i_need_contribute
|
Country, |
Total |
New |
Total |
|
World |
177,021,694 |
+301,576 |
3,827,510 |
|
34,335,239 |
+10,010 |
615,232 |
|
|
29,570,035 |
+62,597 |
377,061 |
|
|
17,454,861 |
+40,865 |
488,404 |
|
|
5,741,354 |
+689 |
110,454 |
|
|
5,336,073 |
+5,626 |
48,795 |
|
|
5,222,408 |
+13,721 |
126,801 |
|
|
4,573,419 |
+7,742 |
127,907 |
|
|
4,245,779 |
+907 |
127,038 |
|
|
4,145,482 |
+21,292 |
86,029 |
|
|
3,777,600 |
+24,376 |
96,366 |
|
|
3,741,767 |
+2,674 |
80,517 |
|
|
3,724,201 |
+907 |
90,527 |
|
|
3,039,432 |
+10,715 |
82,217 |
|
|
2,877,608 |
+140 |
74,574 |
|
|
2,454,176 |
+1,707 |
230,148 |
|
|
2,223,978 |
+420 |
51,692 |
|
|
2,004,252 |
+627 |
188,921 |
|
|
1,919,547 |
+8,189 |
53,116 |
|
|
1,752,630 |
+5,548 |
57,879 |
|
|
1,673,596 |
+852 |
17,714 |
|
|
1,665,139 |
+42 |
30,226 |
|
|
1,482,663 |
+6,190 |
30,804 |
|
|
1,403,285 |
+1,157 |
25,944 |
|
|
1,322,053 |
+6,426 |
22,845 |
|
|
1,259,683 |
+5,040 |
16,736 |
|
|
1,079,776 |
+50 |
31,861 |
|
|
1,076,338 |
+573 |
25,088 |
|
|
942,189 |
+1,019 |
21,723 |
|
|
858,072 |
+625 |
17,047 |
|
|
839,690 |
+24 |
6,430 |
|
|
829,972 |
+3,050 |
13,172 |
|
|
807,045 |
+255 |
29,925 |
|
|
775,231 |
+1,386 |
14,071 |
|
|
743,877 |
+546 |
9,602 |
|
|
715,015 |
+124 |
6,970 |
|
|
662,457 |
+4,949 |
3,968 |
|
|
648,732 |
+112 |
10,662 |
|
|
610,521 |
+2,049 |
8,465 |
|
|
599,823 |
+1,837 |
1,730 |
|
|
542,649 |
+45 |
7,801 |
|
|
523,999 |
+109 |
9,213 |
|
|
466,906 |
+1,109 |
7,590 |
|
|
439,139 |
+205 |
21,051 |
|
|
420,493 |
+157 |
17,915 |
|
|
415,401 |
+468 |
12,437 |
|
|
406,954 |
+1,607 |
15,542 |
|
|
406,360 |
+697 |
2,987 |
|
|
402,239 |
+967 |
4,171 |
|
|
393,482 |
+2,046 |
10,954 |
|
|
391,038 |
+12 |
12,441 |
|
|
388,325 |
+483 |
6,451 |
|
|
370,224 |
+1,316 |
13,567 |
|
|
358,581 |
+18 |
8,152 |
|
|
354,276 |
+311 |
5,060 |
|
|
343,604 |
+866 |
4,388 |
|
|
340,818 |
+2,305 |
5,036 |
|
|
335,196 |
+25 |
4,955 |
|
|
329,526 |
+1,563 |
1,828 |
|
|
311,690 |
+156 |
3,539 |
|
|
290,111 |
+237 |
2,526 |
|
|
277,812 |
+66 |
4,342 |
|
|
274,346 |
+159 |
4,250 |
|
|
273,795 |
+613 |
15,654 |
|
|
271,990 |
+287 |
8,465 |
|
|
267,061 |
+242 |
4,941 |
|
|
259,523 |
+792 |
1,236 |
|
|
256,467 |
+24 |
4,406 |
|
|
255,830 |
+33 |
6,154 |
|
|
252,883 |
+1,197 |
2,845 |
|
|
247,728 |
+654 |
6,631 |
|
|
236,440 |
+1,806 |
2,532 |
|
|
225,922 |
+2,284 |
2,260 |
|
|
223,723 |
+41 |
4,488 |
|
|
219,887 |
+157 |
579 |
|
|
199,264 |
+3,355 |
1,466 |
|
|
189,284 |
+225 |
3,165 |
|
|
175,681 |
+344 |
3,421 |
|
|
167,078 |
+12 |
2,117 |
|
|
159,057 |
+1,349 |
1,098 |
|
|
148,273 |
+399 |
1,988 |
|
|
145,826 |
+223 |
3,248 |
|
|
136,104 |
+74 |
2,456 |
|
|
133,742 |
+354 |
3,579 |
|
|
132,461 |
+2 |
2,453 |
|
|
130,538 |
+28 |
1,266 |
|
|
128,277 |
+195 |
789 |
|
|
113,134 |
+1,388 |
1,416 |
|
|
110,829 |
+459 |
1,899 |
|
|
18,599 |
+227 |
412 |
|
|
11,081 |
+1 |
107 |
|
|
10,810 |
+272 |
59 |
Retrieved from: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
By Amy Qin and Chris Buckley
Shi Zhengli at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2017. Chinese authorities have refused to allow independent investigation of claims, which Dr. Shi denies, that the global coronavirus pandemic originated in the institute’s laboratories.Credit...Johannes Eisele/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
To a growing chorus of American politicians and scientists, she is the key to whether the world will ever learn if the virus behind the devastating Covid-19 pandemic escaped from a Chinese lab. To the Chinese government and public, she is a hero of the country’s success in curbing the epidemic and a victim of malicious conspiracy theories.
