Country, Other	Total Cases	New Cases	Total Deaths
World	126,048,968	+622,425	2,766,749
USA	30,774,033	+67,046	559,744
Brazil	12,324,765	+97,586	303,726
India	11,846,082	+59,069	160,983
Russia	4,492,692	+9,221	96,612
France	4,424,087	+45,641	93,378
UK	4,319,128	+6,220	126,445
Italy	3,464,543	+23,696	106,799
Spain	3,247,738	+6,393	74,420
Turkey	3,120,013	+28,731	30,619
Germany	2,732,130	+22,258	76,116
Colombia	2,359,942	+6,732	62,519
Argentina	2,278,115	+8,238	55,092
Mexico	2,208,755	+5,714	199,627
Poland	2,154,821	+34,151	50,860
Iran	1,830,823	+7,506	62,142
Ukraine	1,596,575	+16,669	31,135
South Africa	1,541,563	+1,554	52,535
Peru	1,500,465	+7,946	50,831
Czechia	1,495,454	+8,841	25,552
Indonesia	1,482,559	+6,107	40,081
Netherlands	1,228,647	+7,702	16,397
Chile	954,762	+6,979	22,524
Canada	951,562	+5,192	22,790
Romania	919,794	+6,651	22,719
Belgium	849,090	+6,315	22,786
Israel	830,845	+817	6,163
Portugal	819,210	+423	16,814
Iraq	815,605	+6,513	14,128
Philippines	693,018	+8,743	13,095
Pakistan	640,988	+3,946	14,028
Hungary	603,347	+9,637	19,224
Bangladesh	584,395	+3,587	8,797
Serbia	571,895	+5,226	5,075
Jordan	571,290	+8,433	6,277
Austria	526,393	+3,124	9,178
Morocco	493,353	+511	8,788
Japan	460,897	+1,854	8,938
Lebanon	452,281	+3,560	5,964
UAE	448,637	+2,043	1,466
Saudi Arabia	386,782	+482	6,630
Slovakia	354,182	+1,654	9,313
Panama	352,579	+497	6,073
Malaysia	338,168	+1,360	1,248
Bulgaria	321,104	+3,988	12,512
Ecuador	318,656	+1,849	16,582
Belarus	314,993	+1,141	2,193
Georgia	279,027	+399	3,732
Nepal	276,509	+120	3,020
Bolivia	267,059	+973	12,107
Croatia	262,309	+1,673	5,838
Dominican Republic	250,968	+389	3,295
Azerbaijan	250,921	+1,429	3,421
Tunisia	248,037	+783	8,663
Greece	247,992	+2,587	7,701
Kazakhstan	236,200	+1,105	2,952
Ireland	232,758	+594	4,631
Palestine	232,038	+1,962	2,521
Lithuania	211,804	+769	3,521
Slovenia	209,753	+1,164	3,998
Paraguay	202,700	+1,877	3,910
Egypt	198,011	+661	11,768
Ethiopia	194,524	+1,949	2,741
Guatemala	191,207	+999	6,765
Armenia	187,441	+1,257	3,416
Honduras	184,821	+790	4,506
Qatar	175,919	+587	281
Nigeria	162,275	+97	2,036
Libya	155,232	+912	2,591
Venezuela	154,165	+850	1,532
Oman	153,838	+733	1,650
Myanmar	142,315	+23	3,204
Bahrain	139,124	+841	508
Kenya	126,170	+1,463	2,092
North Macedonia	123,491	+1,264	3,574
Albania	122,767	+472	2,184
Algeria	116,543	+105	3,071
Estonia	100,437	+1,429	836
S. Korea	100,276	+430	1,709
Latvia	99,476	+606	1,864
Norway	90,935	+831	656
China	90,136	+11	4,636
Ghana	89,999	+106	737
Uruguay	89,458	+1,646	856
Montenegro	88,991	+441	1,230
Kyrgyzstan	87,758	+106	1,494
Zambia	87,318	+325	1,191
Uzbekistan	81,816	+138	624
Finland	74,242	+726	815
Cuba	69,802	+816	408
Mozambique	66,762	+113	753
Suriname	9,085	+8	177
Aruba	9,073	+88	82
Vietnam	2,579	+3	35

 

 

Retrieved from:  https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

 

 

 

EU will "step up and speed up" Covid-19 vaccine production and distribution in Europe

From CNN’s Arnaud Siad

 

European Council President Charles Michel speaks with EU leaders, via videoconference link, during a EU summit at the European Council building in Brussels, Thursday, March 25. Yves Herman/Pool/AP

The European Union will “step up and speed up” Covid-19 vaccine production and distribution in Europe “over the next few weeks,” President of the European Council Charles Michel said on Thursday.

“We are trying to take an inventory of the work that has been done. Over the next few weeks we hope to step up and speed up the production and distribution of vaccines to member states,” Michel said after chairing a meeting of the 27 member states.

"It's absolutely vital of course that we keep on working to improve vaccine production in Europe, and improve our ability to distribute those to member states,” he added.

