Madrid Desk, Jan 11 (EFE).- Irish officials on Monday said the contagious variant of coronavirus first detected in the United Kingdom now accounted for almost half of all new Covid-19 cases in the Republic of Ireland while British authorities announced that 2.5 million vaccinations have been administered so far.

Elsewhere in Europe, Germans are facing a tough stage of the second lockdown with no definitive end in sight amid concerns about the economic effects of the measures while in Spain unusually wintry weather caused a hiccup in vaccine distribution.

REPUBLIC OF IRELAND

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has urged citizens to wear face masks in public at all times amid an uptick in Covid-19 infections and the arrival of virulent coronavirus variant that has already become the dominant cause of Covid-19 in the Republic of Ireland's neighbor, the UK.

The Irish government has decreed a new lockdown, which is to last at least one month, from Wednesday.

The Irish National Public Health Emergency Team said the UK variant of the coronavirus, which appears to be more contagious, accounted for more than 45% of Covid-19 cases being detected in the country.

The latest official figures on Sunday said 6,888 people had tested positive for Covid-19 in 24 hours.

According to data from Johns Hopkins University and the World Health Organization published by Bloomberg, Ireland has the highest infection rate per million people in the world.

Martin nonetheless defended his government's plan to de-escalate tough restrictions ahead of the Christmas holiday season when cases were less than 200 per day despite some observers warning it was too soon.

UNITED KINGDOM

The UK is heading into a challenging period with its Covid-19 crisis and Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday said some hospitals in England were facing a shortage of oxygen.

"This is a very perilous moment," Johnson told the press in the English city of Bristol, echoing a warning from his chief medical advisor Chris Whitty.

Speaking to the BBC earlier Monday, Whitty said: "We've got to be very clear that we are now at the worst point of this epidemic for the UK."

He said that in the UK about one in 50 people have Covid-19 whereas in parts of hard-hit London it could be as high as one in 20.

"There's a very high chance that if you meet someone unnecessarily they will have Covid," he said.

The UK, the first country in Europe in the world to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, has administered 2.6 million jabs to 2.3 million people since the rollout began, officials said Monday.

Both Johnson and Whitty warned the public against becoming complacent.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock on Monday told a news conference that there had been over 46,000 new cases detected in the UK on Sunday and that the average number of daily deaths in the past week was 926.

Hancock did not rule out strengthening the tough restrictions already in place in England but said it could be avoided if the public followed the current rules.

GERMANY

Schools in Germany will remain closed until the end of the month at least, as will leisure and cultural activities and gastronomy as the country embarks on a tough stage of a lockdown amid a growing worry over the effects on the economy.

"The very high number of deaths and the burden on the ICUs shows us that we are looking at a very, very difficult period," Steffan Seiber, German government spokesman, said.

The restrictions were agreed upon between the federal and regional governments, although the process of negotiating was not entirely free of friction.

Health Minister Jens Spahn told public TV ZDF that the first batch of the US Moderna vaccine would arrive in Germany on Monday and be distributed to regional powers Tuesday.

It marks an important development in the inoculation program in Germany, where some have criticized the apparent slow rollout of the jabs.

An estimated 613,300 people have received the first dose of a vaccine in Germany, one of the highest rates in Europe although far behind Israel, the US and the UK.

German health authorities logged over 12,000 new infections and 343 deaths in the last 24 hours.

SPAIN

A fresh batch of 350,000 Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines arrived in Spain on Monday but deliveries to Madrid were hampered by wintry conditions brought by Storm Filomena over the weekend.

The batch destined for Madrid had to be first re-routed to an airport in the Basque Region, in the north of Spain, given the dangerous icy conditions in the Spanish capital, before being transported to Madrid's airport later in the day.

The Spanish government delegate for the Madrid region later told local media, however, that dangerous conditions on the roads proved a hurdle when transporting some of the jabs from the airport to the distribution center.

Authorities in the Spanish capital are racing to clear snow from the city's roads before temperatures drop well below zero over the next few days. EFE

© 2021 EFE News Services (U.S.) Inc., source EFE Ingles