Country, Other	Total Cases	New Cases	Total Deaths
World	230,279,819	+470,099	4,721,686
USA	43,242,302	+120,579	696,867
India	33,530,077	+27,333	445,801
Brazil	21,247,094	+12,582	591,518
UK	7,496,543	+31,564	135,455
Russia	7,313,851	+19,179	199,808
France	6,964,699	+7,851	116,251
Turkey	6,904,285	+29,338	62,065
Iran	5,459,796	+17,564	117,905
Argentina	5,243,231	+1,837	114,579
Colombia	4,943,622	+1,373	125,962
Spain	4,937,984	+2,450	85,983
Italy	4,641,890	+3,377	130,421
Indonesia	4,195,958	+3,263	140,805
Germany	4,164,392	+7,279	93,719
Mexico	3,573,044	+3,367	271,765
Poland	2,899,008	+711	75,503
South Africa	2,886,331	+2,197	86,376
Philippines	2,401,916	+16,361	37,074
Ukraine	2,355,805	+5,159	55,056
Peru	2,168,431	+779	199,060
Malaysia	2,127,934	+15,759	24,078
Netherlands	1,987,905	+1,664	18,128
Iraq	1,981,493	+3,081	21,911
Czechia	1,686,851	+489	30,442
Japan	1,679,116	+2,224	17,233
Chile	1,648,026	+280	37,374
Canada	1,585,732	+3,822	27,488
Bangladesh	1,545,800	+1,562	27,277
Thailand	1,500,105	+10,919	15,612
Israel	1,242,262	+7,198	7,567
Pakistan	1,227,905	+1,897	27,327
Belgium	1,224,885	+1,699	25,517
Romania	1,158,841	+6,789	35,721
Portugal	1,063,100	+780	17,925
Morocco	922,222	+1,848	14,009
Serbia	879,342	+7,232	7,846
Kazakhstan	864,955	+2,093	10,810
Hungary	818,520	+289	30,141
Cuba	818,200	+8,289	6,919
Jordan	815,546	+870	10,633
Nepal	786,577	+1,036	11,053
UAE	733,325	+322	2,078
Austria	726,674	+1,240	10,918
Vietnam	707,436	+11,692	17,545
Tunisia	700,807	+407	24,553
Greece	636,596	+3,040	14,548
Lebanon	619,232	+652	8,246
Georgia	598,396	+2,470	8,621
Saudi Arabia	546,681	+69	8,672
Guatemala	533,744	+3,718	13,115
Belarus	520,286	+1,917	4,028
Costa Rica	513,384	+2,731	6,098
Sri Lanka	507,330	+1,321	12,284
Bolivia	497,386	+286	18,664
Bulgaria	486,738	+2,192	20,224
Azerbaijan	475,053	+1,594	6,353
Panama	464,781	+341	7,178
Paraguay	459,695	+30	16,136
Myanmar	449,845	+1,687	17,202
Kuwait	411,278	+45	2,441
Slovakia	403,802	+880	12,580
Croatia	393,285	+1,037	8,526
Palestine	388,470	+1,977	3,952
Uruguay	387,922	+178	6,049
Ireland	377,937	+1,420	5,179
Honduras	359,768	+818	9,537
Venezuela	357,322	+1,060	4,329
Dominican Republic	355,721	+343	4,029
Denmark	355,257	+344	2,633
Ethiopia	335,273	+1,575	5,207
Libya	333,064	+1,038	4,533
Lithuania	317,852	+1,155	4,837
Oman	303,490	+31	4,093
Egypt	298,296	+688	17,016
S. Korea	289,263	+1,727	2,413
Slovenia	285,079	+1,308	4,506
Moldova	283,950	+1,300	6,617
Mongolia	280,540	+2,543	1,132
Bahrain	274,452	+69	1,388
Armenia	254,436	+494	5,161
Kenya	246,956	+313	5,008
Qatar	235,769	+143	604
Zambia	208,599	+97	3,639
Nigeria	202,704	+513	2,664
Algeria	201,948	+182	5,725
North Macedonia	187,622	+554	6,489
Norway	183,402	+484	841
Kyrgyzstan	177,869	+89	2,592
Uzbekistan	169,467	+529	1,197
Albania	164,276	+872	2,594
Afghanistan	154,756	+44	7,193
Latvia	151,243	+494	2,658
Estonia	150,605	+463	1,333
Mozambique	150,201	+134	1,903
Finland	137,117	+860	1,051
Suriname	38,137	+547	819
Aruba	15,305	+31	159

 

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

 

 

 

J&J says second shot boosts protection for moderate-severe COVID-19 to 94%

By Julie Steenhuysen

 

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) said Tuesday a second shot of its COVID-19 vaccine given about two months after the first increased its effectiveness to 94% in the United States against moderate to severe forms of the disease.

