i_need_contribute
|
Country, |
Total |
New |
Total |
|
World |
176,707,611 |
+300,173 |
3,819,403 |
|
34,321,158 |
+5,285 |
615,053 |
|
|
29,507,438 |
+68,400 |
374,287 |
|
|
17,413,996 |
+36,998 |
487,476 |
|
|
5,740,665 |
+2,855 |
110,420 |
|
|
5,330,447 |
+5,012 |
48,721 |
|
|
5,208,687 |
+14,723 |
126,430 |
|
|
4,565,813 |
+7,490 |
127,904 |
|
|
4,244,872 |
+1,390 |
127,002 |
|
|
4,124,190 |
+13,043 |
85,343 |
|
|
3,753,224 |
+28,519 |
95,778 |
|
|
3,733,600 |
+4142 |
80,501 |
|
|
3,723,294 |
+999 |
90,470 |
|
|
3,028,717 |
+8,195 |
82,098 |
|
|
2,877,469 |
+227 |
74,573 |
|
|
2,452,469 |
+3,649 |
230,095 |
|
|
2,223,558 |
+857 |
51,679 |
|
|
2,003,625 |
+2,566 |
188,708 |
|
|
1,911,358 |
+9,868 |
52,879 |
|
|
1,747,082 |
+7,657 |
57,765 |
|
|
1,672,744 |
+1,041 |
17,711 |
|
|
1,665,097 |
+74 |
30,225 |
|
|
1,476,473 |
+7,481 |
30,707 |
|
|
1,402,128 |
+1,122 |
25,931 |
|
|
1,315,639 |
+7,302 |
22,788 |
|
|
1,254,643 |
+3,952 |
16,705 |
|
|
1,079,726 |
+69 |
31,834 |
|
|
1,075,765 |
+777 |
25,081 |
|
|
941,170 |
+1,239 |
21,689 |
|
|
857,447 |
+707 |
17,047 |
|
|
839,666 |
+5 |
6,430 |
|
|
826,922 |
+2,436 |
13,118 |
|
|
773,822 |
+1,944 |
14,033 |
|
|
743,331 |
+500 |
9,592 |
|
|
714,891 |
+138 |
6,962 |
|
|
657,508 |
+5,304 |
3,908 |
|
|
648,620 |
+233 |
10,661 |
|
|
608,472 |
+1,694 |
8,412 |
|
|
597,986 |
+1,969 |
1,726 |
|
|
542,604 |
+81 |
7,798 |
|
|
523,890 |
+270 |
9,211 |
|
|
465,797 |
+1,017 |
7,572 |
|
|
438,934 |
+826 |
21,048 |
|
|
420,336 |
+42 |
17,900 |
|
|
414,933 |
+297 |
12,419 |
|
|
405,663 |
+923 |
2,978 |
|
|
405,347 |
+2,056 |
15,485 |
|
|
401,272 |
+1,058 |
4,160 |
|
|
391,436 |
+1,786 |
10,834 |
|
|
391,026 |
+42 |
12,439 |
|
|
387,842 |
+715 |
6,444 |
|
|
368,908 |
+1,861 |
13,515 |
|
|
358,563 |
+59 |
8,132 |
|
|
353,965 |
+522 |
5,048 |
|
|
338,513 |
+2,043 |
4,995 |
|
|
335,171 |
+45 |
4,953 |
|
|
327,963 |
+1,512 |
1,820 |
|
|
311,534 |
+123 |
3,533 |
|
|
308,650 |
+803 |
3,707 |
|
|
289,874 |
+315 |
2,525 |
|
|
277,746 |
+117 |
4,339 |
|
|
274,187 |
+159 |
4,242 |
|
|
273,182 |
+691 |
15,623 |
|
|
271,703 |
+572 |
8,455 |
|
|
266,819 |
+315 |
4,941 |
|
|
258,731 |
+879 |
1,221 |
|
|
256,443 |
+91 |
4,404 |
|
|
255,797 |
+39 |
6,154 |
|
|
251,686 |
+1,377 |
2,829 |
|
|
247,074 |
+1,379 |
6,606 |
|
|
234,634 |
+1,482 |
2,513 |
|
|
223,682 |
+39 |
4,484 |
|
|
223,638 |
+2,361 |
2,136 |
|
|
219,730 |
+117 |
577 |
|
|
195,909 |
+2,804 |
1,449 |
|
|
189,059 |
+297 |
3,161 |
|
|
175,337 |
+161 |
3,410 |
|
|
167,066 |
+7 |
2,117 |
|
|
157,708 |
+1,470 |
1,087 |
|
|
155,536 |
+8 |
5,471 |
|
|
147,874 |
+452 |
1,985 |
|
|
145,603 |
+373 |
3,244 |
|
|
136,030 |
+90 |
2,456 |
|
|
133,388 |
+318 |
3,571 |
|
|
132,459 |
+10 |
2,453 |
|
|
130,510 |
+37 |
1,266 |
|
|
128,046 |
+60 |
789 |
|
|
111,746 |
+1,414 |
1,389 |
|
|
110,370 |
+558 |
1,890 |
|
|
103,510 |
+304 |
708 |
|
|
99,956 |
+28 |
1,601 |
|
|
93,821 |
+47 |
964 |
|
|
91,458 |
+1,597 |
3,612 |
|
|
91,428 |
+34 |
4,636 |
|
|
73,190 |
+33 |
373 |
|
|
18,372 |
+262 |
404 |
|
|
10,538 |
+297 |
59 |
Retrieved from: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
A hospital worker wheeling an oxygen tank in Port-au-Prince this month. After mostly sparing Haiti last year, the coronavirus has returned with a vengeance.Credit...Joseph Odelyn/Associated Press
Haiti was spared the worst of the pandemic last year, but the coronavirus has returned to the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with a fury. The nation’s leading newspaper is full of obituaries and hospitals are turning away patients.
