i_need_contribute
|
Country, |
Total |
New |
Total |
|
World |
210,064,595 |
+695,935 |
4,404,462 |
|
38,072,656 |
+158,127 |
641,346 |
|
|
32,320,898 |
+35,797 |
433,063 |
|
|
20,458,221 |
+41,017 |
571,703 |
|
|
6,663,473 |
+20,914 |
172,909 |
|
|
6,533,383 |
+28,405 |
112,976 |
|
|
6,355,887 |
+33,904 |
131,260 |
|
|
6,138,452 |
+19,944 |
53,675 |
|
|
5,106,207 |
+9,764 |
109,652 |
|
|
4,877,323 |
+3,154 |
123,781 |
|
|
4,745,558 |
+11,956 |
82,883 |
|
|
4,556,417 |
+39,174 |
99,691 |
|
|
4,456,765 |
+7,162 |
128,579 |
|
|
3,908,247 |
+15,768 |
121,141 |
|
|
3,846,186 |
+8,998 |
92,428 |
|
|
3,123,252 |
+14,814 |
249,529 |
|
|
2,885,883 |
+208 |
75,307 |
|
|
2,638,981 |
+14,727 |
78,377 |
|
|
2,268,666 |
+1,447 |
53,336 |
|
|
2,137,295 |
+1,468 |
197,659 |
|
|
1,909,211 |
+2,777 |
17,927 |
|
|
1,801,364 |
+7,992 |
19,886 |
|
|
1,776,495 |
+11,085 |
30,623 |
|
|
1,676,817 |
+294 |
30,378 |
|
|
1,630,831 |
+501 |
36,456 |
|
|
1,466,512 |
+22,242 |
13,302 |
|
|
1,460,175 |
+2,477 |
26,761 |
|
|
1,440,644 |
+7,248 |
24,719 |
|
|
1,179,176 |
+19,954 |
15,467 |
|
|
1,156,620 |
+1,741 |
25,299 |
|
|
1,109,274 |
+3,974 |
24,639 |
|
|
1,088,594 |
+541 |
34,365 |
|
|
1,009,571 |
+2,983 |
17,601 |
|
|
968,957 |
+20,515 |
8,285 |
|
|
962,193 |
+4,646 |
6,723 |
|
|
810,658 |
+109 |
30,045 |
|
|
786,585 |
+888 |
10,252 |
|
|
782,097 |
+9,703 |
11,345 |
|
|
739,907 |
+2,613 |
10,396 |
|
|
736,313 |
+1,497 |
7,183 |
|
|
708,379 |
+7,034 |
7,867 |
|
|
705,089 |
+1,089 |
2,009 |
|
|
671,593 |
+1,221 |
10,757 |
|
|
632,328 |
+2,626 |
22,304 |
|
|
586,585 |
+1,689 |
7,993 |
|
|
547,186 |
+3,437 |
13,245 |
|
|
545,275 |
+8,666 |
4,240 |
|
|
540,244 |
+546 |
8,439 |
|
|
496,376 |
+5,914 |
6,532 |
|
|
483,731 |
+706 |
18,222 |
|
|
463,855 |
+1,061 |
3,637 |
|
|
457,222 |
+199 |
15,492 |
|
|
449,762 |
+838 |
6,981 |
|
|
437,327 |
+1,387 |
18,411 |
|
|
436,276 |
+2,195 |
5,284 |
|
|
422,270 |
+4,650 |
11,273 |
|
|
407,376 |
+237 |
2,397 |
|
|
393,722 |
+112 |
12,547 |
|
|
383,645 |
+140 |
6,012 |
|
|
377,304 |
+4,129 |
5,208 |
|
|
369,359 |
+3,676 |
6,604 |
|
|
367,933 |
+524 |
8,291 |
|
|
363,169 |
+2,878 |
13,786 |
|
|
346,693 |
+183 |
3,989 |
|
|
333,815 |
+1,193 |
2,562 |
|
|
329,388 |
+1,704 |
5,074 |
|
|
322,620 |
+753 |
3,627 |
|
|
321,927 |
+1,005 |
3,844 |
|
|
321,675 |
+1,844 |
8,496 |
|
|
302,101 |
+8,800 |
6,770 |
|
|
300,728 |
+147 |
4,013 |
|
|
291,803 |
+985 |
4,505 |
|
|
291,412 |
+576 |
4,461 |
|
|
289,219 |
+2,325 |
3,968 |
|
|
285,700 |
+123 |
16,638 |
|
|
271,257 |
+127 |
1,385 |
|
|
263,074 |
+485 |
6,328 |
|
|
262,189 |
+385 |
4,436 |
|
|
235,675 |
+504 |
4,716 |
|
|
229,915 |
+218 |
601 |
|
|
228,657 |
+1,803 |
2,178 |
|
|
224,400 |
+1,506 |
4,378 |
|
|
203,169 |
+382 |
3,556 |
|
|
189,384 |
+721 |
4,898 |
|
|
186,537 |
+1,582 |
889 |
|
|
172,937 |
+269 |
2,462 |
|
|
164,529 |
+1,077 |
5,589 |
|
|
146,373 |
+612 |
811 |
|
|
145,615 |
+851 |
994 |
|
|
140,765 |
+694 |
1,761 |
|
|
140,505 |
+180 |
2,566 |
|
|
137,800 |
+287 |
1,281 |
|
|
137,075 |
+477 |
2,471 |
|
|
122,885 |
+186 |
3,300 |
|
|
121,498 |
+452 |
4,181 |
|
|
119,320 |
+673 |
1,008 |
|
|
112,378 |
+524 |
945 |
|
|
110,098 |
+433 |
467 |
|
|
26,916 |
+114 |
692 |
|
|
13,621 |
+110 |
121 |
Retrieved from：https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
