Country, Other	Total Cases	New Cases	Total Deaths
World	179,917,251	+372,588	3,897,674
USA	34,434,803	+11,005	617,875
India	30,027,850	+54,393	390,691
Brazil	18,056,639	+86,833	504,897
France	5,760,002	+2,204	110,829
Turkey	5,381,736	+6,143	49,293
Russia	5,350,919	+16,715	130,347
UK	4,651,988	+11,625	128,008
Argentina	4,298,782	+21,387	90,281
Italy	4,254,294	+835	127,322
Colombia	3,997,021	+28,616	101,302
Spain	3,768,691	+4,040	80,719
Germany	3,731,287	+688	91,082
Iran	3,117,336	+11,716	83,217
Poland	2,879,030	+188	74,858
Mexico	2,478,551	+1,268	231,244
Ukraine	2,230,142	+296	52,053
Peru	2,033,606	+2,995	190,906
Indonesia	2,018,113	+13,668	55,291
South Africa	1,843,572	+11,093	59,092
Netherlands	1,680,228	+686	17,730
Czechia	1,666,194	+121	30,289
Chile	1,525,663	+3,440	31,690
Canada	1,410,206	+599	26,155
Philippines	1,367,894	+3,666	23,809
Iraq	1,298,703	+6,003	16,935
Romania	1,080,323	+41	32,465
Belgium	1,079,640	+225	25,141
Pakistan	949,838	+663	22,034
Portugal	866,826	+1,020	17,074
Bangladesh	861,150	+4,846	13,702
Israel	840,079	+89	6,428
Hungary	807,684	+54	29,963
Japan	786,298	+1,011	14,454
Jordan	747,504	+504	9,683
Serbia	715,913	+72	7,010
Malaysia	705,762	+4,743	4,554
Austria	649,728	+58	10,684
Nepal	626,343	+3,703	8,813
UAE	616,160	+2,167	1,767
Lebanon	543,698	+147	7,829
Morocco	527,174	+437	9,247
Saudi Arabia	476,882	+1,479	7,691
Ecuador	447,176	+543	21,315
Bolivia	422,811	+764	16,174
Bulgaria	421,246	+94	18,008
Greece	418,943	+395	12,575
Belarus	411,551	+398	3,063
Kazakhstan	410,523	+943	4,249
Paraguay	409,467	+1,746	11,849
Panama	395,449	+1,208	6,483
Slovakia	391,385	+59	12,502
Tunisia	387,773	+2,345	14,223
Georgia	360,055	+914	5,199
Croatia	359,259	+75	8,188
Uruguay	358,461	+2,079	5,350
Costa Rica	355,620	+1,525	4,546
Kuwait	342,929	+1,962	1,888
Azerbaijan	335,568	+47	4,963
Palestine	313,015	+204	3,555
Denmark	291,956	+155	2,531
Guatemala	282,713	+1,859	8,785
Lithuania	278,472	+64	4,371
Egypt	278,295	+498	15,935
Ethiopia	275,391	+73	4,290
Ireland	269,495	+174	4,979
Bahrain	263,689	+394	1,326
Venezuela	263,372	+1,334	2,989
Slovenia	257,066	+65	4,416
Moldova	256,232	+45	6,175
Honduras	254,194	+319	6,772
Oman	252,609	+2,037	2,782
Sri Lanka	243,913	+2,093	2,704
Thailand	225,365	+4,059	1,693
Armenia	224,330	+77	4,502
Qatar	221,119	+189	584
Libya	191,253	+215	3,181
Kenya	179,876	+583	3,484
Cuba	170,854	+1,489	1,180
Nigeria	167,331	+39	2,118
S. Korea	151,901	+395	2,006
Myanmar	149,247	+630	3,267
Latvia	136,975	+125	2,497
Algeria	136,679	+385	3,650
Zambia	133,659	+3,028	1,744
Albania	132,496	+5	2,455
Estonia	130,855	+37	1,269
Norway	129,766	+221	790
Kyrgyzstan	116,546	+931	1,945
Afghanistan	107,957	+2,202	4,366
Uzbekistan	106,847	+395	720
Montenegro	100,104	+12	1,606
Mongolia	98,050	+2,231	459
Ghana	95,236	+177	794
Finland	94,489	+110	967
China	91,629	+25	4,636
Cameroon	80,487	+159	1,320
Suriname	20,298	+157	477
Vietnam	13,727	+244	69
Aruba	11,116	+4	107

 

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

 

 

The pandemic affected mental health and college plans for U.S. high schoolers

From Dana Goldstein

 

Brighton High School seniors during their graduation ceremony at Fenway Park, in Boston last week.Credit...Brian Snyder/Reuters

Nearly 80 percent of American high school juniors and seniors say the coronavirus pandemic has affected their plans after graduation, and 72 percent of 13- to 19-year-olds have struggled with their mental health, a new survey shows.