The average number of new daily cases has more than doubled in the past two weeks to 153, according to data collected by The New York Times. For a population of about 11.5 million, that’s still relatively low, but many experts believe the number is an undercount because testing capacity is severely limited and many cases remain unreported.
And Haiti’s government has yet to administer a single dose of any vaccine.
Carissa Etienne, the director of the Pan American Health Organization, described the situation in Haiti as “a cautionary tale in just how quickly things can change with this virus.” At a news conference this month, she called for rapid escalation of treatment and preventive measures.
After adding more hospital beds and ramping up emergency plans last year, Haiti relaxed measures to combat the virus as new cases fell. The government mothballed its presidential coronavirus panel, eased enforcement of its curfew and mask policy and held Carnival celebrations.
The surge has forced the Haitian government to re-establish a Covid-19 task force and request 130,000 doses of the vaccine from Covax, the global vaccine-sharing initiative, after previously refusing an offer.
At St. Luke Hospital outside Port-au-Prince, the capital, administrators issued an alert this month telling patients not to come because its wards were full. Over the past month, the hospital dusted off and restocked its Covid center, expanding from a handful of beds to 115. But there is only enough oxygen to treat 75 of the people who arrive gasping at the gates.
“You can’t let people have beds and have them staring at you with oxygen-starved eyes,” said the Rev. Richard Frechette, a Catholic priest and medical doctor who founded the hospital. “Our trouble is, we tell them to go somewhere else, when we know damn well there is nowhere else to go.”
Father Frechette said that perhaps 20 percent of patients were dying at the hospital. Two hours away, the University Hospital of Mirebalais has also seen a higher mortality rate, said Elizabeth Campa, a senior adviser to Zanmi Lasante, the nonprofit organization that supports the hospital. About 50 of its 75 Covid beds are full, she said.
“Everyone’s greatest fear is the surge will continue to grow,” Ms. Campa said.
A deteriorating political situation is further complicating the response to the virus. The capital has increasingly been clogged with protests demanding the removal of President Jovenel Moïse, who has ruled by decree for more than a year. Kidnappings and gang violence are on the rise, with one recent skirmish blocking the delivery of oxygen, according to the newspaper Le Nouvelliste.
The United Nations has counted some 10,000 people displaced by gang violence across the greater Port-au-Prince region since last August, said Bruno Lemarquis, the U.N. secretary general’s deputy special representative in Haiti.
“The big question is, what’s next?” Mr. Lemarquis said. He added that the hurricane season, which has often proved devastating in Haiti, officially started this month.
Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/13/world/haiti-covid-cases-vaccine.html
People gathered to protest against the firing of an employee who was not immunized at Houston Methodist Hospital in Baytown, Tex., last week. A lawsuit brought by employees of the hospital who refused to get vaccinated was thrown out by a federal judge on Saturday.Credit...Yi-Chin Lee/Houston Chronicle, via Associated Press
A federal judge in Texas has dismissed a lawsuit brought by employees of Houston Methodist Hospital who had challenged the hospital’s Covid vaccination requirement.
