A ray of hope emerged Thursday for the Rainbow Nation, which has seen a massive spike in confirmed COVID-19 cases, as South Africa’s health minister announced a large shipment of vaccines is coming this month.      Zweli Mkhize said the country will receive one million vaccine doses by the end of January, and another half million in February, both from the Serum Institute of India. The first doses, he says, will go to health workers.    Mkhize acknowledged that South Africa’s vaccine acquisition was delayed because the nation was …

The World Health Organization warns the European region is probably in the most acute phase of COVID-19 transmission and drastic measures must be taken to control the spread of the pandemic.   More than 26 million cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in the European region, including over 580,000 deaths.  The World Health Organization reports levels of transmission remain extremely high.  As a consequence, it notes countries and territories across the region are enacting full lockdown measures, affecting more than 230 million people. FILE – Medical personnel attend patients at Casalpalocco …

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Wednesday that the city aims to vaccinate 10,000 police officers against the coronavirus by Sunday.At his daily briefing, De Blasio said police officers and jail guards were now eligible to receive vaccines under guidance provided by state officials. The guidelines released by the state do not explicitly say that police officers can now be vaccinated, but a de Blasio spokesperson said city officials were told they could count police and corrections officers as frontline workers eligible for the shots.De Blasio said the …