The survey, conducted by America’s Promise Alliance, a nonprofit group, found that 58 percent of teenagers reported learning entirely or mostly online in the 2020-21 school year, and 22 percent said they had learned about half online and half in person. Nineteen percent said they had learned mostly through in-person instruction.

The results are from a nationally representative survey of 2,400 high school students conducted in March and April.

Among those who said the pandemic had affected their plans after high school, one-third said they would attend college closer to home; one-quarter said they would attend a two-year college instead of a four-year institution; 17 percent said they would attend college remotely rather than in person’; and 16 percent said they would put off attending college. Seven percent said they were no longer planning to attend college.

Nearly half the respondents who changed their plans said they were doing so because of financial pressure, suggesting that the pandemic will probably widen educational inequalities among young adults.

Given the extraordinary swell of racial-justice activism over the past year, the survey also asked students about how their schools had handled race issues. Two-thirds reported that “the history of racism” had been taught at their schools. But Asian, Black, Latino and multiracial students were less likely than white students to say that the curriculum represented their own “racial and ethnic background.”

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/23/world/americas/covid-mental-health-high-school.html

 

 

 

Thailand opens a holiday island to vaccinated tourists

From Hannah Beech and Muktita Suhartono

 

Local residents at a beach on the island of Phuket, Thailand, in April.Credit...Jorge Silva/Reuters

Dreaming of golden beaches and the caress of tropical breezes? Then consider a holiday on the island of Phuket.

That’s the pitch being made by the government of Thailand, which has seen its tourism-dependent economy battered by the pandemic. On Tuesday, the Thai cabinet approved a plan, called Phuket Sandbox, that will allow vaccinated international visitors to roam the island without having to quarantine for 14 days, as is the current policy for arrivals in Thailand.

“I’m very excited that it’s finally happening,” said Nanthasiri Ronnasiri, the head of the Phuket branch of the Thai tourism authority. “Business here has been devastated. With this reopening, at least the people are being given the chance to welcome tourists again.”

But Phuket Sandbox — which is scheduled to start on July 1 with five flights from Singapore, Qatar, Israel and the United Arab Emirates — may not deliver the economic boost that its supporters were hoping for. And the late date of formal approval, with many international travelers having already made summer plans, makes it unlikely that crowds of sun seekers will be descending on the island anytime soon.

The plan allows for tourists fully inoculated with World Health Organization-approved vaccines to spend 14 days on Phuket without having to be confined to a hotel room. After two weeks and multiple Covid-19 tests, the tourists, who must be from countries considered at low or medium risk for the coronavirus, will be allowed to travel to the rest of Thailand.

While in Phuket, they will be able to swim and snorkel, drink beer and enjoy an invigorating Thai massage, all with hardly any restrictions. (Masks are still mandatory in public, however.)

Health officials have warned that Phuket Sandbox could be suspended if coronavirus infections on the island rise beyond 90 cases per week. Thailand is currently suffering from its worst outbreak since the pandemic began, and a mass vaccine rollout is far behind schedule. Only about 3 percent of the country’s 70 million people have been fully vaccinated, despite government promises to administer 100 million doses by the end of the year.

To prepare for Phuket’s reopening, the Thai government began funneling vaccines to the island this year. Even so, less than 45 percent of people in Phuket have been fully vaccinated, according to health officials. And many were inoculated with the Sinovac vaccine, which may not be as effective against variants as other shots.

Some Thai doctors argue that the country shouldn’t open up so quickly, even for a pilot project on a sequestered island.

“There is still a risk when you welcome them without quarantining that they carry the virus into the country, especially when it is the variant of concern,” said Thira Woratanarat, a public health expert at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. “There will be a chance that it will spread in the community.”

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/world/thailand-phuket-sandbox-quarantine.html

 

 

 

With eight million shots in a day, India tries to energize its vaccination effort

By Mujib Mashal

 

 

Receiving a Covid shot during a door-to-door vaccination and testing drive in West Bengal State, India, on Monday.Credit...Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters

India administered 8.6 million doses of Covid vaccines on Monday, setting a national record on the first day of a new policy that offers free vaccines for all adults and aims to energize a lackluster inoculation effort.

Despite a slow start characterized by supply shortages and bickering between the states and central government, officials say that vaccine production and procurement are being accelerated to ensure that all of India’s roughly 950 million adults are fully vaccinated by the end of the year.

Monday’s total was the most Covid shots given in a single day in any country besides China, and the surge may have been partly because the vaccines were widely available and free for the first time to those younger than 45.

