Italy considers stringent nationwide restrictions over – Health News Today

Italy is considering more stringent nationwide coronavirus restrictions during the Christmas and New Year holiday, Reuters reports.

After some restrictions put in place last month were eased, crowds of shoppers flocked to many city centres on Sunday, as Italy reported 484 coronavirus-related deaths.

On Saturday, Italy surpassed Britain as the European country with the worst death toll.

The government could decide to put the country under so-called “red-zone” lockdown rules from 24 December to at least 2 January, extending night curfews, banning non-essential movement and closing shops, bars and restaurants on weekends and holidays, with the exception for those selling essential goods, Italian media reported.

Ireland may need to reimpose some Covid-19 restrictions in January, prime minister Micheal Martin said on Monday, Reuters reports.

Ireland currently has the lowest incidence rate of Covid-19 in the European Union after it moved early to temporarily shut shops, bars and restaurants in October.

People will be allowed to travel throughout the country again from Friday with small levels of household mixing permitted until Jan. 6.

“You could very well be looking at some further restrictions in January,” Martin told national broadcaster RTE, noting that the curbs lifted this month were not as strict as the initial lockdown. He said the government would consult widely before making any decisions.

Dr Nikita Kanani, director of primary care at NHS England, urged people waiting for coronavirus vaccinations to be patient and wait to be contacted by their doctors, rather than ringing up the practices themselves, PA Media reports.

She told the Today programme:

You can imagine that general practices are very busy, particularly on a Monday morning.

There’s a huge range of things that general practices are already doing so if we can ask for people to just wait a moment and wait to be contacted that would be very appreciated.

Russia on Monday confirmed 27,328 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, including 5,874 in Moscow, Reuters reports, pushing the national tally to 2,681,256.

Authorities said 450 people had died overnight, taking the official death toll to 47,391.

The UK business secretary, Alok Sharma, insisted the government was confident that supplies of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine would not be disrupted if there was a no-deal Brexit, although he refused to set out what contingency plans were in place.

He told the BBC that was partly due to security concerns around the supply of the vaccine, which is made in Belgium.

We have put in place arrangements to make sure that the distribution of vaccines is not in any way disrupted. I’m confident that as things stand these vaccines will continue…