Country, Other	Total Cases	New Cases	Total Deaths
World	189,140,498	+554,511	4,074,095
USA	34,848,068	+35,447	623,838
India	30,986,803	+41,854	412,019
Brazil	19,209,729	+57,664	537,498
Russia	5,857,002	+23,827	145,278
France	5,829,724	+8,875	111,413
Turkey	5,500,151	+6,907	50,367
UK	5,233,207	+42,302	128,530
Argentina	4,702,657	+19,697	100,250
Colombia	4,565,372	+17,230	114,337
Italy	4,275,846	+2,153	127,831
Spain	4,041,474	+26,390	81,043
Germany	3,746,916	+1,629	91,831
Iran	3,440,400	+23,371	86,391
Poland	2,881,046	+86	75,179
Indonesia	2,670,046	+54,517	69,210
Mexico	2,604,711	+11,137	235,277
Ukraine	2,242,245	+547	52,665
South Africa	2,236,805	+17,489	65,595
Peru	2,085,883	+2,316	194,752
Netherlands	1,755,126	+10,426	17,770
Czechia	1,670,082	+318	30,335
Chile	1,592,130	+1,243	34,049
Philippines	1,485,457	+3,806	26,232
Iraq	1,457,192	+9,635	17,677
Canada	1,421,831	+384	26,458
Belgium	1,098,332	+1,303	25,207
Romania	1,081,405	+79	34,242
Bangladesh	1,059,538	+12,383	17,052
Pakistan	978,847	+1,980	22,642
Portugal	916,559	+4,153	17,182
Malaysia	867,567	+11,618	6,503
Israel	848,322	+797	6,441
Japan	824,589	+2,387	14,971
Hungary	808,612	+56	30,013
Jordan	759,025	+734	9,864
Serbia	717,937	+125	7,077
Nepal	660,788	+2,010	9,430
UAE	654,813	+1,529	1,880
Austria	652,354	+332	10,726
Lebanon	548,972	+517	7,881
Morocco	547,273	+2,257	9,404
Tunisia	518,609	+8,213	16,845
Saudi Arabia	504,960	+1,226	8,020
Ecuador	471,757	+875	21,850
Kazakhstan	466,792	+4,375	4,769
Bolivia	456,815	+1,379	17,287
Greece	447,718	+2,935	12,789
Paraguay	441,056	+1,159	14,066
Belarus	430,121	+940	3,287
Bulgaria	422,703	+84	18,158
Panama	418,604	+1,517	6,661
Slovakia	391,971	+18	12,523
Costa Rica	386,722	+1,653	4,842
Georgia	381,336	+1,663	5,492
Kuwait	380,699	+1,623	2,158
Uruguay	377,704	+407	5,854
Thailand	363,029	+9,317	2,934
Croatia	361,079	+155	8,233
Azerbaijan	337,602	+146	4,988
Guatemala	325,024	+2,904	9,798
Palestine	315,409	+185	3,585
Denmark	302,328	+1,202	2,539
Oman	288,138	+1,084	3,484
Venezuela	288,099	+1,109	3,327
Egypt	283,409	+89	16,418
Ireland	279,790	+737	5,006
Lithuania	279,381	+80	4,402
Sri Lanka	279,059	+1,540	3,611
Ethiopia	277,318	+106	4,349
Honduras	275,675	+698	7,324
Bahrain	267,505	+105	1,378
Slovenia	257,989	+83	4,425
Moldova	257,678	+90	6,217
Cuba	256,607	+6,080	1,659
Armenia	226,756	+159	4,552
Qatar	223,780	+134	599
Libya	212,013	+2,604	3,248
Myanmar	208,357	+7,083	4,181
Kenya	190,183	+480	3,737
Zambia	180,549	+1,801	2,949
S. Korea	171,911	+1,615	2,048
Nigeria	168,915	+48	2,125
Algeria	148,797	+914	3,882
Kyrgyzstan	143,668	+1,398	2,133
Mongolia	141,689	+1,159	703
Latvia	138,004	+34	2,540
Norway	133,720	+171	796
Albania	132,616	+8	2,456
Estonia	131,618	+56	1,270
Uzbekistan	117,409	+491	781
Namibia	108,785	+730	2,240
Montenegro	100,543	+24	1,621
Finland	98,888	+383	976
China	92,119	+24	4,636
Uganda	88,674	+480	2,203
Cyprus	87,305	+1,120	383
Vietnam	37,434	+2,934	138
Suriname	23,716	+122	597
Aruba	11,186	+6	108