Local news reports have also suggested that Monday’s record may have been made possible by holding back vaccines in some states run by the governing party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In one state, Madhya Pradesh, the number of administered doses had shrunk to just 692 a day before the start of the new policy on Monday, when 1.6 million doses were suddenly administered.

And the boost was probably temporary — available supplies suggest that it would be difficult to sustain such a pace over the coming weeks. India has increased the availability of doses to 120 million this month, from about 75 million in May. About 135 million doses are expected to be available in July.

The inoculation drive relies almost entirely on two vaccines manufactured in India, and government officials have said that the companies behind those vaccines, the Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech, have promised to deliver a total of about 1.3 billion doses from August to the end of the year. The remaining doses are expected to come from other vaccines still under assessment or trial.

In India, a nation of about 1.4 billion people, the task ahead remains enormous. Although the country has administered nearly 290 million doses of vaccines so far, according to government data, less than 5 percent of the population is fully vaccinated. Less than 20 percent of people have received at least one dose.

The government has worked to iron out supply issues and ease online registration requirements that have hampered vaccine access, especially in parts of the country where smartphone and internet availability are spotty. Still, vaccine hesitancy — born of local superstitions, as well as misinformation spread by some political and religious leaders — could be another hurdle for India before it meets its ambitious goal of inoculating all adults by the end of the year.

The effort to ramp up vaccinations comes as the worst of India’s devastating second wave appears to be over, with most of India’s major cities easing restrictions and reopening the economy. India reported about 42,000 new cases on Monday, down from a peak of more than 400,000 in early May. The weekly test positivity rate has remained below 5 percent for two consecutive weeks, a sign that undetected cases in the population are also decreasing.

At least 390,000 people have died of Covid in India, according to official figures, although experts believe that is a significant undercount.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/world/india-covid-vaccination.html

 

 

 

Cuba reports a high success rate for its homegrown Abdala vaccine

By Ed Augustin

 

 

Cuban officials began using two locally developed vaccines in May, before Phase 3 trials were complete. A man received a dose in Havana last Thursday.Credit...Alexandre Meneghini/Reuter

Cuba began its Covid-19 mass vaccination campaign more than a month ago with homegrown, unproven vaccines, wagering that they would prove effective enough to blunt the rapid spread of the coronavirus on the cash-strapped Caribbean island.

The gamble appears to be paying off.

The Cuban health authorities said on Monday that their country’s three-shot Abdala vaccine had proved about 92 percent effective against the coronavirus in late-stage clinical trials.

Throughout the pandemic, Cuba has declined to import foreign vaccines while striving to develop its own, the smallest country in the world to do so.

The announcement places Abdala among the most effective Covid vaccines in the world, according to data from clinical trials, on a par with Pfizer-BioNTech’s 95 percent rate, Moderna’s 94.1 percent, and Russia’s Sputnik V at 91.6 percent.

On Saturday, Cuba’s state-run biotech corporation, BioCubaFarma, said that another of its vaccines, Sovereign 2, had 62 percent efficacy after two of its three required doses. Results for the full three doses are expected in the next few weeks.

The vaccine news was seen as a rare cause for celebration on an island that has been hammered both by the pandemic, which has devastated its tourism industry, and by Trump-era economic sanctions that have not been eased by the Biden administration.

Cuba is currently experiencing its worst coronavirus outbreak since the start of the pandemic. It reported 1,561 new cases on Monday, a record.

In May the health authorities began a mass vaccination campaign in Havana before the completion of Phase 3 trials, which assess a vaccine’s effectiveness and safety. The emergency step was intended to help combat the Beta variant, first detected in South Africa, which was spreading rapidly in the Cuban capital. Close to one million Cubans — about 9 percent of the national population — have now received all three doses of either Abdala or Sovereign 2, according to official figures. Officials say they are seeing a slowing of the virus’s spread in Havana, where vaccinations have been concentrated so far.

Countries including Mexico, Argentina, Vietnam and Iran have expressed interest in Cuba’s coronavirus vaccines. The high announced rate of efficacy could reinforce hopes that biotechnology exports will help lift Cuba from the depths of its economic crisis.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/world/americas/cuba-vaccine-abdala.html

 

 

 

In the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte threatens to jail those who refuse shots

By Jason Gutierrez

 

A vaccination point in Manila on Tuesday. The Philippines is struggling to tamp down one of Southeast Asia’s worst Covid-19 outbreaks.Credit...Mark R Cristino/EPA, via Shutterstock

President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines has threatened to send anyone who refuses a coronavirus vaccine to jail, as the country grapples with one of the worst outbreaks in Asia.

“There is a crisis being faced in this country. There is a national emergency,” Mr. Duterte said during a weekly television program late Monday, which included an expletive-laced rant against those who chose not to get a vaccine.

