Country, Other	Total Cases	New Cases	Total Deaths
World	178,185,484	+385,688	3,857,571
USA	34,377,592	+11,230	616,440
India	29,761,964	+62,409	383,521
Brazil	17,704,041	+74,327	496,172
France	5,749,691	+2,044	110,634
Turkey	5,354,153	+5,904	49,012
Russia	5,264,047	+14,057	127,992
UK	4,600,623	+11,007	127,945
Italy	4,249,755	+1,325	127,190
Argentina	4,222,400	+23,780	87,789
Colombia	3,859,824	+29,945	98,156
Spain	3,753,228	+4,197	80,634
Germany	3,727,624	+893	90,820
Iran	3,070,426	+10,291	82,619
Poland	2,878,276	+218	74,734
Mexico	2,463,390	+3,789	230,624
Ukraine	2,227,225	+1,188	51,902
Peru	2,019,716	+4,526	189,757
Indonesia	1,950,276	+12,624	53,753
South Africa	1,786,079	+11,767	58,323
Netherlands	1,676,708	+1,064	17,722
Czechia	1,665,655	+131	30,272
Chile	1,498,231	+6,670	31,140
Canada	1,406,253	+1,107	26,012
Philippines	1,339,457	+6,637	23,276
Iraq	1,274,629	+5,189	16,811
Romania	1,080,070	+87	32,115
Belgium	1,077,758	+671	25,110
Pakistan	945,184	+1,119	21,874
Portugal	861,628	+1,233	17,057
Bangladesh	841,087	+3,840	13,345
Israel	839,747	+27	6,428
Hungary	807,322	+113	29,948
Japan	779,338	+1,707	14,269
Jordan	745,366	+522	9,635
Serbia	715,442	+135	6,985
Malaysia	678,764	+5,738	4,202
Austria	649,181	+179	10,674
Nepal	615,984	+1,768	8,597
UAE	606,128	+2,167	1,741
Lebanon	543,099	+165	7,811
Morocco	525,443	+468	9,225
Saudi Arabia	470,723	+1,309	7,635
Ecuador	442,341	+1,161	21,175
Bulgaria	420,859	+110	17,980
Greece	417,253	+512	12,488
Bolivia	414,513	+2,836	15,826
Belarus	408,621	+873	3,015
Kazakhstan	405,209	+1,145	4,203
Paraguay	401,243	+2,482	11,294
Slovakia	391,210	+61	12,464
Panama	391,190	+969	6,458
Tunisia	376,691	+2,379	13,792
Croatia	358,918	+95	8,165
Georgia	356,920	+741	5,114
Costa Rica	349,026	+1,869	4,459
Uruguay	348,662	+2,147	5,152
Azerbaijan	335,339	+48	4,959
Kuwait	334,216	+1,646	1,842
Palestine	312,334	+170	3,545
Denmark	291,017	+331	2,528
Lithuania	278,177	+104	4,357
Guatemala	276,927	+1,725	8,549
Egypt	275,601	+591	15,760
Ethiopia	274,775	+174	4,262
Ireland	268,046	+373	4,941
Bahrain	261,501	+547	1,271
Venezuela	256,862	+1,405	2,906
Slovenia	256,784	+83	4,409
Moldova	255,994	+57	6,162
Honduras	249,931	+813	6,691
Oman	242,723	+2,015	2,626
Sri Lanka	233,064	+2,372	2,425
Armenia	224,000	+96	4,491
Qatar	220,325	+127	581
Thailand	207,724	+3,129	1,555
Libya	190,146	+258	3,170
Kenya	177,282	+660	3,434
Nigeria	167,142	+39	2,117
Cuba	163,415	+1,418	1,123
North Macedonia	155,593	+10	5,472
S. Korea	149,731	+540	1,994
Myanmar	146,768	+362	3,250
Latvia	136,544	+141	2,482
Algeria	134,840	+382	3,605
Albania	132,481	+5	2,454
Estonia	130,695	+40	1,267
Norway	128,898	+219	790
Zambia	122,244	+3,394	1,525
Kyrgyzstan	112,777	+787	1,916
Uzbekistan	104,834	+371	713
Montenegro	100,020	+19	1,604
Cyprus	73,444	+65	374
Suriname	19,361	+253	436
Vietnam	12,150	+515	61
Aruba	11,099	+10	107

 

 

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

 

 

 

Nations weigh mandates and incentives to drive up vaccination rates

By Azi Paybarah

 

 

Moscow in June. As Covid hospitalizations surged this week, the city government took a harder line, requiring vaccinations for many workers in public-facing jobs.Credit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

 

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed economic and social fault lines around the globe, but Covid-19 vaccines have made the divides even starker: While some poor countries are pleading for doses to save their people, a few rich ones are awash in shots and lacking takers.

