Country, Other	Total Cases	New Cases	Total Deaths
World	189,706,025	+563,415	4,082,742
USA	34,887,155	+36,674	624,214
India	31,025,875	+39,072	412,563
Brazil	19,262,518	+52,789	539,050
Russia	5,882,295	+25,293	146,069
France	5,833,341	+3,617	111,429
Turkey	5,507,455	+7,304	50,415
UK	5,281,098	+48,553	128,593
Argentina	4,719,952	+17,295	100,695
Colombia	4,583,442	+18,070	114,833
Italy	4,278,319	+2,455	127,840
Spain	4,069,162	+27,688	81,084
Germany	3,748,367	+1,451	91,863
Iran	3,464,055	+23,655	86,592
Poland	2,881,151	+105	75,191
Indonesia	2,726,803	+56,757	70,192
Mexico	2,616,827	+12,116	235,507
South Africa	2,253,240	+16,435	65,972
Ukraine	2,242,868	+623	52,685
Peru	2,088,143	+2,260	194,845
Netherlands	1,766,102	+10,976	17,773
Czechia	1,670,356	+263	30,335
Chile	1,594,496	+2,366	34,207
Philippines	1,490,665	+5,221	26,314
Iraq	1,466,529	+9,337	17,707
Canada	1,422,246	+415	26,472
Belgium	1,100,616	+2,284	25,207
Romania	1,081,467	+62	34,245
Bangladesh	1,071,774	+12,236	17,278
Pakistan	981,392	+2,545	22,689
Portugal	920,200	+3,641	17,187
Malaysia	880,782	+13,215	6,613
Israel	849,274	+952	6,443
Japan	827,772	+3,194	14,990
Hungary	808,661	+49	30,013
Jordan	759,686	+661	9,872
Serbia	718,093	+156	7,078
Nepal	662,570	+1,782	9,463
UAE	656,354	+1,541	1,885
Austria	652,660	+306	10,727
Morocco	549,844	+2,571	9,418
Lebanon	549,427	+455	7,882
Tunisia	526,487	+7,878	17,009
Saudi Arabia	506,125	+1,165	8,035
Ecuador	472,722	+965	21,872
Kazakhstan	472,106	+5,314	4,816
Bolivia	458,212	+1,397	17,345
Greece	450,512	+2,794	12,795
Paraguay	442,207	+1,151	14,120
Belarus	431,112	+991	3,297
Bulgaria	422,797	+94	18,163
Panama	419,829	+1,225	6,674
Slovakia	392,000	+29	12,524
Costa Rica	388,298	+1,576	4,857
Georgia	382,734	+1,398	5,503
Kuwait	382,084	+1,385	2,174
Uruguay	378,041	+337	5,865
Thailand	372,215	+9,186	3,032
Croatia	361,218	+139	8,233
Azerbaijan	337,801	+199	4,990
Guatemala	327,755	+2,731	9,834
Palestine	315,504	+95	3,585
Denmark	303,469	+1,141	2,540
Venezuela	289,362	+1,263	3,339
Oman	289,042	+904	3,498
Egypt	283,490	+81	16,425
Ireland	280,784	+994	5,006
Sri Lanka	280,543	+1,484	3,661
Lithuania	279,490	+104	4,404
Ethiopia	277,443	+125	4,350
Honduras	276,989	+1,314	7,356
Bahrain	267,619	+114	1,379
Cuba	263,086	+6,479	1,726
Slovenia	258,045	+56	4,425
Moldova	257,766	+88	6,219
Armenia	226,949	+193	4,556
Qatar	223,911	+131	599
Libya	214,568	+2,555	3,249
Myanmar	212,545	+4,188	4,346
Kenya	191,020	+837	3,746
Zambia	182,129	+1,580	2,991
S. Korea	173,511	+1,600	2,050
Nigeria	169,074	+159	2,126
Algeria	149,906	+1,109	3,895
Kyrgyzstan	144,958	+1,290	2,143
Mongolia	143,128	+1,439	707
Afghanistan	139,051	+1,198	6,072
Latvia	138,041	+37	2,542
Norway	133,876	+156	796
Albania	132,629	+13	2,456
Estonia	131,681	+64	1,271
Uzbekistan	117,902	+493	785
Namibia	109,356	+571	2,270
Montenegro	100,567	+24	1,621
Finland	99,212	+324	978
Ghana	98,114	+386	806
Mozambique	94,733	+1,304	1,057
China	92,147	+28	4,636
Cyprus	88,457	+1,152	383
Vietnam	40,850	+3,416	207
Aruba	11,199	+13	108