 

 

 

Chile goes into new lockdown amid rapid surge in coronavirus cases

From CNN's Radina Gigova and Florencia Trucco

 

A soldier checks a pedestrian's ID at a checkpoint in Santiago, on March 25, as a new quarantine began Chile, due to a sharp increase in new cases of covid-19. Martin Bernetti/AFP/Getty Images

A new lockdown is in effect in Chile due to a rapid surge in coronavirus cases, authorities have announced.

The country has been reporting between 7,000 to 8,000 new cases daily and hospital intensive care unit occupancy rates are at 95% with both Covid and non-Covid patients, according to authorities.

At Thursday's daily news conference health authorities said "several patients" with the British and Brazilian variants have been detected. 

"We are experiencing a worrying situation and we are concerned as a health authority and as a government. We ask the residents of Chile to share this concern," Chile's Health Minister Enrique Paris said.

The lockdown will affect more than 13 million people and will include the Santiago metropolitan area. Most colleges and schools will remain open but all nonessential stores will be closed. Authorities are also urging people to avoid nonessential travel.

The surge in cases comes despite Chile's elaborate vaccination campaign, which is seen as one of the most successful in the region. At least 6 million people in Chile, about a third of the population, have already received at least one dose.

Despite the domestic challenges, and without affecting Chile's own vaccination campaign, President Sebastián Piñera said on Tuesday that his country will continue collaborating with other countries in the region to help with vaccines, oxygen and medical supplies.

Chile has already helped Peru with oxygen supplies, Paraguay and Ecuador with vaccines, and has provided logistical support for the transportation of vaccines to Uruguay, Piñera said.

Chile reported 7,023 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, bringing the total to at least 954,762. Health authorities also reported 122 new deaths, bringing the total to at least 22,524 deaths since the start of the pandemic. 

 

 

 

Biden will announce new vaccine goal of 200 million shots by first 100 days in office

From CNN's Kevin Liptak 

 

President Biden will announce a new coronavirus vaccine goal of 200 million shots in arms in his first 100 days in office at his 1:15 p.m. ET news conference today, a White House official tells CNN. 

CNN reported yesterday that Biden was expected to announce his new goal at the news conference and that he had strongly hinted he would double his original goal 100 million shots in his first 100 days, which he cleared in 58 days.

The announcement comes after Biden in recent days has consulted with his advisers and health experts on what a new, realistic goal would be. 

The current US seven-day average is about 2.5 million doses per day. That pace would get the country to more than 205 million Covid-19 vaccine doses by day 100 of Biden's presidency.

 

 

 

Coronavirus infects the mouth and may spread in saliva, study finds

From CNN Health’s Maggie Fox

 

Researchers said Thursday they have found evidence that coronavirus infects the mouth, including inside the cheeks, in the gums and in salivary glands.

Their findings, detailed in the journal Nature Medicine, may explain why so many people infected with coronavirus lose their sense of taste. They also suggest the mouth is an important source of spread of the virus.

“When infected saliva is swallowed or tiny particles of it are inhaled, we think it can potentially transmit SARS-CoV-2 further into our throats, our lungs, or even our guts,” said Dr. Kevin Byrd of the American Dental Association Science and Research Institute, who worked on the study.

It’s known that saliva testing is a good way to detect coronavirus infection, but researchers hadn’t looked to see why. The mouth, nose, sinuses, throat and lungs are all connected, and the virus can spread across all those regions in mucus that drains or is coughed up.

“We suspected at least some of the virus in saliva could be coming from infected tissues in the mouth itself,” said Dr. Blake Warner of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, one of the National Institutes of Health, who helped lead the study. 

The researchers tested oral tissue and found cells inside the mouth carry the receptors -- or cellular doorways -- that coronavirus uses to infect them, including the ACE2 receptor. They checked samples of mouth tissue from people who died of Covid-19 and found the virus in about half of the salivary glands they tested.

They tested people with mild or asymptomatic Covid-19, and found cells shed from the mouth into saliva carried active RNA -- an indication the virus was replicating in the cells. And they exposed cells in a lab dish to saliva from eight people with asymptomatic Covid-19 and managed to infect the cells -- a finding that suggests saliva can indeed be infectious.

They collected saliva from 35 volunteers working at NIH who had mild or asymptomatic Covid-19. “In symptomatic individuals, the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in saliva was positively associated with patient self-reported ‘loss of taste and smell,’” the researchers wrote.

The researchers also found evidence that people who test negative after a nasal swab sometimes continue to test positive on a saliva test. “These data highlight the possibility that the virus is cleared from the nasopharynx but can persist in saliva, suggesting sustained shedding of virus from SARS-CoV-2 infected oral sites,” they wrote.

 

Retrieved from: https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-vaccine-updates-03-26-21/index.html

 

 

 

India cuts vaccine exports as infections surge at home

By Jeffrey Gettleman, Emily Schmall and Mujib Mashal

 

 

Essential workers in Chennai, India, waiting to get inoculated against Covid-19 last Saturday. The government has sharply curtailed exports of vaccine doses to speed up efforts at home. Credit...Arun Sankar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

 

India has severely curtailed exports of Covid-19 vaccines, triggering setbacks for vaccination drives in many other countries, as the nation fends focuses on a surge of cases at home.
The government of India is now holding back nearly all of the 2.4 million doses of the vaccine produced daily by the Serum Institute of India, one of the world’s largest makers of the AstraZeneca shot.

