Country, Other	Total Cases	New Cases	Total Deaths
World	180,756,365	+402,850	3,915,789
USA	34,464,956	+13,365	618,685
India	30,133,417	+51,248	393,338
Brazil	18,243,483	+72,705	509,282
France	5,764,329	+2,007	110,906
Turkey	5,393,248	+5,703	49,417
Russia	5,388,695	+20,182	131,463
UK	4,684,572	+16,703	128,048
Argentina	4,350,564	+24,463	91,438
Italy	4,255,700	+927	127,362
Colombia	4,060,013	+32,997	102,636
Spain	3,777,539	+4,507	80,766
Germany	3,733,077	+654	91,178
Iran	3,140,129	+11,734	83,473
Poland	2,879,336	+147	74,917
Mexico	2,487,747	+4,963	231,847
Ukraine	2,231,914	+937	52,181
Indonesia	2,053,995	+20,574	55,949
Peru	2,040,186	+3,737	191,286
South Africa	1,877,143	+16,078	59,406
Netherlands	1,681,580	+700	17,735
Czechia	1,666,587	+109	30,291
Chile	1,531,872	+3,463	31,797
Canada	1,411,634	+707	26,191
Philippines	1,378,260	+6,043	24,036
Iraq	1,311,093	+6,093	16,999
Belgium	1,081,061	+1,026	25,149
Romania	1,080,457	+68	32,771
Pakistan	951,865	+1,097	22,108
Bangladesh	872,935	+6,058	13,868
Portugal	869,879	+1,556	17,079
Israel	840,430	+205	6,429
Hungary	807,844	+69	29,972
Japan	789,440	+1,779	14,553
Jordan	748,685	+582	9,703
Malaysia	716,847	+5,841	4,721
Serbia	716,096	+80	7,019
Austria	649,922	+77	10,697
Nepal	629,431	+1,577	8,918
UAE	620,309	+2,161	1,775
Lebanon	544,002	+137	7,835
Morocco	528,180	+484	9,265
Saudi Arabia	479,390	+1,255	7,730
Ecuador	449,483	+376	21,377
Bolivia	426,748	+2,270	16,329
Bulgaria	421,401	+62	18,022
Greece	419,909	+454	12,604
Paraguay	413,457	+1,842	12,086
Kazakhstan	413,267	+1,496	4,268
Belarus	413,139	+786	3,082
Panama	397,727	+1,201	6,500
Tunisia	395,362	+3,951	14,406
Slovakia	391,456	+36	12,502
Uruguay	361,994	+1,747	5,413
Georgia	361,484	+656	5,228
Croatia	359,403	+101	8,192
Costa Rica	359,266	+1,743	4,581
Kuwait	346,560	+1,761	1,903
Azerbaijan	335,676	+51	4,965
Denmark	292,352	+173	2,531
Guatemala	286,708	+1,967	8,894
Egypt	279,184	+423	16,002
Lithuania	278,590	+61	4,375
Ethiopia	275,601	+99	4,296
Ireland	270,097	+304	4,989
Venezuela	265,642	+1,091	3,023
Bahrain	264,405	+298	1,334
Slovenia	257,164	+43	4,417
Oman	256,542	+1,886	2,848
Moldova	256,387	+63	6,180
Honduras	255,663	+546	6,844
Sri Lanka	248,050	+1,941	2,814
Thailand	232,647	+4,108	1,775
Armenia	224,533	+103	4,505
Qatar	221,378	+105	587
Libya	191,660	+184	3,185
Kenya	181,239	+741	3,538
Cuba	174,789	+1,880	1,209
Nigeria	167,401	+26	2,118
S. Korea	153,155	+610	2,008
Myanmar	150,714	+787	3,275
Zambia	140,620	+3,594	1,855
Algeria	137,403	+354	3,669
Latvia	137,110	+33	2,500
Albania	132,499	+2	2,455
Estonia	130,898	+18	1,269
Norway	130,270	+326	792
Kyrgyzstan	118,106	+822	1,958
Afghanistan	111,592	+1,967	4,519
Uzbekistan	107,708	+442	723
Mongolia	102,629	+2,366	482
Montenegro	100,131	+14	1,609
Ghana	95,259	+23	794
Finland	94,719	+123	969
China	91,669	+16	4,636
Suriname	20,723	+174	490
Vietnam	14,232	+285	72
Aruba	11,125	+7	107