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

 

 

 

COVID-19 crisis could return quickly, England's chief medical officer says

By Kanishka SinghAlistair Smout

 

Britain's Chief Medical Officer for England Chris Whitty looks on at a news conference as he gives an update on relaxing restrictions imposed on the country during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic inside the Downing Street Briefing Room in London, Britain July 12, 2021. Daniel Leal-Olivas/Pool via REUTERS

England's coronavirus crisis could return again surprisingly quickly and the country is not yet out of the woods, chief medical officer Chris Whitty said on Thursday ahead of the lifting of legal restrictions.

The government is removing most pandemic restrictions in England from July 19, saying a rapid rollout of COVID-19 vaccines has largely broken the link between infections and serious illness or death. read more

Whitty said that the doubling time for hospitalisations was currently around three weeks, and that low numbers of people in hospital with COVID-19 currently could rise to serious levels over the next couple of months.

"It doesn't take many doublings until we're in actually quite scary numbers again... I don't think we should underestimate the fact that we could get into trouble again surprisingly fast," Whitty said in a webinar late on Thursday hosted by the Science Museum.

"We are not by any means out of the woods yet on this, we are in much better shape due to the vaccine programme, and drugs and a variety of other things."

Britain has had among the highest death tolls in the world but two-thirds of its adult population have been fully vaccinated.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is urging people to be cautious as England moves to Step 4 - the end of legal lockdown curbs - on Monday. This means the last remaining businesses still closed, including nightclubs, can finally reopen.

Johnson acknowledges a wave of infections and more deaths are inevitable when restrictions end, but said worse harm would come from keeping the economy shut.

However, the self-isolation requirement for people exposed to positive cases could hinder the economy too, with over 48,000 cases reported on Thursday.

Over 520,000 contact tracing alerts were sent through the app in the week to July 7, and Karan Bilimoria, president of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), said it was a seriously concerning situation.

"On Monday we're going to have a situation where on the one hand we're opening up the economy, on the other hand we're closing down the economy," he told LBC radio.

"The hospitality sector, 20% of staff are isolating, the health service up to 25% of staff are absent, and buses and trains delayed. This cannot go on... This is wrecking the economy."

 

Retrieved from:  https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/end-covid-19-curbs-should-come-with-caution-englands-chief-medical-officer-says-2021-07-15/

 

 

 

Canada may allow fully vaccinated travellers by early September

 

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visits a vaccination site, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada July 15, 2021. REUTERS/Christinne Muschi

Canada may permit fully vaccinated travellers into the country by early September, the country's prime minister said on Thursday, if the current trend in vaccination rate and public health conditions continue.

Justin Trudeau made the remarks in a call with Canadian provincial leaders, according to a readout of the call released by his office.

Trudeau also said there were ongoing discussions with the United States to begin allowing fully vaccinated U.S. citizens and permanent residents into Canada for non-essential travel by mid-August.

"The Prime Minister noted that, if our current positive path of vaccination rate and public health conditions continue, Canada would be in a position to welcome fully vaccinated travellers from all countries by early September," according to a statement.

Some 78% of people aged 12 years or older in Canada have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, health officials said recently. About 44% of people 12 years or older are fully vaccinated.

Earlier on Thursday, Canada said it will allow large cruise ships to visit once again starting in November as the COVID-19 pandemic fades, but they must fully comply with public health requirements.