Shi Zhengli, a top Chinese virologist, is once again at the center of clashing narratives about her research on coronaviruses at a state lab in Wuhan, the city where the pandemic first emerged.
The idea that the virus may have escaped from a lab had long been widely dismissed by scientists as implausible, and has been shunned by others for its connection with former President Donald J. Trump. But fresh scrutiny from the Biden administration, and calls from prominent scientists for greater candor on China’s part, have brought the theory back to the fore.
Scientists generally agree that there is still no direct evidence to support the lab leak hypothesis. But more of them now say that the idea was dismissed too hastily without a thorough investigation, and they point to a range of unsettling questions.
Some scientists say Dr. Shi conducted risky experiments with bat coronaviruses in labs that were not safe enough for such work. Others want clarity on reports, citing American intelligence, suggesting that there were early infections of Covid-19 among employees of the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Dr. Shi has denied these accusations, and now finds herself defending the reputation of her lab and, by extension, that of her country
The speculation boils down to one central question: Did Dr. Shi’s lab hold any source of the new coronavirus before the pandemic erupted? Dr. Shi’s answer is an emphatic no.
But China’s refusal to allow an independent investigation into her lab, or to share data on its research, makes it difficult to validate Dr. Shi’s claims, and has fueled nagging suspicions about whether it could be mere coincidence that the first place the pandemic took hold was a city that hosts an institute known for its work on bat coronaviruses.
A market in Saarbrücken, Germany, on Saturday. Jens Spahn, the health minister, said on Monday that states could start setting their own rules on masks in outdoor areas as the average number of cases drops.Credit...Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times
In Germany, where infection rates have been steadily falling for weeks, masks are still obligatory nearly everywhere, including on downtown sidewalks and at many outdoor venues, such as farmers’ markets. Depending on the state, the rules are even more stringent for riding public transport, shopping or entering public buildings, with medical-grade face coverings often required.
But in an indication that masks may start coming off soon in Germany, the country’s health minister, Jens Spahn, said on Monday that states could start setting their own policies — at least for outdoor areas — as the average number of recorded infections drops under 1,000 per day.
“With the falling infection rates, we should proceed in stages: In a first step, the mask requirement outside can be dropped in general,” Mr. Spahn said in an interview with the Funke group of newspapers.
Germany has recently reopened restaurant terraces, beer gardens and outdoor dining, and most states have started opening indoor dining — but only for those who can show that they have been vaccinated or tested negative. Museums are also now open to visitors.
Although individual states make the final rules, governors look to Berlin — and each other — for guidance on coronavirus restrictions.
On Sunday, Germany registered 549 new cases; in December, before the country’s vaccination drive, cases had reached a daily average of more than 30,000. Currently, 48.4 percent of the population has received a first shot, and 26.2 percent are fully vaccinated.
In an interview on Sunday, Wolfgang Kubicki, a centrist lawmaker with the opposition Free Democratic Party, called for completely abandoning mask rules in areas where there were fewer than 35 new cases a week per 100,000 people. (Currently, Germany is averaging 16.6 cases per 100,000 in a week — and most regions would fall below the threshold of 35.)
But others have expressed more caution, warning that mask rules are still important.
“Completely dropping mask requirements just before millions are vaccinated is just one thing: electioneering on the backs of the health of the citizens,” the Social Democratic lawmaker Karl Lauterbach wrote on Twitter. Mr. Lauterbach, whose party is a member of the governing coalition, has a public health degree from Harvard and has become one of the country’s most prominent experts on the pandemic.
He added: “Of course, the mask requirement outdoors can be waived almost everywhere. There is no superspreading outdoors.”
By Hannah Beech and Muktita Suhartono
Receiving the Sinovac vaccine at a center in Bangkok last month. Only about 3 percent of the population of Thailand has been fully inoculated.Credit...Adam Dean for The New York Times
BANGKOK — For months, the government of Thailand assured citizens that a plan to dole out free, locally made coronavirus shots would start in early June. About 70 percent of the national population would be inoculated by the end of the year, health officials said.