That compares to 70% protection with a single dose.

The data will help J&J make its case to U.S. regulators for a booster shot even as the company stresses the durability of its single-shot vaccine as a tool to ease the global pandemic.

President Joe Biden is pushing for booster shots in the face of surging hospitalizations caused by the Delta variant and J&J, the only drugmaker with a single-shot COVID-19 vaccine approved in the United States, has been under pressure to produce evidence on the effectiveness of an additional dose.

The company has now "generated evidence that a booster shot further increases protection against COVID-19," Dr. Paul Stoffels, J&J’s chief scientific officer, said in a statement.

J&J said a booster given two months after the first dose increased antibody levels four to six-fold. When given six months after the first dose, antibody levels shot up twelve-fold, data released last month showed, suggesting a large improvement in protection with the longer interval between doses.

Side effects with two doses were comparable to those seen in studies with the single-dose vaccine. The data is yet to be peer reviewed but will be submitted for publication in the coming months.

To date, only Pfizer Inc (PFE.N)/BioNTech SE have submitted sufficient data for U.S. regulators to evaluate whether boosters are warranted ahead of the Biden Administration's Sept. 20 deadline for rolling out booster shots. A decision on that vaccine is expected this week.

 

Vials with a sticker reading, "COVID-19 / Coronavirus vaccine / Injection only" and a medical syringe are seen in front of a displayed Johnson & Johnson logo in this illustration taken October 31, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File Photo/File Photo

On Friday, an FDA advisory committee voted to recommend emergency authorization of additional Pfizer shots for Americans 65 and older and those at high risk of severe illness, but voted to recommend against broader approval, saying they want to see more data.

J&J said it has submitted data to the FDA and plans to submit it to other regulators, the World Health Organization and other vaccine advisory groups worldwide to inform their decision-making.

The Phase III two-dose trial of up to 30,000 participants tested the effectiveness of a second dose given 56 days after the first in adults 18 and older.

While the study found that two doses of the J&J vaccine was 94% effective in the United States at preventing moderate to severe disease, there was only 1 case in the vaccine group and 14 in the placebo group, resulting in a wide confidence interval and raising questions about the certainty of the result.

The study had a short follow-up period of around 36 days, but found that a second dose was well tolerated, the company said.

The company also said on Tuesday that evidence from a separate real world study of nearly 400,000 people in the United States who got the J&J shot showed the vaccine was 79% effective at preventing COVID-19 infections and 81% effective at preventing hospitalizations compared with 1.52 million people of similar ages, genders and health issues who were unvaccinated.

J&J said there was no evidence of reduced effectiveness over the study's duration from March to late July - a period that included the impact of the Delta variant.

Vaccine effectiveness in the real world study varied by age. For those under age 60, the vaccine was 86% effective at preventing hospitalization versus 78% for those 60 and older.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/jj-says-second-shot-boosts-protection-moderate-severe-covid-19-94-2021-09-21/

 

 

 

Brazil and Argentina tapped to make mRNA vaccines in Latin America

 

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has selected two biomedical centers in Argentina and Brazil as regional hubs to develop and produce mRNA-based vaccines to fight COVID-19 in Latin America, the regional health agency said on Tuesday.

The idea is to tap existing manufacturing capacities to help transfer vaccine technology developed by Moderna (MRNA.O) in the United States to a region badly hit by the coronavirus and still without access to enough vaccines.

The Bio-Manguinhos Institute of Technology on Immunobiologicals at Fiocruz, Brazil's premier biomedical lab, was picked for its history of vaccine manufacturing, and has already made "promising advances" developing mRNA vaccine technology, PAHO said. Sinergium Biotech, a private sector biopharmaceutical company, was selected as the center in Argentina and will partner with pharmaceutical lab mAbxience of the same group to develop and manufacture active vaccine ingredients.

The Americas branch of the World Health Organization said vaccine manufacture should benefit the entire region, with distribution funded by PAHO's Revolving Fund.

A similar effort in Africa to develop COVID-19 vaccine production replicating Moderna's shot has been slowed by talks with the U.S. company, a WHO official told Reuters last week.

Moderna said in October it would not enforce patents related to its shot during the pandemic, raising hopes that other companies might be able to copy its vaccine and help boost global production.

In practice, though, it is hard to replicate a vaccine without the information on how it is made, and the WHO-backed tech transfer hub in South Africa has so far not reached a deal with the company.

