Chile

France, Belgium, and Poland on March 27 tightened curbs as coronavirus cases surged in Europe while the Philippines readied for a giant lockdown and Chile confined over 80 percent of its population.

France admitted the situation is "critical" and added three more departments to the 16 already under tight restrictions.

The six members of the 29th Bulgarian Antarctic Expedition sailed off from Punta Arenas, Chile on Sunday morning, headed for the Bulgarian Antarctic Base on Livingston Island, said the expedition leader, Prof. Hristo Pimpirev.

More than 200 million coronavirus vaccine doses have been administered in at least 107 countries and territories, according to an AFP count based on official sources on Feb. 20.    

In total 201,042,149 doses had been given worldwide by 1000 GMT - a figure that does not include the latest data from China and Russia, who have stopped making their progress public in recent days.    

Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE have started an international study with 4,000 volunteers to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of their COVID-19 vaccine in healthy pregnant women, the companies said on Thursday.

The European Commission has so far approved all requests for the export of Covid-19 vaccines, including to Britain, the United States and Japan, since it set up on January 30 a mechanism to monitor vaccine trade, a spokeswoman said on Thursday.

Ljubljana – President Borut Pahor hosted the annual Culture Day event in Presidential Palace on Monday, receiving this year’s Prešeren Prize and Prešeren Fund Prize recipients. Pahor called for culture of dialogue. Author Feri Lainšček, one of the laureates, meanwhile highlighted the role Slovenian culture played in the country’s independence efforts.

A German veterinary clinic has trained sniffer dogs to detect the novel coronavirus in human saliva samples with 94% accuracy.

The dogs are conditioned to scent out the "corona odour" that comes from cells in infected people, said Esther Schalke, a vet at Germany's armed forces school for service dogs.

An earthquake of magnitude 7.3 on the Richter scale struck the South Shetland Islands on Saturday (local time), said the U.S. Geological Survey.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Dec. 28 Turkey would receive the first batch of COVID-19 vaccines
developed by China's Sinovac this week.

Turkey has agreed to buy 50 million doses of Sinovac's CoronaVac and had expected delivery by Dec. 11, but the shipment has faced delays.

As the world stayed home and tuned in to their screens to escape the monotony of lockdowns, international series made an unprecedented impact in 2020.

In many ways, the COVID-19 crisis has served as a catalyst for a global content boom that was already well underway, fueled by the continuous growth of global platforms and increased original programming from local TV players.