Then the delays began, just as the country was struggling with its worst outbreak of the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic.
On Sunday night, nearly a week after the vaccination program was supposed to have kicked into high gear, hospitals in Bangkok announced that previously confirmed appointments had been canceled.
There was no word as to why or when they might be rescheduled.
The knock-on effect of what appears to be a mass shortage of Thai-made vaccines is also radiating to other parts of the region, where inoculation campaigns are far behind those of many Western countries. The governments of Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan have announced that they are scaling back their vaccine rollouts because of lower-than-expected shipments from Thailand. (Thailand disputed the claims that it was to blame.)
Last year, Thailand was designated the regional hub for local production of the AstraZeneca shots. A contract was awarded to Siam Bioscience, a pharmaceutical firm with no prior experience in manufacturing vaccines. The company is controlled by the king of Thailand.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha of Thailand has warned that criticism of the company could be considered a criminal offense under the kingdom’s strict royal defamation laws. An opposition politician who questioned how Siam Bioscience got such a contract was charged with lèse-majesté — wronging the monarch — this year.
Although Thailand was the first country to record a coronavirus case outside of China, in January 2020, the country suppressed the virus’ rampant spread for most of that year. Late in 2020, the country had recorded fewer than 5,000 total cases of the coronavirus.
But Thailand is now dealing with thousands of new cases each day. As of Monday, only about 3 percent of the population had been fully inoculated.
Phatorn Chingduang, a shipping company employee, was supposed to get his first dose of AstraZeneca on June 12, along with about 15 others at his company. The day before the shots were to be administered, he was sent a text canceling the appointment.
“I don’t see the government doing enough,” Mr. Phatorn said. “This vaccine drama, it’s so bad.”
Recriminations are ricocheting. At least five Bangkok hospitals said on Monday that they did not have enough doses. All vaccines in Thailand are being distributed by the Ministry of Public Health.
The ministry countered by saying that it had sent out promised doses to the local authorities, who were responsible for specific hospital allocations. Vaccines for at least 50 million people have already been procured, said Opas Karnkawinpong, the director general of the department of disease control, on Monday.
The same day, Aswin Kwanmuang, the governor of Bangkok, alluded to “technical difficulties” and said that mass vaccinations in the capital would be suspended on June 15.
“Bangkok will stop the vaccinations and will resume the inoculations as soon as we receive the vaccines,” he said.
On Monday, as factories and prisons in the Bangkok area struggled with mounting outbreaks, officials said that parks and museums would reopen in the capital, loosening a monthslong lockdown.
Also open for business again? Tattoo parlors and foot massage salons.
Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/14/world/thailand-shortage.html
By Adeel Hassan
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization, said on Monday that while new Covid-19 cases have dropped globally, many countries, especially within Africa, were seeing increases.CreditCredit...Brian Inganga/Associated Press
Even with promises of one billion additional Covid-19 vaccines from the Group of 7 nations, the World Health Organization’s leader warned Monday that those pledges were not enough to end the pandemic, and he singled out Africa as the most worrisome trouble spot.
“This is a big help, but we need more, and we need them faster,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the W.H.O., said at a news conference.
The doses will be distributed through Covax, the international vaccine-sharing initiative.
“There are enough doses of vaccines globally to drive down transmission and save many lives, if they are used in the right places, for the right people,” Dr. Tedros said.
Those most at risk and health care workers should be given priority, he added.
The W.Health.O. also noted on Monday that the number of new cases of Covid-19 reported to the agency had declined for seven consecutive weeks — the longest streak of weekly declines during the pandemic. Many experts, however, believe that some countries are significantly undercounting their virus tolls, and testing remains limited in many parts of the world.
Dr. Tedros warned against focusing on the declining weekly totals, and instead pointed to the increase in cases and deaths in many countries and singled out Africa as the most worrisome trouble spot.
“It is the region with the least access to vaccines, diagnostics and oxygen,” he said.
“Available evidence suggests new variants have substantially increased transmission globally. That means the risks have increased for people who are not protected, which is most of the world’s population,” he said. “Right now, the virus is moving faster than the global distribution of vaccines.”
The W.H.O. said last week that inoculation coverage was at about 2 percent continentwide — and about 1 percent in sub-Saharan Africa — even as some rich nations across the world have administered vaccines to a majority of their people.
Dr. Tedros told G7 leaders on Saturday that at least 70 percent of the world’s population should be inoculated by the time the G7 meets next year and that 11 billion doses were needed to end the pandemic.