 

Retrieved from:  https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canada-may-allow-fully-vaccinated-travellers-by-early-september-trudeau-2021-07-16/

 

 

 

Africa records a million new cases in a month, its fastest increase so far

By Abdi Latif Dahir

 

A Covid patient at a hospital in Johannesburg on Saturday. The effect of the Delta variant in Africa has seen hospitalizations rise, while deaths have surged 43 percent in the past week on the continent.Credit...Sumaya Hisham/Reuters

NAIROBI, Kenya — The coronavirus is sweeping across Africa at a pace not seen before in the pandemic, the World Health Organization said on Thursday, highlighting the severity of a third wave driven by the spread of the Delta variant.

One million Covid infections were reported on the continent in the past month alone, pushing the overall caseload to six million, according to the W.H.O., which urged wealthier nations to distribute more vaccine doses.

Over a month, that is the fastest growth of new cases so far in Africa, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the health organization’s director for the continent, said in an online news conference. By comparison, it previously took three months to go from four million to five million total cases.

“Africa’s third wave continues its destructive pathway, pushing past yet another grim milestone,” Dr. Moeti said.

The situation in at least 18 African countries paints a grim picture, and with limited vaccine supplies, many nations on the continent have been unable to contain a new surge in infections. Unlike in places like the United States or Europe, where inoculations are relatively widespread, the effect of the Delta variant in Africa has seen hospitalizations rise, while deaths have surged 43 percent in the past week on the continent.

Adding to the dangers posed by the virus are additional risks faced by people living with H.I.V., according to a new study. Sub-Saharan Africa is home to two-thirds of H.I.V. cases worldwide.

The Delta variant has been detected in 21 of Africa’s 54 countries, with Algeria, Malawi and Senegal among the countries experiencing a surge in infections.

The resurgence has pushed several governments to impose new lockdown measures, including restricting movement between cities, extending curfew hours, and shutting down schools.

The coronavirus has left already-fragile health systems even more strained, overwhelming doctors and nurses and draining limited oxygen supplies. At least five countries have reported shortages in intensive care beds, including South Africa, which has been particularly badly hit. Hospital admissions have increased in 10 others.

A W.H.O. survey of six African countries during the current wave showed that they were producing only a third of the medical oxygen they needed. Dr. Moeti said that monoclonal antibodies, which have been recommended for high-risk patients, were out of reach for many Africans.

Even as cases rise, only about one percent of people in Africa have been fully immunized. And of the continent’s population of more than a billion, just 52 million have received even one dose of a vaccine — that accounts for only about 1.6 percent of the 3.5 billion who have been vaccinated worldwide, according to the W.H.O.

Dr. Jean-Jacques Mbungani Mbanda, the minister of public health in the Democratic Republic of Congo, urged wealthy nations to step up vaccine donations. Congo, where dozens of lawmakers have died after contracting the virus, has faced a severe wave, with more than 70 percent of the sequenced cases attributed to the Delta variant, Dr. Mbanda said on Thursday.

“The vaccine is the only way to reduce the extent of deaths,” he added. Only 2.2 percent of Congo’s nearly 90 million people has received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, according to a New York Times tracker. To ease the impact of the pandemic, African leaders, meeting in Ivory Coast’s commercial capital Abidjan, on Thursday called for a three-year $100 billion infusion of emergency funding from the International Development Association, the World Bank’s fund for the world’s poorest nations.

On Thursday, W.H.O. officials also pressed wealthier nations to steer away from considering booster shots and instead focus on their global responsibilities to ensure fair access to coronavirus vaccines.

