Country, Other	Total Cases	New Cases	Total Deaths
World	118,146,860	+388,765	2,621,297
USA	29,801,506	+55,683	540,574
India	11,261,470	+16,846	158,079
Brazil	11,125,017	+69,537	268,568
Russia	4,342,474	+9,445	89,809
UK	4,228,998	+5,766	124,797
France	3,932,862	+23,302	89,301
Spain	3,164,983	+4,013	71,727
Italy	3,101,093	+19,749	100,479
Turkey	2,807,387	+13,755	29,160
Germany	2,520,609	+6,841	72,981
Colombia	2,282,372	+3,511	60,676
Argentina	2,162,001	+7,307	53,252
Mexico	2,130,477	+1,877	190,923
Poland	1,811,036	+9,954	45,599
Iran	1,706,559	+8,554	60,867
South Africa	1,522,697	+991	50,906
Ukraine	1,410,061	+3,261	27,204
Indonesia	1,392,945	+6,389	37,757
Peru	1,380,023	+5,556	48,163
Czechia	1,335,999	+10,594	22,280
Netherlands	1,128,202	+4,293	15,917
Canada	893,518	+2,820	22,304
Chile	864,064	+3,531	21,182
Romania	835,552	+4,989	21,056
Portugal	811,306	+847	16,595
Israel	808,262	+3,671	5,933
Belgium	789,008	+1,117	22,292
Iraq	735,626	+4,610	13,618
Philippines	600,428	+2,668	12,528
Pakistan	593,453	+1,353	13,281
Bangladesh	552,087	+912	8,489
Serbia	494,106	+4,576	4,599
Morocco	486,833	+508	8,695
Austria	479,391	+2,411	8,757
Hungary	475,207	+6,494	16,146
Jordan	442,202	+7,072	5,046
Japan	440,671	+679	8,299
UAE	415,705	+2,373	1,345
Lebanon	401,826	+3,939	5,134
Saudi Arabia	380,572	+390	6,539
Panama	345,759	+523	5,944
Slovakia	325,993	+2,207	8,037
Malaysia	316,269	+1,280	1,186
Belarus	297,514	+1,073	2,055
Ecuador	295,114	+496	16,069
Nepal	274,869	+59	3,012
Georgia	273,137	+139	3,601
Bulgaria	266,805	+3,502	10,902
Bolivia	254,736	+463	11,845
Croatia	247,099	+491	5,621
Dominican Republic	243,778	+252	3,191
Tunisia	238,613	+596	8,268
Azerbaijan	237,260	+297	3,250
Ireland	223,957	+306	4,452
Kazakhstan	219,325	+571	2,819
Denmark	215,791	+527	2,381
Greece	209,462	+3,181	6,843
Costa Rica	207,832	+372	2,848
Kuwait	203,055	+1,157	1,141
Lithuania	202,926	+488	3,343
Palestine	200,382	+1,828	2,170
Moldova	196,475	+873	4,150
Slovenia	196,421	+740	3,904
Egypt	187,716	+622	11,082
Guatemala	179,563	+793	6,493
Armenia	175,198	+182	3,232
Honduras	174,243	+514	4,283
Paraguay	171,985	+2,125	3,360
Ethiopia	168,335	+1,202	2,451
Qatar	167,888	+471	264
Nigeria	159,252	+346	1,988
Oman	144,831	+427	1,597
Venezuela	143,321	+547	1,399
Myanmar	142,059	+14	3,200
Libya	140,688	+1,030	2,297
Bahrain	127,800	+545	474
Algeria	114,543	+161	3,022
Albania	114,209	+629	1,969
Kenya	109,643	+479	1,886
North Macedonia	108,350	+871	3,228
S. Korea	93,263	+446	1,645
Latvia	90,997	+472	1,705
China	90,002	+8	4,636
Ghana	86,737	+272	656
Kyrgyzstan	86,606	+23	1,475
Sri Lanka	86,343	+304	511
Zambia	82,897	+242	1,137
Montenegro	80,803	+612	1,092
Uzbekistan	80,247	+28	622
Estonia	77,491	+1,308	669
Norway	76,484	+714	632
Uruguay	65,527	+827	666
Finland	63,110	+588	776
Mozambique	62,882	+179	700
El Salvador	61,539	+141	1,923
Singapore	60,052	+6	29
Cuba	57,607	+1,041	352
Luxembourg	56,822	+145	668
Uganda	40,490	+11	334
Namibia	40,337	+150	444
Cyprus	37,650	+420	233
Thailand	26,501	+60	85
Suriname	8,985	+5	175
Aruba	8,177	+67	77
Vietnam	2,526	+2	35

