i_need_contribute
|
Country, |
Total |
New |
Total |
|
World |
219,921,897 |
+678,913 |
4,555,827 |
|
40,513,018 |
+177,568 |
662,853 |
|
|
32,902,345 |
+45,482 |
439,916 |
|
|
20,830,712 |
+26,497 |
582,004 |
|
|
6,956,318 |
+18,985 |
184,812 |
|
|
6,862,904 |
+38,154 |
132,920 |
|
|
6,799,240 |
+15,911 |
114,680 |
|
|
6,435,773 |
+23,496 |
57,283 |
|
|
5,195,601 |
+4,653 |
112,195 |
|
|
5,055,512 |
+30,279 |
108,988 |
|
|
4,913,031 |
+1,949 |
125,097 |
|
|
4,871,444 |
+9,561 |
84,640 |
|
|
4,553,241 |
+6,761 |
129,352 |
|
|
4,109,093 |
+8,955 |
134,356 |
|
|
3,983,983 |
+13,950 |
92,794 |
|
|
3,369,747 |
+17,337 |
260,503 |
|
|
2,889,412 |
+390 |
75,367 |
|
|
2,796,405 |
+9,202 |
82,914 |
|
|
2,290,848 |
+2,477 |
53,877 |
|
|
2,152,118 |
+1,108 |
198,364 |
|
|
2,020,484 |
+16,621 |
33,680 |
|
|
1,946,655 |
+2,773 |
18,017 |
|
|
1,902,407 |
+6,948 |
20,934 |
|
|
1,786,004 |
+20,988 |
17,191 |
|
|
1,679,740 |
+263 |
30,404 |
|
|
1,639,698 |
+575 |
36,995 |
|
|
1,507,223 |
+20,031 |
16,123 |
|
|
1,507,116 |
+3,436 |
26,362 |
|
|
1,507,053 |
+4,034 |
26,991 |
|
|
1,234,487 |
+14,956 |
12,103 |
|
|
1,187,506 |
+2,842 |
25,382 |
|
|
1,167,791 |
+4,103 |
25,978 |
|
|
1,101,678 |
+1,470 |
34,617 |
|
|
1,096,881 |
+10,006 |
7,122 |
|
|
1,042,322 |
+2,830 |
17,766 |
|
|
872,351 |
+5,383 |
12,819 |
|
|
812,793 |
+262 |
30,060 |
|
|
798,984 |
+893 |
10,442 |
|
|
798,671 |
+4,880 |
9,495 |
|
|
769,803 |
+3,524 |
7,322 |
|
|
765,914 |
+1,619 |
10,786 |
|
|
720,330 |
+975 |
2,043 |
|
|
691,663 |
+1,510 |
10,778 |
|
|
668,051 |
+1,883 |
23,647 |
|
|
665,672 |
+6,208 |
5,464 |
|
|
604,409 |
+1,121 |
8,070 |
|
|
593,668 |
+2,836 |
13,702 |
|
|
556,909 |
+3,212 |
7,563 |
|
|
544,811 |
+177 |
8,560 |
|
|
491,340 |
+461 |
18,473 |
|
|
486,727 |
+13,197 |
12,138 |
|
|
485,067 |
+1,836 |
3,803 |
|
|
479,376 |
+3,828 |
12,098 |
|
|
469,565 |
+2,991 |
5,540 |
|
|
459,051 |
+1,564 |
19,001 |
|
|
458,716 |
+102 |
15,821 |
|
|
458,638 |
+481 |
7,069 |
|
|
447,757 |
+3,627 |
9,604 |
|
|
432,495 |
+3,759 |
5,722 |
|
|
410,072 |
+111 |
2,421 |
|
|
406,099 |
+3,459 |
15,600 |
|
|
395,300 |
+178 |
12,548 |
|
|
385,264 |
+186 |
6,034 |
|
|
375,601 |
+798 |
8,349 |
|
|
347,730 |
+2,773 |
3,699 |
|
|
347,212 |
+694 |
2,584 |
|
|
341,518 |
+1,677 |
8,974 |
|
|
337,359 |
+1,271 |
4,056 |
|
|
312,116 |
+1,479 |
4,286 |
|
|
310,994 |
+1,643 |
4,711 |
|
|
302,466 |
+73 |
4,070 |
|
|
300,348 |
+816 |
4,584 |
|
|
289,035 |
+303 |
16,755 |
|
|
272,709 |
+74 |
1,388 |
|
|
268,892 |
+787 |
6,411 |
|
|
268,636 |
+666 |
4,453 |
|
|
255,401 |
+1,956 |
2,303 |
|
|
243,386 |
+636 |
4,876 |
|
|
237,851 |
+970 |
4,746 |
|
|
233,087 |
+177 |
602 |
|
|
221,351 |
+3,805 |
948 |
|
|
206,705 |
+183 |
3,608 |
|
|
196,915 |
+388 |
5,339 |
|
|
193,644 |
+631 |
2,488 |
|
|
178,159 |
+760 |
5,987 |
|
|
176,018 |
+142 |
2,536 |
|
|
163,364 |
+1,550 |
822 |
|
|
159,317 |
+2,390 |
2,276 |
|
|
157,872 |
+736 |
1,093 |
|
|
114,366 |
+235 |
508 |
|
|
14,719 |
+57 |
148 |
Retrieved from: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Students returned to in-person learning last month at Normont Elementary in Los Angeles.Credit...Allison Zaucha for The New York Times
As the United States confronts its worst moment of the pandemic since the winter, there is a group of 48 million people who do not have the option of getting a vaccine: children under 12.
Because a vaccine is not yet authorized for young children, and may not be for some time, their families are left in a particularly difficult position heading into this school year.
