Country, Other	Total Cases	New Cases	Total Deaths
World	118,621,421	+461,464	2,631,396
USA	29,862,124	+60,355	542,191
India	11,284,311	+22,841	158,213
Brazil	11,205,972	+80,955	270,917
Russia	4,351,553	+9,079	90,275
UK	4,234,924	+5,926	124,987
France	3,963,165	+30,303	89,565
Spain	3,178,442	+6,672	71,961
Italy	3,123,368	+22,409	100,811
Turkey	2,821,943	+14,556	29,227
Germany	2,532,855	+12,246	73,276
Colombia	2,285,960	+3,588	60,773
Argentina	2,169,694	+7,693	53,359
Mexico	2,137,884	+7,407	191,789
Poland	1,828,313	+17,260	45,997
Iran	1,715,162	+8,603	60,928
South Africa	1,524,174	+1,477	51,015
Ukraine	1,416,438	+6,377	27,423
Indonesia	1,398,578	+5,633	37,932
Peru	1,387,457	+7,434	48,323
Czechia	1,351,371	+15,325	22,514
Netherlands	1,133,474	+5,272	15,948
Canada	896,739	+3,221	22,335
Chile	867,949	+3,885	21,206
Romania	840,116	+4,564	21,156
Portugal	811,948	+642	16,617
Israel	811,492	+3,230	5,950
Belgium	791,171	+2,163	22,327
Iraq	740,472	+4,846	13,645
Philippines	603,308	+2,886	12,545
Pakistan	595,239	+1,786	13,324
Bangladesh	553,105	+1,018	8,496
Serbia	498,696	+4,590	4,620
Morocco	487,286	+453	8,705
Austria	481,919	+2,528	8,776
Hungary	480,860	+5,653	16,325
Jordan	448,851	+6,649	5,106
Japan	441,729	+1,058	8,353
UAE	417,909	+2,204	1,353
Lebanon	405,407	+3,581	5,180
Saudi Arabia	380,958	+386	6,545
Panama	346,301	+542	5,957
Slovakia	329,593	+3,600	8,146
Malaysia	317,717	+1,448	1,191
Belarus	298,123	+609	2,063
Ecuador	296,841	+1,727	16,105
Nepal	274,973	+104	3,012
Georgia	273,650	+513	3,613
Bulgaria	269,579	+2,774	10,999
Bolivia	255,621	+885	11,858
Croatia	248,061	+962	5,625
Dominican Republic	244,168	+390	3,198
Tunisia	239,368	+755	8,292
Azerbaijan	237,775	+515	3,257
Ireland	224,588	+631	4,499
Kazakhstan	220,018	+693	2,821
Denmark	217,798	+2,007	2,382
Greece	212,091	+2,629	6,886
Kuwait	204,388	+1,333	1,144
Lithuania	203,386	+460	3,351
Palestine	202,378	+1,996	2,193
Moldova	198,228	+1,753	4,183
Slovenia	197,374	+952	3,908
Egypt	188,361	+645	11,128
Guatemala	180,393	+830	6,522
Armenia	175,538	+340	3,237
Honduras	174,508	+265	4,297
Paraguay	174,013	+2,028	3,387
Ethiopia	169,878	+1,543	2,466
Qatar	168,361	+473	264
Nigeria	159,646	+394	1,993
Oman	145,257	+426	1,600
Myanmar	142,073	+14	3,200
Libya	141,598	+910	2,330
Bahrain	128,428	+628	476
Albania	114,840	+631	1,986
Algeria	114,681	+138	3,026
Kenya	110,356	+713	1,898
North Macedonia	109,262	+912	3,244
S. Korea	93,733	+470	1,648
Latvia	91,636	+639	1,726
China	90,007	+5	4,636
Sri Lanka	86,685	+342	511
Kyrgyzstan	86,640	+34	1,476
Zambia	83,333	+436	1,140
Montenegro	81,457	+654	1,100
Uzbekistan	80,268	+21	622
Estonia	78,973	+1,484	677
Norway	77,169	+685	632
Uruguay	66,484	+957	678
Finland	63,889	+779	776
Mozambique	63,174	+292	707
El Salvador	61,677	+138	1,929
Singapore	60,062	+10	29
Cuba	58,379	+772	357
Luxembourg	57,056	+234	673
Afghanistan	55,901	+7	2,451
Uganda	40,520	+30	334
Namibia	40,451	+114	448
Cyprus	38,065	+415	235
Australia	29,074	+13	909
Suriname	8,990	+5	175
Aruba	8,227	+50	77
Vietnam	2,529	+3	35

 

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

 

 

 

Ukraine approves China’s Sinovac vaccine

 

From CNN’s Zahra Ullah and Denis Lapin

 

 

Ukraine has approved use of China’s Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine, Ukraine’s Deputy Health Minister Igor Ivashchenko said in a statement on Wednesday.