 

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

 

 

 

Novavax on track to have US and Mexico Phase 3 trial data in April, company says

From CNN's Jacqueline Howard

 

 

Medical lab scientists, Glenda Daza, left, and Emily Degli-Angeli, work on samples collected in the Novavax Phase 3 Covid-19 clinical vaccine trial at the UW Medicine Retrovirology Lab at Harborview Medical Center on February 12, in Seattle, Washington. Karen Ducey/Getty Images

 

Biotechnology company Novavax still expects to see results from its PREVENT-19 trial, a Phase 3 study of its Covid-19 vaccine in the United States and Mexico, sometime in April. The trial has enrolled 30,000 volunteers across more than 100 locations.

“Everybody's enrolled and now we're watching for cases,” Dr. Gregory Glenn, president of research and development for Novavax, told CNN on Tuesday.

“I think sometime in the April timeframe we'll have finished that trial. So, we'll have three pivotal trials testing our vaccine — that's extremely important for evidence that your vaccine is safe and can work,” Glenn said.

In January, the American biotech firm announced that its Covid-19 vaccine was found to have an overall efficacy of 89.3% in a Phase 3 clinical trial conducted in the United Kingdom, where it was found to have 95.6% efficacy against the original coronavirus strain and 85.6% against the variant strain first identified in the UK.

The coronavirus vaccine was not among the first authorized in the United States because the company faced some challenges in building the staff needed to develop such a new vaccine, Glenn said.

"We were a small company," Glenn said. 

In January of last year, around the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the Maryland-based company recruited more staff to work on developing its Covid-19 vaccine in response to the health crisis, Glenn said.

“We had to recruit people, and our funding was kind of low,” Glenn said. “In addition to all the challenges of developing the vaccine, which is really complicated, we had the challenge to build a company.”

Glenn added that Novavax has “reached a really good point now” with building the company and developing the vaccine. The company still expects to apply for emergency use authorization for its Covid-19 vaccine sometime in the second quarter of this year.

 

 

 

White House isn't focused on vaccine passports, press secretary says

From CNN's Betsy Klein

 

Patrick Semansky/AP

 

White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked about a concept being floated by the private sector, a “vaccine passport” that would allow Americans to demonstrate that they have been vaccinated ahead of traveling.

She suggested the effort will be driven outside of government as the administration’s focus is currently on vaccinating.

“We recognize that as many Americans get vaccinated questions will come up and they're already starting to come up as to how people will be able to demonstrate they are vaccinated... And right now, our focus as the US government is on getting more people vaccinated, and we'll think about how people can demonstrate they are vaccinated as we get more people vaccinated, but that's where we're putting our energy and resources toward,” Psaki said Tuesday, adding that the private sector and non-profits “will be driving this initiative in all likelihood moving forward.”

Pressed on whether the administration would want to be involved in setting standards, she said, “There are lots of ideas that will come from the private sector, nonprofits. We welcome those, but our focus from the federal government is on getting more people vaccinated, and that's where we feel we can use our resources best.”

 

 

 

Brazil reports nearly 2,000 Covid-19 deaths in highest daily toll of the pandemic

From journalist Marcia Reverdosa in Sao Paulo and CNN's Tatiana Arias in Atlanta

 

Brazil reported its highest daily death toll since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic on Tuesday, according to data from the country's Health Ministry, with 1,972 new fatalities.

The country’s total coronavirus death toll now stands at 268,370.

On Tuesday, the ministry reported 70,764 new confirmed Covid-19 cases, raising the country’s total number of infections to 11,122,429 -- the third highest in the world after the United States and India.

In the southeastern state of Sao Paulo on Tuesday, a record number of 517 Covid-19 related deaths were reported by health authorities in the past 24 hours.

Sao Paulo’s death toll now stands at 62,101, with 2,134,020 confirmed Covid-19 cases, according to official data.

 

 

 

Rich nations vaccinating 1 person per second, but most poorer ones haven't given a single shot, watchdog says 

From CNN’s Christopher Rios

 

Rich countries are vaccinating one person every second against Covid-19 while the majority of their poorest counterparts have yet to administer a single dose, the People’s Vaccine Alliance said Tuesday. 