 

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

 

 

 

Malaysia briefly shuts a vaccination center after an outbreak among health workers

By Mike Ives

 

Administering a vaccine during a home visit in Selangor State, Malaysia, on Tuesday. The state and other parts of Malaysia have been under lockdown for months.Credit...Vincent Thian/Associated Press

A Covid vaccination center in Malaysia was closed on Tuesday after nearly half of its health workers tested positive for the coronavirus.

The center is in the western state of Selangor, north of the capital, Kuala Lumpur. Khairy Jamaluddin, the minister of science, technology and innovation, said on Tuesday that 204 of the clinic’s 453 workers had tested positive after taking tests over the weekend, according to the Singaporean news outlet Channel News Asia. He said that 400 of the workers had been vaccinated.

The center was scheduled to reopen on Wednesday after closing for a day of deep cleaning, and its regular staff members were isolating, The Associated Press reported. Local news reports did not say whether any of the workers who tested positive had displayed symptoms or needed to be hospitalized.

The government’s Covid-19 immunization program said in a Twitter thread on Tuesday that it was difficult to tell whether the infections had occurred at the center and noted that the risk of the workers infecting others was low based on the viral loads of their test samples.

Even though vaccines are good at preventing serious disease and death from Covid-19, it is less clear how well they prevent vaccinated people from transmitting the virus to others.

Malaysia is reporting about 9,000 coronavirus cases per day, and its per capita rate of new infections — 28 people per 100,000 — was the highest in Southeast Asia as of Wednesday. It is one of several countries in the Asia-Pacific region where the pace of vaccination has been too slow to contain outbreaks driven by the highly infectious Delta variant.

Selangor and other parts of Malaysia have been under punishing lockdowns for months, and the restrictions were tightened further across several regions in early July.

Malaysia has approved several Covid-19 vaccines for emergency use, and more than 400,000 doses were administered on Tuesday. Yet only about a quarter of the country’s nearly 33 million people had received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine as of Wednesday, according to a New York Times tracker, and only 12 percent have been fully vaccinated.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/07/14/world/covid-variant-vaccine-updates/malaysia-briefly-shuts-a-vaccination-center-after-an-outbreak-among-health-workers

 

 

 

Cases surge in the Netherlands weeks after bars and restaurants reopened

By  Thomas Erdbrink, Damien Cave, Shashank Bengali and Raphael Minder

 

Amsterdam in February. New daily cases in the Netherlands increased from 500 on June 25, a day before restrictions were dropped, to over 10,000 on Saturday.Credit...Peter Dejong/Associated Press

New coronavirus cases in the Netherlands skyrocketed by more than 500 percent last week, according to the health authorities, a surge in cases that forced the country’s prime minister, Mark Rutte, to publicly apologize on Monday for having lifted restrictions too hastily.

As new daily cases increased from 500 on June 25, a day before restrictions were dropped, to over 10,000 on Saturday, Mr. Rutte’s government reimposed several measures, including ordering clubs and bars to close at midnight and reinstating a policy to serve only seated and spaced customers.

On Monday, Mr. Rutte said he was sorry about the previous lifting of the measures. “We thought it was possible, but it wasn’t,” he said.

Mr. Rutte’s government had reopened most of the country’s economy on June 26, pushing forward a projected date for easing restrictions by three weeks. Clubs, bars and restaurants reopened under a government-sponsored testing plan that in many cases failed to work because some bouncers and other staff members had not been properly trained. Mask mandates were also lifted except on public transport, in high schools and airports.