The pandemic is “nowhere near finished,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the organization’s director general.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/15/world/africa-million-cases.html

 

 

 

Frustrated with lagging military vaccinations, an Alabama base requires some G.I.s to provide proof of shots

By  Jennifer Steinhauer

 

Private Brandon Ober administering a dose of a Covid-19 vaccine to Sgt. Jeff Walston at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, in February. Fort Rucker, in Alabama, is requiring all uniformed service members who do not wear masks to show proof of vaccination.Credit...Kenny Holston for The New York Times

About 68 percent of members of the U.S. military have had at least one dose of a Covid vaccine, but given that only full vaccination affords significant protection against the more infectious Delta variant surging in parts of the United States, American commanders are seeking new ways to pressure, entice and cajole service members to get their shots.

Now, Fort Rucker in Alabama has become the first military base in the United States to require that unmasked uniformed service members provide proof of vaccinations.

As in other states that have low overall vaccination rates, coronavirus cases are rising sharply in Alabama. Only 33 percent of the state’s population is fully vaccinated, one of the lowest proportions in the country, and cases have shot up 133 percent over the last two weeks, according to a New York Times database, reaching a daily average of more than 500. Hospitalizations have risen 39 percent over two weeks.

The situation has added urgency to military leaders’ battle against vaccine misinformation and hesitancy in the ranks.

“The big difference is going to be that if you are not wearing a mask, the leadership will be able to ask you, ask soldiers, to prove that they’ve been vaccinated by showing their vaccination card,” said Major Gen. David Francis, the commanding general of Fort Rucker, in a video posted on Fort Rucker’s Facebook page on Monday.

President Biden could legally require members of the military to get vaccinated even though the vaccines in use in the United States — those made by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson — have only emergency authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. Mr. Biden has delined to exercise that power even amid the spread of the Delta variant.

And some military leaders insist that the absence of full F.D.A. approval prevents them from requiring that Covid shots join myriad other compulsory vaccines for service members.

There are about 5,000 uniformed personnel assigned to Fort Rucker. Many larger bases, like Fort Hood in Texas, require all service members to wear masks indoors but have areas, like specified gyms, where people who have been vaccinated may congregate without masks.

More than 80 percent of active-duty service members are under 35, a group that has led resistance among civilians, too. The vaccination rates vary by service branch: Seventy-seven percent of active-duty members in the Navy have had at least one shot, Pentagon officials said recently, while in the Marine Corps that number is 58 percent.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/15/world/covid-vaccine-army.html

 

 

 

As vaccinations slow in the U.S., the Delta variant is driving a rise in cases

By Mitch Smith

 

Dennis Shaffer getting a Covid-19 vaccination at a clinic in Springfield, Mo., on Monday. The vaccines have been found effective against the Delta variant.Credit...Nathan Papes/The Springfield News-Leader, via Associated Press

Reports of new coronavirus cases are rising again across the United States, a discouraging trend fueled by the spread of the Delta variant and the sputtering vaccination campaign.

The country’s outlook remains far better than at previous points in the pandemic: Nearly half of all Americans are fully vaccinated, cases and hospitalizations remain at a fraction of their peak and deaths are occurring at some of the lowest levels since the early days of the pandemic.

Yet infections are rising in almost every state. Daily case numbers have increased at least 15 percent over the last two weeks in 49 states, including 19 states that are reporting at least twice as many new cases a day. Full-fledged outbreaks have emerged in a handful of places with relatively low vaccination rates, including Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana and Nevada.

“The Delta variant is gaining ground,” Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas told residents as he lamented his state’s low vaccine uptake and sudden spike in cases, from fewer than 200 new infections a day in early June to more than 1,000 a day. “It’s an urgent moment because the solution is available. People are always asking me, ‘How do you protect yourself?’ Get the vaccination.”

The tens of millions of Americans who are vaccinated are largely protected from the virus, including the Delta variant, scientists have said. And in much of the country, especially the Northeast, the Upper Midwest and the West Coast, case rates remain relatively low. Vermont, the state with the highest vaccination rate, is averaging 11 new cases a day.

Still, less than a month after reports of new cases nationally bottomed out at around 11,000 a day, virus cases are increasing again, with about 26,000 new cases a day. Hospitalizations have also started to rise, though at a slower rate.