The Americas region has borne the brunt of COVID-19 infections to date, with 87.6 million cases recorded and over 2.16 million lives lost. Yet vaccine distribution continues to be unequal, PAHO has said, with few countries in the region reaching the year-end 40% vaccine target set by the WHO.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/brazil-argentina-tapped-make-mrna-vaccines-latin-america-2021-09-21/

 

 

 

How India flipped its vaccine fortunes

By Krishna N. Das

 

A woman receives a dose of COVAXIN coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine manufactured by Bharat Biotech, during a vaccination drive at an under-construction flyover in New Delhi, India, August 31, 2021. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

 

Only months ago, India ran so short of COVID-19 vaccines that computer experts wrote software code to help people snag scarce immunisation slots and the then health minister had to constantly battle opposition criticism on social media.

The minister later quit and in came a little-known but hands-on politician, Mansukh Mandaviya, who, according to a person close to him, communicates with vaccine producers on a near daily basis and tries to resolve their problems promptly.

Vaccine supplies have surged.

Government officials say they are confident of fully immunizing nearly all adults by December, giving it the confidence to announce a gradual restart of vaccine exports in the October quarter, for the first time since April when a second surge in infections overwhelmed hospitals. read more

That will help the sputtering global COVAX vaccine-sharing programme, which is far behind its pledge to deliver 2 billion doses this year following supply problems and India's export curbs.

The GAVI vaccine alliance, which sponsors the programme along with the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the CEPI, this month cut COVAX's supply target by nearly 30% to 1.425 billion doses. read more

"This could have an immense positive impact on both health security within India as well as globally," a GAVI spokesperson told Reuters about the export announcement on Monday.

"Our priority right now is to engage with the government of India and Serum Institute of India (SII) to understand the impact this will have on our supply schedule."

The turnaround is chiefly thanks to the SII, which is cranking up more doses of AstraZeneca's (AZN.L) COVID-19 shot than the government's most optimistic projection.

SII would supply 200 million doses of the vaccine, branded Covishield, to the government this month, compared with about 150 million the previous month, said a government source who declined to be identified. read more

NEW PRODUCTION LINES

The government said in May that Covishield output could reach 750 million doses between August and December, but the actual output could be more than 900 million, said two other sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

"The company added new lines, got quick approvals to divert a line meant for some other vaccine," said one of the sources.

It now has five production lines making Covishield, up from just two in April, according to the source. The person said SII's monthly output could go as high as 215 million doses.

The health ministry and SII did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bharat Biotech, the producer of India's first domestically developed shot, Covaxin, told Reuters its monthly output would nearly treble to 100 million doses by the end of the year.

SII also received funding and diplomatic help from the government that ensured supplies of raw material from the United States following a plea on social media and elsewhere.

That enabled India, which has reported the most number of infections in the world after the United States, to ramp up its vaccination campaign, giving at least one dose to 65% of its 944 million adults and the necessary two doses to 22%.

Health Minister Mandaviya told reporters on Monday that he expected overall domestic vaccine production to exceed 1 billion doses in the October-December quarter, which would be more than enough to meet domestic demand.

India is the world's biggest vaccine maker and its companies including SII, Bharat Biotech and Biological E, which does bottling work for Johnson & Johnson's (JNJ.N) COVID-19 shot, have trebled their capacity to make nearly 3 billion doses a year, much of which could be available for overseas sale from next year.

"We will keep producing more to meet our needs and also export," Mandaviya said.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/world/india/how-india-flipped-its-vaccine-fortunes-2021-09-21/

 

 

 

Construction workers in Melbourne protest mandatory vaccinations

By Yan Zhuang

 

Up to 2,000 protesters took to the streets in Melbourne, Australia, for the second day in a row, angry over new workplace vaccination requirements.CreditCredit...Darrian Traynor/Getty Images

Construction workers in Melbourne, Australia, clashed violently with the police for the second day in a row on Tuesday in a dispute over mandatory vaccinations.

Up to 2,000 protesters descended into the city’s central business district, the police said. Videos posted to social media showed workers hurling bottles at the police and setting off flares, while officers in riot gear fired rubber bullets and used pepper spray. One TV journalist said he had urine thrown in his face.

The protests began after the state government in Victoria, where Melbourne is the largest city, mandated vaccinations for workers as it struggles to contain a quickly growing outbreak of the Delta variant. The demonstrators have promised to keep protesting, chanting “every day” as they marched.

The union representing construction workers has not supported mandatory vaccinations but has distanced itself from the protests, saying they were “heavily infiltrated by neo-Nazis and other right-wing extremist groups.”

Police officers standing guard during the protest in Melbourne on Tuesday.Credit...William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Construction has been among the few industries that have largely stayed open throughout the pandemic in Victoria but the authorities have become increasingly concerned that it may be a hotbed for coronavirus transmission.

