This coun­try came close to record­ing al­most a thou­sand new COVID-19 pos­i­tive cas­es to­day, as the Min­istry of Health record­ed 964 new in­fec­tions, based on sam­ples tak­en be­tween De­cem­ber 20th and 23rd.

The Po­lice Ser­vice is re­mind­ing the pub­lic to com­ply with the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance Act es­pe­cial­ly as it ap­plies to Safe Zones, af­ter 10 Pub­lic Health Fixed Penal­ty no­tices were is­sued at five bars in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion dur­ing safe­ty zone en­force­ment ex­er­cis­es con­duct­ed be­tween Fri­day 17th and Thurs­day 23rd De­cem­ber 2021.

Chair­man of the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (CT­TRC), Hen­ry Awong, says the Cor­po­ra­tion is yet to see an of­fi­cial re­quest to set up a mass stor­age site in Freeport for the bod­ies of those who have died from COVID-19.

An Op-Ed by DR SOUMYA SWAMI­NATHAN, Chief Sci­en­tist of the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion
(Orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished Dec 23, 2021, in AL JAZEERA On­line)

The stand­off con­tin­ues be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) on the planned vac­ci­na­tion pol­i­cy, with the unions to­day re­it­er­at­ing that they will on­ly of­fer their rec­om­men­da­tions once the mid-Jan­u­ary dead­line is re­scind­ed.

The Min­istry of Health is re­mind­ing the pub­lic that for the re­main­der of 2021, health cen­tres and the COVID-19 mass vac­ci­na­tion sites will be open and those wish­ing to be vac­ci­nat­ed against COVID-19 will be able to do so.

BETH­LE­HEM, West Bank (AP) — The bib­li­cal town of Beth­le­hem is gear­ing up for its sec­ond straight Christ­mas Eve hit by the coro­n­avirus -- with small crowds and gray, gloomy weath­er damp­en­ing cel­e­bra­tions Fri­day in the tra­di­tion­al birth­place of Je­sus.

A COVID-19 re­cov­ery fa­cil­i­ty for chil­dren in the care of the State has been es­tab­lished.  “Ray of Hope” is a ded­i­cat­ed iso­la­tion fa­cil­i­ty—the first of its kind—in the Par­al­lel Health Care Sys­tem (PHCS), to man­age the spe­cial needs of COVID-19 pos­i­tive chil­dren un­der the care of the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty in Com­mu­ni­ty Res­i­dences. 

Dis­grun­tled ven­dors op­er­at­ing out of the Scar­bor­ough Mar­ket in To­ba­go, say pol­i­cy de­ci­sions by the mar­ket ad­min­is­tra­tion are pre­vent­ing them from earn­ing a liv­ing. 

(AP) — Two new British stud­ies pro­vide some ear­ly hints that the omi­cron vari­ant of the coro­n­avirus may be milder than the delta ver­sion.

BEI­JING (AP) — Chi­na plunged a city of 13 mil­lion peo­ple in­to lock­down on Thurs­day to stamp out an in­crease in coro­n­avirus in­fec­tions, as the coun­try dou­bles down on its “ze­ro tol­er­ance” pol­i­cy just weeks be­fore it is set to host the Win­ter Olympics.

Yes, U.S. reg­u­la­tors au­tho­rized Pfiz­er’s vac­cine for younger chil­dren af­ter mil­lions of 12- to 17-year-olds al­ready safe­ly got the shot, the on­ly one avail­able for chil­dren in the coun­try.