“Waiting for a vaccine for the under-12 set has started to feel like waiting for Godot,” said Dana Gilbert, 49, of Minneapolis. Her 11-year-old son was born prematurely and has special needs, and a family doctor advised that he not return to school in person until a vaccine is available.
Her plan is to wait out the clock: Keep him at home until a vaccine is authorized for emergency use, or until he turns 12 next year, whichever comes first.
The timeline for a vaccine for children under 12 — initially expected by this fall — appears to have slowed, as officials consider safety, effectiveness and dosage. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, recently indicated that a vaccine could become available to young children “hopefully by the mid, late fall and early winter.” Shots for children ages 5 to 11 are expected first; children as young as six months may have to wait longer.
In interviews, many parents of children under 12 described feeling increasingly desperate, angry and backed into a corner as they reluctantly send their children into the classroom this fall — or resort to drastic actions to keep them safe.
Others are less worried, but equally frustrated as they head into another school year marked by pandemic rules. In some cases, mandates are being applied most stringently to young children not eligible for a vaccine.
“It doesn’t feel like there are any good options at this point,” said Adina Ellis, 45, who tossed and turned in bed for hours the night before school started this week in Washington, D.C., racked with indecision about whether to send her 6-year-old son, Cassius.
On the first day of school, Ms. Ellis rose before dawn, sat on her front porch with her husband and made a “game-time decision,” she said, to drop her son off at school. Watching him walk up the steps, carrying a Hot Wheels backpack, some part of her became resigned to the possibility that he may get infected.
“That thought will haunt me for as long as he’s going to school unvaccinated,” she said.
By John Yoon
Receiving hand sanitizer before entering a school in Pyongyang, North Korea, in June.Credit...Kim Won Jin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
SEOUL — North Korea has declined an offer of 2.97 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine, saying they should be sent to countries with worse outbreaks instead, a spokesperson for UNICEF, the United Nations agency for children, said on Wednesday.
The shipment of vaccines was funded by the global vaccine-sharing initiative called Covax that distributes shots to lower-income countries. North Korea said that the vaccines may be “relocated to severely affected countries,” the spokesperson said.
Having a decrepit public health system, North Korea shut its borders in January 2020 and declined other international aid, for fear that outside help might bring in Covid-19, which could overwhelm its public health system and damage an economy that was already struggling under international sanctions. The country continues to maintain that it has no virus cases, but outside health experts are skeptical.
UNICEF, which helps deliver the shots on behalf of Covax, said that North Korea’s public health ministry turned away the shipment citing the limited global supply of Covid-19 vaccines and continuing virus surges elsewhere. The North has said it will “continue to communicate with Covax facility to receive Covid-19 vaccines in the coming months,” the U.N. agency added.
A spokesperson for Gavi, the nonprofit leading Covax, said that it was continuing to work with the North Korean authorities to help respond to the pandemic.
