PARIS: A swath of European Union nations begin vaccinating their most vulnerable groups on Sunday as a reputedly more contagious coronavirus variant spread internationally. Vaccinations in all 27 European Union countries had been set to begin from Sunday, after regulators approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on December 21. France’s health minister Olivier Veran would not rule out a third lockdown if authorities decide it’s necessary to tamp down infections. Switzerland’s health minister Alain Berset noted Saturday his country had put the emphasis on personal responsibility. In authoritarian post-Soviet Turkmenistan, where the government says no coronavirus cases have been detected, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov claimed that licorice root could cure Covid-19.

Source: Manila Times December 27, 2020 17:37 UTC