After media reports last week that three out of four construction sites were breaching virus safety rules, the state government mandated vaccinations for workers in the industry.

Australian authorities have been reluctant to mandate vaccinations beyond high-risk sectors like health care.

In response, construction workers staged sit-ins on Friday, before escalating to protests this week. On Monday, a small number of workers gathered in front of the offices of the construction union and threw projectiles at the building.

Hours later, Victoria’s premier, Daniel Andrews, ordered a two-week halt on all construction work in the state, citing “continued concern about case numbers, transmission risk and reduced compliance.”

On Tuesday afternoon, the police said they had made 44 arrests, with the number expected to grow, and that three officers had been injured and police cars attacked and damaged.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/21/world/australia/australia-melbourne-vaccine-mandate-protest.html

 

 

 

Greece benefits from an early opening to tourists

By Niki Kitsantonis

 

Greece drew 4.5 million foreign visitors in the first seven months of the year, an increase of 51.4 percent over 2020 for the same period.Credit...Maria Mavropoulou for The New York Times

 

Greece, which was among the first countries to ease coronavirus restrictions for travelers, saw a surge in foreign visitors this summer, according to official data released on Tuesday by the country’s central bank.

Greece drew 4.5 million foreign visitors in the first seven months of the year, an increase of 51.4 percent over 2020 for the same period, when the pandemic battered the country’s crucial tourism sector, figures from the Bank of Greece showed. For the same period in 2019, the country attracted 15 million people, and more than 34 million over the whole year.

For summer travelers, Greece, which opened its borders in May, touted its relatively low infection rate, especially on its islands, and its enforcement of coronavirus hygiene rules, like social distancing at hotels and limited-capacity restaurants.

July was a strong month with 2.8 million foreign visitors choosing Greece for their summer holidays, a 240 percent increase from last year.

Arrivals from European Union countries were up 81 percent in the first seven months of 2021 over 2020. In July, almost 100,000 travelers came from the United States. During the same period last year, American travelers were barred from Greece.

At the end of last month, the European Union proposed new travel restrictions for unvaccinated travelers from the United States in response to a sharp surge in coronavirus infections and hospitalizations. But the suggested action is not mandatory and Greece has not indicated that it will reintroduce restrictions.

Greece’s tourism minister, Vassilis Kikilias, on Tuesday welcomed the U.S. decision to lift pandemic travel restrictions on foreign nationals who are fully vaccinated against coronavirus. “This means flights will come back full,” he said.

The improvement drew much-needed revenue for Greece’s tourism sector, a key pillar of the economy, accounting for around 20 percent of gross domestic product and one in five jobs. Income from tourism increased by 139.7 percent in the first seven months of the year, to 3.38 billion euros, or $3.9 billion, according to the central bank figures.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/09/21/world/covid-delta-variant-vaccine/greece-benefits-from-an-early-opening-to-tourists

 

 

 

Summary

 

Hello and welcome to today’s live coronavirus coverage. 

Brazil’s health minister tested positive for Covid in New York after President Jair Bolsonaro spoke at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday. Brazil’s government said in a statement that Marcelo Quiroga was in good health and would remain in isolation in the United States. He got his first shot of coronavirus vaccine in January.

India’s foreign minister on Tuesday urged Britain to remove a rule requiring Indians visiting there to quarantine even if they are fully vaccinated.

Here are the other key recent developments:

· Cambridge University in England has reported that 96% of 12,000 students said that they had received a Covid-19 vaccination, or intended to get one, before arriving in the city for the new academic year.

· Around 20% of workers in Nigeria have lost their jobs as a result of Covid-19.

· US President Joe Biden is betting on millions more rapid, at-home tests to help curb the latest deadly wave of the Covid-19 pandemic

· The United Nations secretary- general, António Guterres, described the world as getting an “F in ethics” over global vaccine distribution as he spoke at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday. He said the inequitable distribution of Covid-19 vaccines is an “obscenity”.

· The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has warned that uneven vaccine distribution globally is affecting economic recovery from the pandemic.

· The mass take-up of the UK’s NHS app in order to use the Covid Pass feature has led to a surge in people registering their organ donation preference.

· Long Covid patients told a UK parliamentary committee that they are “struggling’” to get help on the NHS.

· The EU is expected to accept the NHS Covid pass as proof of vaccination across the union within days.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/sep/22/coronavirus-live-news-brazil-health-minister-tests-positive-at-un-india-urges-uk-to-resolve-quarantine-dispute?page=with:block-614aadc78f0819bbf20b5e14#block-614aadc78f0819bbf20b5e14