Russia,China scrambles to contain Covid outbreak

Amid rapid rise in Covid cases, new coronavirus restrictions came into effect across Russia on Saturday. Authorities looking to stem soaring infections and deaths in Europe's worst hit country by fatalities. Saturday's government tally recorded 40,251 new cases, the highest figure for new infections since the beginning of the pandemic. President Vladimir Putin ordered a paid holiday from October 30 to November 7 in a bid to break a recent chain of records in daily cases and deaths.

Russia has held back on imposing significant nationwide measures since ending a short lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic and instead placed its hopes on the rollout of several homegrown vaccines, including Sputnik V.  Even though several jabs have been freely available for months, just 32.5 percent of the population have been fully vaccinated, according to government statistics Saturday. Statistics agency Rosstat said 44,265 people died of coronavirus in September -- nearly double the official government figure. This would bring the agency's toll of Covid-19 deaths in Russia to nearly 450,000, the highest in Europe. 

In China,authorities scramble to contain the latest Coronavirus desease  outbreak that has spread to 14 provinces.Most of the new cases have been reported from northern areas. Infections were reported in Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Beijing and Ningxia.According to the national health commission (NHC), the epidemic prevention and control situation is grim and complicated as infections are still spreading rapidly, More than a dozen cases have been reported in Beijing.

 NHC spokesperson Mi Feng said China had fully vaccinated 1.07bn people against Covid-19 as of October 29. It means about 75.8% of China’s 1.41 billion people have received their full quota of jabs. A total of 2.26bn vaccine doses had been given in China as of Friday, Mi said. Many provinces in China have started vaccinating children aged 3 to 11, state media reported, saying the drive for giving jabs to children was launched because of the new outbreaks. The total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases on the mainland had reached 97.080 by Friday, including 763 patients still receiving treatment. Among them, 39 were in severe condition. The death toll remains unchanged at 4,636 in China.