Country, Other	Total Cases	New Cases	Total Deaths
World	51,797,147	+542,492	1,278,539
USA	10,559,263	+135,653	245,800
India	8,635,754	+44,679	127,615
Brazil	5,701,283	+25,517	162,842
France	1,829,659	+22,180	42,207
Russia	1,817,109	+20,977	31,161
Spain	1,443,997	+17,395	39,756
Argentina	1,262,476	+11,977	34,183
UK	1,233,775	+20,412	49,770
Colombia	1,156,675	+7,612	33,148
Italy	995,463	+35,098	42,330
Mexico	972,785	+4,960	95,225
Peru	925,431	+1,904	34,992
South Africa	740,254	+1,729	19,951
Germany	705,640	+16,668	11,860
Iran	703,288	+10,339	39,202
Poland	593,592	+25,454	8,375
Chile	523,907	+1,028	14,611
Iraq	505,310	+3,577	11,432
Belgium	503,182	+2,393	13,216
Ukraine	479,197	+10,179	8,756
Indonesia	444,348	+3,779	14,761
Czechia	429,880	+9,005	5,323
Bangladesh	423,620	+1,699	6,108
Netherlands	419,412	+4,667	8,141
Philippines	399,744	+1,342	7,661
Turkey	399,360	+2,529	11,059
Saudi Arabia	351,455	+471	5,576
Pakistan	346,476	+1,637	7,000
Israel	320,661	+773	2,684
Romania	314,295	+7,304	8,186
Canada	273,037	+4,302	10,632
Morocco	265,165	+5,214	4,425
Nepal	199,760	+2,736	1,148
Portugal	187,237	+3,817	3,021
Ecuador	175,711	+442	12,849
Austria	164,866	+6,120	1,499
UAE	144,385	+1,096	518
Bolivia	142,561	+86	8,802
Panama	141,302	+971	2,817
Qatar	134,663	+230	233
Kuwait	133,381	+903	821
Dominican	131,131	+528	2,269
Jordan	120,982	+5,996	1,386
Hungary	118,918	+4,140	2,596
Oman	118,884	+381	1,316
Costa Rica	118,566	+979	1,502
Kazakhstan	117,336	+564	1,857
Guatemala	112,129	+769	3,832
Egypt	109,654	+232	6,394
Japan	108,983	+899	1,829
Armenia	108,687	+1,221	1,609
Belarus	108,300	+1,038	1,016
Honduras	100,573	+65	2,765
Ethiopia	100,327	+345	1,537
Lebanon	96,907	+1,552	749
Venezuela	95,445	+296	834
China	86,267	+22	4,634
Bahrain	83,811	+179	331
Moldova	83,592	+915	1,930
Bulgaria	83,366	+4,390	1,851
Slovakia	77,123	+1,051	390
Tunisia	72,993	+1,424	2,006
Croatia	70,243	+1,467	865
Libya	70,010	+970	957
Uzbekistan	69,027	+148	588
Paraguay	68,497	+549	1,516
Azerbaijan	67,392	+1,346	867
Serbia	66,888	+2,823	915
Ireland	65,889	+230	1,963
Kenya	64,588	+1,344	1,154
Nigeria	64,336	+152	1,160
Kyrgyzstan	63,960	+570	1,185
Georgia	63,650	+2,970	521
Algeria	63,446	+753	2,077
Myanmar	63,241	+1,266	1,461
Greece	60,570	+2,383	866
Palestine	59,422	+584	533
Singapore	58,073	+9	28
Denmark	56,958	+1,066	750
Ghana	49,302	+100	320
Slovenia	46,717	+1,092	605
Malaysia	42,050	+869	300
North Macedonia	41,222	+947	1,186
Australia	27,678	+10	907
S. Korea	27,653	+100	485
Lithuania	26,841	+1,109	221
Norway	25,887	+562	285
Albania	25,294	+563	579
Montenegro	24,154	+546	349
Luxembourg	23,710	+483	198
Ivory Coast	20,847	+12	126
Finland	18,107	+220	363
Zambia	16,997	+26	350
Senegal	15,720	+9	326
Sri Lanka	14,715	+430	41
Uganda	14,704	+130	133
Namibia	13,253	+13	134
Angola	12,816	+136	308
Maldives	12,030	+21	41
DRC	11,642	+34	316
Tajikistan	11,417	+41	84
French Polynesia	10,971	+291	52
Cyprus	6,296	+198	29
Suriname	5,245	+4	113
Aruba	4,622	+16	42
Thailand	3,844	+4	60
Vietnam	1,226	+11	35

 

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

 

 

 

Texas just became the first US state to hit 1 million cases of Covid-19

From CNN’s Joe Sutton

 

 

Vehicles travel along Interstate 10 highway in El Paso, Texas on November 9. Joel Angel Juarez/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Texas has become the first state in the United States to record 1 million coronavirus cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The Lone Star State has now identified 1,010,364 Covid-19 cases since the pandemic began. At least 19,337 people there have died, according to the university.

