Opponents of compulsory vaccination and opponents of the health passport staged demonstrations in the French capital, Paris and other cities, coinciding with the date for the suspension of the effects of many permits due to the failure to receive the third dose of the anti-Covid-19 vaccine, and similar demonstrations took place in several European cities.
Hours before these demonstrations, French deputies approved the controversial bill at night converting a health permit into a vaccination certificate for a second reading.
Debate resumed in the Senate ahead of the final National Assembly vote on Sunday afternoon.
This protest movement is organized at a time when the French government is trying by all means to control the epidemic that has spread in recent days.
These protests, which began a year ago, witnessed a popular momentum last Saturday.
The Ministry of Interior estimated that the number of protesters had at least doubled what it had been in the past.
Some attribute the rise in the number of protesters last Saturday to the resentment of some French over the statement of President Emmanuel Macron, who vowed to make life difficult for those who refuse to receive vaccinations.
Thousands of health certificates will be canceled if a booster dose of the Covid-19 vaccine is not received, a decision taken last November.
In Italy, clashes occurred with the police and some minor quarrels took place on Saturday afternoon during an anti-vaccination demonstration in central Rome.
Several demonstrations were also held elsewhere in Italy, protesting against the vaccination card and the imposition of the vaccine on people over 50 years of age.
In Germany, thousands of people gathered across the country on Saturday to protest, some against government restrictions to contain the Corona virus, while others demonstrated against the anti-vaccination movement.
More than a thousand people in Hamburg and about 2,500 people in Freiburg in the state of Baden-Württemberg took part to protest against what the organizers called “conspiracy ideologies”.
The Hamburg demonstration, announced as an event under the slogan “Solidarity and Enlightenment rather than conspiracy ideologies”, was originally planned as a demonstration against a protest organized by anti-vaccination activists, and was expected to involve 15,000 people.
Thousands of residents took to the streets of the Austrian capital Vienna on Saturday to protest against government plans to introduce mandatory COVID-19 vaccines for everyone next month.
In a march in central Vienna, the participants chanted slogans demanding the departure of the government, in what became a routine event every Saturday.
Kovacs delivers one billion doses
One of the two organizations that manage the global vaccine distribution program “COVAX” (COVAX) said Saturday that one billion doses of vaccines against COVID-19 have been delivered.
Supplies to poor countries have long been severely limited due to a shortage of vaccines, with richer countries getting most of the doses that were initially available as of December 2020.
The Jaffee Organization, which co-leads the program along with the World Health Organization, said shipments increased significantly in the last quarter of 2021, allowing the Kovacs program to achieve a major goal of delivering one billion doses shipped to 144 countries.
The Kovacs program was launched in 2020 with the goal of providing 2 billion doses by the end of 2021, but has been slowed by richer countries stockpiling limited doses, export restrictions and frequent changes to the program’s organizational structure.
After they were infected with Omicron .. 3 deaths in Iran
The Iranian Ministry of Health announced the first 3 deaths in the country due to infection with the highly contagious Omicron mutant yesterday, Saturday.
“The number of patients infected with omicron in the country has reached 1,162, and there were reports of a death due to omicron in each of Tabriz, Yazd and Shahrekard, and a critically ill person was transferred to a hospital in Ahvas,” the ministry’s spokesman, Mohammad Hashemi, told Iranian Radio and Television.
Omicron infection detected in Beijing
Officials in the Chinese capital said yesterday, Saturday, that an Omicron infection had been detected in Beijing, at a time when the country was facing hotbeds of this highly contagious mutant of the Corona virus, before the start of the Beijing Winter Olympics.
This comes after the city of Zhuhai (south), with a population of 2.5 million people, imposed restrictions on travel by public transport after detecting at least 7 cases of the mutant Omicron.
Millions of people across China have been asked to stay at home in recent weeks, while many domestic flights have been canceled and factories closed.
Djokovic ‘a danger to public health’
For the second time in 10 days, Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic has been returned to a Melbourne detention center.
The Australian Minister of Immigration had revoked his visa the day before, arguing that the unvaccinated world number one tennis player against Covid-19 posed a “public health risk”.
He said Djokovic’s presence “could encourage anti-vaccination sentiment”.
“The Australian Open is more important than any player,” said his opponent, Rafael Nadal, who did not hide his annoyance two days before the opening of the Australian Open.
Extending restrictions on gatherings in 5 Indian states
The Election Commission of India extended its ban on political rallies and election tours in 5 states on Saturday due to the high number of COVID-19 infections in the country.
The commission said in a statement that the ban, which extends until January 22, excludes internal party events in which the number of participants is less than 300, or equivalent to 50% of the venue’s capacity.