By Anurag Maan and Kavya B
The United States reported more than 1,000 COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday, equating to around 42 fatalities an hour, according to a Reuters tally, as the Delta variant continues to ravage parts of the country with low vaccination rates.
Coronavirus-related deaths have spiked in the United States over the past month and are averaging 769 per day, the highest since mid-April, according to the Reuters tally.
President Joe Biden's administration confirmed on Tuesday evening it planned to extend requirements for travelers to wear masks on airplanes, trains and buses and at airports and train stations until mid-January.
Like many other countries, the Delta variant has presented a major challenge.
The Reuters tally from state data on Tuesday showed 1,017 deaths, taking the death toll from the pandemic to just under 623,000 people, the highest number of deaths officially reported by any country in the world.
The last time the United States recorded more than 1,000 deaths on a daily basis was in March.
U.S. officials have started to accelerate vaccinations in the face of the renewed threat, with the seven-day average of doses given increasing by 14% in the past two weeks, according to figures from Our World in Data.
While governments and businesses initially offered incentives such as cash and prizes for getting vaccinated, the surge in cases has caused some companies and states to mandate vaccines if workers want to keep their jobs and not face routine testing.
However, U.S. hospitals continue to flood with new patients as COVID-related hospitalizations have increased by about 70% in the past two weeks.
The United States has reported more than 100,000 new cases a day on average for the past twelve days, a six-month high, according to a Reuters tally.
The U.S. South remains the epicenter of the latest outbreak, with Florida reporting a record of nearly 26,000 new cases last week, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Among the new cases was Texas Governor Greg Abbott, whose state is engulfed in a fourth COVID surge. Abbott tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday but so far has no symptoms of the illness, his office said.
The number of children hospitalized with COVID-19 is rising across the country and were 1,834 as of Tuesday morning, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, a trend health experts attribute to the Delta variant being more likely to infect children than the original Alpha strain.
Retrieved from：https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-reports-more-than-1000-covid-deaths-single-day-2021-08-18/
By Eric Beech and Nancy Lapid
A syringe is filled with a dose of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine at a pop-up community vaccination center at the Gateway World Christian Center in Valley Stream, New York, U.S., February 23, 2021. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
President Joe Biden said on Wednesday his administration will require employees at nursing homes to be vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of the facilities participating in the Medicare and Medicaid government healthcare programs.