U.S. District Judge Lynn N. Hughes, in the Southern District of Texas, issued a ruling on Saturday that upheld the hospital’s new policy, announced in April. The judge said the hospital’s decision to mandate inoculations for its employees was consistent with public policy.
And he rejected the claim by Jennifer Bridges, a nurse and the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, that the vaccines available for use in the United States were experimental and dangerous.
“The hospital’s employees are not participants in a human trial,” Judge Hughes wrote. “Methodist is trying to do their business of saving lives without giving them the Covid-19 virus. It is a choice made to keep staff, patients and their families safer.”
The judge’s decision appeared to be among the first to rule in favor of employer-mandated vaccinations for workers. Several major hospital systems have begun to require Covid shots, including in Washington, D.C., and Maryland.
But many private employers and the federal government have not instituted mandatory immunization as they shift operations back to office settings. Earlier this year, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued guidance allowing employers to require vaccines for on-site workers.
In Houston, Ms. Bridges was among those who led a walkout on Monday, the hospital’s deadline for getting the vaccine. And on Tuesday, the hospital suspended 178 employees who refused to get a coronavirus shot.
Ms. Bridges cited the lack of full Food and Drug Administration approval for the shot as justification for refusing to get vaccinated. But the F.D.A., which has granted emergency use authorizations for three vaccines, says clinical trials and post-market study shows they are safe, as does the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The judge also noted that Texas employment law only protects employees from termination for refusing to commit an act that carries criminal penalties.
“Bridges can freely choose to accept or refuse a Covid-19 vaccine, however if she refuses, she will simply need to work somewhere else,” he said, also rejecting the argument that employees were being coerced.
And the judge called “reprehensible” the lawsuit’s contention that a vaccination requirement was akin to medical experimentation during the Holocaust.
In a statement late Saturday, Dr. Marc Boom, chief executive of Houston Methodist, said: “Our employees and physicians made their decisions for our patients, who are always at the center of everything we do.”
Houston Methodist said it would begin proceedings to terminate employees who were suspended if they did not get vaccinated by June 21.
Jared Woodfill, the employee plaintiffs’ lawyer, also issued a statement on Saturday, according to news reports, that indicated the workers would appeal the ruling.
Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/13/health/houston-hospital-vaccine-mandate-lawsuit.html
Patients were treated at a temporary hospital for Covid-19 patients in the Krylatskoye Ice Palace in Moscow on Friday.Credit...Denis Grishkin/Moscow News Agency, via Reuters
Russian officials are scrambling to slow the spread of a new wave of the coronavirus, ordering workers in Moscow to take this week off and pleading with the populace to make use of widely available vaccines.
The biggest spike appeared to be in Moscow, the Russian capital, which reported 7,704 new cases on Sunday — the highest single-day total since December. Mayor Sergey S. Sobyanin said the situation had “sharply worsened” in the past week, and that thousands of hospital beds were being repurposed to provide care for Covid-19 patients.
“According to epidemiologists, it is now necessary to at least slow down the speed of, if not stop, the spread of the virus,” Mr. Sobyanin said on his blog.
Bars and restaurants will be required to stop serving customers at 11 p.m., food courts in shopping malls will be closed, and public playgrounds and athletic grounds will be closed, Mr. Sobyanin said. Most employers will be required to keep workers home — with pay — this week. However, Mr. Sobyanin did not impose new restrictions on indoor dining beyond the 11 p.m. cutoff, reflecting the Kremlin’s prioritization of the economy in its policies during the pandemic.
Overall, Russia reported 14,723 new cases on Sunday, the highest number since February. Just as worrying to epidemiologists is that Russia’s vaccination campaign appears to be stalling. President Vladimir V. Putin said on Saturday that 18 million people had been vaccinated in the country, which is less than 13 percent of the population, even though Russia’s Sputnik V shots have been widely available for months.
In other news from around the world:
In Saudi Arabia, the annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca next month will be restricted to 60,000 people and limited to those living in the kingdom, the Saudi Press Agency said on Saturday, as the authorities maintain tight restrictions.
In Brazil, at least a dozen players and staff members on the Venezuelan national soccer team have tested positive for the coronavirus ahead of their opening match on Sunday against Brazil in the South American championship tournament, according to the Brazilian health authorities.