In the weeks that followed, the health authorities reported more than 100 superspreader events, including in clubs, on party boats and in student societies. More than 1,000 people were infected at a festival that gathered 20,000 people in the city of Utrecht this month.

As of Wednesday, around 65 percent of the population in the Netherlands has received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, and 39 percent have been fully vaccinated, according to a New York Times tracker.

In other news from around the world:

In Australia, the authorities in Sydney said that the city’s strict lockdown would be extended until at least the end of the month after another 97 infections were reported on Wednesday. The restrictions had been scheduled to end on Friday, but an outbreak driven by the Delta variant has yet to subside, leading to an extension of stay-at-home orders and remote schooling for the city of five million people and nearby areas. Gladys Berejiklian, the top official for the state of New South Wales, which includes Sydney, said that at least 24 of the 97 cases were infectious and still circulating in the community. Until that number gets close to zero, she said, the restrictions would have to remain in place.

A cruise ship returned to Singapore on Wednesday after a 40-year-old passenger tested positive for the virus, The Straits Times, a Singaporean newspaper, reported. Nearly 3,000 passengers and crew members were isolating in their cabins as the health authorities conducted contact tracing. The infected passenger, who was fully vaccinated, was identified as a close contact of a coronavirus case in Singapore and tested positive during the four-day “cruise to nowhere,” which had departed on Sunday, the newspaper reported.

Spain’s health ministry has decided to allow pharmacies to sell self-testing kits for coronavirus to individuals without clearance from health clinics, in a bid to better trace the spread of the disease as the country’s virus infection rate has soared in recent weeks.The authorization follows a long political battle over whether pharmacies should be enlisted into Spain’s testing efforts. The central government had opposed the idea until recently, arguing that pharmacists were ill-equipped to handle tests and that encouraging sick people to go to stores to buy test kits might create new infection clusters. The main doctors’ associations of Spain had also long rejected demands that tests be offered outside health clinics or carried out at home.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/07/14/world/covid-variant-vaccine-updates/cases-surge-in-the-netherlands-weeks-after-bars-and-restaurants-reopened

 

 

 

New N.Y.C. data looking at the first half of the year shows how few fully vaccinated people were infected

By Sharon Otterman

 

Walking past a mobile vaccination site in Brooklyn on Tuesday.Credit...Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Vaccines offered powerful protection against the coronavirus in New York City, blunting the second wave of the virus and saving an estimated 8,300 lives between December of last year and July of this year, according to a new study by Yale University epidemiologists released by the city on Wednesday.

The study underscored that the real-world performance of the vaccines can meet and even exceed trial results in preventing virus cases, hospitalizations and deaths, the city said. Only 1.1 percent of the 500,300 virus cases during the first six months of this year were among people who were fully vaccinated, according to data from the city’s health department also released Wednesday in support of the study.

Yet the data was also a reminder the protection was not perfect. A total of 94 fully vaccinated New Yorkers died from the virus between January and mid-June, compared with 8,069 deaths among the unvaccinated, the city reported, though it did not include specific demographic information.

“Vaccines are safe and astonishingly effective at protecting you and your loved ones,” said the city’s health commissioner Dr. Dave A. Chokshi, in a statement accompanying the release of the study. “The stakes are so high, and we simply cannot emphasize enough how urgent it is for New Yorkers to get vaccinated.”

One important caveat is that most of the period of the study was before the Delta variant became the predominant variant in the city, according to the limited amount of genetic analysis of cases being done by the city each week. Studies suggest that vaccines remain effective against the Delta variant, though cases among those who are vaccinated tend to be mild or asymptomatic, the World Health Organization’s chief scientist said this week. Because of vaccines, health experts don’t expect the recent increase in cases to reach the levels seen in New York City’s first and second waves.

The protection of vaccines remains powerful. A Public Health England analysis, which has not yet been peer reviewed, showed that Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was 88 percent effective against symptomatic disease and 96 percent effective against hospitalization from Delta, just slightly lower than against older variants. Moderna also reported on early studies showing only a “modest reduction” of antibody protection against the Delta variant.

