the change in investigations. The commission now wants to summon Google and Facebook to explain their position on Bolsonaro’s lives, defending ideas and theories already discarded by science.

The others investigated are current coordinator of the National Immunization Program Francieli Fantinato; current Health Ministry’s secretary of Science, Technology, Innovation and Strategic Supplies Helio Angotti Neto; current Amazonas’ Health Secretary Marcellus Campelo; current secretary of Labor Management and Health Education Mayra Pinheiro; former Health Ministry’s executive secretary Elcio Franco; former Presidential advisor Arthur Weintraub; businessman Carlos Wizard; and former Presidential secretary of Social Communication Fabio Wajngarten.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Tight financial measures are ending for Istanbul powerhouse Galatasaray after their pact with European football governing body UEFA ended Friday.

“Administrative, financial and sporting restrictions” under a Financial Fair Play (FFP) Agreement “have been completely lifted,” the Istanbul club said in a statement.

Galatasaray said that after UEFA examinations of the last three fiscal years and 2020-21 fiscal year projections, it was determined that Galatasaray fully complied with all the conditions of the agreement, especially the break-even criterion.

In June 2018, UEFA and the Lions made a four-year agreement to cover through the 2021-22 season.

Under the deal, Galatasaray undertook to reach full break-even compliance by the 2021-22 season.

The criteria involved break-even targets, sporting measures and financial contributions.

UEFA monitors clubs financially to make sure they are not spending more money than they earn, a measure created to help teams avoid financial problems in the long run.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Turkey’s state-run aviation company, Turkish Aerospace (TAI), is building Europe’s second-largest subsonic wind tunnel for testing the country’s fighter jets.

“The wind tunnel is intended to be used in the development of indigenous, rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft, especially the Turkish Fighter,” a press release read on Friday.

The tunnel, including three different sections — large, small and open –, will be equipped with state-of-the-art technology measurement and sensing devices for advanced testing.

“With the integrated moving ground belt system, landing and take-off tests for aircraft will be carried out only in this tunnel in Turkey,” it noted.

Temel Kotil, the company’s CEO, said: “Our facility will be the only facility in Turkey in this field with the capability to allow aeroacoustic testing.”

Source: Anadolu Agency