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NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — India became the third country to pass 400,000 Covid-19 deaths, official data showed Friday, as the country’s vast vaccination drive slows. Total deaths are 400,312, according to the health ministry — behind only the United States and Brazil — with total cases almost 30.5 million. Many experts suspect India’s true death toll is more than a million, after a devastating spike in cases in April and May that overwhelmed […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Australia announced a dramatic cut in the number of people who will be allowed to enter the country Friday, as it struggles to contain coronavirus clusters that plunged major cities into lockdown. With almost half of the nation’s population under stay-at-home orders, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said quotas for overseas arrivals would be cut by around 50 percent to help prevent further outbreaks. Under the current “zero Covid” strategy, just 6,000 […]
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AFP) — Two doses of Covid vaccine appear to provide protection against the rapidly spreading Delta variant, the European Medicines Agency said Thursday. The upbeat assessment came as the World Health Organization warned that the coronavirus variant first spotted in India could fuel a new wave of cases in Europe. The EMA’s head of vaccine strategy, Marco Cavaleri, said the Amsterdam-based watchdog was “aware of concerns caused by the rapid spread […]
KINSHASA, DR Congo (AFP) — The Delta variant of coronavirus is driving the pandemic forward in Africa at record speeds, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Thursday. Infection numbers have increased in Africa for six weeks running, rising by a quarter week-on-week to almost 202,000 in the week that ended Sunday, it said. The continent’s weekly record currently stands at 224,000 new cases. Deaths rose by 15 percent across 38 African countries to nearly […]
LISBON, Portugal (AFP) — Health authorities in Portugal reported over 2,000 new cases of coronavirus in 24 hours Wednesday, a high in a new wave of infections blamed on the Delta variant. There were 2,362 reported cases in the country of 10 million people — the highest level since mid-February. More than half were in the Lisbon capital region, official figures showed, with the numbers of hospitalized people also rising. Latest figures also show that […]
FRANKFURT, Germany (AFP) — Germany’s CureVac announced Wednesday that final trial results showed its coronavirus vaccine had an efficacy rate of just 48 percent, far lower than those developed by mRNA rivals BioNTech and Moderna. The outcome had been expected after poor interim results were released earlier this month. The company in part blamed “the unprecedented context of 15 strains circulating” among the trial volunteers, as well as varying responses across different age groups. The […]
PHUKET, Thailand (AFP) — Thailand prepared Wednesday to reopen the holiday hotspot of Phuket to tourists quarantine-free, even as the country registered its highest single-day death toll from Covid-19. High hopes have been pinned on the so-called “Phuket sandbox” — a model that will allow vaccinated travellers to visit without a quarantine period in an effort to revive Thailand’s battered tourism industry. But the lead-up to its July 1 launch has been plagued with uncertainty […]
by Claire LEE SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un replaced several senior officials after a “grave incident” in the country’s efforts to defend itself against the coronavirus pandemic, state media reported Wednesday. Pyongyang closed its borders in January last year to defend itself against the pandemic that first emerged in neighbouring China and has gone on to sweep the world. It has not publicly confirmed any cases of the disease […]
by Bhuvan BAGGA NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — India authorized the emergency use of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine on Tuesday as it seeks to ramp up inoculations in the wake of a record-breaking surge in infections and deaths. The vast nation of 1.3 billion people was hit by a massive spike in coronavirus cases in April and May that pushed the healthcare system to breaking point. Moderna’s shot is the fourth to be approved by New […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — After declining fast for two months, the rate of Covid infections in the United States has leveled off since mid-June thanks to localized spikes in under-vaccinated regions of the country, data showed Monday. It comes as the highly contagious Delta variant continues to gain traction, now accounting for 35.6 percent of sequenced cases in the past two weeks, according to the covSpectrum tracker. Authorities have said it is poised to […]
by Holly ROBERTSON BRISBANE, Australia (AFP) — Brisbane on Tuesday became the fourth major Australian city ordered into lockdown, as officials told residents to stay at home for three days over concerns about the rapid spread of Covid-19. About 10 million Australians will be in lockdown once the latest order comes into force from Tuesday evening. “These are tough decisions,” Queensland state Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said. “We are having lockdowns in major cities because the […]
HONG KONG, China (AFP) — Hong Kong is to ban all incoming flights from the United Kingdom from July 1 to curb the more infectious Delta strain of the coronavirus, the financial hub’s government said in a statement Monday. “All passenger flights from the UK will be prohibited from landing in Hong Kong,” the statement said. The UK would now be designated in the “extremely high-risk” category of countries, it added, the most severe rating […]