 

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

 

 

 

Israel, a world leader in fighting the virus, grapples with a new outbreak

By Patrick Kingsley

 

Israelis showing the green passport before entering a concert in Tel Aviv in March. Because of the Delta variant, Israel is bringing back the indoor mask mandate.Credit...Dan Balilty for The New York Times

JERUSALEM — Israel has been a trailblazer in the post-pandemic world, largely returning to normal in May following one of the world’s fastest vaccination drives.

But dozens of new cases recently emerged at schools in two cities, Modiin and Binyamina, leading to hundreds of people being quarantined. Israel has made 12- to 15-year-olds eligible for vaccination, but many have yet to get shots.

The containment effort has struggled to have an impact. The virus spread through several cities, infecting more than 700 people. Many had been vaccinated against Covid, according to the director general of the Health Ministry, Prof. Chezy Levy, though he did not specify if they had had one or two doses.

The Delta variant is unlikely to pose much risk to people who have been fully vaccinated, experts have said. The country has relied on the two-dose mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

Despite the new outbreak, the country’s current death rate remains close to zero, and only 26 of 729 active coronavirus patients were hospitalized, according to data released by the Health Ministry. And the overall daily caseload remains far from the country’s peak in mid-January, when the average hit more than 8,000 daily cases.

Some Israeli officials and health experts have attributed the outbreaks to the Delta variant, and point to international travelers as a potential source of the outbreaks.

According to Anat Danieli, a Health Ministry spokeswoman, the Delta variant had been identified in 180 samples as of last Sunday. But it was unclear how many of the new cases involved the variant, as the testing can take up to 10 days.

Since last Saturday, the country’s rolling seven-day average of new cases has grown from less than 25 to more than 72, according to the Our World in Data project at Oxford University.

Before the recent outbreak, the daily caseload had fallen close to zero. About 57 percent of the country’s population has already been given two shots of Covid vaccine.

To deal with the sudden outbreak, the Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, reinstated a ministerial crisis committee, known as the coronavirus cabinet. On Wednesday, Israel’s Tourism Ministry said that it would postpone its resumption of issuing individual tourist visas from July 1 to Aug. 1.

Israeli officials fear the country may have eased too many of its anti-virus restrictions too quickly, and on Thursday, the Health Ministry said that the government would assess whether to reintroduce a requirement to wear masks in indoor public places should the daily caseload exceed 100.

The announcement came less than two weeks after the country’s indoor mask mandate was lifted and less than a month after the end of capacity restrictions in public spaces, as well as the requirement to show proof of full vaccination against the coronavirus.

Nachman Ash, a senior official overseeing the Israeli pandemic response, also asked residents to avoid unnecessary international travel.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/24/world/middleeast/israel-covid-delta-variant.html

 

 

 

Months into the pandemic, the U.S. had six times as many cases as reported, an N.I.H. study finds

By Neil Vigdor

 

  

A coronavirus testing site in Los Angeles in January. A study reinforced findings that the scope of contagion in America was much broader than data suggested early in the pandemic.Credit...Philip Cheung for The New York Times

For every coronavirus infection that was recorded in the United States in mid-2020, nearly five asymptomatic cases went undetected, according to a new study by the National Institutes of Health.

The study, which was released on Tuesday, reinforced previous findings that the scope of contagion was much more widespread in the early months of the pandemic.

It also highlighted the vast gap in virus testing in many parts of the country and the disproportionately high infection rate among Black people at the time.