A handful of U.S. states, for example, have tried incentives to get more people vaccinated. But in Moscow, as Covid hospitalizations surged this week, the city government took a harder line, mandating vaccinations for many workers in public-facing jobs.

Some other governments have also attempted to require vaccines. A province in Pakistan has said it will stop paying the salaries of civil servants who are not inoculated, starting next month. And Britain, which is seeing a surge attributed to the spread of the Delta variant of the virus, is weighing whether to make shots obligatory for all health care workers.

The Moscow Times quoted the city’s mayor, Sergei S. Sobyanin, as saying on Wednesday, “When you go out and come into contact with other people, you are an accomplice of the epidemiological process — a chain in the link spreading this dangerous virus.” The mandate he announced focuses on the education, entertainment, health care, and hospitality sectors and will continue until at least 60 percent of employees have been vaccinated, the newspaper reported.

In Britain, officials said that requiring health care workers to be vaccinated would help stop the spread of the virus in hospitals. Nadhim Zahawi, the British vaccine minister, said that there was a precedent for such a requirement. “Obviously, surgeons get vaccinated for hepatitis B, so it’s something that we are absolutely thinking about,” he told Sky News last month.

Many universities in the United States now require at least some students and employees to be vaccinated. Earlier this week, the University of California system said it will make Covid-19 vaccinations mandatory for all faculty, staff and students this fall, including the university’s health system.

Federal officials have repeatedly made clear that most companies with at least 15 employees have the right to require that workers are inoculated.

But vaccine requirements continue to face resistance from some.

In 15 American states, not a single college had announced any type of vaccine requirement as of last month. Days ago, 178 employees of Houston Methodist Hospital who refused to get a coronavirus shot were suspended. And on Saturday, protesters are expected at the offices of the New York State Bar Association in Albany, where officials will be discussing a report that recommends mandating a coronavirus vaccine for all New Yorkers, unless they are exempted by doctors.

But for the undecided who are open to persuasion, incentives to get the vaccine remain common: There are lotteries in California, college scholarships in New York State and free drinks in New Jersey.

The giveaways have spurred some to action. This week, both New York and California announced that they were lifting virtually all coronavirus restrictions on businesses and social gatherings.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/17/world/moscow-vaccine-mandates.html

 

 

 

Despite the G7 pledge of global aid, South Asian countries still scramble for vaccines

By Emily Schmall, Aanya Wipulasena, Bhadra Sharma and Julfikar Ali Manik

 

Administering a Covid-19 vaccine in Kathmandu, Nepal, this month. Even after a weekslong nationwide lockdown, nearly one in three of the country’s coronavirus tests has been coming back positive.Credit...Prakash Mathema/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

 

Sri Lanka is tapping Japan. Nepal has asked Denmark. Bangladesh has appealed to its diaspora in the United States.

South Asian countries are looking to the rest of the world to jump-start inoculation campaigns that have stalled since India halted vaccine exports to deal with its catastrophic second coronavirus wave this spring.

The ad hoc approach shows how the decision by India, the world’s biggest vaccine manufacturer, left poorer countries with few options for vaccines as richer countries hoarded much of the global supply. Even as the United States and other global powers pledge to donate a billion doses to poor nations, the World Health Organization says 11 billion doses are needed to defeat the pandemic.

Countries in South Asia and elsewhere — many battling outbreaks — continue to scramble for vaccines. Health officials say the vaccine pledge by the Group of 7 industrialized nations is too vague to incorporate into real planning, and does little to address the immediate needs of the millions of people awaiting doses.

India’s neighbors began vaccinations this year with a combination of doses donated by India and purchased from the Serum Institute of India, which is producing the vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, branded locally as Covishield.

But as coronavirus cases rose sharply in India in March, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government blocked exports, forcing Serum to renege on bilateral agreements and commitments to Covax, the global program aimed at distributing vaccines to the world’s poorest countries.

In Nepal, about 1.4 million people age 65 and older have been awaiting a second shot after receiving a first AstraZeneca dose in March. Nepal’s government has appealed to diplomats in Britain, Denmark, South Korea and the United States for help.

“Efforts are on,” said Dr. Taranath Pokhrel, a director at the Nepalese Health Ministry, “but no substantive progress has been achieved so far.”