The data released Wednesday represented the most comprehensive look yet at breakthrough infections in New York City. In all, the city reported that about 5,300 fully vaccinated people were infected and 583 fully vaccinated people were hospitalized in New York with Covid-19 between January and June.

The picture is more complete than what is being released nationally, as it included mild cases, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it is only tracking serious breakthrough infections that result in hospitalizations or deaths.

Far more vaccinated people, however, avoided the illness. The Yale study, which was done independently of the city’s researchers, used statistical modeling to estimate that the city’s vaccination campaign prevented about 250,000 cases in New York City, and 44,000 people from being hospitalized. The study is not yet published, and has just been submitted for peer review, the city said.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/14/nyregion/nyc-breakthrough-infections-vaccine.html

 

 

 

London’s mayor says masks will remain mandatory on public transport

By Mark Landler

 

Mayor Sadiq Khan of London said face masks would continue to be mandatory on the city’s subways and buses after July 19, when England plans to lift most coronavirus restrictions.CreditCredit...Andrew Testa for The New York Times

Face masks will continue to be mandatory on London’s subways and buses even after the government lifts the legal requirement to wear them on July 19, the city’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, said on Wednesday.

Mr. Khan’s announcement puts the London rules at odds with those announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is pushing ahead with a plan to lift almost all Covid restrictions in England, even as coronavirus infections surge and hospital admissions begin to mount.

Adding to the messaging confusion, Mr. Johnson has encouraged people to continue wearing masks in crowded and confined places even though, under the relaxed rules he announced, it will no longer be a legal requirement.

Mr. Khan, who is in the opposition Labour Party, said that wearing a face mask would be a condition of using London’s sprawling public transportation system, which includes the Tube, buses, overground trains, and light rail networks. Passengers who refuse to put one on will be ordered to leave the system.

“The wearing of face coverings helps reduce the spread of Covid, and crucially gives Londoners confidence to travel — vital to our economic recovery,” Mr. Khan said on Twitter. “My mask protects you, your mask protects me.”

Mr. Khan said that masks would also remain mandatory in taxis and ride-hailing services.

Mr. Khan expressed optimism in television interviews that people would abide by the rules. Most riders on the subway and buses wear masks, but some public-health officials worry that behavior could change quickly if they were no longer compulsory.

Officials in other cities have expressed fears that the government’s relaxed rules will contribute to a further surge in infection rates. In Manchester, the city’s Labour mayor, Andy Burnham, is also weighing a legal requirement to continue wearing masks on the public transportation system.

Mr. Johnson has argued that, with vaccines widely deployed in the adult population, England must stick with plans to reopen its economy fully and shift the emphasis from legal restrictions to personal responsibility.

Nonetheless, the British health minister, Sajid Javid, acknowledged that infections could soar to more than 100,000 a day later in the summer. On Tuesday, Britain reported 36,660 new cases, a 27 percent increase over the same day last week.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/14/world/europe/london-mask-mandate-public-transport.html

 

 

 

Vaccination efforts in Haiti and Cuba are complicated by unrest and protests

By Daniel Politi

 

A police checkpoint in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, a country in turmoil after its president was assassinated. A sign above encourages efforts to stop the coronavirus.Credit...Federico Rios for The New York Times

The continuing political unrest in Haiti and the recent wave of street protests in Cuba risk making already tenuous efforts to contain the Covid-19 pandemic even more difficult, officials from the World Health Organization warned.

“We are concerned about Haiti, which, in the midst of considerable political turmoil, has seen thousands of people displaced by ongoing violence and instability,” Carissa Etienne, the director of the Pan American Health Organization, which is part of the W.H.O., said, warning that “crowded shelters could become active hot spots for Covid transmission.”

A shortage of medical supplies across the country and the violence sparked by the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse of Haiti last week are also hindering the ability “to safely care for patients in need,” Dr. Etienne said, adding that “in some cases, patients may be avoiding seeking care due to safety concerns.”