"This decision was made by the Ministry of Health on the basis of a study of registration certificates, materials on clinical trials on safety and efficacy and benefit / risk analysis," Ivashchenko said.

Sinovac is now the third vaccine to be approved in Ukraine for emergency use after AstraZeneca’s and Pfizer/BioNTech’s vaccines were previously registered. Ukraine started its vaccination campaign in February. 

One vaccine that Ukraine has refused to consider is that of their neighboring country –Russia’s coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V – despite an increasingly urgent situation in the country. 

Ukrainian officials have recently said the country has entered a third wave of coronavirus, seeing increasing numbers of infections and hospitalizations. 

Ukraine has registered over 1.4 million Covid-19 cases and 28,925 deaths from the disease, according to Johns Hopkins University data. 

 

 

 

New recommendations mark first step toward a return to pre-pandemic life, CDC director and colleagues say

From CNN's Lauren Mascarenhas

 

 

A person receives a Covid-19 vaccine on March 9 in North Miami, Florida.  Joe Raedle/Getty Images

 

The new recommendations for fully vaccinated people mark the first step toward a return to pre-pandemic life, but some precautions are still essential, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and colleagues wrote in a JAMA Viewpoint article published Wednesday.

The CDC released long-awaited guidelines Monday, offering limited freedoms for people who have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19.

“Day by day, arm by arm, millions of vaccines are being administered across the US in the largest vaccination effort in this country’s history. As vaccine supply increases, and distribution and administration systems expand and improve, more and more people will become fully vaccinated and eager to resume their prepandemic lives,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky and CDC officials Drs. Sarah Mbaeyi and Athalia Christie write. “Giving vaccinated people the ability to safely visit their family and friends is an important step toward improved well-being and a significant benefit of vaccination.” 

The team notes that more than 31 million people – 9.4% of the total population – have completed a vaccination series. These people now have a reduced risk of severe illness or death from Covid-19.

“In addition, preliminary but rapidly increasing evidence suggests that fully vaccinated people likely pose little risk of transmission to unvaccinated people,” Walensky and colleagues write.

In creating the guidelines, the CDC considered the risks to both vaccinated and unvaccinated people. As many people remain unvaccinated, public health precautions are still important, they note.

“CDC guidance will evolve as vaccination coverage increases, disease dynamics in the country change, and new data emerge,” the team writes. “With high levels of community transmission and the threat of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, CDC still recommends a number of prevention measures for all people, regardless of vaccination status.”

The agency still recommends all people wear masks, avoid large gatherings and postpone travel. It also stresses the importance of community-level prevention strategies, such as universal mask mandates and occupancy restrictions.

“Once vaccinated people make up a greater proportion of the general US population, these community-level restrictions will be readdressed, but not yet,” the team wrote.

While Covid-19 vaccines offer a path toward ending the pandemic, increasing vaccine access and confidence is essential, Walensky and colleagues note.

 

 

 

South Korea will vaccinate Olympic athletes on priority for Tokyo 2020

From CNN’s Jake Kwon and Gawon Bae

 

 

A nurse prepares to administer a dose of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine at a health care center in Seoul, South Korea, on February 26. Jung Yeon-je/Pool/AP

South Korea will provide priority coronavirus vaccination for Olympic athletes before their travel to Japan for the Tokyo Olympics, the Korean Sport and Olympic Committee confirmed to CNN on Wednesday.

The country began its vaccination rollout in late February. For now, the coronavirus vaccines are available to frontline healthcare workers and those working and staying in nursing facilities. The general public will only receive the vaccine in July according to South Korea’s Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

KDCA is making an exception for Olympic athletes as they are due to travel to Japan for “public service”. 

It also confirmed that it will allow Covid-19 vaccination for short-term travellers on essential governmental or business travel abroad. 

However, details including administration date and number of recipients have not been decided yet. Though KDCA did announce that essential governmental and economic workers can start applying on March 17. 

The KDCA and relevant ministries will review the applications, according to Senior Health official Yoon Tae-ho.

The Tokyo Olympics, postponed by a year because of the pandemic, are scheduled for July 23 to August 8.

 

 

 

A pandemic was declared one year ago today. Here's what this week last year felt like.

From CNN's Brian Stelter

 

This week's news coverage of the coronavirus toggled between retrospectives about the one-year anniversary of the pandemic and forward-looking reports about vaccines and variants.