“If you do not want to get vaccinated, I will have you arrested,” Mr. Duterte added. “Don’t force my hand into it, and use a strong-arm method. Nobody wants that.”

He continued on to urge anyone who did not want to be vaccinated to “leave the Philippines,” and go elsewhere, like India or America.

Mr. Duterte, a strongman leader who has long used thuggery, threats and calls for violence as part of his political persona, said he was “exasperated” by citizens who chose not to heed the government on vaccination, before ordering all local officials to look for those refusing to be immunized.

Edre Olalia, president of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers, said that jail time for those refusing shots would be illegal.

“There is no law that specifically empowers the president to order such arrests for said reasons, even if this is a health emergency,” Mr. Olalia said.

Mr. Duterte’s spokesman, Harry Roque, a former rights lawyer, said on Tuesday that in Philippine jurisprudence, a president can compel compulsory vaccination. But he said that this should be supported by legislation.

The Philippines is struggling to tamp down one of Southeast Asia’s worst Covid-19 outbreaks, with the government on Monday reporting 5,249 new cases, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 1.3 million.

The authorities have been trying to acquire more vaccines and have secured a supply contract for 40 million shots from Pfizer-BioNTech. The country has some 12.7 million doses, most of them from Sinovac of China.

But the Philippine vaccination program has been hobbled by distribution bottlenecks, as well as public fears. In 2017, the government halted a dengue immunization program after shots developed by the French drug firm Sanofi were linked to a severe form of the disease.

More than 830,000 school children had received the shot and dozens of deaths were reported by the time it was halted.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/world/philippines-duterte-jail-vaccines.html

 

 

 

Some countries that relied on vaccines from China still face surging infections

By Sui-Lee Wee

 

Young women walking on Peace Avenue in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, in May.Credit...Khasar Sandag for The New York Times

Mongolia promised its people a “Covid-free summer.” Bahrain said there would be a “return to normal life.” The tiny island nation of the Seychelles aimed to jump-start its economy.

All three put their faith, at least in part, in easily accessible Chinese-made vaccines, which would allow them to roll out ambitious inoculation programs at a time when much of the world was going without.

But instead of freedom from the coronavirus, all three countries are now battling a surge in cases.

China kicked off its vaccine diplomacy campaign last year by pledging to provide a shot that would be safe and effective at preventing severe cases of Covid-19. Less certain at the time was how successful it and other vaccines would be at curbing transmission.

Now, examples from several countries suggest that the Chinese vaccines may not be very effective at preventing the spread of the virus, particularly the new variants. The experiences of those countries lay bare a harsh reality facing a post-pandemic world: The degree of recovery may depend on which vaccines governments give to their people.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/06/22/world/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-mask/some-countries-that-relied-on-vaccines-from-china-still-face-surging-infections

 

 

 

Coronavirus cases spike in Africa. ‘The India example is not lost to us.’

By Abdi Latif Dahir

 

 

Awaiting laboratory results at the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital in Kisumu, Kenya.Credit...Brian Otieno for The New York Times

With medical supplies depleted, vaccines scarce, doctors lamenting physical and mental fatigue and hospitals turning away patients for lack of beds or oxygen, health officials say they fear a wave like the one that ripped through India in April and May could be looming in western Kenya and other parts of Africa.

All of Africa is vulnerable, as the latest wave of the pandemic sweeps the continent, driven in part by more transmissible variants. Fewer than 1 percent of Africa’s people have been even partly vaccinated, by far the lowest rate for any continent.

“I think the greatest risk in Africa is to look at what happened in Italy earlier on and what happened in India and start thinking we are safe — to say it’s very far away from us and that we may not go the same way,” said Dr. Mark Nanyingi, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Liverpool in Britain. He called a surge now gripping western Kenya a “storm on the horizon.”

Covid-related deaths in Africa climbed by nearly 15 percent last week compared to the previous one, based on available data from almost 40 nations, the World Health Organization said. But experts say the true scale of the pandemic far exceeds reported figures in Africa, where testing and tracing remain a challenge for many countries, and many nations do not collect mortality data.

In late May, before Kenya’s president and other leaders arrived to celebrate a major public holiday, health officials in Kisumu on Lake Victoria saw disaster brewing. Coronavirus cases were spiking, hospital isolation units were filling up and the highly contagious Delta variant had been found in Kenya for the first time — in Kisumu County.

Local health officials pleaded with the politicians to hold a virtual event instead, but their objections were waved away. In the weeks since, all reports show an alarming surge in infections and deaths in the county of just over 1.1 million people, with the virus sickening mostly young people.

“The India example is not lost to us,” Dr. Nyunya said.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/06/22/world/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-mask/coronavirus-cases-spike-in-africa-the-india-example-is-not-lost-to-us