Country, Other	Total Cases	New Cases	Total Deaths
World	155,822,499	+843,613	3,255,327
USA	33,321,244	+46,129	593,148
India	21,070,852	+412,618	230,151
Brazil	14,936,464	+75,652	414,645
France	5,706,378	+26,000	105,631
Turkey	4,955,594	+26,476	41,883
Russia	4,847,489	+7,975	111,895
UK	4,425,940	+2,144	127,570
Italy	4,070,400	+10,585	122,005
Spain	3,551,262	+6,317	78,566
Germany	3,469,448	+21,266	84,593
Argentina	3,071,496	+24,079	65,865
Colombia	2,934,611	+14,806	76,015
Poland	2,811,951	+3,896	68,482
Iran	2,591,609	+15,872	73,568
Mexico	2,352,964	+3,064	217,740
Ukraine	2,090,986	+2,576	45,077
Peru	1,824,457	+5,768	62,976
Indonesia	1,691,658	+5,285	46,349
Czechia	1,639,263	+2,420	29,504
South Africa	1,588,221	+2,073	54,557
Netherlands	1,531,800	+7,273	17,245
Canada	1,257,328	+7,378	24,450
Chile	1,222,949	+3,885	26,726
Iraq	1,091,954	+5,813	15,640
Philippines	1,073,555	+5,685	17,800
Romania	1,060,895	+1,564	28,616
Belgium	999,627	+2,731	24,367
Pakistan	841,636	+4,113	18,429
Israel	838,767	+70	6,370
Portugal	838,102	+387	16,983
Hungary	785,967	+1,130	28,173
Bangladesh	767,338	+1,742	11,755
Jordan	716,923	+1,220	8,988
Serbia	695,875	+1,402	6,478
Austria	626,239	+1,644	10,311
Japan	612,360	+4,075	10,470
Lebanon	530,217	+1,012	7,390
UAE	529,220	+1,954	1,601
Morocco	512,656	+371	9,043
Malaysia	424,376	+3,744	1,591
Saudi Arabia	422,316	+1,016	7,018
Bulgaria	407,827	+1,635	16,773
Ecuador	393,048	+1,806	18,907
Slovakia	384,317	+708	11,886
Panama	365,975	+356	6,252
Belarus	363,732	+1,138	2,592
Nepal	359,610	+8,605	3,475
Greece	352,027	+2,091	10,764
Croatia	339,412	+2,494	7,315
Kazakhstan	332,369	+2,298	3,796
Azerbaijan	323,841	+1,080	4,617
Georgia	315,913	+2,171	4,207
Tunisia	315,600	+1,448	11,122
Bolivia	310,572	+1,588	13,082
Palestine	299,736	+815	3,317
Paraguay	288,974	+2,307	6,798
Kuwait	280,536	+1,451	1,610
Dominican Republic	268,561	+491	3,509
Costa Rica	260,535	+2,555	3,326
Ethiopia	260,139	+785	3,795
Denmark	255,470	+988	2,492
Lithuania	252,798	+1,334	3,994
Moldova	251,820	+316	5,892
Ireland	251,087	+415	4,915
Slovenia	243,719	+929	4,279
Egypt	232,905	+1,102	13,655
Guatemala	231,289	+1,194	7,642
Armenia	217,900	+493	4,178
Honduras	215,833	+1,358	5,386
Uruguay	209,867	+2,921	2,918
Qatar	208,877	+645	489
Venezuela	202,578	+771	2,226
Oman	198,572	+770	2,071
Bahrain	183,330	+1,450	664
Libya	178,927	+255	3,058
Nigeria	165,273	+58	2,065
Kenya	161,393	+489	2,825
North Macedonia	153,137	+323	5,016
Myanmar	142,874	+16	3,210
Albania	131,419	+92	2,403
S. Korea	124,945	+676	1,847
Estonia	123,781	+430	1,183
Algeria	123,272	+273	3,299
Latvia	120,736	+358	2,166
Sri Lanka	117,529	+1,939	734
Norway	114,905	+469	767
Cuba	111,654	+1,010	694
Montenegro	97,930	+117	1,521
Kyrgyzstan	96,958	+397	1,637
Ghana	92,828	+88	783
Uzbekistan	92,724	+404	655
Zambia	91,849	+45	1,255
China	90,721	+7	4,636
Finland	87,798	+269	918
Thailand	74,900	+2,112	318
Mozambique	70,052	+21	818
El Salvador	69,997	+270	2,141
Cyprus	67,982	+562	327
Luxembourg	67,850	+208	800
Singapore	61,268	+16	31
Aruba	10,721	+17	100
Suriname	10,696	+73	212
Vietnam	3,022	+26	35

 

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

 

 

 

India reports highest-ever 24-hour surge in Covid-19 cases and a record-high daily death toll

From CNN’s Swati Gupta in Delhi

 

A health worker walks inside the Commonwealth Games stadium temporarily converted into a Covid-19 care center in New Delhi, India, on May 5. Money Sharma/AFP/Getty Images

India reported a 412,262 new Covid-19 cases Thursday, a new single-day record, according to a CNN tally compiled from figures released by the Indian Health Ministry. 