N.I.H. researchers estimated that there were as many as 20 million infections in the United States by mid-July 2020, far more than the three million cases that public health authorities recorded. Their findings were based on a yearlong study that began in April 2020, with researchers analyzing blood samples collected from more than 8,000 people, mostly from early May through July 31.

The study, published online in Science Translational Medicine, looked at 9,089 adults who had not been diagnosed with Covid-19 and found that about 4.6 percent of them carried antibodies suggesting that they had been infected with the coronavirus at some point. That suggested, the study said, “a potential 16.8 million undiagnosed infections by July 2020 in addition to the reported 3 million diagnosed cases in the United States.” Data released last summer by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention similarly detailed a vast undercounting of infections.

The new study “helps account for how quickly the virus spread to all corners of the country and the globe,” Bruce J. Tromberg, director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, said in a statement. The institute is one of several at N.I.H. whose scientists are leading the effort to study the transmission of the virus, and it contributed to the report.

Dr. Tromberg said that the findings would help public health experts assess future measures to protect people from the coronavirus and from emerging, more transmissible variants. They also would provide more clarity for scientists who are tracking vaccine antibody-response changes over time, he said.

Among those who volunteered for the study, which was weighted for race and other factors, Black participants had the highest estimated rate of coronavirus antibodies in their blood (14.2 percent), more than five times the rate for white participants (2.5 percent).

Researchers also found that the seropositivity rate was higher in females than in males, and for the study’s youngest participants, ranging in age from 18 to 44.

“This wide gap between the known cases at the time and these asymptomatic infections has implications not only for retrospectively understanding this pandemic but for future pandemic preparedness,” Kaitlyn Sadtler, a top N.I.H. official and a senior co-author of the study, said in a statement.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/24/world/us-covid-cases-nih.html

 

 

 

Angela Merkel tells Europeans to ‘remain vigilant,’ and other news from around the world

By Melissa Eddy, Richard C. Paddock, Ivan Nechepurenko, Aina J. Khan and Raphael Minder

 

“The newly arising variants, especially now the Delta variant, are a warning for us to continue to be careful,” Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany told lawmakers.Credit...Michele Tantussi/Reuters

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany warned on Thursday that despite dropping numbers of new coronavirus infections, Europeans should not be deceived into thinking the pandemic is over.

“We need to remain vigilant,” Ms. Merkel told lawmakers in what may have been her final address to Parliament. Germans will elect new lawmakers in September, and Ms. Merkel is stepping down after 16 years in power.

“In particular, the newly arising variants, especially now the Delta variant, are a warning for us to continue to be careful,” the chancellor said.

European Union health officials are predicting that the more transmissible Delta variant, which was first detected in India, will make up 90 percent of all cases across the bloc by the end of August. They are urging people to get fully vaccinated as soon as possible, even as travel for summer vacations between the 27 member nations is allowed and encouraged.

On Thursday, Ms. Merkel called for E.U. member states to come up with a joint position on handling arrivals from countries where the Delta variant is dominant. This includes Britain, where Germany will play England in the European soccer championship on Tuesday, raising concerns in Berlin about the risk posed to fans traveling to the game.

Germany already requires anyone arriving from Britain to quarantine upon arrival, and the chancellor told lawmakers on Wednesday that she would raise the issue with European leaders in Brussels on Thursday. “In our country, if you come from Britain, you have to go into quarantine — and that’s not the case in every European country, and that’s what I would like to see,” Ms. Merkel said.

The Delta variant makes up about 15 percent of all new cases of the coronavirus in Germany, and officials are warning that could change within a matter of weeks.

In other news from around the world:

Rizieq Shihab, a radical cleric in Indonesia who attracted huge crowds last year on his return from self-imposed exile, was sentenced to four years in prison on Thursday for hiding that he had contracted the coronavirus. A three-judge panel found that he had spread false information by posting a video claiming to be healthy. The Muslim cleric, who had pledged to lead a “moral revolution,” was sentenced in May to eight months in prison for holding large gatherings in violation of coronavirus health protocols.