Intensive care beds in hospitals have become scarce in parts of Missouri, where officials in Springfield on Wednesday asked for an alternative care site. In Mississippi, where cases are up 70 percent over the last two weeks, health officials have urged older adults to avoid large indoor gatherings even if they have been vaccinated. And in Louisiana, which has the country’s second-lowest vaccination rate, the average daily caseload has doubled since the start of July.

“The data are very clear,” said Dr. Joseph Kanter, Louisiana’s state health officer. “All people in Louisiana, especially those who are not yet vaccinated, should know they are now at increased risk of exposure to Covid-19 due to the more transmissible Delta variant, and they should consider their personal risk and their family’s risk.”

The disheartening pattern comes as the vaccine effort, which has become entangled in partisan politics, has largely stalled. About 550,000 people are receiving a vaccine each day, down from 3.3 million shots a day during an April peak.

Even in places that have not yet seen a significant uptick, governors and public health officials have urged vaccine holdouts to get a shot and protect themselves from Delta.

“I hope and pray that it doesn’t come to West Virginia and just absolutely runs across our state like wild,” said Gov. Jim Justice, whose state has recorded relatively few cases recently but has a low vaccination rate. “But the odds are it will.”

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/07/14/world/covid-variant-vaccine-updates/delta-variant-us-cases

 

 

 

Haiti receives its first shipment of vaccines: 500,000 doses from the U.S

By Shashank Bengali

 

Street vendors in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, on Monday. The country is one of only a handful worldwide that are yet to begin a Covid vaccination program.Credit...Federico Rios for The New York Times

A shipment of 500,000 Covid vaccine doses from the United States arrived in Haiti on Wednesday, the first shots to reach a nation thrown into turmoil after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

The donation is part of the Biden administration’s effort to bolster lagging vaccination campaigns in the world’s poorer countries, and will be distributed by Covax, the global vaccine-sharing effort, according to a statement by the Pan American Health Organization, part of the World Health Organization.

“The arrival of these vaccines is quite promising and now the challenge is to get them to the people that need them the most,” the P.A.H.O. director, Carissa F. Etienne, said in the statement.

Haiti is one of a handful of countries worldwide, and the only one in Latin America or the Caribbean, that have yet to begin a Covid vaccination program, leaving it at risk as the highly infectious Delta variant circulates the globe. The country has recorded fewer than 20,000 coronavirus cases and 487 deaths, according to New York Times data, but experts believe that number to be an undercount because of low levels of testing.

Marie Gréta Roy Clément, Haiti’s public health minister, said that the doses provided by the United States would be administered free of charge, but she did not specify who would receive the shots first. The U.S. shipment was of the Moderna vaccine, The Associated Press reported.

“This first allocation of vaccines puts an end to a long period of waiting,” Dr. Clément said, “not only for the Haitian population, but also for the people of the region who were very concerned that Haiti was the only country in the Americas that had not yet introduced the Covid-19 vaccine.”

Even before the president’s assassination on July 7, political instability and a lack of resources were hampering Haiti’s response to a new outbreak of the virus. Last month, administrators at a hospital outside Port-au-Prince, the capital, turned away patients because its wards were full. Hospitals have added beds, but doctors warn that there is not enough medical oxygen to treat patients if cases rise further.

Officials said that the United States would send more vaccines to Haiti soon, as the Biden administration speeds up the delivery of 12 million doses it has pledged for countries in the Caribbean and Latin America. About four million doses have been delivered so far, to Bolivia, El Salvador and Honduras, according to the Pan American Health Organization.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/15/world/haiti-covid-vaccine.html

 

 

 

Covid is especially risky for people with H.I.V., according to a large study

By Apoorva Mandavilli

 

Healthcare workers assisted coronavirus patients at a makeshift hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa, last week. Some countries in Africa that are battling a surge in coronavirus cases also have high numbers of people with H.I.V.Credit...Sumaya Hisham/Reuters

People living with H.I.V. are more likely to become severely ill with Covid-19 and more likely to die if hospitalized than others infected with the coronavirus, according to a large new study. Nearly half of H.I.V.-infected men older than 65 who are hospitalized for Covid may die, the study found.