Biden made the announcement hours after the release of a study showing that the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines for residents of nursing homes and long-term care facilities, where residents are often elderly and frail, has dropped since the Delta variant became dominant in the United States.
Residents of nursing homes have been hard hit during the pandemic, with many facilities experiencing high death tolls - particularly early in the public health crisis. People living in nursing homes were among the first to be given shots after COVID-19 vaccines won U.S. government authorization last year.
But some nursing homes have not required staff members to be vaccinated against COVID-19 - and some employees have opted not to get the shots amid vaccine skepticism among some Americans.
"I'm using the power of the federal government as a payer of healthcare costs to insure we reduce those risks to our most vulnerable seniors. These steps are all about keeping people safe and out of harm's way," Biden said at the White House.
"If you visit, live or work in a nursing home, you should not be at a higher risk for contracting COVID from unvaccinated employees," Biden added.
Medicare is the federal health insurance program for people 65 and older. Medicaid is a state-federal health insurance program for the poor. Many nursing homes are reliant on payments from these programs.
Biden said that more than 130,000 residents in U.S. nursing homes have died from COVID-19 and that vaccination rates among nursing home employees trail the rest of the country. Biden said studies show that having a highly vaccinated nursing home staff is associated with at least 30 percent fewer COVID-19 cases among residents.
The spread of the highly infectious Delta variant, which according to CDC data accounted last month for more than 80% of new U.S. infections, has complicated efforts to combat the pandemic in the United States and globally.
In the new study, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention compared weekly data from 3,862 nursing homes and long-term care facilities spanning March 1 to May 9, before Delta became widespread, to data from 14,917 such facilities covering June 21 to Aug. 9, when the variant was responsible for the majority of new infections.
They found that efficacy of the two-dose vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech (PFE.N), and Moderna (MRNA.O) for preventing any coronavirus infection - mild or severe - dropped from 74.7% to 53.1%. Effectiveness estimates were similar for the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, they said.
The study was published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).
The findings were cited by federal health officials on Wednesday in their announcement that COVID-19 booster shots would be made widely availableto Americans beginning on Sept. 20, with protection from initial vaccination waning over time.
The first groups to receive those boosters will include nursing home residents and other elderly Americans, as well as people with weak immune systems, officials said.
In a second study published in MMWR, New York State Department of Health officials found that by late July, 65% of New York adults had been fully vaccinated with two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna shots or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) shot.
etween early May and late July, the vaccines' effectiveness for preventing new infections dropped from 91.7% to 79.8%, the study found. Vaccine efficacy at preventing hospitalization held steady, ranging from 91.9% to 95.3%, it found.
The effectiveness of the two-dose vaccines against hospitalization lasts at least six months, according to a separate study by researchers in 18 U.S. states who reviewed data from 3,089 hospitalized patients, including 1,194 with COVID-19.
Retrieved from：https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/drop-covid-19-vaccine-efficacy-against-delta-seen-us-nursing-homes-2021-08-18/
By Hyonhee Shin
South Korea reported more than 2,000 new coronavirus cases for the second time on Thursday as it struggles to subdue a wave of outbreaks during the summer holidays, driven by the more contagious Delta variant.
South Korea has managed to tackle outbreaks since its epidemic began early last year thanks to intensive testing and tracing but it is now facing persistent spikes in infections and vaccine shortages.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) reported 2,152 cases for Wednesday, the second highest since the pandemic began, after the daily tally topped 2,200 for the first time last week. Total infections rose to 230,808, with 2,191 deaths.
The latest infections emerged around the capital, Seoul, and neighbouring regions but have spread nationwide as people travel for vacations.
More than 35% of the 2,114 domestically transmitted cases were in areas outside the capital, up from some 20% a month ago, KDCA data showed.
The fourth COVID-19 wave has shown few signs of abating even after the toughest Level 4 distancing rules, which include a ban on gatherings of more than two people after 6 p.m., in the greater Seoul area for six weeks.
Most other regions are under Level 3 curbs, which include a ban on gatherings of more than four people at any time and a 10 p.m. curfew for cafes and restaurants.