Haiti is one of the few countries in the world that has yet to administer any Covid vaccines. On Wednesday, Haiti received 500,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine donated by the United States through the Covax vaccine-sharing initiative, the first doses to reach the country, PAHO said.

Cuba is the latest country in the region, after others including Brazil and Colombia, to experience “waves of protests due in part to the impact of this pandemic,” Dr. Etienne said.

Protesters in Cuba took to the streets in droves this past weekend in demonstrations that have been described as the largest in decades, leading to a stringent crackdown.

“Covid-19 has not just ravaged our health systems, it has fractured social protection programs and destabilized our economies,” Dr. Etienne said.

More than a third of people in the Latin American and Caribbean region are living in poverty and countries must “continue prioritizing health and social safety nets as part of their Covid response,” she added.

In Cuba, which recently reported its highest number of weekly cases since the start of the pandemic, the protests are raising fears that they will exacerbate exposure to the virus.

“The agglomeration of people due to protests for political, religious, cultural or sporting reasons increases the risk of transmission, particularly if, as is the case in Cuba, there is active transmission in many parts of the country,” Ciro Ugarte, PAHO’s director of health emergencies, said.

Throughout Cuba, “all the municipalities are in community transmission” and health authorities have confirmed the presence of the highly contagious Delta variant in several locations across the island, Dr. Ugarte said.

Cuba reported that 27 percent of its population had received at least one dose of either of its two homegrown vaccines as of July 10.

Cases of Covid-19 have also spiked in other Caribbean nations, including the British Virgin Islands, which has seen cases triple weeks after it opened the country to cruise ships.

The region accounts for more than a third of Covid-19 cases and more than 40 percent of deaths reported worldwide this past week, Dr. Etienne said.

The region continues to suffer from a lack of vaccines and only one in seven people in Latin America and the Caribbean have been fully vaccinated.

“Money, more than public health, has determined how quickly countries can secure the tools that they need to combat this virus,” Dr. Etienne said.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/07/14/world/covid-variant-vaccine-updates/vaccination-efforts-in-haiti-and-cuba-are-complicated-by-unrest-and-protests

 

 

 

The caseload in Indonesia has been skyrocketing, setting daily records

By Richard C. Paddock

 

Health care workers moving a woman outside an emergency room overrun with Covid-19 patients in Central Java.Credit...Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images

Indonesia reported more than 54,500 coronavirus cases on Wednesday, its third record daily rise in a row as the country has surpassed India’s current daily caseload.

A seven-day rolling average of daily cases in the two countries showed them running neck and neck, but India’s caseload has been steadily declining while Indonesia’s has been skyrocketing, according to data collected by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

Over the past few weeks, hospitals on Java island have overflowed with patients and residents have scrambled to buy medical oxygen to treat family members at home. Hundreds of people have been reported to have died of the virus at home because of a lack of oxygen and as a result of an overwhelmed health care system.

“Based on the last three days’ data, I can say clearly that Indonesia has become the new epicenter in the world,” said Dicky Budiman, an Indonesian epidemiologist at Griffith University in Australia, who has long urged the Indonesian authorities to implement firmer measures to control the spread of the virus.

Over the past two weeks, the daily numbers of infections have nearly doubled, and on Wednesday, Indonesia reported 991 new deaths.

Indonesia reported more than 54,500 new virus cases on Wednesday, its third record daily rise in a row as oxygen is in short supply.CreditCredit...Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images

Experts believe that the Delta variant is behind the surge in cases in Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populated country. By contrast, India’s daily case count, which peaked at more than 414,000 in early May, has fallen to about 40,000.

The outbreak in Indonesia is the latest example of the widening gap between Western countries and other nations during the pandemic. Countries like Britain and the United States have reopened their economies and so far have been able to absorb a surge in cases with limited hospitalizations and deaths thanks to successful vaccine rollouts. Others, like India and now Indonesia, have lagged behind in vaccinations and face devastating consequences from Delta’s spread.

Studies suggest that vaccines remain effective against the Delta variant, but only 13 percent of Indonesia’s population of 270 million has received one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, while less than 6 percent has been fully vaccinated, according to the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford.