In France, officials granted an exemption to the country’s pandemic curfew on Friday night, allowing 5,000 fans to stay for the remainder of the French Open semifinal match between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.
In the United States, fully vaccinated lawmakers and staff members in the House of Representatives will no longer be required to wear a mask or maintain six feet of social distance, following updated guidance issued on Friday by the attending physician of Congress.
In Canada, 300,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid vaccine were rejected by the country’s health products regulator because of contamination issues at the U.S. plant that produced it.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the country’s president, Felix Tshisekedi, said on Saturday that hospitals in the country’s capital of Kinshasa were “overwhelmed,” Reuters reported. On Friday the country reported one of its highest daily case totals since the pandemic began.
By Emily Anthes
Victoria has recorded two local cases of Covid on Monday, both in Melbourne. Photograph: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images
Regional tourism operators in Victoria are anxiously waiting for confirmation that Melbourne residents will be allowed to travel this weekend, as authorities try to track down and test every occupant of a 100-unit inner-city townhouse complex after two residents tested positive.
The Victorian health minister, Martin Foley, said the state was on track to ease restrictions this week despite the apparent transmission of the virus at the Southbank townhouse complex, which is home to a man who tested positive on Friday afternoon.
A worker at Arcare Maidstone, who tested positive earlier in the outbreak, also lives in the complex.
Foley said the Arcare employee has been in hotel quarantine since testing positive but appeared to have transmitted the virus to their neighbour before that date, through the use of shared facilities.
“There was reason to believe … that there are two possible exposure sites around a small number of internal facilities,” Foley said. “Discussions with those people, and the genomic sequencing, has confirmed those links.”
Public health teams had sent a text message to all residents and were knocking on doors at the address on Monday. A pop-up testing site has also been set up nearby. Foley said the complex has a number of entrances, so some residents will only be asked to isolate until they produce a negative test while others will be required to isolate for the full 14 days.
Victoria recorded two positive cases on Monday, both children who were close contacts of existing cases and were already isolating. One was connected to the Southbank case, the other the family in Reservoir.
That is a “relatively positive” result, said Foley, and meant that “potential further measures [to ease restrictions] would still be on track”.
“We have run down these last few chains of transmission,” he said. “Because the worst outcome would be to see cases missed.”
He said the promised step-down in restrictions would be announced as soon as possible, but would not name a day.
“What we want to make sure is that we give certainty as quickly and as comprehensively as we can based on the most up-to-date public health advice,” he said. “As soon as we’re in a position to do that, we certainly will.”
Regional tourism operators have asked for restrictions that may apply over the winter school holidays, which begin on 26 June, to be announced as soon as possible.
That is particularly important for the alpine resorts in Victoria’s north-east region, which have experienced strong early snowfalls.
“The alpine were closed all winter last year,” Tourism North East CEO Bess Nolan-Cook said. “It’s so important that they are allowed to welcome visitors back this year and have a great season.”
Nolan-Cook said the north-east was quiet over the Queen’s birthday long weekend, with Melbourne residents not allowed to travel more than 25km from their homes.
“We are about three hours’ drive from Melbourne so long weekends are incredibly important to tourism in our region,” she said. “The majority of our visitors do come from Melbourne, so it has had an impact.”
The pandemic is estimated to have cost the north-east economy $700m in lost tourism dollars, Nolan-Cook said.
Meanwhile in the Grampians, visitors from nearby regional cities of Bendigo and Warrnambool filled bookings cancelled by Melbourne visitors. Grampians Tourism CEO Mark Sleeman said that provided businesses were given enough notice, they would be able to fill bookings for the school holidays with regional customers if Melbourne’s travel restrictions were to continue.
“We love having Melbourne people here but I am not too concerned,” Sleeman said.
He said uncertainty around state borders has prompted some people to cancel a planned trip up north and instead look closer to home.
“We have connected with a whole new market who might otherwise have been going overseas,” he said. “We have 650,000 people who are within 1.5 hours of the Grampians who love coming to visit.”
Sleeman said the first half of 2021 had been the busiest months on record in the Grampians. “For a lot of businesses they have picked up the slack of what they have lost last year, and the last few months have been very positive,” he said. “I don’t know that I would have guessed that in December.”
By Ian Sample
Signs on a GP surgery window in July 2020. Photograph: RMV/Rex
The coronavirus crisis has disrupted routine healthcare disproportionately across society with women, older people and minority ethnic groups most likely to report cancelled or delayed appointments, prescriptions and procedures, researchers say.