The government is expected to extend the curbs on Friday, possibly for the four weeks leading up to the Korean thanksgiving holiday of Chuseok next month, when normally tens of millions of people travel across the country.
A shortage of vaccines has meant only 21.1% of the 52 million population is fully vaccinated as of Wednesday, while about 47% have had at least one dose, according to the KDCA.
South Korea aims to fully immunize some 70% of the population by October, though some experts have questioned the feasibility of that goal given vaccine shipment delays.
Retrieved from：https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/skorea-covid-19-count-ticks-up-authorities-consider-tougher-distancing-2021-08-19/
By Daniel E. Slotnik and Dan Levin
Evacuees from Kabul being tested for the coronavirus upon their arrival at Tashkent Airport in Uzbekistan on Tuesday.Credit...Marc Tessensohn/Bundeswehr, via Getty Images
World Health Organization officials warned on Wednesday that the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was impeding efforts to address the coronavirus pandemic and other dire health crises.
Gauging the spread of the coronavirus in Afghanistan has always been difficult because of a lack of testing. The average daily number of reported new cases peaked in late June at more than 2,000 and has since fallen sharply, according to the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford. But it is likely that the figures do not reflect the actual spread of the virus.
Afghanistan’s vaccination efforts have struggled since they began in the spring, beset by corruption, limited public health resources and widespread public skepticism. According to Our World in Data, less than 2 percent of Afghanistan’s population has been vaccinated.
“In the midst of a pandemic, we’re extremely concerned by the large displacement of people and increasing cases of diarrhea, malnutrition, high blood pressure, probable cases of Covid-19 and reproductive health complications,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O.’s director general, said at a news conference.
He said that agency staff members were still in Afghanistan and were “committed to delivering health services to the most vulnerable.”
Many Afghans are vulnerable to diseases like polio, which has been eradicated in most of the world but is still endemic there. Fourteen million Afghans are suffering from hunger, United Nations officials said on Wednesday.
Aid groups are struggling to provide humanitarian assistance inside Afghanistan and to the tens of thousands of refugees a week who are fleeing to neighboring countries. Refugee camps, with their crowded and often unsanitary conditions, can become incubators for the virus, though many camps have fared better than experts initially feared they would.
U.N. officials said that their agencies in Afghanistan were in contact with the Taliban in an effort to coordinate aid and immunizations. Caroline Van Buren, a representative of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said the Taliban had so far provided protection for all of the refugee agency’s offices in the country.
Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/08/18/world/covid-delta-variant-vaccine/covid-is-just-one-of-afghanistans-many-health-concerns
Inside a monitoring room observing Covid wards at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, Israel, on Wednesday.Credit...Ammar Awad/Reuters
Last spring, Israel’s remarkably swift vaccination campaign was seen as a global model. Coronavirus infections plummeted, an electronic pass allowed the vaccinated to attend indoor concerts and sporting events, and distancing rules and mask mandates were eventually scrapped.
Israel offered the world a hopeful glimpse of the way out of the pandemic.
No longer.
A fourth wave of infections is rapidly approaching the levels of Israel’s worst days of the pandemic last winter. The daily rate of confirmed new virus cases has more than doubled in the last two weeks, making Israel a rising hot spot on the international charts.
Restrictions on gatherings and commercial and entertainment venues were reinstated this week, and the government is considering a new lockdown.
“I believe we are at war,” Israel’s coronavirus commissioner, Prof. Salman Zarka, told a parliamentary committee on Wednesday.
Scientists are still assessing how Israel’s pandemic response plunged from shining example to cautionary tale, and the stunning reversal has provided a crucial test for Israel’s new prime minister, Naftali Bennett, who staked a claim for leadership partly on the strength of his manifesto, “How to Beat a Pandemic.”
But some experts fear that Israel’s high rate of infections among early vaccine recipients may indicate a waning of the vaccine’s protections over time, a finding that contributed to a U.S. decision Wednesday to begin offering booster shots to Americans widely starting next month.