To date, authorities have identified 21,077,410 cases of coronavirus.

The country also reported 3,980 Covid-19 related deaths on Thursday, another new single-day record. It was the ninth consecutive day that the number of fatalities identified in a 24-hour period exceeded 3,000.

To date, 230,168 who have contracted the virus in India have died.

India is in the midst of a severe second wave of cases. In the past 30 days, the country has recorded 8.3 million cases. Since April 22, more than 300,000 cases have been added every day.

 

 

 

New Zealand deflates travel bubble, suspending quarantine-free travel from Australian state

From CNN’s Angus Watson in Sydney

 

A general view of Wellington Airport is seen in Wellington, New Zealand, on April 9. Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images

New Zealand has suspended quarantine-free travel arrangements for flights from the Australian state of New South Wales due to a local outbreak of Covid-19 in its state capital, Sydney.

Quarantine-free flights will be suspended for 48 hours from midnight Thursday New Zealand local time, according to New Zealand’s Covid-19 response minister, Chris Hipkins.

Flights from New Zealand to New South Wales have not yet been affected. 

Thursday’s decision is the first alteration to the Australia-New Zealand travel bubble, which was instituted on April 19. 

Two locally acquired cases of Covid-19 were detected in Sydney on Wednesday, a married couple in their 50s.

Some restrictions were reinstated in Sydney on Thursday, including mandatory mask wearing in indoor public places and a limit of 20 people at private gatherings.

 

Retrieved from:  https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-vaccine-updates-05-06-21/index.html?tab=India

 

 

 

Colombia, strained by pandemic and economic hardship, explodes in protest

By Julie Turkewitz and Sofía Villamil

 

There were road blocks, fires and riots in southern Bogotá on Tuesday after a week of protests and strikes over proposed tax reforms in Colombia proposed by the Colombian government.Credit...Federico Rios for The New York Times

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — A teenager shot to death after kicking a police officer. A young man bleeding out on the street as protesters shout for help. Police firing on unarmed demonstrators. Helicopters swarming overhead, tanks rolling through neighborhoods, explosions echoing in the streets. A mother crying for her son.

“We are destroyed,” said Milena Meneses, 39, whose only son, Santiago, 19, was killed in a protest over the weekend.

Colombians demonstrating over the past week against the poverty and inequality that have worsened the lives of millions since the Covid-19 pandemic began have been met with a powerful crackdown by their government, which has responded to the protests with the same militarized police force it often uses against rebel fighters and organized crime. The clashes have left at least 24 people dead, most of them demonstrators, and at least 87 missing. They have also exacerbated the anger with officials in the capital, Bogotá. Protesters the government is increasingly out of touch with people’s everyday lives.

This explosion of frustration, experts say, could presage unrest across Latin America, where several countries face the same combustible mix of an unrelenting pandemic, growing hardship and plummeting government revenue.

“We are all connected,” said León Valencia, a political analyst, noting that past protests have jumped from country to country. “This could spread across the region.”

The marches began last week after Mr. Duque proposed a tax overhaul meant to close a pandemic-related economic shortfall, and since then, the crowds have only grown.

Demonstrators now include teachers, doctors, students, members of major unions, longtime activists and Colombians who have never before taken to the streets.

Then came the pandemic. Latin America was one of the regions hardest hit by the virus in 2020, with cemeteries filling past capacity, the sick dying while awaiting care in hospital hallways, and family members spending the night in lines to buy medical oxygen in an attempt to keep loved ones alive.

The region’s economies shrank by an average of 7 percent. In many places, unemployment, particularly among the young, spiked. And in the first few months of 2021, the Covid-19 situation has only worsened.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/05/05/world/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-cases/colombia-strained-by-pandemic-and-economic-hardship-explodes-in-protest

 

 

 

Canada authorizes Pfizer’s vaccine for adolescents, but shots won’t begin immediately

By Ian Austen, Austin Ramzy, Isabella Kwai and Yan Zhuang

 

Health care workers administering the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at a Sikh house of worship in Mississauga, Ontario.Credit...Carlos Osorio/Reuters

Canada’s regulatory agency gave authorization on Wednesday for the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine to be used in people as young as 12. The agency said it lowered the minimum age from 16 following a review of data from clinical trials in the United States involving 2,000 adolescents.

Dr. Supriya Sharma, the chief medical adviser at the agency, Health Canada, said that the step should make it possible for students aged 12 to 15 to return to classrooms safely and to restart extracurricular activities.

“It will also support the return to a more normal life for our children, who have had such a hard time over the past year,” Dr. Sharma told reporters at a news conference.

The United States Food and Drug Administration is expected to make a similar announcement in the next few days.

Dr. Sharma said that about 20 percent of Covid-19 cases reported in Canada are in people under the age of 19. A small number of adolescents as young as 13 have died of the disease in Canada.