Here is a flashback to 12 months ago:

March 9, 2020 was a Monday, the start of a new workweek. It was the day when CNN began to use the term pandemic to describe the outbreak. Dr. Sanjay Gupta explained that day that the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hadn't taken the step yet, but it was necessary. "Now is the time to prepare for what may be ahead," he said, previewing closed schools and canceled events.

That same day, Fox's Sean Hannity accused the media of "scaring the living hell out of people" and said "I see it, again, as like, let's bludgeon Trump with this new hoax."

On March 10 the cancellations accelerated. Conferences and concerts were postponed. The US was in the midst of what one reporter called a "low-key slowdown." The New York Times' banner headline said "MARKETS SPIRAL AS GLOBE SHUDDERS OVER VIRUS."

On March 11 WHO began to call it a pandemic. The US slowdown turned into a full-blown shutdown. Bloomberg Businessweek published a prescient cover calling 2020 "the lost year" due to coronavirus. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson tested positive for the virus. The NBA suspended its season. President Trump gave a primetime speech and made things worse.

On March 12 the New York Post's front page said the world had "TURNED UPSIDE DOWN." New York Times editor Dean Baquet told his newsroom that this was the biggest story since 9/11. News outlets shifted into public service mode. The AP said that people around the world "became increasingly closed off from one another." Almost every media company postponed almost everything.

On March 13 — appropriately, Friday the 13th — more companies implemented work from home plans. Even more events were put on hold. Stocks continued to plummet. The crisis overwhelmed the news nervous system. New York felt different. We were all in this together. Trump said "I don't take responsibility at all." A New York magazine headline warned: "This will get worse."

 

https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-vaccine-updates-03-11-21/index.html

 

 

 

A protest against the police turns violent in Greece

 

 

Around 6,000 people gathered to protest against police violence and officers’ coronavirus lockdown tactics in Athens on Tuesday night. Police said 10 officers were wounded and 16 people were arrested.CreditCredit...Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters

A protest in Greece turned violent on Tuesday night as anger grew about tactics used by police officers who were enforcing coronavirus lockdown restrictions.

The clashes came on the same day that Greece said it was aiming to open to vacationers in mid-May. Later, the country reported 3,215 new infections, its highest daily tally since mid-November.

The protest on Tuesday was provoked after a video emerged two days earlier seeming to show an officer beating a man with a baton in the Athens suburb of Nea Smyrni. The man was apparently among several who had expressed objections to officers issuing fines to people in the square. The officer has since been suspended, the police said on Wednesday.

Around 6,000 people gathered in the normally quiet suburb on Tuesday evening to protest against police violence. The demonstration began peacefully but spiraled into violence after about 500 people appeared to pelt officers with firebombs. The police said that 10 officers were wounded, one seriously after he was dragged off a motorcycle and set upon. Sixteen people were arrested and were to face a prosecutor on Wednesday on charges including attempted homicide, possession of explosives and arson.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis appeared on television on Tuesday night, calling for calm and restraint. The violent turn of the protest has fueled debate in the Greek media about police tactics in enforcing the lockdown.

The Greek ombudsman said on Tuesday that reports of police violence had increased by 75 percent over the past year. Alexis Tsipras, leader of the leftist opposition party Syriza, referred on Monday to a “crescendo of police violence on the pretext of enforcing health measures.” Mr. Mitsotakis countered by calling Mr. Tsipras’s support for large rallies at the peak of a pandemic “the height of irresponsibility.”

The conservative government of Mr. Mitsotakis has urged Greeks to be patient for a little longer so that it can start gradually reopening the country’s battered economy without provoking a new surge in infections. However, public tolerance appears to be waning as government officials have been accused of flouting restrictions that thousands of ordinary Greeks have been fined for violating.

Mr. Mitsotakis himself came under fire last month for apparently disregarding his own government’s restrictions for the second time in two months, violating limits on public gatherings by attending a lunch at a politician’s home on an Aegean island.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/10/world/covid-19-coronavirus/a-protest-against-the-police-turns-violent-in-greece-and-other-global-news

 

 

 

A vaccine developed in India is safe to use, researchers say

 

 

The Covaxin vaccine in cold storage.Credit...Atul Loke for The New York Times

An Indian-made Covid-19 vaccine that was rolled out in an ambitious inoculation campaign even before some questions about it had been fully answered appears to be safe to use, a leading British medical journal reports.

Writing in The Lancet, researchers said the vaccine, Covaxin, did not produce any serious side effects in trials.

But the researchers said they were not yet able to say how well the vaccine works.

Covaxin was developed by Bharat Biotech and was authorized for use by India’s top drug regulators in January. That was done before it had been publicly established whether the vaccine was either safe or effective, prompting many people in India, including some front-line health care workers, to voice concerns.