Of the first 25 million vaccine doses pledged as donations by the Biden administration, seven million are earmarked for Nepal and other countries in Asia, but in Kathmandu, the Nepalese capital, it’s not clear when, what kind or how many will arrive.

Even after a weekslong nationwide lockdown, nearly one in three of Nepal’s coronavirus tests has been coming back positive. Less than 1 percent of the Himalayan country’s 30 million people are fully vaccinated.

Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have all received donations from China of its Sinopharm vaccine. But Sri Lanka, like Nepal, is angling for more AstraZeneca shots to provide a second dose to tens of thousands of people, some of whom have been waiting for nearly four months.

Sri Lanka’s president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, met with Japan’s ambassador to appeal for 600,000 AstraZeneca doses, and officials said that the Japanese government was receptive.

Japan, which has announced plans to donate doses across Asia, has “given a bit of a green light” to Sri Lanka, Gen. Shavendra Silva, the head of a Sri Lankan Covid task force, told The New York Times.

Sri Lanka’s government plans to inoculate the rest of its population with the donated Sinopharm doses and Sputnik V shots it has purchased from Russia.

Bangladesh, where infections and deaths from a second wave of the coronavirus continue to rise, is counting on its U.S. diaspora to raise pressure on the Biden administration for help obtaining more AstraZeneca doses, said Shamsul Haque, secretary of the country’s Covid vaccine management committee.

“We are short roughly 1.5 million doses of AstraZeneca for second shots,” Mr. Haque said.

China has donated 1.1 million Sinopharm doses, and Bangladesh is negotiating bulk buys of more vaccines from China, and Sputnik V doses from Russia. Only about 4.2 million of Bangladesh’s 168 million people are fully vaccinated.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/17/world/south-asia-covid-vaccines.html

 

 

 

Parents and caregivers reported mental health issues more often than others during the pandemic, a C.D.C. study says

By Daniel E. Slotnik

  

New federal research has found that parents and caregivers reported more mental health issues during the pandemic than others.Credit...Anna Watts for The New York Times

Parents and unpaid caregivers of adults in the United States reported far higher rates of mental health issues during the coronavirus pandemic than people who held neither of those roles, federal researchers reported on Thursday.

About 70 percent of parents and adult caregivers — such as those tending to older people, for example — and about 85 percent of people who were both reported adverse mental health symptoms during the pandemic, versus about a third of people who did not hold those responsibilities, according to new research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study also found that people who were both parent and caregivers were eight times more likely to have seriously considered suicide than people who held neither role.

“These findings highlight that parents and caregivers, especially those balancing roles both as parents and caregivers, experienced higher levels of adverse mental health symptoms during the Covid-19 pandemic than adults without these responsibilities,” the authors said.

“Caregivers who had someone to rely on for support had lower odds of experiencing any adverse mental health symptoms,” they said.

The report follows innumerable anecdotes and several studies suggesting spikes in mental health problems among parents and caregivers during the pandemic. But the new C.D.C. report noted that “without prepandemic mental health data in this sample, whether adverse mental health symptoms were caused by or worsened by the pandemic is unknown.”

The study is based on data from online English-language surveys administered to panels of U.S. residents run by Qualtrics, a company that conducts commercial surveys, for the Covid-19 Outbreak Public Evaluation Initiative, an effort to track American attitudes and behaviors during the pandemic. The data was gathered from Dec. 6 to 27 last year, and from Feb. 16 to March 8 of this year, and relied on 10,444 respondents, weighted to match U.S. demographic data, 42 percent of whom identified as parents or adult caregivers.

The study noted that the results might not fully represent the U.S. population, because of factors like the surveys only being presented online and in English.

The surveys included screening items for depression, anxiety, Covid-19 trauma and stress-related disorders, and asked respondents whether they had experienced suicidal thinking in the past month. About half of the parent-caregivers who responded said that they had recently had suicidal thoughts.

Elizabeth A. Rohan, a health scientist at the C.D.C. and one of the study’s authors, said in an interview that the study’s large sample size and a broad definition of caregiver allowed for an inclusive picture of people in that role.

“Our net captured more people than other surveys,” Dr. Rohan said.

Dr. Rohan said that the study reinforced the need to destigmatize mental health issues among caregivers and for better support systems. Communication is key, she said, and “it doesn’t have to be professional help.”

She added, “We cannot underestimate the importance of staying connected to one another,” which is helpful whether the person is “a trusted friend, a family member or a professional.”