It remains unclear whether most adolescents in Canada will actually start receiving shots soon. On Wednesday, Jason Kenney, the premier of Alberta, said that 12- to 29-year-olds will be allowed to book vaccination appointments starting on Monday. No details were offered about when those inoculations would take place.

Canada relies entirely on imported vaccine supplies, which have been slow to arrive, though shipments have increased recently and the process is expected to accelerate over the next few weeks. Most provinces are still concentrating on giving the most vulnerable segment of the population, older adults, their first shots of the two-dose vaccine, with the second to be administered in the summer. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has set the end of September as a target for fully vaccinating all Canadians.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/05/05/world/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-cases/canada-authorizes-pfizers-vaccine-for-adolescents-but-shots-wont-begin-immediately

 

 

 

This new vaccine could bring hope to much of the world

By Carl Zimmer

 

A volunteer in Brussels participating in a study of the CureVac vaccine, a new RNA vaccine that could help meet that global need.Credit...Yves Herman/Reuters

 

In early 2020, dozens of scientific teams scrambled to make a vaccine for Covid-19. Some chose tried-and-true techniques, such as making vaccines from killed viruses. But a handful of companies bet on a riskier method, one that had never produced a licensed vaccine: deploying a genetic molecule called RNA.

The bet paid off. The first two vaccines to emerge successfully out of clinical trials, made by Pfizer-BioNTech and by Moderna, were both made of RNA. They both turned out to have efficacy rates about as good as a vaccine could get.

In the months that followed, those two RNA vaccines have provided protection to tens of millions of people in some 90 countries. But many parts of the world, including those with climbing death tolls, have had little access to them, in part because they require being kept in a deep freeze.

Now, a third RNA vaccine may help meet that global need. A small German company called CureVac is on the cusp of announcing the results of its late-stage clinical trial. As early as next week, the world may learn whether its vaccine is safe and effective.

CureVac’s product belongs to what many scientists refer to as the second wave of Covid-19 vaccines that could collectively ease the world’s demand. Novavax, a company based in Maryland whose vaccine uses coronavirus proteins, is expected to apply for U.S. authorization in the next few weeks. In India, the pharmaceutical company Biological E is testing another protein-based vaccine that was developed by researchers in Texas. In Brazil, Mexico, Thailand and Vietnam, researchers are starting trials for a Covid-19 shot that can be mass-produced in chicken eggs.

Vaccines experts are particularly curious to see CureVac’s results, because its shot has an important advantage over the other RNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech. While those two vaccines have to be kept in a deep freezer, CureVac’s vaccine stays stable in a refrigerator — meaning it could more easily deliver the newly discovered power of RNA vaccines to hard-hit parts of the world.

“It’s gone largely under the radar,” said Jacob Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, D.C. But now, he added, “they look pretty well positioned to clean up the global market.”

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/05/05/world/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-cases/canada-authorizes-pfizers-vaccine-for-adolescents-but-shots-wont-begin-immediately

 

 

 

Summary

 

Here are the other key developments from the last few hours:

· Germany’s constitutional court said on Wednesday it rejected emergency appeals against the government’s decision to impose night curfews in areas with high Covid-19 infections, Reuters reports.

· The number of new Covid-19 infections in France is rising much more slowly and hospitalisations declined on Wednesday, in the first week after the French government eased its third nationwide lockdown.

· Serbia’s president said his country would pay each citizen who gets a Covid jab before the end of May, in what could be the world’s first cash-for-jabs scheme, AFP reports.

· The US supports waiving intellectual property protections for Covid-19 vaccines, US trade representative Katherine Tai said, Reuters reports.

· Negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to waive intellectual property protections for jabs will take time given the consensus-based nature of the institution and the complexity of the issue, a Biden administration official added.

· Alberta will become the first Canadian province to offer Covid vaccines to everyone aged 12 and over from 10 May, premier Jason Kenney said.

· Ireland’s deputy premier, Leo Varadkar, has said he is hoping for a return to normality by late summer with the “vast majority” of curbs removed by August and a “normal Christmas”.

· Canada is authorising the use of Pfizer Inc’s Covid vaccine for use in children aged 12 to 15, the first doses to be allowed for people that young, the federal health ministry said.

· In Egypt, the closing hours of stores, malls and restaurants will be brought forward to 9pm to help contain the coronavirus for two weeks from Thursday, the prime minister said.

· Italy will allow tourists to enter quarantine-free as soon as this month, the prime minister, Mario Draghi announced.

· A Covid variant first diagnosed in India has been detected in Kenya, the health ministry confirmed.

· Norway will introduce verifiable vaccine certificates from early June, allowing holders to use them for admittance to events held in Norway, prime minister Erna Solberg said.

· World Athletics president Sebastian Coe has reiterated that the Tokyo Olympics will take place in July despite the rising number of Covid-19 cases in Japan.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/may/06/coronavirus-live-news-who-says-us-support-for-vaccine-patent-waiver-heroic-india-sees-new-case-record?page=with:block-609365628f08ae30bfe0582f#block-609365628f08ae30bfe0582f