India is desperate for all the doses it can get. Infections are soaring, topping 50,000 per day, more than double the number less than two weeks ago. And the Indian vaccine drive has been sluggish, with less than 4 percent of India’s nearly 1.4 billion people getting a jab, far behind the rates of the United States, Britain and most European countries.

Just a few weeks ago, India was a major exporter of the AstraZeneca vaccine, and it was using that to exert influence in South Asia and around the world. More than 70 countries, from Djibouti to Britain, received vaccines made in India, with a total of more than 60 million doses. From mid January into March, not more than a few days passed between major vaccine shipments leaving India.

But the size of its shipments abroad has greatly diminished in the past two weeks, according to data from India’s foreign ministry. And Covax, the program set up by donor agencies to purchase vaccines for poorer nations, said on Thursday that it had told those countries that nearly 100 million doses expected in March and April would face delays because of “increased demand for Covid-19 vaccines in India.”

The Indian government has not publicly commented on what’s happening, and would not when reached by The New York Times for this article. But health experts say the explanation is obvious: India is drawing up its gates as a second wave of infections hits home, holding tight to a vaccine that it didn’t develop but that is being produced in huge quantities on its soil.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/25/world/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-cases/india-cuts-vaccine-exports-as-infections-surge-at-home

 

 

 

Pfizer begins testing its vaccine in young children.

 

Alejandra Gerardo, 9, looks up to her mom, Dr. Susanna Naggie, as she gets the first of two Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines during a clinical trial for children at Duke Health.Credit...Shawn Rocco/Duke Health

Pfizer has begun testing its Covid-19 vaccine in children under 12, a significant step in turning back the pandemic. The trial’s first two participants, 9-year-old twin girls, were immunized at Duke University in North Carolina on Wednesday.

Results from the trial are expected in the second half of the year, and the company hopes to begin vaccinating younger children widely early in 2022, according to Sharon Castillo, a spokeswoman for the company.

Moderna also is beginning a trial of its vaccine in children six months to 12 years of age. Both companies have been testing their vaccines in children 12 and older, and expect those results in the next few weeks.

AstraZeneca began testing its vaccine last month in children six months and older, and Johnson & Johnson has said it planned to extend trials of its vaccine to young children after assessing its performance in older children.
Immunizing children will help schools reopen, said Dr. Emily Erbelding, an infectious diseases physician at the National Institutes of Health who oversees testing of Covid-19 vaccines in special populations.

An estimated 80 percent of the population may need to be vaccinated for the United States to reach what scientists call herd immunity, when the virus would stop spreading because anyone with an active infection would be unlikely to encounter many people who could catch it from them. Still, some adults may refuse to be vaccinated, and others may not produce a robust immune response.
Children under 18 make up about 23 percent of the population in the United States, so even if a vast majority of adults opt for vaccines, “herd immunity might be hard to achieve without children being vaccinated,” Dr. Erbelding said.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/25/world/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-cases/pfizer-begins-testing-its-vaccine-in-young-children

 

 

Summary

 

· EU leaders have given a luke-warm response to plans by the European Commission to potentially block vaccine exports to highly vaccinated countries. In a statement issued after the EU virtual summit late on Thursday, the leaders failed to offer their support for the commission approach, instead saying they backed “global value chains” and reaffirmed that “companies must ensure predictability of their vaccine production and respect contractual delivery deadlines.”

· EU commission president Ursula von der Leyen advocated support for the plan to block vaccine exports if necessary: “While remaining open, the EU needs to ensure Europeans get a fair share of vaccines,” she tweeted.

· Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, said while the EU had to “provide [for] our own population” the bloc would not damage the supply chains necessary for the production and distribution of vaccines.

· France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, used a press conference after the meeting to criticise the British media: “Every day, when I read the press across the Channel, they make a case against us saying that it is the EU that is being selfish. This is false!” he said.

· Germany is expected to declare France a high-risk zone for coronavirus on Friday. It comes as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 21,573 to 2,734,753, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Friday.

· In England, more than 40,600 people have been likely infected with coronavirus while being treated in hospital for another reason, raising concerns about the NHS’s inability to protect them.

·  Joe Biden announced he had doubled his administration’s vaccination goal to 200m shots during his first 100 days as president (up until 29 April).

· Australia on Friday reported its first locally acquired coronavirus case in more than a week, prompting authorities in Queensland to place restrictions on hospitals, retirement homes and disability centres.

· Moderna has delayed the shipment of 590,400 doses of its vaccine that were due to arrive in Canada this weekend, the federal procurement minister said on Thursday.

· Colombia has approved emergency use of Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot Covid-19 vaccine, the director of food and drug regulator INVIMA said as part of a government address on Thursday.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/mar/26/coronavirus-live-news-eu-demands-fair-share-of-covid-jabs-us-doubles-vaccine-target