Country, Other	Total Cases	New Cases	Total Deaths
World	192,794,463	+555,749	4,142,022
USA	35,146,476	+56,525	625,808
India	31,256,839	+41,697	419,021
Brazil	19,474,489	+54,748	545,690
Russia	6,030,240	+23,704	150,705
France	5,911,601	+21,539	111,554
UK	5,563,006	+44,104	128,896
Turkey	5,554,317	+8,151	50,709
Argentina	4,798,851	+14,632	102,818
Colombia	4,679,994	+11,244	117,482
Italy	4,297,337	+4,254	127,905
Spain	4,219,723	+30,587	81,166
Germany	3,756,408	+1,580	91,953
Iran	3,603,527	+27,379	87,837
Indonesia	2,983,830	+33,772	77,583
Poland	2,881,718	+124	75,222
Mexico	2,678,297	+13,853	236,810
South Africa	2,327,472	+16,240	68,192
Ukraine	2,245,930	+655	52,769
Peru	2,097,811	+1,798	195,429
Netherlands	1,821,040	+6,897	17,786
Czechia	1,671,698	+303	30,346
Chile	1,602,854	+996	34,611
Philippines	1,524,449	+6,560	26,874
Iraq	1,518,837	+8,320	18,020
Canada	1,424,715	+495	26,512
Bangladesh	1,136,503	+7,614	18,498
Belgium	1,108,675	+1,467	25,213
Romania	1,081,875	+102	34,260
Pakistan	996,451	+2,579	22,888
Malaysia	951,884	+11,985	7,440
Portugal	939,622	+4,376	17,232
Israel	855,552	+1,118	6,454
Japan	847,614	+3,758	15,079
Hungary	808,945	+56	30,019
Jordan	762,706	+286	9,922
Serbia	719,234	+228	7,092
Nepal	672,871	+1,918	9,637
UAE	665,533	+1,506	1,907
Austria	654,745	+431	10,729
Morocco	566,356	+3,940	9,498
Tunisia	555,997	+1,086	17,913
Lebanon	552,328	+539	7,888
Saudi Arabia	513,284	+1,142	8,115
Kazakhstan	504,290	+5,179	5,116
Ecuador	478,615	+669	30,752
Greece	466,441	+2,968	12,846
Bolivia	464,177	+1,052	17,505
Paraguay	447,146	+879	14,446
Thailand	439,477	+13,002	3,610
Belarus	436,595	+975	3,355
Panama	425,599	+1,144	6,723
Bulgaria	423,319	+96	18,187
Costa Rica	395,667	+1,532	4,925
Georgia	393,360	+2,415	5,618
Slovakia	392,185	+46	12,534
Kuwait	388,881	+969	2,255
Uruguay	379,613	+237	5,905
Croatia	361,950	+191	8,244
Azerbaijan	339,062	+225	4,998
Palestine	315,876	+115	3,591
Denmark	308,615	+851	2,542
Cuba	300,854	+6,405	2,072
Venezuela	295,746	+1,019	3,426
Sri Lanka	289,577	+1,604	3,917
Ireland	287,951	+1,260	5,026
Egypt	283,862	+49	16,465
Honduras	282,686	+1,082	7,507
Lithuania	280,103	+186	4,407
Ethiopia	277,959	+82	4,360
Bahrain	268,092	+65	1,381
Slovenia	258,397	+111	4,425
Moldova	258,237	+141	6,232
Myanmar	246,663	+6,093	5,814
Armenia	227,936	+220	4,573
Qatar	224,638	+128	600
Kenya	194,310	+503	3,811
Zambia	188,573	+971	3,162
S. Korea	182,265	+1,784	2,060
Nigeria	170,122	+238	2,130
Algeria	157,005	+1,221	3,994
North Macedonia	155,965	+34	5,488
Kyrgyzstan	152,709	+1,102	2,205
Mongolia	151,230	+1,497	749
Latvia	138,300	+62	2,550
Norway	134,969	+189	799
Albania	132,763	+23	2,456
Estonia	132,058	+95	1,271
Uzbekistan	121,329	+698	810
Namibia	113,905	+467	2,620
Mozambique	103,713	+1,704	1,190
Finland	101,226	+453	978
Cyprus	94,261	+1,014	394
Vietnam	68,177	+5,357	370
Suriname	24,490	+55	625
Aruba	11,272	+15	109