Russia on Thursday reported more than 20,000 new coronavirus cases and more than 550 deaths the previous day, reaching numbers unseen since January. Over the past two weeks, the country has had a surge in cases, driven in part by the Delta variant. The situation has been worsened by a sluggish vaccination process, with the government trying to speed it up.

Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organization’s regional director for Africa, said in a news briefing that rising coronavirus cases on the continent were outpacing vaccinations, driven in part by a surge in the Delta variant. Eighteen African nations have used over 80 percent of their vaccine stocks, highlighting the need for international solidarity to increase vaccine supplies there. Africa had relied on India as a vaccine producer before it was overwhelmed by its own second wave, she said.

Spain on Thursday approved a significant easing of coronavirus restrictions, lifting a requirement that residents must wear a mask outdoors. The measure, which comes into force on Saturday, removes a rule that had been in place since the country was first hit by the pandemic in March 2020. “Our streets, our faces will recover their normal aspect in the coming days,” Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said ahead of the decision. It comes as Spain’s vaccination campaign has gathered pace. Just over 15 million residents, equivalent to 32 percent of Spain’s population, had been fully vaccinated by Thursday.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/06/24/world/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-mask/angela-merkel-tells-europeans-to-remain-vigilant-and-other-news-from-around-the-world

 

 

 

An outbreak in Sydney prompts a travel ban and a return to mask rules

By Damien Cave

 

A vaccination line in Sydney on Thursday. An outbreak follows months of near-zero community coronavirus transmission, but officials expect more cases to arise.Credit...Saeed Khan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A new Covid cluster in Sydney has grown to 49 cases, prompting a travel ban for the five million residents of Australia’s largest city and a return to mandatory mask-wearing, and infecting at least one state government minister.

Health officials in the state of New South Wales have been scrambling for more than a week to contain the outbreak, which began when a Sydney airport limousine driver tested positive for the highly contagious Delta variant. He was not vaccinated, in violation of public health guidelines, and is believed to have become infected while transporting a foreign airline crew.

As the police continue to investigate whether the driver and his employer should face criminal penalties or fines for not complying with Covid rules, Sydney has been forced to hunker down. Residents are being asked to work from home, where gatherings are now limited to five people.

The travel restrictions began late on Wednesday. Compounded by state border closures banning entry for anyone from Sydney, the stay-at-home orders have arrived at the start of winter break for schools, forcing tens of thousands of families to cancel travel plans.

Australia has all but eliminated community transmission of the coronavirus thanks to border closures, extensive contact-tracing and a practice of swiftly imposing local lockdowns for even small numbers of cases. The current outbreak in Sydney follows several months of near-zero Covid community transmission.

A stricter lockdown in the city has been avoided so far, officials said, because contact tracers have identified the source of nearly every case. Only three infections are still being investigated.

But with some of the cases being linked back to fleeting contact, with just a few seconds of shared air in a store or cafe, officials said they expect more cases and challenges to arise.

“Since the pandemic has started, this is perhaps the scariest period that New South Wales is going through,” the state premier, Gladys Berejiklian, told a news conference Thursday.

She added that she had been identified as a casual contact herself and had gotten tested to confirm that she did not have an infection. Others in government were not so fortunate: The state agriculture minister, Adam Marshall, said that he had tested positive after dining with three government colleagues on Monday at a Sydney restaurant.

Dr. Nicholas Talley, an epidemiologist at the University of Newcastle, said that the latest outbreak showed both the strength of contact tracing in New South Wales and the need to do more than rely on the same system of restrictions and tracing that worked earlier in the pandemic. The new variants, he said, required a new level of urgency from lawmakers.

“They need to look at the policy settings and give a jolt to the vaccine rollout,” he said. “Without generalized vaccination, and if the Delta variant gets hold, it can really be dangerous.”

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/06/24/world/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-mask/an-outbreak-in-sydney-prompts-a-travel-ban-and-a-return-to-mask-rules

 

 

 

The I.M.F. floats a plan to help poor countries through the pandemic

By Peter S. Goodman and Alan Rappeport

 

A coronavirus quarantine center in Aden, Yemen.Credit...Fawaz Salman/Reuters

Fears that the pandemic has widened the divide between rich and poor nations have prompted a substantial effort at the International Monetary Fund to close the gap.