California has the second-highest number of cases in the US, with 989,432.

If Texas, which has a population of about 29 million people, were its own country, it would now be ranked 10th in terms of total identified cases of Covid-19.

These are the countries that have identified more than 1 million cases of Covid-19, according to Johns Hopkins' data:

1.   United States

2.   India

3.   Brazil

4.   France

5.   Russia

6.   Spain

7.   Argentina

8.   United Kingdom

9.   Colombia

 

 

Pfizer's ultra-cold vaccine, a "very complex" distribution plan and an exploding head emoji

From CNN's Elizabeth Cohen, John Bonifield and Sierra Jenkins

 

 

Pedestrians wearing protective masks walk past Pfizer Inc. headquarters on July 22 in New York City, New York. Jeenah Moon/Getty Images

As Molly Howell, a state health official in North Dakota, watched a webinar on how to distribute what's expected to be the US's first Covid-19 vaccine, her head began to spin.

"How are we going to do this?" she texted a colleague who was also on the webinar.

Her colleague responded with an exploding head emoji.

On Monday, Pfizer announced that initial Phase 3 clinical trial results show its vaccine is more than 90% effective. If approved, Pfizer's vaccine will also be the most fragile vaccine used in the United States, and the state health officials charged with its distribution worry the process will not go smoothly.

Pfizer's vaccine needs to be stored at about minus 75 degrees Celsius, which is about 50 degrees colder than any vaccine currently used in the United States. Doctors' offices, pharmacies and state labs don't have freezers that go nearly that low.

The solution is a set of handling and storage requirements that a doctor at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention described as "very complex."

The CDC has asked states to be ready to receive Pfizer's vaccine by November 15, but state officials say the first time they heard the specific requirements was on October 15, giving them weeks to prepare.

State health officials were "shocked" when they heard the storage requirements for the new vaccine, according to Dr. Kelly Moore, associate director of the Immunization Action Coalition, which is supporting the frontline workers who will administer the coronavirus vaccine. Those requirements include procuring and handling large amounts of dry ice, which is in short supply in many parts of the country.

"We all are going into this expecting that there are going to be major glitches," she said.

 

Retrieved from: https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-11-11-20-intl/index.html

 

 

 

Brazil halts a Chinese vaccine trial after a ‘serious adverse’ reaction in a participant

 

Brazil said on Monday that it had halted a late-stage trial of a Chinese vaccine, which had been considered a global front-runner in the race to develop a protective shot for the coronavirus, after a “serious adverse” reaction in a participant.

The Brazilian health regulator provided little information on its decision, and did not say whether the reaction was related to the vaccine, called CoronaVac and produced by the Chinese company Sinovac, or coincidental.

The participant who had the reaction became ill on Oct. 29, according to the authorities. They did not divulge where in Brazil the vaccine had been administered or what had happened to the volunteer, citing patient confidentiality. In a statement, they said that such a “serious adverse incident” might include death, disability, hospitalization, birth defects or other “clinically significant events.”

CoronaVac is one of 11 experimental vaccines, produced by some of the world’s foremost pharmaceutical companies, currently in Phase 3 trials.

On the same day that Brazil suspended the Sinovac trial, the American company Pfizer announced that an early analysis of its coronavirus vaccine trials suggested that its drug was more than 90 percent effective in preventing the virus that causes Covid-19.

Sinovac’s drug was seen in China as a leading candidate. But in Beijing’s push to get a Chinese vaccine to be the first on the global market, officials stretched the definition of “emergency use.” They have permitted tens of thousands of people to receive the Sinovac vaccine and two other locally made vaccines, despite having not yet concluded Phase 3 trials.

Adverse effects are not unusual in Phase 3 trials. AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson both paused their trials after a few volunteers fell seriously ill, resuming them six weeks later, in October, after concluding that the illnesses were not related to the vaccines

The details of why the Brazilian health regulator had paused the trials were uncertain.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, Sinovac said Instituto Butantan, the medical center coordinating the Brazilian trials, had deemed the “serious event” not related to the vaccine. The company said it was “confident in the safety” of its vaccine.

According to news reports, the institute confirmed that a volunteer had died, but officials there said they were “surprised” by the government’s decision to halt the trials.