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

 

 

 

Australia cautions COVID-19 cases to rise despite weeks-long lockdown

By Renju Jose Byron Kaye

 

A pedestrian crosses an almost empty street in the City Centre during a lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Sydney, Australia, July 21, 2021. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

 

Coronavirus cases in Australia spiked again on Thursday, despite a weeks-long lockdown, with authorities warning that infections would rise more and take a toll on the economy as the country battles to contain the highly contagious Delta variant.

New South Wales (NSW), Australia's most populous state, reported 124 new COVID-19 cases, versus 110 a day earlier, a record for this year and the highest in 16 months. Most of the infections were reported in state capital Sydney, which is in its fourth week of a lockdown.

Victoria state, entering a second week of stay-at-home orders, logged 26 new cases, up from 22.

"We anticipate case numbers will continue to go up before they start coming down and we need to brace ourselves for that," said Gladys Berejiklian, premier of NSW.

Of most concern is the number of people moving around in the community before being diagnosed, which was 48 on Wednesday in NSW, the state's health authorities say.

Sydney, home to a fifth of Australia's 25 million people, was due to exit lockdown on July 30 but Berejiklian has said the number of infections in the community must be near zero first.

She urged people to get vaccinated.

"Until we have enough of our population fully vaccinated, we will be living with some level of restriction and that will depend on how quickly we can overcome the severity of the current outbreak," she said.

"The vaccine is key to our freedom."

Neighbouring Queensland state closed its border to NSW, citing the outbreak, shutting off one of the most travelled routes in the country.

In Victoria, to the south of NSW, all the 26 new cases were linked to known chains of transmission and 24 were in quarantine throughout their infectious period, the state authorities said.

South Australia state reported two new cases as officials track two "superspread events" - gatherings at a winery and a Greek restaurant in the state capital Adelaide.

ECONOMIC HIT

With large swathes of businesses shut down in the country's two largest cities, Australia's A$2 trillion ($1.5 trillion) economy could take a big hit from the latest lockdowns that has forced more than half its population indoors.

The economy had boomed to pre-pandemic levels in the early months of this year thanks to low COVID-19 cases.

But the latest lockdowns could cost the national economy around A$300 million ($220 million) a day, Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg estimated.

"It's going to have a hit on the economy. We'll see that in the future jobs data as well as in the GDP growth numbers," Frydenberg told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

The country's main airline, Qantas Airways (QAN.AX), said in a memo to staff that domestic capacity had fallen below 40% of pre-COVID levels and that staff may be stood down without pay if lockdowns continued for "extended periods".

Australia has fared better than many other developed economies in keeping infections relatively low, with some 32,200 cases and 915 deaths. But with a sputtering immunisation campaign, just 11% of the population fully vaccinated, it has relied on lockdowns and border closures to contain the outbreak.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/australias-victoria-reports-rise-local-covid-19-cases-amid-lockdown-2021-07-21/

 

 

 

1.5 mln children have lost parents to pandemic; potential brain gateway for virus found

By Nancy Lapid

 

 

A child looks at the "Naming the Lost Memorials," as the U.S. deaths from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) are expected to surpass 600,000, at The Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, U.S., June 10, 2021. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

 

The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19.

1.5 million children lost parents to COVID-19 so far

During the first 14 months of the pandemic, an estimated 1.5 million children worldwide experienced the death of a parent, custodial grandparent, or other relative who cared for them, as a result of COVID-19, according to a study published in The Lancet on Tuesday. The orphanhood estimates are drawn from mortality data from 21 countries that account for 77% of global COVID-19 deaths and from the United Nations Population Division. "For every two COVID-19 deaths worldwide, one child is left behind to face the death of a parent or caregiver," Dr. Susan Hillis from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID-19 Response Team, who led the study, said in a statement. The number of COVID-19 orphans will increase as the pandemic progresses, she added. There is an urgent need to prioritize these children and "support them for many years into the future," Hillis said. Said study coauthor Lucie Cluver of Oxford University: "And we need to respond fast because every 12 seconds a child loses their caregiver to COVID-19."