Public health experts trawled through data from nearly 70,000 people enrolled in 12 major UK studies that surveyed the population before and during the epidemic. They found evidence for widespread inequalities, with disadvantaged groups often facing the greatest disruption to their medical care.
“Many of the people who report experiencing the greatest healthcare disruption often had poorer health prior to the pandemic,” said Vittal Katikireddi, a senior author on the study and a professor of public health at the University of Glasgow. “While experiencing healthcare disruption is common across all social groups, our study raises the possibility that the health of the most disadvantaged in society might actually be more impacted by the disruption to the health system.”
He added: “Prior to the pandemic the UK had large health inequalities, with the health of more disadvantaged social groups often worse. This problem had actually been getting worse even before the pandemic and there is a real risk that it could actually get much worse.”
The dozen studies included responses recorded between March 2020 and late January this year. The researchers’ analysis found that women were 27% more likely than men to report disruption to their healthcare, with 16 to 24-year-olds experiencing twice as many problems as similar-aged men.
Overall, older people witnessed more issues with their GPs and hospital care, the analysis found, with 39% more glitches reported by 65 to 75-year-olds than those in their mid-40s to mid-50s. Older adults were most likely to have delayed or cancelled medical appointments and planned procedures compared with younger people.
The research, led by UCL and the University of Glasgow, found further evidence that minority ethnic groups were more likely to have their healthcare affected by the Covid crisis than white people, with the combined results of the 12 studies suggesting minority ethnic groups reported 19% more problems during the epidemic. The disparity was even worse among those who were shielding because they were particularly vulnerable to the disease.
A similar picture emerged when the researchers compared survey responses from those in the lowest and highest occupational groups, with 17% more healthcare disruption reported by those in manual and routine jobs versus managers and professionals.
Writing in a preprint, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, the researchers describe how the analysis demonstrates “marked inequalities in healthcare disruption” during the epidemic, affecting routine appointments, prescriptions, and procedures or surgery. The greater problems reported by black people are of “particular concern”, they say, given the ethnic inequalities in access to healthcare before the epidemic struck.
“Unfortunately, we have seen that the pandemic has often widened inequalities that already existed,” said Prof Katikireddi. “We are now increasingly seeing that not only are the direct harms of Covid-19 infections, hospitalisations and deaths affecting the most disadvantaged in society, the same is often true for some of the indirect consequences of the pandemic.”
He added: “We know from previous evidence that barriers to healthcare often affect more socially disadvantaged people to a greater extent and unfortunately the pandemic often made it more difficult for people to access healthcare.
“Before the pandemic, many NHS organisations focused on ensuring that services were as accessible as they could be for people when they need them. As we hopefully start to recover from the pandemic, it will be important to make sure we keep that focus on making sure healthcare is easy to reach for everyone – not only for the majority of the population – is regained.”
Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/14/uk-health-inequalities-made-worse-by-covid-crisis-study-suggests
Here are the other key developments from the last few hours:
· The foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has suggested that remaining Covid restrictions in England will only be lifted when the all the adult population has been offered a vaccination at the end of July. He said: “The critical thing is to get as many of the adult population double vaccinated as possible... At that point we can go irreversibly through the gears and open up in a way that we haven’t been able to do to date.”
· The prospect of a delay to lifting of restrictions in England has prompted unease among Tory backbenchers including Steve Baker and Mark Harper. But an Observer poll found that the majority of people support a pause.
· Government scientific advisers have backed delaying the easing of lockdown. Unlocking too quickly will “fan the flames” of the virus, according Professor Andrew Hayward a member of the Nervtag committee. Professor Stephen Reicher, a member of Spi-B said all the data points to a delay.
· Russia has reported 14,723 new cases in the the largest one-day national caseload since 13 February. In Moscow where new infections are at their highest since Christmas Eve, the mayor has offered residents the chance to win a car if they have a vaccine.
· G7 countries are poised to pledge 1 billion vaccine doses over the next year and work with the private sector, the G20 and other countries to increase the contribution. Gordon Brown said the pledge was not enough and a missed opportunity.
· Possible contamination in a batch of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, identified by US Food and Drug Administration continue to cause problems with vaccine roll out. South African health inspectors have said they will not release vaccines that may have been contamination. Germany has demanded an extra 6.5 million doses from the company to make up for a shortfall.
· Indonesia has announced its biggest increase in cases in almost four months. New cases in Taiwan have fallen for the third day in a row.
Medicine