Before declining the Sinovac vaccines, North Korea was expected to receive nearly two million doses of the AstraZeneca shot by the middle of this year for a population of about 25 million, according to a report by Covax from February. North Korea never accepted this shipment.
It has also attempted to steal Covid-19 vaccine technology by hacking international pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer Inc., a South Korean lawmaker said earlier this year after a briefing by government intelligence officials.
Such attempts were part of numerous cyber-hacking activities initiated daily by North Korea, Ha Tae-keung, a lawmaker affiliated with the opposition People Power Party, told South Korean reporters in February. Mr. Ha, who provided no further details, spoke after he and other lawmakers were briefed by senior officials from the National Intelligence Service during the closed-door briefing. The National Intelligence Service declined to confirm Mr. Ha’s comment, citing its policy of not confirming information from closed-door parliamentary briefings.
Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/09/02/world/covid-delta-variant-vaccine/north-korea-refuses-nearly-3-million-doses-of-covid-19-vaccine
President Biden during a tour of a Pfizer manufacturing site, in February, in Kalamazoo, Mich.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
The White House, under pressure to do more to address the global coronavirus pandemic, said Thursday that it will invest $2.7 billion to ramp up domestic production of critical vaccine components as part of President Biden’s push to make the United States the “arsenal of vaccines for the world.”
The money will go to firms doing business in the United States that make supplies necessary for vaccine production, including lipids, bioreactor bags, tubing, needles and syringes, officials said. It will come from funds appropriated by Congress through the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion economic stimulus package Mr. Biden signed into law in March.
“This new investment will further expand domestic vaccine manufacturing capacity, helping the U.S. deliver on its commitment to be the arsenal of vaccines for the world and preparing America for future vaccination efforts,” said Jeffrey D. Zients, Mr. Biden’s coronavirus response coordinator, who announced the effort during a briefing with reporters.
Details, however, were scant. The Department of Health and Human Services is in the “final stages” of awarding contracts for the work, and will make announcements in the coming weeks, according to a White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the investment. Neither the official or Mr. Zients could provide an estimate of how many doses the investment would yield.
But Mr. Zients said that investing in the supply chain would also “create thousands of good paying American jobs.”
Mr. Biden has already either donated or pledged about 600 million vaccine doses to other countries — a small fraction of the 11 billion that experts say are needed to slow the spread of the virus worldwide. His administration has also taken steps to expand coronavirus vaccine manufacturing in the United States and India, and is supporting production in South Africa and Senegal to expand access to locally produced vaccines in Africa.
But the president has come under increasing criticism in recent weeks from global health advocates and experts who say he is nowhere near fulfilling his “arsenal” promise. Their outrage grew after the administration announced last month that it was recommending booster doses for all Americans — even before the Food and Drug Administration has had a chance to weigh in on whether such doses are necessary.
Worldwide, 81 percent of shots that have been administered have been in high- and upper-middle-income countries, according to the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford. Only 0.4 percent of doses have been administered in low-income countries.
Activists have been calling for the Biden administration to ramp up vaccine manufacturing around the world as well as in the United States. They also want the administration to press major vaccine makers to share their recipes and technical know-how with other companies — a process known as “tech transfer,” which Thursday’s announcement did not address.
“Major investments in urgent vaccine manufacturing are desperately needed, and after today’s announcement, still far more is needed to make the billions of doses lacking to end the pandemic,” said Peter Maybarduk of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, which has proposed a $25 billion investment to retrofit manufacturing facilities around the world, with the goal of making 8 billion doses of mRNA vaccine in one year.
Congress put a total of $16.05 billion in the American Rescue Plan this year, in two separate tranches, that could be used to procure and manufacture treatments, vaccines and tools for ending the pandemic. But in an analysis released last week, the AIDS advocacy group PrEP4All found that all told, the administration had spent $145 million — just $12 million of it from the American Rescue Plan — to expand vaccine manufacturing.
James Krellenstein, a founder of PrEP4All and the author of the analysis, said Thursday that the $2.7 billion “does seem like a very significant investment” in the vaccine supply chain. But he questioned whether there is adequate capacity to make “drug substance” — the core ingredients of the vaccines — and whether the fresh investment would actually spur major vaccine manufacturers like Pfizer and Moderna to make more doses.