The prime minister of Britain, Boris Johnson, announced Monday he would delay lifting coronavirus restrictions by four weeks in order to allow the National Health Service to administer more vaccinations.CreditCredit...Alberto Pezzali/Associated Press
LONDON — With a rapid and successful vaccine campaign on track, the path seemed clear not long ago for Prime Minister Boris Johnson to scrap all of England’s coronavirus rules on June 21, ending curbs that he resisted imposing in the first place.
But on Monday, Mr. Johnson postponed by four weeks the moment dubbed “freedom day” by the tabloids after a spike in cases of a highly transmissible new variant that may cause more serious disease than earlier variants. Restaurants and pubs in England, while open, will still have to observe social distancing rules indoors, limiting capacity, and nightclubs and theaters will remain firmly closed.
The decision, which will be reviewed in two weeks, sent a warning to the world that even well-vaccinated nations remain at risk and angered a noisy caucus of libertarian lawmakers within Mr. Johnson’s own party.
At present, overall new cases in Britain are averaging around 8,000 per day and are doubling every week in the worst affected areas. Hospital admissions have begun rising. And the impact of the Delta variant across the country has already incited alarm in other European countries including Germany, which has introduced a travel ban.
In Britain, around four-fifths of adults have received one dose and more than half have had a second shot. But people with only a single dose remain susceptible to cases of the Delta variant — more so than to earlier versions of the virus, scientists said. And an unabated surge of infections in younger, unvaccinated people could ignite a dangerous wave of hospitalizations.
That has helped convince many epidemiologists that lifting restrictions now could, in a worst-case scenario, produce as many hospital cases as in the first wave of the pandemic, overwhelming the National Health Service just as it is trying to cope with a backlog of procedures that were postponed during the pandemic.
At a news conference at Downing Street, Mr. Johnson said it was sensible to wait “just a little longer” before lifting the curbs, noting that “even if the link between infection and hospitalization has been weakened, it has not been severed.”
Expressing confidence that he would be able to remove the remaining restrictions on July 19, Mr. Johnson added that “at a certain stage, we are going to have to learn to live with the virus and to manage it as best we can.”
Since first being sampled in Britain almost four months ago, the Delta variant, which was initially detected in India, has swept across the country, outcompeting even the dangerous Alpha variant that took hold earlier. Recent studies show that 96 percent of new cases now are from the Delta variant.
And the variant now appears to be outpacing other versions of the virus in parts of the United States and Canada, too, with some scientists saying that they expected that trend to continue.
Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/14/world/uk-lockdown-delay.html
Here are the other key developments from the last few hours:
· Boris Johnson announced a four-week delay to the lifting of coronavirus restrictions in England. He said the extra delay could prevent thousands of deaths by allowing more vaccinations. No 10 said data indicated two doses of a vaccine were needed for protection against the Delta variant causing a rise in cases.
· The main impacts of that delay in England will be pubs and hospitality remain restricted to table service and with social distancing measures in place, people should still work from home where possible, theatres and entertainment venues will have their capacity held at 50% and nightclubs will have to remain closed. The limit of 30 people at weddings and receptions has been lifted though, and also for wakes – although there are still some restrictions in place on what you can do.
· The Delta variant has been detected in 74 countries and is continuing to spread, prompting fears it will become the most dominant strain globally. There is also concern that while data is being shared, countries with weaker monitoring systems may not have detected the strain’s presence.
· Indonesia said it fears rising cases will not peak until July, despite hospitals in the capital Jakarta and other parts of Java already coming close to full capacity. The country is trying to increase hospital capacity and turn hotels into isolation centres.
· Russia reported 13,721 new coronavirus cases, including 6,590 in the capital, Moscow. Authorities in St Petersburg, which is hosting a series of Euro 2020 matches, said on Monday they were tightening anti-coronavirus restrictions in an effort to curb a new spike in infections. Food courts and children’s play areas in shopping malls in Russia’s second city will be closed, and no food will be sold at Euro 2020 fan zones.
· South Africa has had to bin 2m Johnson and Johnson doses because of a potential contamination of ingredients traced back to the US. It is another setback for the country’s vaccination campaign with the doses planned for health workers and over-60s.
· A WHO official said Africa will get priority treatment for the 870m vaccine doses pledged by the G7 because it has emerged as one of “the most vulnerable, under-served (areas)”.
· The two main hospitals in Afghanistan dealing with Covid-19 have had to turn away patients, saying they have no more beds and are short on oxygen and medical supplies.
· Thailand’s recently launched coronavirus vaccination campaign was hit by confusion after at least 20 hospitals in Bangkok postponed Covid-19 inoculation appointments set for this week, citing delays in vaccine deliveries. A series of coronavirus outbreaks in Thai factories is also raising concerns that the export sector could be hit hard, threatening to further undermine an economy as it struggles to recover from the pandemic’s crippling blow to the crucial tourism industry.
Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/jun/15/coronavirus-live-news-covid-outpacing-vaccines-who-warns-us-nears-600000-deaths
Medicine
