South Africa has signed an agreement with Johnson & Johnson to secure 11 million COVID-19 vaccine doses and will ease restrictions due to a decline in new cases, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Sunday. South Africa has been the hardest-hit on the continent by the pandemic, recording almost half of the COVID-19 deaths and more than a third of reported infections. But daily cases have fallen below 2,000, from a peak above 20,000 last month during a second wave of infections. Ramaphosa said in a televised address that 2.8 million of the J&J doses would be delivered in the second quarter, with the rest spread throughout the year. South Africa started administering the single-dose J&J vaccine this month in a research study targeting healthcare workers but has not yet rolled out sh...
Two games in the top two tiers of Belarusian football have been postponed due to coronavirus concerns. The Premier League match between FC Minsk and Neman Grodno – scheduled for May 15 – has been called off, as has the second-division meeting between Arsenal Dzerzhinsk and leaders Lokomotiv Gomel. The country’s football federation confirmed it was because of suspected cases of COVID-19 among the Minsk and Lokomotiv players. No new dates have yet been arranged. Belarus is one of the few European nations in which major sporting competitions have continued despite the spread of the virus. Premier League games have been played, often in front of spectators, while the rest of the continent has largely been forced to suspend all football. All grounds are required to have several sanitiser statio...