Under a proposal nearing completion, the I.M.F. would issue $650 billion worth of reserve funds, essentially creating money that troubled countries could use to purchase vaccines, finance health care and pay down debt.

Such a step would deliver “potentially the largest capital allocation since the end of World War II,” the administrator of the United Nations Development Program, Achim Steiner, declared this week.

But experts say that for poor countries to truly benefit, wealthy nations must voluntarily transfer some of their holdings to them — a course that I.M.F. officials are seeking to bring about.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/06/24/world/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-mask/the-imf-floats-a-plan-to-help-poor-countries-through-the-pandemic

 

 

 

More people are getting two different Covid vaccines. Here’s what to know

By Emily Anthes

 

A vaccination at Großhadern Hospital in Munich in March. Germany’s government revealed that Chancellor Angela Merkel had received two different shots, adding to growing interest in vaccine mixing.Credit...Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times

 

The most widely used coronavirus vaccines are designed as two-shot inoculations. Nearly everyone worldwide who has had two doses received the same vaccine both times.

But that is changing, as more countries are allowing — and even, in some cases, encouraging — mixed inoculations, with people receiving a first shot of one vaccine, then a second shot of a different one. On Tuesday, Germany’s government revealed that Chancellor Angela Merkel had received two different shots, adding to the growing interest in the practice.

Some nations have tried that approach out of necessity, when supplies of a particular vaccine ran short, or out of caution, when questions were raised about the safety of a shot after some people had already received their first doses. U.S. regulators so far have been reluctant to encourage the practice.

But scientists and health policymakers are interested in the possibility that giving different shots to the same person could have significant advantages.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/06/24/world/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-mask/more-people-are-getting-two-different-covid-vaccines-heres-what-to-know

 

 

 

Summary

 

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

· Malta and the Balearic Islands will be added to England’s green list of places that are safe to visit without requiring quarantine on return, British transport minister Grant Shapps said on Thursday.

· Mexico’s health regulator has given approval to US drug maker Pfizer Inc’s Covid-19 vaccine for use in children 12 years old and older, Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell said on Twitter on Thursday.

· African Union special envoy Strive Masiyiwa accused the world’s richest nations of deliberately failing to provide enough Covid-19 vaccines to the continent. Masiyiwa, the union’s special envoy to the African vaccine acquisition task team, said the Covax scheme had failed to keep its promise to secure production of 700 million doses of vaccines in time for delivery by December 2021.

· The pandemic, and responses to it, is pushing more people into drug use, while illegal cultivation could also get a boost as joblessness increases globally, the UN said. The Vienna-based United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said its report showed that drug markets swiftly resumed operations after initial disruption at the onset of the pandemic – demonstrating the resilience of the market amid record demand for many substances.

· The French president joined the German chancellor to urge EU countries to coordinate more closely on how tourists from outside the bloc are able to come, amid calls for all UK arrivals to the EU to have to quarantine.

· The World Health Organization forecasts that people most vulnerable to Covid-19 may need to get an annual vaccine booster to be protected against variants, but the evidence on its potential effectiveness is scarce.

· Japan’s emperor has voiced concern over the possible spread of coronavirus during the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, in an unexpected intervention in the debate over holding the Games during a pandemic.

· Ohio, the US state that offered millions of dollars in incentives to boost vaccination rates, is to conclude its program — still unable to crack the 50% vaccination threshold.

· A former soldier has fired gunshots in a coronavirus field hospital in Thailand, killing a 54-year-old patient after earlier shooting dead a convenience store employee, police said. The suspect, 23, was said to believe that the patients in the hospital in Pathum Thani near Bangkok were people dependent on drugs, who he despises.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/jun/25/coronavirus-live-news-eu-countries-look-to-toughen-restrictions-on-travel-from-uk