Argentina’s lethal cult of bleach
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“Don’t get a booster shot” is the plea being made this week by the World Health Organization. The WHO is calling for a moratorium on all Covid-19 boosters until the end of the year, after new data showed that, while wealthy nations considering the extra shots have vaccinated on average 50% of their populations, only 2% of adults in low-income countries have had a full course of injections. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said that he is appalled at assurances from pharmaceutical companies that vaccine supplies can sustain booster shot rollouts while they are still providing poorer states with the first and second doses.
Poland has lost billions in Covid-19 recovery support from the European Union, after Brussels suspended the aid as a punitive measure for the country’s adoption of judicial reforms that undermine EU law. The previously promised recovery funding comprised about $28 billion in grants and $14 billion in cheap loans, intended to provide economic stimulus. This action compounds a recent and separate freeze on about $150 million in EU loans to Polish regions that had declared themselves “LGBT-free zones.” It comes after months of warnings from the EU singling out Poland and Hungary as renegade member states.
Turkmenistan appears to be experiencing yet another wave of coronavirus infections. We say “appears,” because the country still refuses to admit the existence of Covid-19 within its borders. Foreign-based opposition media outlets have reported that coffins cannot be made fast enough to keep up with the surging death rates and that hospitals are delivering bodies back to relatives in plastic bags.