Bharat Biotech said last week that initial results from its clinical trials indicated that the vaccine was both safe and effective, but many public health officials prefer to rely on independent assessments like that published in The Lancet, rather than a company’s own announcements.

Around the time that the Indian government green-lit Covaxin, it also authorized the use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which is known in India as Covishield and is manufactured there, among other places.

India has set out on one of the most ambitious and complex nationwide health campaigns in its history: immunizing 1.3 billion people against the coronavirus. It has also bet heavily on its growing pharmaceutical industry, which produces drugs and vaccines for export around the world as well as domestic use.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/10/world/covid-19-coronavirus/a-vaccine-developed-in-india-is-safe-to-use-researchers-say

 

 

 

Government walks away from promise to 'fully vaccinate' all Australians by October

By Paul Karp and Michael McGowan

 

Federal Labor has accused the Morrison government of reneging on its commitment Australians will be “fully vaccinated” by October, after health department officials conceded some people may only have had one dose by then.

Officials told the Senate’s Covid-19 inquiry that supply constraints and the longer 12-week window between AstraZeneca doses meant some may have to wait until December to get their second shot.

The Labor chair of the committee, Katy Gallagher, said the evidence on Thursday contradicted the “clear language” from the prime minister, Scott Morrison, and the health minister, Greg Hunt, of full vaccination by October.

But the health department secretary, Prof Brendan Murphy, claimed it was a “semantic debate” that “doesn’t really matter” because people would receive protection against Covid-19 from the first dose.

In December, Hunt promised Australians would be “fully vaccinated” by October. But the government began to shift its language because clinical studies found AstraZeneca, the backbone of Australia’s vaccination program, was more effective when given 12 weeks apart, not the four weeks the original timetable was based on.

When AstraZeneca was given full approval in February, Hunt said that “every Australian who seeks to have the vaccine will be in a position to have had at least the first dose” but the government would consider “what it means in regards to the second dose”.

On Tuesday, the secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Phil Gaetjens, told the committee he understood the commitment to mean both doses would be given by the deadline. On Thursday, Morrison said the “full adult population” would be vaccinated by October.

But Murphy and Caroline Edwards, the health department associate secretary, confirmed this meant only the first dose.

“We are still planning and hoping to have both shots by the end of October,” Edwards told the committee on Thursday. “In the event that we didn’t get all shots by the end of October, the second shot would be finished six weeks after the end of October.”

Edwards said there was “no end” to the program, so those turning 18 or who previously did not consent may be added to the program after October, which Labor’s Murray Watt suggested could push vaccinations into 2022.

The officials blamed supply delays, such as Italy blocking 250,000 doses, the new 12-week gap between doses, and possible interruptions such as the need to redirect the vaccination rollout towards places with an outbreak.

Murphy said the federal government believed it would have 3.8m AstraZeneca doses by now but “we’ve only had 700,000” due to “sovereign vaccine issues in Europe”. “So that vaccine supply has been a significant issue.”

By late March, CSL is expected to produce 1m doses of AstraZeneca a week locally, and the government is pressing it to increase production further, Murphy said.

Murphy conceded that “fully vaccinated” does refer to completing a program of both doses, but argued “in terms of protection the first dose is fully protective”.

“Every Australian adult will be offered a vaccine by the end of October.

“If a small number haven’t had their second AstraZeneca that doesn’t really matter, they are fully protected by the first dose. It is entirely consistent with what the prime minister and minister have said in the media.”

Australia’s vaccination rollout is ambitious, requiring at least 180,000 vaccinations a day, a rate higher than most countries are achieving.

The Australian Medical Association has said the government is unlikely to achieve its target of October and a more realistic target would be December due to a shortage of vaccine supply.

With just 125,000 doses given so far, the federal government has already abandoned its interim target of 4m by the end of March.

Also on Thursday, health authorities in Victoria revealed that a resident of an aged-care home had returned a weak positive result for Covid-19. The resident of Epping Gardens Aged Care caught the virus during Melbourne’s second wave outbreak last year when 240 staff and residents at the facility tested positive and 38 people died.

A spokeswoman from the department of health said the result was likely to be due to viral shedding rather than reinfection – but precautionary measures have been put in place.

The Department of Defence separately confirmed members of HMAS Sydney experienced “mild side-effects” after receiving the Covid-19 vaccine.

The ABC reported that crew members were admitted to St Vincent’s hospital in Sydney as a precaution after experiencing side-effects from the vaccine.

In a statement, the department said no members of the ship were currently in hospital, but would not comment on whether any crew had previously been admitted.