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/17/health/cdc-parenting-mental-health-pandemic.html

 

 

 

The Taj Mahal reopens for visitors as India eases some restrictions

By  Sameer Yasir

 

Tourists at the Taj Mahal in Agra, India, this week.Credit...Money Sharma/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The majestic Taj Mahal in India reopened its doors to visitors this week, part of a broad easing of restrictions by local governments hoping to revive a battered tourism industry.

The move to open up the economy comes even as the country is still in the midst of a devastating outbreak that has killed hundreds of thousands. Vaccination continues at a slow pace and some health experts have warned that easing restrictions too quickly could have deadly consequences.

While the number of new cases across the nation has dropped steadily in recent weeks, — with 67,208 new infections reported on Wednesday, the lowest number in two months — health officials in some regions, including Mumbai, have warned that a new deadly wave could come soon as cases there rise.

Still, local governments across the country are continuing to open up.

In Delhi, the capital, the authorities are also moving to reopen attractions, including the popular Red Fort.

The Taj Mahal is in the city of Agra in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, where hundreds of dead bodies were buried on the banks of the Ganges as coronavirus deaths spiked in April and May.

The Taj Mahal, built in the 17th century by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan as a tomb for his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, is a major tourist attraction and is normally thronged by more than seven million visitors annually, or an average of about 20,000 people per day.

The authorities closed the monument on April 17, the first time that had happened since 1978, when a river snaking out of Agra flooded the area. It was previously closed during World War II in 1942, and when India and Pakistan were at war in 1971.

Officials in Agra said that visitors wanting to go to the Taj Mahal had to book tickets online and that tourists would be allowed to enter the premises only if they were wearing a mask.

“No one is allowed to touch the wall of the monuments,” said Vasant Kumar Swarnkar, an official with the Archaeological Survey of India, a government body, adding, “The monument is being sanitized three times a day.”

Kamlesh Tiwari, a guide at the Taj Mahal, said that most of those who had visited the monument since it had reopened were local tourists and that the crowds had been relatively modest so far.

“We don’t expect a major rush because foreign tourists are missing,” he said. “We are jobless since last April because there is no tourism.”

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/06/17/world/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-mask/taj-mahal-open-india

 

 

 

The virus is surging in Moscow, where vaccinations are now mandatory for frontline workers

By Remy Tumin

 

A road worker receiving the Sputnik V vaccine on Thursday at a vaccination center in Moscow, where hospital admissions for the coronavirus have increased more than 70 percent in the past week.Credit...Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters

 

Officials in Russia, where vaccine hesitancy remains high, are ordering frontline workers to be vaccinated as the highly infectious Delta variant spreads.

Russia has reported a 50 percent increase in daily cases over the past two weeks, according to a New York Times database.

In Moscow, Mayor Sergey S. Sobyanin announced on Wednesday one of the world’s most extensive compulsory vaccination policies, mandating that workers with public-facing roles get vaccinated by Aug. 15. That list includes taxi drivers, hairdressers, teachers and bank tellers and amounts to just over two million people in the city of 12 million.

The surrounding Moscow region, the Siberian region of Kemerovo and the Far East region of Sakhalin have also implemented the same mandate, according to The Associated Press.

“It’s most likely we are facing new, more aggressive variants which spread more quickly,” Mr. Sobyanin said during a video conference with government officials on Thursday. Daily cases in the capital have soared from 3,000 to 7,000 within a few days, he said, and were expected to hit more than 9,000 on Friday.

The head of the consumer health watchdog attributed the spike to the Delta variant, which was first identified in India. U.S. health officials classified the Delta variant as a “variant of concern,” sounding the alarm because it spreads rapidly and may cause more serious illness in unvaccinated people.

Russia approved its vaccine, the Sputnik V, last August — before late-stage trials had even begun — and started vaccinations that month. A peer-reviewed article in The Lancet in April showed the vaccine has an impressive 91.6 percent efficacy rate against the virus and is highly protective against severe cases of Covid-19.

But doubt persists among many Russians. President Vladimir Putin said that 18 million people had been inoculated in the country — less than 13 percent of the population, even though Russia’s Sputnik V shots have been widely available for months.

The country’s official death toll is more than 125,000, according to Our World in Data, and experts have said that such figures probably vastly underestimate the true tally.

Russian businesses have until mid-July to have at least 60 percent of staff vaccinated with their first doses, or face fines or temporary closure.