Potential brain gateway found for coronavirus

Researchers have found a potential route of entry for the coronavirus into the human brain that may help explain the effects of COVID-19 on the brain and nervous system that have plagued many patients. To date there is no evidence that the virus directly infects neurons - the brain cells that receive and send messages to and from the body. In a new study, experimenting with an artificially grown mass of cells created to resemble the brain, researchers found that neurons seemed "impervious" to the coronavirus, said Joseph Gleeson of the University of California, San Diego. But cells called pericytes, which wrap around blood vessels and carry the surface protein the virus uses for entry, proved to be a different story. When researchers added pericytes to their artificial brain and then added the virus, "we found incredibly robust infection," not just of the pericytes but also of the neurons, Gleeson said. They report in Nature Medicine that the pericytes served as "factories" for the virus, from which it could multiply. The primary targets were astrocytes, which have crucial roles in regulating the brain's electrical impulses, providing neurons with nutrients, and maintaining the "blood-brain barrier" that shields the brain from foreign substances. The findings, Gleeson said, suggest "pericytes could serve as an entry point for SARS-CoV-2," which could either lead to local increases in the virus or to inflammation of blood vessels that can cause stroke.

Vaccine boosters not yet needed, researchers say

Two doses of an mRNA vaccine from Pfizer/BioNTech (PFE.N), or Moderna are effective at neutralizing the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus that is or will soon be dominant in most places, suggesting immediate booster doses are not likely needed, researchers said. They did not measure the vaccines' ability to protect against infection in the real world. In their lab experiments using blood samples from vaccinated volunteers, however, Delta's mutations caused only low reductions in the proportion of antibodies that could neutralize the virus, they said. Mutations in the less prevalent Beta and Gamma variants reduced antibody neutralization capacity more significantly, but not to a point where vaccine recipients would appear to be unprotected, the researchers reported on Sunday in a paper posted on medRxiv ahead of peer review. Vaccine boosters may be needed in the future to help overcome some variants, coauthor Akiko Iwasaki of Yale University said in a tweet on Tuesday. Her team also found that overall, neutralizing antibody levels after vaccination were higher in COVID-19 survivors than in uninfected vaccine recipients. "This is not surprising," Iwasaki told Reuters, "because infection itself induces immune responses, which were boosted by the two doses of vaccines."

 

Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/15-mln-children-have-lost-parents-pandemic-potential-brain-gateway-virus-found-2021-07-21/

 

 

 

CDC advisers will meet Thursday to discuss need for coronavirus boosters and J&J vaccine safety

By Jessica Firger, CNN

 

Vaccine advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will meet Thursday to make recommendations on how to address new safety issues concerning the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine and to review preliminary data on whether Covid-19 vaccine boosters will be needed in the future -- especially for people with compromised immune systems.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is scheduled to meet from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET. There are no plans for the panel to vote on issues included on the agenda.

ACIP is a panel composed of outside medical experts in the fields of vaccinology, immunology, pediatrics, internal medicine, nursing, virology, public health, infectious diseases and other subspecialties. CDC typically accepts its recommendations once votes have been cast.

ACIP has provided crucial guidance throughout the pandemic including advice on emergency use authorization for the three Covid-19 vaccines currently available in the US, authorization of Pfizer's vaccine for 12-15 year-olds and, in April, to end the pause of the J&J vaccine due to a rare blood clotting disorder that has occurred in a small number of vaccine recipients.

On Thursday, ACIP will take up several new issues regarding safety and durability of Covid-19 vaccines. To start, ACIP will review recent data on cases of Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) among people who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 with the J&J coronavirus vaccine. Federal health officials say there have been some 100 preliminary reports of cases of GBS -- a rare neurological disorder in which the body's immune system damages nerve cells, causing muscle weakness and sometimes temporary paralysis -- among the nearly 13 million people who have received the vaccine.