Dimas Covas, head of the institute, told a Brazilian television network that he found the government regulator’s decision strange “because it’s a death unrelated to the vaccine.”

Prof. Kim Mulholland, a pediatrician at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia, called it “alarming” that Instituto Butantan appeared to have no idea why the trial had been stopped. “It leaves me wondering who had done that and why,” Professor Mulholland added. “That’s the question that really needs to be answered because this is a violation of the normal process.”

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/11/10/world/covid-19-coronavirus-live-updates?name=styln-coronavirus&region=TOP_BANNER&block=storyline_menu_recirc&action=click&pgtype=LegacyCollection&impression_id=aefe4e30-23fa-11eb-9177-f935282c7a92&variant=1_Show

 

 

 

Sudden spurt in coronavirus cases in Pakistan

 

 

ISLAMABAD: There is a sudden spurt in coronavirus infections in Pakistan with the rate of Covid-19 cases surpassing five per cent after a gap of over three months, according to a media report on Wednesday.
As many as 1,708 cases were detected in the last 24 hours, taking the nationwide Covid-19 tally to 348,184, while the death toll reached 7,021 with 21 more patients succumbing to the viral infection, the health ministry said.
The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) -- the nerve centre to synergise and articulate unified national effort against Covid-19 -- was briefed on Tuesday about the threat of rising positivity as the rate of coronavirus cases once again surpassed five per cent after a gap of over three months, the Dawn News reported.
The highest increase of 16.71% was observed in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), followed by Balochistan (8.71%), Sindh (5.39%), Punjab (4.46%) and Gilgit-Baltistan (3.24%); while in Islamabad and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, cases were decreased by 4.92% and 4.61%, respectively.

in Pakistan, the maximum positivity rate had reached 23% in June. It was brought down to 1.7% in September, the report said.
Positivity rate is the percentage of positive results out of the total number of tests sampled.
The positivity rate was 11.79% on March 30, 19.95% on May 25 and 22.24% on June 1. Later, it started dropping and reached 16% on July 6, 3% on August 10 and 1.7% on September 21. An upward trend in the positivity rate was spotted the following month as it reached 2.49% on October 19, 4.26% on November 2 and 5.13% on November 10.
Similarly, the trend of new admissions due to COVID-19 has also started rising as 131 patients were admitted in hospitals, across the country, as compared to 46 on October 5, the report said.

The NCOC was informed that among healthcare workers, 8,573 cases were confirmed which was 3% of overall COVID-19 cases.
According to the latest data released by NCOC, the number of active COVID-19 in Pakistan has increased by more than 14,000 cases in the last eight weeks. The total number of active cases on November 10 was 20,045 as against 5,831 on September 14.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/nov/09/coronavirus-live-news-us-nears-10m-cases-as-global-infections-pass-50m?page=with:block-5fa931808f083df739ba7b28#block-5fa931808f083df739ba7b28

 

 

Japan warns of third wave amid rising Covid infections

Justin McCurry in Tokyo

 

 

Japanese officials have warned that the country is on the brink of another major wave of coronavirus infections. Photograph: James Matsumoto/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock

Officials in Japan have warned of an impending third wave of coronavirus infections amid a rise in cases blamed on colder weather and a government campaign to encourage domestic tourism.

As the prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, vowed to secure enough vaccines to cover Japan’s entire population, the number of daily cases continued to rise after several weeks of staying relatively stable.

Japan reported 1,284 new Covid-19 infections on Tuesday, bringing its total to 111,222 according to a Kyodo news agency tally based on official data. The death toll stood at 1,864.

While Japan has avoided the large number of cases and deaths seen in the UK, US and other countries – with widespread mask wearing often cited as a factor – the decision to press ahead with a heavily subsidised tourism campaign in July appears to have contributed to a new wave of infections.

Cases are not only rising in Tokyo – the epicentre of Japan’s outbreak with more than 33,000 cases – but also in prefectures with large urban populations such as Osaka, Kanagawa and Aichi, whose governor, Hideaki Omura, said last week: “Effectively the third wave has arrived.”

Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost main island, succeeded in containing a large outbreak after declaring a state of emergency in February, but this week saw daily cases rise above 200 for the first time since the start of the pandemic. Most of the island’s cases have been traced to Sapporo, its biggest city and home to a large nightlife economy.

Total infections in Hokkaido have reached 4,364 with health experts blaming cold weather for driving more people into poorly ventilated buildings and a rise in tourist numbers.