Anastasia Rakova, the deputy mayor of Moscow, said hospital admissions for the coronavirus increased more than 70 percent over the past week, according to Reuters.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/06/17/world/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-mask/the-virus-is-surging-in-moscow-where-vaccinations-are-now-mandatory-for-frontline-workers

 

 

 

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul locks down, hit by a coronavirus outbreak surging across Afghanistan

By Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Fatima Faizi and Lara Jakes

 

A man waiting to get his oxygen cylinder refilled in Kabul on Tuesday. The U.S. Embassy has gone into lockdown amid an outbreak among its workers. Coronavirus cases are surging throughout Afghanistan.Credit...Reuters

KABUL, Afghanistan — The U.S. Embassy in Kabul went into lockdown on Thursday, citing a surge in coronavirus cases that has swamped the medical facilities that remain open to American diplomats as the U.S. military and international forces depart the country.

“Military hospital I.C.U. resources are at full capacity, forcing our health units to create temporary on-compound Covid-19 wards to care for oxygen-dependent patients,” the embassy said in a management notice released on Thursday.

The notice said that one person associated with the embassy had died, several had been medically evacuated and 114 people were infected and in isolation. The document said that 95 percent of the current cases were in people who were “unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated,” even though vaccines were available at the embassy. It noted that 90 percent of the Afghans and people from other countries on the embassy staff had been vaccinated.

In Washington, the State Department’s spokesman, Ned Price, said the embassy could not require its employees to be vaccinated and confirmed that nearly all of the cases in this “significant outbreak” were among those who were not fully immunized. He said that Covid vaccines had been made available to the Kabul embassy workers over the last several months.

Embassy operations have been adjusted as a result of the outbreak, Mr. Price said, with employees required to work from home and take all necessary precautions, including wearing masks and social distancing, as Afghanistan grapples with what he described as its third wave of coronavirus.

The embassy and U.S. military forces in Afghanistan contended with an earlier coronavirus outbreak, one that paralyzed the advising mission for the Afghan military and prompted a lockdown of the diplomatic mission.

The notice on Thursday warned that “failure to abide by the Mission’s Covid policies will result in consequences up to and including removal from the post on the next available flight.”

The embassy suspended issuing visas last week because of a surge of coronavirus cases in Afghanistan. The seemingly minor decision has had a significant impact on Afghans who have worked for the U.S. military and government and who are desperately trying to complete their visa process so they can emigrate to the United States.

Many of those applicants have been threatened by the Taliban, and the security situation in Afghanistan has been deteriorating amid the withdrawal of American and international military forces. President Biden announced in April that all forces would be out by Sept. 11.

The Afghan ministry of public health recorded more than 2,000 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, along with 101 deaths, the most in a single day since the beginning of the pandemic. Overall, 98,844 cases have been reported in the country.

However, those official figures reflect only a small fraction of the country’s actual number of infections and deaths. Testing is severely limited, Afghanistan’s struggling health system is nonexistent in some rural areas, and transportation to hospitals and clinics is often restricted because of fighting and roadside bombs.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/17/world/us-embassy-kabul-covid-lockdown.html

 

 

 

Summary

 

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

· Wales is delaying further easing of coronavirus restrictions for four weeks after seeing a spike in cases of the Delta variant of the disease first identified in India.

· Germany will reopen its borders later this month to non-EU nationals who have been vaccinated against Covid-19, the government announced Thursday.

· AstraZeneca can charge a higher price for its Covid-19 vaccine in dozens of poor countries once the pharmaceutical company decides the pandemic has ended, according to a copy of its contract with Oxford University seen by the Guardian.

· Travel in and out of the Lisbon metropolitan area is to be banned over coming weekends as Portuguese authorities respond to a spike in new Covid-19 cases in the region around the capital, officials announced.

· Nepal significantly reduced coronavirus infections after its worst outbreak, which overwhelmed the country’s medical system, but is in desperate need of vaccines, according to its health minister.

· Denmark will administer Covid-19 vaccines for those aged 12 to 15, broadcaster TV 2 reported, citing sources. Danish health authorities are due to hold a news briefing to about using the vaccines on that age group later today, amid concerns there is limited information about possible side-effects to children who have nothing to gain from such a move.

· Austria announced that revellers will be allowed to hit the dance floor legally again from next month as nightclubs reopen, in line with a broader easing of measures.

· France’s tourism sector is taking a further step toward normality with the reopening of Disneyland Paris, two weeks after the country reopened its borders to vaccinated visitors from across the world.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/jun/18/coronavirus-live-news-us-launches-32bn-virus-treatment-program-england-opens-vaccines-to-all-adults?page=with:block-60cc19c78f08863656a74302#block-60cc19c78f08863656a74302