The US Food and Drug Administration already last week updated the label of the J&J vaccine to list GBS as a rare risk. ACIP's discussion tomorrow will center on the question of whether, given this adverse event, the benefit of the J&J vaccine still outweighs the risk of GBS. ACIP is expected to say it does.

Tomorrow's meeting was precipitated by this newly identified adverse event, Dr. William Schaffner, a professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and ACIP member, told CNN. "There will be no formal votes and will come to the conclusion that the risk of Covid is very high and the risks of the vaccine very low. Real, but very low," he added.

ACIP will also take on the subject of coronavirus vaccine boosters with priority given to reviewing data on the need for booster vaccines for immunocompromised people. Recent reports have suggested that Covid-19 vaccines are not effective enough in people with weakened immune systems, and last week the CDC revised its guidance for fully vaccinated individuals. It warned people who are immunocompromised that the vaccines may not be as effective for them, and they are encouraged to continue with safety precautions as if they were not vaccinated. However, the CDC has not yet formally recommended boosters for anyone.

ACIP's goal tomorrow is to weigh in on the need for boosters and review what data is currently available and published. "What [ACIP] will demonstrate tomorrow is that the evidence is very sparse," says Schaffner, which ultimately means that the group will not vote on boosters.

Earlier this month, Pfizer announced it would be seeking authorization to provide a third dose of its Covid-19 vaccine as a booster, citing data from Israel on the continued spread of the coronavirus and the limited efficacy against the more transmissible Delta variant.

Health officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, continue to say the US needs more data before recommending coronavirus vaccine boosters for anyone.

"The CDC and the FDA said that based on the data that we know right now, we don't need a boost," Fauci told CNN's Chris Cuomo last week. "That doesn't mean that that won't change. We might need, as a matter of fact, at some time to give boosters either across the board or to certain select groups, such as the elderly or those with underlying conditions."

 

Retrieved from: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/22/health/acip-meeting-thursday-vaccine-boosters/index.html

 

 

 

The rash of Covid cases at the Olympics raises tricky questions about testing

By Emily Anthes and Alexandra E. Petri

 

Nippon Budokan in Chiyoda ward in Tokyo on Sunday.Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

The discovery of isolated cases, even in vaccinated athletes at the Olympics in Tokyo, is entirely expected, scientists say, and not necessarily a cause for alarm.

“This isn’t really that much of a surprise,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan.

Still, these cases do raise thorny questions about how to design testing programs — and respond to test results — at this phase of the pandemic, in which the patchy rollout of vaccines means that some people and communities are well protected from the virus while others remain at risk.

As Dr. Rasmussen put it: “When does a positive test really indicate that there’s a problem?”

Covid-19 tests, which were once profoundly limited, are now widely available in most of the developed world, making it possible for organizations — including private employers, schools, professional sports leagues and the Olympics organizers — to routinely screen people for the virus.

Vaccination is not required for Olympic participants, and officials are relying heavily on testing to keep the virus at bay in Tokyo. Those headed to the Games must submit two negative tests taken on separate days within 96 hours of leaving for Japan regardless of vaccination status, according to the Olympic playbooks, or manuals.

At least one of the two tests must be taken within 72 hours of departure. Participants are again tested upon arrival at the airport.

Athletes, coaches and officials are also required to take daily antigen tests, which are less sensitive than P.C.R. tests but are generally quicker and cheaper. (Olympic staff and volunteers may be tested less frequently, depending on their level of interaction with athletes and officials.) If a test comes back unclear or positive, a P.C.R. test is administered.

“Each layer of filtering is a reduction in the risk for everybody else,” Brian McCloskey, the chair of the Independent Expert Panel of the International Olympic Committee, told reporters this week, adding that the number of confirmed infections so far are “lower than we expected.”

Questions about transmission remain unsettled. Vaccinated people with asymptomatic or breakthrough infections may still be able to pass the virus on to others, but it is not yet clear how often that happens. Until that science is more definitive, or until vaccination rates rise, it is best to err on the side of safety and regular testing, many experts said.