In response, hostess and host bars and clubs have been asked to close between 10pm and 5am and restaurants to stop serving alcohol after 10pm. “I don’t think Hokkaido is the only place that needs countermeasures to cope with lower temperatures and changes in the environment,” Kyodo quoted Hokkaido’s governor, Naomichi Suzuki, as saying.

Japan’s response since the beginning of the pandemic has emphasised mask-wearing and the need to avoid the “three Cs”: closed spaces, crowded places and close-contact settings – precautions that are harder to take in cold weather.

A government panel of experts has called for new measures to see Japan through the winter, warning that inaction could see a rapid rise in cases.

Speaking last week after the number of nationwide cases topped 1,000 for the first time in more than two months, Suga told senior party figures: “We need to deal with the situation with maximum vigilance.”

The chief cabinet secretary, Katsunobu Kato, raised the possibility that Hokkaido could be removed from Go To Travel, a ¥1.7tn (US$16bn) campaign that provides generous food, travel and accommodation subsidies for domestic tourists in an attempt to boost the world’s third-biggest economy.

But he was later contradicted by Suga, who said: “We’re monitoring the situation and we will carry out the campaign, taking into account the views of experts. Currently there are no plans to exclude Hokkaido from the programme.”

The campaign was launched in the early summer – initially without Tokyo’s involvement – despite warnings that a significant increase in domestic travel could spread the virus to parts of the country that had been relatively unaffected.

Kentaro Iwata, a specialist in infectious diseases at Kobe University hospital, speculated that the recent rise in infections was “a combination of the Go To campaign, complacency among people and politicians, with the additional potential factor of lower temperatures”.

“We need to be determined in lowering the infection rate,” Iwata told the Guardian, adding that he expected a rise in serious cases to “come later”.

“Sporadic measures will only prolong the problem. Decreasing opportunities to get infected is the simplest way to lower the number of cases, so politicians need to offer direct [financial] support to people who need it, not a travel campaign that is helping to spread the disease.”

 

Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/11/japan-warns-of-third-wave-amid-rising-covid-infections

 

 

Summary

 

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

· Vanuatu, one of the last remaining countries to be free of Covid, confirms first case. One of the last remaining Covid-free countries in the world has announced its first positive test.Vanuatu Prime Minister Bob Loughman made the announcement in an address to the nation. Loughman told a press conference that the indigenous Ni-Vanuatu person had arrived from the USA, transiting through Sydney and Auckland.

· Iran imposed a lockdown. Iran imposed a nightly curfew on businesses in Tehran and other cities on Tuesday, as it battles a major surge in coronavirus infections. Restaurants and nonessential businesses in Tehran and 30 other cities were ordered to close at 6pm for one month, to keep hospitals from becoming overwhelmed and to slow the worsening outbreak, which has killed more than 39,000 — the highest toll in the Middle East.

· Lebanon imposed a lockdown. In Lebanon, caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab announced a lockdown on on Tuesday night that will begin on Saturday and last until the end of the month. Lebanon has broken daily records in recent weeks, straining the country’s medical sector where intensive care units are almost full and cannot take more cases. The World Health Organization says 1,527 health workers have tested positive since the first case was reported in Lebanon in late February.

· More than 15,000 mink in the United States have died of the coronavirus since August, and authorities are keeping about a dozen farms under quarantine while they investigate the cases, state agriculture officials said.

· England’s students to get six-day window to get home before Christmas.
Students in England will be given a six-day window next month in which to travel home before Christmas, with mass testing carried out on campus before they are allowed to leave.

· Hong Kong-Singapore travel bubble to begin on 22 November. A travel bubble between Hong Kong and Singapore will begin on 22 November, Singapore’s airlines regulator announced on Wednesday, as the two cities move to re-establish overseas travel links and lift the hurdle of quarantine for visiting foreigners.

· China reports 17 new cases, down from day before. Mainland China reported 17 new Covid-19 cases on 10 November, down from 22 reported a day earlier, the country’s health authority said on Wednesday. The National Health Commission said one of the new cases was a local infection reported in Anhui, the first such infection in the eastern Chinese province since 27 February. The other 16 cases were imported infections originating from overseas, it said.

· US sees record Covid hospitalisations. The Covid-Tracking project reports that the US on Tuesday saw its highest number of people hospitalises with coronavirus of the pandemic so far – a day after braking the record on Monday. The number of hospitalisations currently stands at 61,964.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/nov/11/coronavirus-live-news-governments-scramble-to-secure-vaccine-doses-as-us-infections-top-100000-for-seventh-day-in-a-row?page=with:block-5fab79b28f086b290cc54617#block-5fab79b28f086b290cc54617