The Czech Republic will get 30 ventilators from the European Union and is seeking more help and equipment abroad to help grapple with the continent’s worst outbreak of the new coronavirus, Prime Minister Andrej Babis said on Thursday. The country of 10.7 million has seen daily cases soar to nearly 15,000, and the government fears a spike in hospitalizations could overwhelm its health system within two or three weeks unless the trend is broken soon. Hospitals were treating 4,417 coronavirus patients as of Wednesday, a four-fold increase this month, and …

New rapid coronavirus testing, soon to be available throughout Africa, could be a “game changer” for the continent, the World Health Organization said Thursday.     The new, cheaper, less fragile tests could help health systems identify and treat cases more quickly, said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organization’s Regional Director for Africa. 20 million antigen tests are being distributed to low and middle income countries, she said, with many headed to the continent.     “This would be a game-changer, we think, in the fight against COVID-19,” she …

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said he has canceled a deal to buy a Chinese-developed vaccine against the coronavirus, a day after his health minister announced Brazil would purchase millions of doses of CoronaVac.Bolsonaro said Wednesday that the intentions of Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria, one of his leading opponents, were distorted, saying he already canceled the deal before Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello signed it.Pazuello said in a statement that there was “no commitment” to buy the vaccine, only a “non-binding memorandum of understanding between the health ministry and the Butantan …

The number of nations with more than 1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases has risen to seven.Spain and France are the latest nations to reach the unfortunate mark, according to data compiled by the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center. The United States tops the list with more than 8.3 million total cases, followed by India (7.6 million), Brazil (5.3 million), Russia (1.4 million) and Argentina, which has 1,037,325. Spain is in sixth place with 1,005,325 cases, followed by France with 1,000,369.Spain and France are also the first nations in Western …

Having a cold might protect sufferers from a severe case of COVID-19, new research shows.COVID-19 patients who had recently been infected with a common cold virus were less likely to die or require intensive care compared with those who did not have a recent cold, according to the study published recently in the Medical staff of the intensive care unit of the Casalpalocco COVID-19 Clinic in the outskirts of Rome tend to patients, Oct. 21, 2020. (Associated Press)Sagar and his colleagues compared people who’d had a recent common cold infection …