But when you look that hard for infections — especially in a group of people who have recently flown in from all over the globe and have had varying levels of access to vaccines — you’re all but destined to find some.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/07/21/sports/olympics-tokyo-updates/the-rash-of-covid-cases-at-the-olympics-raises-tricky-questions-about-testing

 

 

 

India’s government says it has ‘no reason’ to hide Covid deaths, and other news from around the world

By Karan Deep Singh

 

Facing a chorus of criticism over accusations of underreporting the Covid-19 death toll, India’s government sought to shift blame to its states, suggesting that local officials were not accurately registering deaths.

The government’s response came in a reply to questions raised by opposition leaders in the Parliament on Tuesday, as a new study found that the number of people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic in India so far is likely to exceed three million. That is nearly 10 times the official Covid-19 death toll, and would make it one of the worst human tragedies in the nation’s history.

“Many people here said that the government of India is hiding deaths. The government of India compiles the numbers sent by state governments and publishes it,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new health minister, Mansukh Mandaviya, said in Parliament. “Our job is only to publish the data.”

The estimate of more than three million deaths was the result of a comprehensive examination by the Center for Global Development, a Washington research institute, which attempted to count excess deaths from all causes during the pandemic by looking at state data, international estimates, serological studies and household surveys.

During India’s devastating second wave of infections earlier this year, journalists from The New York Times and other news outlets interviewed staff members and families at cremation grounds across India and found an extensive pattern of deaths far exceeding the official figures.

Mr. Mandaviya said that allegations that the government was trying to minimize the toll of Covid were untrue.

“The government of India has not told anyone to report less numbers,” he said. “We have not asked of anyone to report less Covid patients. There is no reason for it.”

In other news from around the world, with the help of The Associated Press and Reuters:

Tunisia’s president, Kais Saied, ordered the military health service Wednesday to take over managing the national Covid-19 response. The country has reported more deaths per capita than any other on the African continent and in the last few weeks has reported daily tolls that were among the highest per capita globally.

Staff members of England’s National Health Service will receive a 3 percent raise, the British government said on Wednesday, which health care workers’ unions called insulting. The initial offer was 1 percent, which had outraged employees and the public.

South Korea on Thursday reported another daily record of 1,842 coronavirus cases, as it fights its worst-ever wave, fueled by the Delta variant. The latest numbers include 270 sailors on an antipiracy navy destroyer patrolling the waters off Africa who were airlifted home on Tuesday.

YouTube removed the content from the channel of President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, saying in a statement: “Our rules do not allow content that states that hydroxychloroquine and/or ivermectin are effective in treating or preventing Covid-19; that states there is a cure for the disease, or says that masks do not work to prevent the spread of the virus.” The president’s office did not immediately comment.

The police in Athens used tear gas and water cannons on demonstrators protesting Wednesday against a proposal by the government of Greece to require coronavirus vaccinations for employees at nursing homes and similar facilities. Noncompliant employees could be suspended without pay. Several thousand people also protested in Thessaloniki.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/07/21/world/covid-variant-vaccine-updates/indias-government-says-it-has-no-reason-to-hide-covid-deaths-and-other-news-from-around-the-world

 

 

 

Pfizer will turn to a plant in Africa to help supply the continent with vaccines next year

By Rebecca Robbins

 

The deal marks the first time Pfizer’s Covid vaccine will be partly produced in Africa.Credit...Brett Carlsen for The New York Times

Pfizer and BioNTech said on Wednesday that they have reached an agreement with a South African vaccine manufacturer, starting next year, to handle the final stages of manufacturing for doses of their Covid shot that will be supplied exclusively to African nations.

The deal represents the first time Pfizer’s Covid vaccine will be partly produced in Africa and it could eventually help increase supply to a continent where months of severe vaccine shortages have resulted in only about 1.5 percent of people being fully immunized.

But the agreement comes with caveats that will significantly limit its impact at a time when the fast-spreading Delta variant has driven a surge in infections and hospitalizations and sent the continent into the most devastating phase of its pandemic.