“It’s kind of like there is a massive cake shortage right now, and instead of making more bakeries, we are making more flour and assuming more cakes will be baked,” he said. “The question I have is, ‘Does the Biden administration have any plans to make more bakeries?’”
Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/us/politics/biden-covid-vaccine-production.html
Woman who does street surveys wears a mask and a face shield, during a state of emergency amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Tokyo, Japan August 29, 2021. REUTERS/Androniki Christodoulou
Japan's government is considering easing restrictions on alcohol sales in restaurants and lengthening their opening hours in areas under COVID-19 state of emergency measures, local media reported on Friday.
The restrictions could be eased between October and November depending on the progress in vaccinations, the Yomiuri newspaper reported, citing recommendations by health experts. The government may announce the easing plan after a coronavirus task force meeting on Friday.
Japan is battling its fifth and largest wave of COVID-19 cases, driven by the highly infectious Delta variant. Tokyo and much of the country remain under a state of emergency that is due to expire on Sept. 12. read more
Under the current measures, restaurants have been requested to shorten their hours and refrain from selling alcohol in an effort to reduce foot traffic and behaviours that can lead to contagion.
A panel of experts said on Wednesday that while the overall pace of infections has slowed recently, infections among younger people are high and serious cases remain near record levels, putting serious pressure on the medical system.
Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-considering-easing-some-covid-19-emergency-restrictions-media-2021-09-03/
India reported the biggest single-day rise in Covid-19 cases in two months today, as the government worries about the virus spreading from the most-affected Kerala state, schools reopening, and the start of the festival season.
Densely populated Kerala, on India’s southern tip, accounted for nearly 70% of the 47,092 new infections and a third of deaths, a week after it celebrated its biggest festival during which family and social gatherings were common.
Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said in a statement after speaking with his state counterparts in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, which border Kerala:
With cases rising in Kerala, adequate steps should be taken to contain the inter-state spread of COVID-19.
He asked them to increase vaccination in the districts close to Kerala. India has so far administered 662 million doses, with at least one dose in 54% of its 944 million adults and the required two doses in 16%.
Vaccinations have soared in recent days as supplies have improved. And as more than two-thirds of Indians already have COVID-fighting antibodies, mainly through natural infection, experts think another national surge in cases will be less deadly than the last one in April and May when tens of thousands of people died and hospitals ran out of beds and oxygen.
Also offering hope is a recent non-peer-reviewed study done in Kerala that showed that one dose of the AstraZeneca shot, the mainstay of India’s immunisation drive, generates 30 times more antibodies in previously infected people than fully inoculated ones who never contracted the virus.
India has so far reported about 32.9 million infections, the most in the world after the United States. Deaths went up by 509 on Thursday to a total of 439,529, which experts say is a massive undercount.
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
· North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered officials to wage a tougher epidemic prevention campaign in “our style” after he turned down some foreign Covid-19 vaccines offered via the UN-backed immunisation program.
· Australia has secured 4m doses of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccines in a swap deal with Britain, the prime minister Scott Morrison has said, as he attempts to convince states and territories to stick to a national reopening plan.
· New Zealand has reported 28 new cases of coronavirus in the community, a drop of 21 compared with the previous day, in an “encouraging” sign that the country’s lockdown is working, deputy prime minister Grant Robertson has said.
· Boris Johnson has said the UK needs to “go faster” with the vaccination of 16- to 17-year olds, despite a “strong” uptake within the age group, while a decision on extending vaccinations to 12- to 15-year-olds is expected to be announced imminently, the Guardian understands.
· The US plans to invest $3bn (£2.2bn) in the vaccine supply chain as it continues to work to position the US as a leading supplier of vaccines for the world, Reuters reports.
· The European Union has agreed to send millions of coronavirus vaccine doses made in South Africa back to the continent, AFP reports.
· Schoolchildren in France returned from their summer holidays to be told to get vaccinated by headteachers and the French president Emmanuel Macron.
· Members of the UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) have been sent suspicious packages and hate mail throughout the pandemic, one of the UK’s leading virologists has revealed.
· The popular US podcast host Joe Rogan has tested positive for Covid-19 and is taking ivermectin, a drug more commonly used as a veterinary deworming agent, to treat it.
Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/sep/03/coronavirus-live-news-north-korea-rejects-covax-offer-australia-secures-vaccine-swap-with-uk
Medicine