The results, released ahead of an AIDS conference in Berlin, suggest that people with H.I.V. should be first in line for vaccines, along with older adults and others with weak immune systems, scientists said.

The data is especially pressing because many countries with high numbers of people with H.I.V. are battling surges of the coronavirus, fueled by the contagious Delta variant and a dearth of vaccines. Many of those countries are in Africa, where the virus is moving at a pace not seen before in the pandemic, the World Health Organization said on Thursday. The organization said a million cases were reported on the continent in the past month alone, pushing Africa’s overall caseload to six million.

About 95 percent of the people with H.I.V. included in the analysis were from sub-Saharan Africa, which is home to two-thirds of H.I.V. cases worldwide.

“The strength of this analysis is that we report data from the continent where the H.I.V. burden actually is occurring,” said Dr. Silvia Bertagnolio, an H.I.V. researcher at the World Health Organization who led the study.

Dr. Bertagnolio and her colleagues analyzed anonymized clinical data for 268,412 people hospitalized with Covid that was reported to the W.H.O. from health facilities and national health registries in 37 countries from January 2020 to April 2021.

More than one-third of patients with H.I.V. were severely ill at the time of admission, and nearly one in four of those who were hospitalized for Covid died. The risk of death in those older than 65 was higher still, and highest for older men.

After adjusting for age, sex, disease severity and the presence of other conditions, the researchers estimated that H.I.V. infection increases the odds of dying from Covid by 30 percent.

The result contradicts findings from several smaller studies earlier in the pandemic that suggested that H.I.V. infection has no bearing on a person’s risk of severe illness or death from the coronavirus. But the new study is more biologically plausible than that earlier research, given H.I.V.’s ability to disrupt immune defenses, experts said.

“H.I.V. knocks out all the brakes on the immune system, and as a consequence you get this inflammatory response that’s robust and sustained — and now you got Covid on top of that,” said Dr. Steven Deeks, an H.I.V. expert at the University of California, San Francisco.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/07/15/world/covid-variant-vaccine-updates/covid-is-especially-risky-for-people-with-hiv-according-to-a-large-study

 

 

 

Summary

 

Here are the key developments from the last few hours:

· Singapore reported a new cluster of infections at karaoke bars, driving the city-state’s biggest daily surge in cases in 10 months. Health officials closed several karaoke lounges, known locally as KTV, and asked anyone who had visited those or similar establishments in recent weeks to come forward for testing or to isolate for 14 days. Singapore recorded 60 cases on Wednesday, but officials said that there were no immediate plans to reintroduce social restrictions because of the growing rate of vaccinations. More than 70 percent of people in Singapore have received at least one dose.

· The United States is beginning to ship 3.5 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to the Philippines on Thursday, according to an assistant White House press secretary, Kevin Munoz. The announcement came a day after Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, announced that the country was beginning to ship 1.5 million doses of the Moderna vaccine to Sri Lanka.

· Britain may have overpaid more than $11 billion in welfare payments as fraud and error reached record levels during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, the government’s spending watchdog said on Thursday, according to Reuters. Fraud levels rose as normal verification checks were suspended in order to process new benefit claims from those who lost work in the country’s lockdown last spring, the spending watchdog said.

· Deaths in England from liver disease linked to excessive drinking jumped by an unprecedented 21 percent last year, when the coronavirus pandemic struck, as the heaviest drinkers consumed more alcohol at home, official data showed on Thursday, according to Reuters.

· Thousands of protesters in France and Greece marched in protest on Wednesday, two days after the authorities in both countries announced that shots would soon be mandatory for health workers.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/07/15/world/covid-variant-vaccine-updates/doctors-say-the-army-is-hoarding-oxygen-in-myanmar-plus-other-news-from-around-the-world