TheCable

Nigeria recorded 38 cases of COVID-19 on Sunday. Here are five updates about the pandemic this Monday. 

France scraps COVID testing requirement for vaccinated visitors from UK

France has dropped its COVID-19 testing requirement for vaccinated travellers arriving from the UK.

According to the French interior ministry, from 12 February, travellers will not need to test as long as they are vaccinated according to European regulations.

Testing on arrival and isolation rules will be lifted if an unvaccinated traveller is from a green list country.

Green list countries are those in the European Union as well as Andorra, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Norway, San Marino, Switzerland, the Vatican, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, South Korea and 12 other countries.

Cooks Islands announces first COVID case

The Cook Islands has reported its first COVID-19 cases.

The south pacific nation was among the countries with no reported cases.

Prime Minister Mark Brown announced on social media that a traveller who visited from New Zealand tested positive after returning from the islands.

The traveller, who is fully vaccinated, spent eight days in the Cook Islands and developed symptoms the morning of February 7.

The government shared the names of a restaurant and a nightclub the infected person had visited and asked that citizens who had been at those places around the same time and had developed “flulike symptoms” come forward for testing.

COVID: Canada making progress to end trucker protest

The Canadian government reportedly appeared to be making progress on Sunday to end the large-scale protests that have rocked the nation for weeks.

By Sunday night, the police in Windsor, Ontario, said they had arrested several people and towed a pair of pickup trucks that had been parked in an intersection leading to the Ambassador Bridge.

The bridge, they said, would be reopened to the public after it had been plowed of snow and salted.

“Today, our national economic crisis at the Ambassador Bridge came to an end,” Drew Dilkens, mayor of Windsor, said on Sunday.

“Border crossings will reopen when it is safe to do so and I defer to police and border agencies to make that determination.”

Norway lifts COVID restrictions

Norway announced a new “live-with” approach on Saturday that lifted most of its remaining restrictions.

Social distancing and use of face masks are no longer required. Travel restrictions have also been lifted.

“The coronavirus pandemic no longer poses a major health threat to most of us,” Prime Minister Jonas Stoere said in statement.

“The Omicron virus causes far less serious illness, and we are well protected by vaccines.”

The statement said the “return to normal daily life” would almost inevitably bring more cases in the short term, more COVID-related sick leave and more hospitalisations. But all, it said, could be handled now, thanks to Omicron’s lesser virulence.

Nigeria records 38 infections

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has reported 38 COVID infections across the country.

The agency in its update for February 13, said the new infections were recorded in seven states.

Below is a breakdown of the new infections by states:

Lagos-19

Imo-10

Plateau-3

Nasarawa-2

Osun-2

Kaduna-1

Ogun-1

The NCDC said 74 persons were discharged after recovering from the infection.

Also, there were no fatalities on Sunday.

The agency said the report includes 19 cases reported for Lagos state for February 12 (9) and 13 (10).

Nigeria now has a total of 254,096 confirmed cases, 230,397 recoveries and 3,141 deaths.