By comparison, nearly half of the U.S. population has been fully inoculated, and on Wednesday Britain passed the threshold of having vaccinated two thirds of its population.

In Indonesia, most injections came from the Sinovac Biotech vaccine; at least 20 Indonesian doctors who were fully vaccinated with Sinovac have died from the virus.

The neighboring Philippines, which also has struggled to contain the virus, has banned arrivals from Indonesia, and other countries, including Japan and Saudi Arabia, have begun evacuating their citizens from Indonesia.

On Sunday, Indonesia received three million doses of the Moderna vaccine donated by the United States. Indonesian officials said that the first priority for these doses would be to give booster shots to nearly 1.5 million health workers.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/14/world/indonesia-caseload-skyrocket-hospitals-oxygen.html

 

 

 

Melbourne joins Sydney in lockdown as COVID-19 spreads in Australia

By Byron KayeRenju Jose

 

People wait in line outside a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccination centre at Sydney Olympic Park in Sydney, Australia, July 14, 2021. REUTERS/Jane Wardell

The Australian state of Victoria was ordered into a five-day lockdown on Thursday following a spike in COVID-19 infections, joining Sydney as the country's two main population hubs battle an outbreak of the highly contagious Delta variant.

From midnight, the state of 6.6 million people was told to stay home except for grocery shopping, essential work, exercise, healthcare and getting vaccinated. The lockdown in Australia's second-largest city of Melbourne is its fifth since the pandemic began a year and a half ago.

Combined with a stay-home order already in force in Sydney, the measure means nearly half Australia's 25 million population is under lockdown.

"You only get one chance to go hard and go fast," Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews told a televised news conference.

"If you wait, if you hesitate, if you doubt, then you will always be looking back wishing you had done more earlier. I am not prepared to avoid a five-day lockdown now only to find ourselves in a five-week or a five-month lockdown."

Melbourne spent about third of 2020 under curfew as the epicentre of the country's initial outbreak, suffering most of Australia's 31,400 cases and 912 deaths to date.

But it had largely avoided new infections while an outbreak in a Sydney beachfront suburb - 900km (560 miles) north - quickly spread through that city and surrounding areas last month.

That changed this week when a team of Sydney furniture movers travelled to Melbourne while infectious and introduced the virus to an apartment building.

By Thursday, dozens of Melbourne venues were listed as virus-exposed including a shopping centre, public transport routes and the famous Melbourne Cricket Ground stadium during a football match attended by thousands of people.

After nearly two weeks without a new case, the state had recorded 18 new infections in the past two days, spooking authorities who have emphasised the ease with which the Delta variant can travel between even passing contacts.

Adjoining South Australia state reintroduced mandatory quarantine for people arriving from Victoria, while neighbouring New Zealand also suspended quarantine-free arrivals from the state. With a "travel bubble" pause already in place with New South Wales, most direct flights between the countries are now effectively grounded.

STABILISING SYDNEY

The Victoria lockdown came as the New South Wales authorities reported a dip in daily cases, prompting hopes that a lockdown in place in Greater Sydney since June 26 will not be extended beyond a scheduled end date later this month.

"Whilst the case numbers are bouncing around, we are seeing a stabilisation. They are not growing exponentially," Premier Gladys Berejiklian said in Sydney.

Berejiklian described the new case numbers as a "welcome drop", but warned infections could rise due to the growing number of infected people moving around in the community, particularly in Sydney's south-west.

Case numbers would still need to drop significantly for the city to leave lockdown, given 28 out of the 65 new infections reported were people active in the community, she added.

Of the more than 900 people in New South Wales who have been infected during the latest outbreak, 73 have been moved to hospital, with 19 people in intensive care. Two deaths have been reported, the first for the country this year.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, under pressure due to a sputtering vaccination rollout, said he would ask state leaders at a pandemic cabinet meeting on Friday to endorse a new programme of relief payments for businesses impacted by lockdowns.

Lockdowns "should be a last resort but sometimes with the Delta variant you come to that position a lot more quickly than you used to", Morrison said.