By Ana Ionova
An earthquake victim received treatment on Wednesday at the Ofatma Hospital in Les Cayes, Haiti. With disaster victims crowding the island’s hospitals, fewer resources are available for Covid-19 patients, W.H.O. officials warned. Credit...Reginald Louissaint Jr/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The recent deadly earthquake in southern Haiti and flash flooding from a tropical storm have set back efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic and administer vaccines in the country, World Health Organization officials said on Wednesday.
“The earthquake aftermath combined with the Covid-19 pandemic presents a very challenging situation for the people of Haiti,” Dr. Carissa Etienne, director of the Pan American Health Organization, a part of the W.H.O., said at a news briefing.
The disasters, she said, have added another major burden to an already strained health care system in an impoverished country that has been going through a political crisis since the assassination of its president last month.
The powerful 7.2-magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti’s southern peninsula over the weekend left at least 1,941 people dead and about 9,900 more injured. Heavy rains from Tropical Storm Grace then swept the country on Monday and Tuesday, touching off flash floods and landslides. According to the W.H.O., four health facilities in the country were destroyed in the disasters, and 20 more were damaged.
As overwhelmed hospitals turn their attention to disaster victims, fewer resources are available to treat Covid-19, Dr. Etienne said. It has also become more difficult to move medical supplies and personnel around the country. And it is difficult to keep the coronavirus from spreading readily in crowded emergency shelters.
“With disruptive storms and hurricanes, the potential for an increase in cases is very high,” she added.
Coronavirus vaccines were slow to trickle into Haiti even before the disasters. The 500,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine that reached Haiti last month through the Covax vaccine-sharing initiative were the first significant supplies to reach the country. Only 21,000 people had received a dose by Tuesday, with health workers first in line, according to Dr. Jarbas Barbosa, the assistant director of P.A.H.O.
“We are working with the Ministry of Health to expedite the process,” Dr. Barbosa said, adding that access to vaccination was especially important in the earthquake zone where people are living in makeshift shelters.
Only about one in five people in Latin America is fully vaccinated so far, and vaccine supplies have been slow to arrive in many countries. In Caribbean and Central American nations, Dr. Barbosa said, vaccine hesitancy is emerging as a major new threat to immunization.
At the same time, new case reports have been rising sharply, Dr. Etienne said, with spikes in Jamaica, Cuba, Costa Rica, Dominica and Belize.
As hurricane season intensifies over the next few months, officials will remain “vigilant,” she said, about further strains on health care systems in vulnerable countries that could hamper efforts to reduce Covid-19 transmission.
Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/08/18/world/covid-delta-variant-vaccine/haiti-covid-earthquake-floods
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
· US health officials recommended offering booster shots to all American adults who received the Pfizer or Moderna coronavirus vaccine. The US expects to offer booster shots starting the week of September 20, and health officials urged Americans to get their third dose eight months after receiving their second shot. Joe Biden endorsed the recommendation, saying in a speech this afternoon, “It’s the best way to protect ourselves from new variants that could arise.”
· The World Health Organization criticized the US plan to distribute booster shots, given the lack of available vaccines in many low-income countries. WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, “Vaccine injustice is a shame on all humanity, and if we don’t tackle it together, we will prolong the acute stage of this pandemic for years when it could be over in a matter of months.”
· Biden directed the department of health and human services to develop regulations requiring nursing homes to mandate coronavirus vaccinations for employees in order to receive Medicare or Medicaid funding. Noting that coronavirus vaccination rates among nursing home staff are significantly lower than those of the larger US population, Biden said, “I’m using the power of the federal government, as a payer of health care costs, to ensure we reduce those risks to our most vulnerable seniors.”
· The US embassy told Americans still in Afghanistan that it “cannot ensure safe passage to the Hamid Karzai international airport”. The embassy’s update came amid reports that some people have been beaten at Taliban checkpoints near the airport, preventing them from boarding departing flights.
· The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff insisted that he had not seen US intelligence suggesting Kabul could fall to the Taliban in a matter of days, contradicting reports that military leaders were warned of such a possibility. “There was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days,” General Mark Milley said at a press conference this afternoon.
Medicine
