ROME (AP) — Some 1,900 Italian doctors and dentists have been suspended from the country's professional association because they haven’t complied with a law requiring them to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, including having a booster shot.

That amounts to 0.4% of total membership, but the federation says some 30,000 other members still haven’t completed their vaccinations. The federation noted that some of them might not be violating the law since they might have tested positive and can’t now receive the vaccine yet or might have health reasons they can’t be vaccinated. Still others are waiting until they are eligible to receive a booster dose at least four months after their last vaccine shot.

That's a rough number that doesn't photograph the real situation of non-compliant health workers," Filippo Anelli, federation president, said in a statement.

Italy requires all health care workers, teachers, police, armed forces members and those who provide services to nursing home residents to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. It also requires all people 50 or older to be fully vaccinated or recently recovered from the illness in order to access services such as public transport.

Health care workers must receive the booster in order to be fully compliant, according to a law decreed by the Italian government last month.

Suspending the unvaccinated from the doctor's professional federation “isn't meant to be punitive,” Anelli said. “The aim is, as the law says, to protect public health and maintain adequate conditions of safety in providing care.”

To honor the sacrifice that Italy's doctors have made in caring for COVID-19 patients, the federation lists the names of all of its members who have died from the virus, which so far includes 366 names.

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SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — Health authorities stepped up anti-infection measures in Bulgaria's capital, Sofia, and other major cities in response to a surge in new coronavirus cases driven by the highly contagious omicron variant.

Schools are limiting in-person classes, requiring students in all grades except first through fourth to switch to distance learning.

The precautions also ban mass events and require restaurants and bars to operate at half of their customer capacity. All catering and entertainment establishments have to close no later than 10 p.m., and visitors need valid health certificates to be admitted.

Bulgaria, which has the lowest COVID-19 vaccination rate in the European Union and a population of 6.5 million, reported on Friday 8,932 new virus cases and 87 deaths.

The country's test positivity rate for the virus increased to about 24%.

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RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The world-famous Carnival festivities in Rio de Janeiro will be held in late April rather than the final weekend of February, as the number of coronavirus cases in Brazil spikes and the omicron variant spreads across the country.

“The decision was made respecting for the current situation of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil and the need, at this time, to preserve lives and join forces to drive vaccination throughout the country,” said a statement issued Friday jointly by the cities of Rio and Sao Paulo, which also delayed the start of its Carnival parades until April 21.

Earlier in the afternoon, Rio's Mayor Eduardo Paes and his Sao Paulo counterpart Ricardo Nunes held a video call along with their respective health secretaries and each city's league of samba schools that put on the parade, according to the statement.

Paes announced weeks ago that his city's raucous street parties, some of which draw hundreds of thousands of revelers, wouldn't proceed in the manner they did before the pandemic, but without clarifying what shape they might take.

He said at the time, however, that samba schools' parades through the Sambadrome would proceed as planned, in light of the relative ease with which vaccination status and negative coronavirus tests could be checked upon entry.

The parade through the Sambadrome is a major tourist draw for Rio and the central fixture of the city's pre-Lenten party. It draws tens of thousands of spectators in its bleachers and tens of millions watch from home.

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WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s former president and former Solidarity pro-democracy movement leader, Lech Walesa, said Friday that he has COVID-19.

The 78-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate said on Facebook that he was surprised to find out he is infected despite the three vaccination doses he has received.

“I can't believe it: I received 3 shots, .... (but) I'm infected. (I have a) headache, I can't warm up my body. I feel like my flesh is tearing away from the bones,” Walesa wrote.

“After this painful lesson I will never separate from my mask,” Walesa wrote.

Walesa was fitted with a pacemaker in 2008 and last year he had a heart surgery.

In the 1980s, Walesa led the nationwide Solidarity movement that eventually toppled Poland’s communist leaders through an election in 1989. He received the Nobel Prize in 1983.

Walesa served as democratic Poland's first popularly elected president in 1990-95.

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MOSCOW (AP) — Daily new coronavirus infections in Russia reached an all-time high Friday and authorities blamed the highly contagious omicron variant, which they expect to soon dominate the country's outbreak.

Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova on Friday noted “intensive spread of the omicron variant” and said the authorities “expect it to become the dominating” variant driving the outbreak. The state coronavirus task force Golikova heads reported 49,513 new infections on Friday — the highest yet in the pandemic.

Record numbers of 15,987 new cases and 5,922 cases were reported respectively in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city. In light of the surge, health officials in St. Petersburg on Friday limited elective outpatient care.

Golikova on Friday urged Russians who received their vaccinations or recovered from the virus more than six months ago to “head to a vaccination point again in order to protect yourself from the virus” with a booster.

Also Friday, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin ordered cabinet members to hold meetings online and have their staff work remotely “where possible.”