These same rich nations are blocking efforts by developing countries to waive intellectual property rights on Covid-19 vaccines, the alliance said. The World Trade Organization’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) committee meets Wednesday to discuss the TRIPS waiver.

“We should act now. There is no going back. It is totally unfair that rich countries, who have enough vaccines to protect their citizens, are blocking the TRIPS waiver, which could help poorer countries get the vaccines they need,” said Muhammad Yunus, Nobel laureate professor, and one of the leaders of the People’s Vaccine Alliance.
“For the rich world, this proposed act of human solidarity to ensure that medicines and vaccines get to the whole human family simultaneously is in their own self-interest, not just an act of charity,”

The People’s Vaccine Alliance, a group of organizations including Oxfam International, Frontline AIDS, UNAIDS, and others, says this is yet another example of rich countries prioritizing the interests of big pharmaceutical monopolies over people’s lives. 

“By allowing a small group of pharmaceutical companies to decide who lives and who dies, rich nations are prolonging this unprecedented global health emergency and putting countless more lives on the line,” said Oxfam's executive director Gabriela Bucher.

“At this crucial time, developing countries need support – not opposition.” 

The proposed TRIPS wavier would remove legal barriers and allow manufacturers across the world to start producing vaccines at scale within months, the alliance said. 

 

https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-vaccine-updates-03-10-21/index.html

 

 

 

Severe obesity raises the risk of Covid-19 hospitalization and death, a study finds

By Emily Anthes

 

Health care workers treating a Covid-19 patient at Providence St. Mary Medical Center in Apple Valley, Calif., in December.Credit...Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times

Over the past year, many scientific teams around the world have reported that obese people who contract the coronavirus are especially likely to become dangerously ill.

Now, a large new study, of nearly 150,000 adults at more than 200 hospitals across the United States, paints a more detailed picture of the connection between weight and Covid-19 outcomes.

The study, performed by a team of researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has confirmed that obesity significantly increases the risk for hospitalization and death among those who contract the virus. And among those who are obese, the risk increases as patients’ body mass index, or B.M.I., a ratio of weight to height, increases.

Patients with a B.M.I. from 30 to 34.9 were just 7 percent more likely to be hospitalized and 8 percent more likely to die than people who were at a “healthy weight,” but the risks increased sharply as B.M.I. increased. Patients with a B.M.I. of 45 or higher, which corresponds to severe obesity, were 33 percent more likely to be hospitalized and 60 percent more likely to die than those at a healthy weight.

“The findings of the study highlight the serious clinical public health implications of elevated B.M.I., and they suggest the continued need for intensive management of Covid-19 illness. especially among patients affected by severe obesity,” said the lead author, Lyudmyla Kompaniyets, a health economist at the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity at the C.D.C.

Dr. Kompaniyets and her colleagues also documented a linear relationship between B.M.I. and the likelihood of needing mechanical ventilation; the higher the B.M.I., the more likely the patient was to require the intervention, which is invasive and can come with serious complications.

But the relationship between weight and outcomes is nuanced. Covid-19 patients who were underweight were also more likely to be hospitalized than those who were at a healthy weight, although they were not more likely to be admitted to the intensive care unit or to die.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/09/world/covid-19-coronavirus/severe-obesity-raises-the-risk-of-covid-19-hospitalization-and-death-a-study-finds

 

 

 

China creates a digital vaccine passport

 

The health certificate, which runs on Tencent’s WeChat messaging app, will reportedly include a user’s Covid-19 test and vaccination history.Credit...Nicolas Asfouri/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

China on Monday introduced a digital vaccine passport to track its citizens’ medical history as they begin to travel abroad.

The health certificate, which runs on Tencent’s WeChat messaging app, will include a user’s Covid-19 test and vaccination history, and is intended to enable international travel, according to a report by the Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua. The service currently only works for Chinese citizens.

Europe and the United States have discussed their own versions of such systems in preparation for a likely boom in travel as ever more people get vaccinated. During a Group of 20 meeting last year, President Xi Jinping of China suggested that countries standardize services to facilitate movement across borders.

The Chinese pass offers an encrypted, scannable code that could allow other countries to process the data of travelers, according to the Xinhua report.

