No deaths, 13 new cases of contamination and 56 recoveries were confirmed in the Kingdom on January 7 and 8, 2023. The still active cases amount to 311, while more than 6.8 million people received the third dose. Monitoring the pandemic in figures.
New cases of contamination, remissions, number of screenings carried out, vaccinations, etc. To learn more about the evolution of the coronavirus in Morocco, click on this link: https://covid.le360.ma.
© : DR
In the Maghreb, Algeria does not communicate the number of screening tests, which suggests that the number of contaminations is much higher than the official figures. The last assessment stopped reports 4 cases of contamination, while no death has been deplored. The country totals 271,254 cases of contamination, including 6,881 deaths and 182,660 recoveries.
In Tunisia, 13 new cases of contamination and 1 death have been recorded, according to the latest report available. The country has totaled 1,147,645 cases of contamination, including 29,285 deaths and 1,134,465 recoveries since March 2020.
In Mauritania, no cases have been recorded, according to the latest report available. The country has recorded 63,429 cases of Covid-19 contamination, including 997 deaths.
China on Sunday lifted mandatory quarantine for travelers from overseas, ending three years of self-imposed isolation as the country grapples with a surge in Covid-19 cases.
The first arrivals expressed their relief at not having to endure the grueling quarantines that have become the daily life of the Chinese due to the “zero Covid” strategy decided by the authorities.
In Hong Kong, where the border with mainland China has been reopened after years of closure, more than 400,000 people plan to travel north over the next eight weeks.
After three years of some of the most draconian restrictions in the world, which have severely affected its economy and ended up sparking protests across the country, China last month abruptly lifted most of its measures to fight the pandemic.
At Pudong International Airport in Shanghai, a woman named Pang told AFP she was delighted with the relaxation of the rules. “I think it’s really good that the policy has changed now,” she said.
“It’s a necessary step, I think. The Covid has normalized now and after this obstacle, everything will be fine,” she added.
The announcement in December of the end of the quarantine prompted the Chinese to make many plans to travel abroad, with a dramatic increase in traffic on booking sites.
But the prospect of a massive influx of Chinese tourists has prompted more than a dozen countries to impose screening tests on travelers from China, where the number of contaminations has exploded.
Beijing has condemned the travel restrictions imposed on its nationals as “unacceptable”, although China itself has remained largely closed since 2020 to foreign tourists and international students.
The outbreak is expected to worsen ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday in late January, when millions are expected to leave hard-hit megacities for the countryside to visit their often elderly relatives. and vulnerable.
And China has taken steps to limit criticism of its chaotic journey to exit its “zero Covid” policy. Weibo, China’s Twitter, said it recently banned 1,120 accounts for “offences against experts and scholars”.
“Come out like this”
On Sunday, at Beijing airport, the barriers that separated international arrivals from national arrivals disappeared, as did the staff in protective suits, an essential device for the Chinese “zero Covid” policy.
A woman who had come to meet a friend arriving from Hong Kong said the first thing they would do would be to have a meal together. “It’s so great, we haven’t seen each other for so long,” Wu, 20, told AFP.
And at the Shanghai airport, a man named Yang who arrived from the United States assures that he was not aware that the rules had changed. “I had no idea,” he said to AFP.
“I would consider myself extremely lucky if I only had to do a two-day quarantine, but it turns out that I don’t have to do quarantine at all, and no paperwork, we went out like that , just like in the past,” he adds.
“I’m quite happy that I don’t need to be in quarantine,” another woman, who declined to be named, told AFP.
Hong Kong opens
In Hong Kong, strict travel restrictions to and from the rest of China also eased on Sunday.
Hong Kong’s recession-hit economy is desperate to return to growth, and families are eagerly awaiting Chinese New Year reunions.
Some 410,000 Hong Kongers have planned to travel north over the next two months, while about 7,000 people on the mainland are due to travel south on Sunday, according to official data.
On Sunday at the Lok Ma Chau checkpoint near the city of Shenzhen, a student from mainland China, named Zeng, told AFP he was happy to be able to cross without facing restrictions. “I’m happy as long as I don’t have to be quarantined, it was so unbearable,” Zeng told AFP.
The pandemic has officially killed at least 6,713,367 people worldwide since the end of December 2019, according to an established report. The United States is the country with the most deaths (1,121,089), ahead of Brazil (694,900), India (530,720) and Russia (394,080).
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, taking into account the excess mortality directly and indirectly linked to Covid-19, that the toll of the pandemic could be two to three times higher than that officially established.