Just over 12% Australia's adult population of around 20.5 million have been fully vaccinated, with officials pointing to changing medical advice for vaccines and supply constraints.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/australia-tracking-fresh-covid-19-cluster-melbourne-linked-sydney-outbreak-2021-07-14/

 

 

 

Protests in France against COVID-19 'health pass' rules

 

A demonstrator argues with police officers during a protest against the new measures announced by French President Emmanuel Macron to fight the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Paris, France, July 14, 2021. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

Police in Paris clashed with protesters railing against President Emmanuel Macron's plan to require a COVID-19 vaccine certificate or negative PCR test to gain entry to bars, restaurants and cinemas from next month.

Macron this week announced sweeping measures to fight a rapid surge in new coronavirus infections, including the mandatory vaccination of health workers and new health pass rules for the wider public.

In doing so, he went further than most other European nations have done as the highly contagious Delta variant fans a new wave of cases, and other governments are watching carefully to see how the French public responds.

The police fired tear gas on several occasions as pockets of protesters overturned garbage cans and set a mechanical digger alight. Some protesters away from the skirmishes wore badges saying "No to the health pass".

Some critics of Macron's plan - which will require shopping malls, cafes, bars and restaurants to check the health passes of all patrons from August - accuse the president of trampling on freedoms and discriminating against those who do not want the COVID shot.

"It's totally arbitrary and wholly undemocratic," said one protester who identified himself as Jean-Louis.

Macron says the vaccine is the best way to put France back on the path to normalcy and that he is encouraging as many people as possible to get inoculated.

There were protests in other cities including Nantes, Marseille and Montpellier.

The show of discontent took place on Bastille Day, the anniversary of the 1789 storming of a medieval fortress in Paris which marked the turning point in the French Revolution.

Among other proposals in the government's draft bill is the mandatory isolation for 10 days of anyone who tests positive, with police making random checks, French media reported. The prime minister's office did not respond when asked to confirm the detail.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/french-police-quell-protest-against-covid-health-passport-rules-2021-07-14/

 

 

 

Summary

 

Here are the key developments from the last few hours:

· Ibiza, Mallorca and Menorca will be added to Scotland’s amber travel list, the Scottish Government said.

· The Philippines has announced it will ban travellers coming from Indonesia to prevent the spread of the Delta variant.

· Malta has amended its travel advice to allow in British travellers with any AstraZeneca vaccine after reports of people being turned away if their dose had been manufactured in India.

· In Japan, seven staff tested positive for Covid at a hotel hosting Olympians in south-west Tokyo. A 31-strong Brazilian Olympic delegation, which includes judo athletes, is currently staying at the hotel.

· South Korea on Wednesday tightened social distancing curbs across most of the country to try to combat its worst-ever outbreak of coronavirus after new cases on Tuesday soared past previous daily peaks to 1,615.

· Russia has reported 786 coronavirus-related deaths on Wednesday, which is again the most confirmed in a single day since the beginning of the pandemic.

· The Netherlands has recorded a 500% rise in Covid cases, following moves to fully reopen the economy including opening nightclubs. It has been seen as a warning as to how case numbers might take off in England when restrictions are dropped next week.

· The UK will not be added to the EU travel green list this week. EU diplomats agreed unanimously to add Ukraine, and remove Thailand and Rwanda.

· Australia extended a lockdown in Sydney by at least 14 days, after three weeks of initial restrictions failed to stamp out the biggest outbreak of COVID-19 this year in the country’s largest city.

· Coronavirus cases in Iran have soared above 23,000 for the first time since late April as the country battles its fifth wave of the pandemic.

· The US donated 500,000 doses the Pfizer Covid vaccine to Costa Rica on Wednesday as part of the Biden administration’s programme of coronavirus diplomacy.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/jul/15/coronavirus-live-news-indonesia-in-worst-case-scenario-as-daily-cases-climb-past-50000?page=with:block-60efb8888f080074230bfbaf#block-60efb8888f080074230bfbaf