 

A Defence spokesperson said the ship’s crew had voluntarily received the vaccine ahead of a deployment to North America. The ship sailed with its full crew on Thursday.

“In accordance with Department of Health guidelines, members of the ship’s company were encouraged to report to medical personnel if they were feeling unwell after their vaccination. Some members experienced mild side-effects, which were resolved shortly after reporting,” a Defence spokesperson said. “It is not unusual to experience mild side-effects after any vaccination. Serious allergic reactions are rare.”

Earlier, Australia’s chief medical officer, Prof Paul Kelly, told the Senate inquiry he had been notified of adverse events, but aside from “a few cases of anaphylaxis” there was “nothing untoward” in side-effects from the vaccine.

“There have been some deaths following immunisation but not related to the immunisation,” Kelly said. “We’ve seen three cases of severe allergic reactions, but they were handled expertly and quickly, with no ongoing adverse effects.”

Other adverse events are relatively minor and include pain at the injection site, some fever, body pain, headache, Kelly said, but “nothing untoward”.

Murphy said the “unfortunate narrative” that the Pfizer vaccine was more effective than AstraZeneca “is now dead” because they are “equally efficacious”.

“There is no difference between their efficacy. Both are incredibly effective at prevent severe Covid, hospitalisation, and death.”
 

Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/mar/11/government-walks-away-from-promise-to-fully-vaccinate-all-australians-by-october

 

 

 

Summary

 

Here are the key developments from the last few hours:

· Brazil daily death toll passes 2,000 for first time. Brazil’s 24-hour death toll has for the first time passed 2,0000, as the world’s second worst-affected country in terms of the total lives lost sees records tumble.Another 2,286 Brazilians had lost their lives in the 24 hours to Wednesday. The latest high, which followed a record 1,972 deaths on Tuesday, took the South American country’s total death toll to more than 270,000, second only to the US.

· Biden pledges to share surplus vaccines with rest of world. US president Joe Biden has pledged surplus vaccines will be shared with the rest of the world, after he announced the purchase of an additional 100m Johnson & Johnson doses.

· South Korea extends AstraZeneca vaccine to people aged 65 and over. South Korea will extend vaccination for people aged 65 years and older with AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine to ramp up its immunisation drive, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun told a government meeting on Thursday.

· Rich, developing nations wrangle over Covid vaccine patents. Richer members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) blocked a push by over 80 developing countries on Wednesday to waive patent rights in an effort to boost production of Covid vaccines for poor nations.

· Emirates tells staff to get vaccinated or pay for regular Covid tests. Dubai’s Emirates has told employees to take a free coronavirus vaccine or pay for tests to prove they are not infected with the deadly disease, cautioning that an unvaccinated workforce could create operational issues.

· 3,000 nurses dead, Covid exodus looming: global federation. At least 3,000 nurses have been killed by Covid-19, the global nurses’ federation said Thursday as it warned of a looming exodus of health workers traumatised by the pandemic, AFP reports. Exactly one year on since the World Health Organization (WHO) first described Covid-19 as a pandemic, the International Council of Nurses said burn-out and stress had led millions of nurses to consider quitting the profession.

· Five countries suspend use of AstraZeneca vaccine. Austria’s national medicines regulator has suspended use of a batch of the AstraZeneca vaccine after four patients were diagnosed with dangerous blood clotting conditions after receiving the jab, PA reports.Four other countries - Estonia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia - have suspended its use to allow time for the EMA’s Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) to conduct an investigation.

· Covid cases put Ausralian Hospital under extreme pressure. An infux of Covid-19 patients from Papua New Guinea has sparked a “code yellow” emergency at the Cairns Hospital in Australia, the ABC reports. The internal emergency declaration triggers strategies to help the hospital cope when it nears capacity. The six Covid-19 patients are all being treated in isolation, and came from hotel quarantine.

· Taiwan in travel bubble talks. Taiwan officials have revealed they have been in talks since last year with several countries about the possibility of forming travel bubbles. It didn’t make clear whether all the discussions were still going, given some of the countries had seen recent resurgences of Covid cases.

· October deadline for vaccinating all Australians refers to first dose only. Opposition senators are probing health department officials the government’s commitment that Australian adults would be “fully vaccinated” by October. In fact, the health department secretary, Brendan Murphy’s, evidence today is that every adult will have received the first dose of AstraZeneca, but maybe not everyone will have had the second dose.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/mar/11/coronavirus-live-news-at-least-3000-nurses-have-died-in-year-since-who-declared-covid-pandemic?page=with:block-6049b2968f08a73fb523b078#block-6049b2968f08a73fb523b078