Crucially, the South African producer, Biovac, will only be handling distribution and “fill-finish” — the final phase of the manufacturing process, during which the vaccine is placed in vials and packaged for shipping. It will rely on Pfizer facilities in Europe to make the vaccine substance and ship it to its Cape Town facility.

Public health activists have called on Pfizer and other major vaccine manufacturers to transfer their technology to local producers in poorer parts of the world so as to ramp up production and alleviate shortages. Sharing recipes in this way can either be voluntary or forced.

Matthew Kavanagh, director of the Global Health Policy and Politics Initiative at Georgetown University, called Wednesday’s agreement “deeply disappointing.”

“What we have seen from all of these licensing agreements that only are fill-finish and keep the full production capacity to high-income-country producers is that they continue to just perpetuate the inequalities in distribution,” Mr. Kavanagh said.

A company spokeswoman, Pamela Eisele, said that in trying to rapidly scale up Covid vaccine manufacturing, Pfizer is “primarily focusing on multiple existing sites, looking to external contract manufacturers to support the important fill-and-finish and distribution steps.”

Michelle Viljoen, a spokeswoman for Biovac, said that starting with fill-finish is “the quickest manufacturing step to making vaccines accessible.” Ms. Viljoen added: “We will continue to pursue our vision of drug substance manufacture. We view this initiative as a stepping stone towards the realization of that vision.”

Pfizer has pledged that it will supply two billion doses of its vaccine to low- and middle-income countries through various channels by the end of 2022, but so far, only a small fraction of those doses have been delivered.

Pfizer said that efforts would begin immediately to transfer technology and install the necessary equipment at Biovac’s facility. Pfizer said the plant would be able to fill-finish more than 100 million doses annually at full capacity, though it did not say when that would be reached. Those doses will be supplied only to the 55 member states that make up the African Union, the company said.

To people “who have expressed concern that Africa is being left behind in part due to lack of vaccine manufacturing, I want to say that we hear you,” Pfizer’s chief executive, Dr. Albert Bourla, said in prepared remarks to a meeting put on by the World Trade Organization on Wednesday.

But Mr. Kavanagh said he was worried that Pfizer would not send enough drug substance to Cape Town, especially if wealthy countries sought third booster shots for their populations. In that scenario, he said, “what likelihood is it that most of the drug substance is going to shift to Africa to do first vaccinations instead of doing boosters in high-income countries that pay more and have political power to demand it?”

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/business/pfizer-will-turn-to-a-plant-in-africa-to-help-supply-the-continent-with-vaccines-next-year.html

 

 

 

Summary

 

Here are the key developments from the last few hours:

· House minority leader Kevin McCarthy pulled all his Republican appointees from the House select committee investigating the 6 January attack on the US Capitol after House speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected two of his choices, Jim Jordan and Jim Banks. Congresswoman Liz Cheney, who was appointed to the committee by Pelosi, had strong words for McCarthy and said she supported Pelosi’s decision as one of the two that Pelosi rejected “may well be a material witness to events that led to” the attack.

· The procedural cloture vote that would have moved debate on the bipartisan infrastructure deal to the floor did not pass in the Senate, as expected. Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer voted no as well, allowing himself to bring up another vote in the future.

· Coronavirus cases have cases nearly tripled in the US over the past two weeks, according too from Johns Hopkins University.The average for daily new cases rose from 13,700 on 6 July to more than 37,000 on Tuesday.

· Four companies – AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, McKesson and Johnson & Johnson – have agreed to pay a total of $26bn to settle a lawsuit brought by state attorney generals, releasing themselves from legal liability in the opioid epidemic. The settlement amounts to about to 4% of the companies’ annual revenue. The companies have admitted to no wrongdoing for the opioid crisis that has killed more than half a million Americans since 1999.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2021/jul/21/covid-coronavirus-white-house-congress-biden-us-politics-live-latest?page=with:block-60f8b5968f0814e7a316ea8b#block-60f8b5968f0814e7a316ea8b