In China, health code software that tracks a user’s location and can link them to hot spots and outbreaks have become de rigueur for daily life. A green code, which indicates a clean history, is required to do everything from entering a grocery store to taking public transportation.

But privacy concerns mean that Mr. Xi’s vision for a standardized system is unlikely to occur. In China’s case, the police have built surveillance systems that closely watch WeChat, and one early version of the country’s health code software appeared to send data directly to the police.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/09/world/covid-19-coronavirus/china-creates-a-digital-vaccine-passport

 

 

 

For a fading Spanish village, salvation came via the pandemic

By Nicholas Casey

 

The main square in Gosol, in northeastern Spain, this month. Until last year, the town census had gone down in nearly every count since the 1960s.Credit...Samuel Aranda for The New York Times

GÓSOL, Spain — The castle that crowns the hill above the village of Gósol used to be among the grandest along Spain’s border with France, with views of fertile farms and forests rich in timber that stretched up to the cloudy mountaintops.

But the castle is in ruins now, and until last year, Gósol had fallen on hard times, too. The town census had gone down in nearly every count since the 1960s. The school was on the verge of closing for lack of students. The mayor had even taken to television with a plea to his countrymen: Come to Gósol, he asked, or the town would disappear.

It took a pandemic for Spaniards to heed his call.

Among those who packed their bags was Gabriela Calvar, a 37-year-old who once owned a bar in a beach town near Barcelona, but watched it go under during last year’s lockdowns and decamped to the mountains for a new start.

María Otero, a web designer who found she could telecommute, brought her husband and three children to Gósol, the place where her grandparents had been born, but where she had only spent the summers milking cows on visits.

It was the rare silver lining of a troubled time: About 20 or 30 newcomers to a dwindling town of 140 souls, where even the tiny school on the town plaza got a second chance after parents started enrolling their children there.

“If it weren’t for Covid, the school would have closed,” said Josep Tomás Puig, 67, a retired mail carrier in Gósol who spent his life watching the younger generation depart to Spain’s cities. “And if the school closed, the town might as well have closed too.”

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/08/world/covid-19-coronavirus/israel-begins-mass-vaccination-of-palestinian-workers

 

 

 

Summary

 

Here are the key developments from the last few hours:

· UK ministers asked to justify ‘staggering’ £20bn test and trace system cost. There is no evidence to show that the government’s £22bn test-and-trace programme to combat Covid-19 in England contributed to a reduction in coronavirus infection levels, parliament’s spending watchdog has concluded.

· Overseas fans face ban from Tokyo Olympics, reports news agency. Japan’s government has decided to stage the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics without overseas spectators because of fears among the population over the potential spread of Covid-19, the Kyodo news agency has reported, citing officials with knowledge of the matter.

· Nancy Pelosi hailed a ‘historic’ Covid relief bill as House prepares to vote. The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has hailed the massive $1.9tn Covid relief bill as “historic” and “transformative” as the House stood poised to give the legislation final approval with a vote on Wednesday morning.

· Big Indian state scaled down vaccinations, citing shortage. The Indian state of Rajasthan said on Tuesday it had started limiting Covid vaccinations to its major hospitals due to a shortage of doses, despite an assurance from the federal government that supplies were adequate.

· Brazil suffered record deaths. Brazil registered 1,972 new Covid deaths in a single day on Tuesday, a national record, according to the health ministry. The country had 70,764 new cases of coronavirus, reaching a total of 11.12 million infections. Brazil had 168,370 coronavirus deaths.

· Palestinian intensive care units at 100% capacity. Palestinian hospitals are overfull and intensive-care units operating at 100% capacity with coronavirus patients in some areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh has said.

· San Francisco Uber driver assaulted after passenger allegedly refuses to wear mask. An attack on a San Francisco Uber driver over the weekend by a passenger who allegedly refused to wear a face mask has drawn outrage after video of the incident emerged on Tuesday.

· J&J ‘under stress’ to meet EU 2nd-quarter vaccine supply goal – Reuters source. Johnson & Johnson has told the European Union it is facing supply issues that may complicate plans to deliver 55m doses of its Covid vaccine to the bloc in the second quarter of the year, an EU official told Reuters.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/mar/10/coronavirus-live-news-brazil-sees-record-deaths-japan-may-stage-olympics-without-overseas-spectators?page=with:block-604867168f08a73fb5239f50#block-604867168f08a73fb5239f50