The United States, India and Brazil are the top three countries in terms of the number of registered coronavirus infections, while the largest number of COVID-19-related deaths has been observed in the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico, according to Johns Hopkins University.
More and more countries have reported process in their efforts to vaccinate, but lockdowns are not over yet and talk of a booster shot continues.
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MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) - Mexico intends to conduct clinical trials of vaccines against COVID-19 developed by China's Walvax and France's Sanofi, Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said.
"Phase 3 trials are now due to begin for two vaccines, one of which is Walvax, a Chinese RNA vaccine, and Cofepris today announced Sanofi with a recombinant protein," the foreign secretary said in a speech posted on the Mexican Secretariat of Foreign Affairs Twitter.
ROME (Sputnik) - About 70% of the population of San Marino have been fully inoculated against COVID-19, predominantly using Russia's Sputnik V vaccine, the state's heath authority told Sputnik on Monday.
In early April, the European microstate registered a surge in the number of COVID-19 infections with almost 250 new cases per week. By May, the local authorities managed to reduce the infection rate to zero, making San Marino the first European country to defeat the pandemic. Reportedly, about 90% of all vaccinations in the country were conducted using Sputnik V.
"The mass vaccination campaign that began in San Marino thanks to the supply of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, is yielding excellent results. As of now, about 70% of our population received both doses of the drug, which suggests that we will soon reach herd immunity. Vaccines are currently administered to Italians living near San Marino borders and working in the republic, as well as foreign students at our university," the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson stressed that over the past week San Marino has nor registered a single case of the infection. At present, only four people are still quarantining at home with COVID-19.
The US State Department on Monday issued a travel advisory warning Americans to avoid traveling to Japan and Sri Lanka because of the novel coronavirus transmission concerns.
"This week, the following Travel Advisories have been assessed and reissued with updates, raised to a Level 4 - Do Not Travel: Japan, Sri Lanka," the State Department said.
#Bolivia's President Luis Arce Catacora @LuchoXBolivia received the first dose of #SputnikV vaccine & called on the people of Bolivia to join the country's COVID-19 vaccination drive
— Sputnik V (@sputnikvaccine) May 24, 2021
👇https://t.co/2czgtQCuGo
UK-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca will once again fail to deliver another batch of COVID-19 vaccine doses to Poland on time, Michal Dworczyk, the Polish government's vaccination commissioner, said on Monday.
Since March, the pharmaceutical company has repeatedly failed to comply with the agreed timing and volume of vaccine supplies to the country, citing production and supply chain problems. Poland was expected to receive 800,000 vaccine doses this week.
"We have received information that 800,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine that were set to arrive in Poland this week will not arrive," Dworczyk told reporters.
The delay will result in the postponement of the date for vaccinating some residents of the country, the official added.
In March, AstraZeneca confirmed a shortfall in shipments of doses to the EU member states due to "lower-than-expected output from the production process," saying it would only be able to deliver only 70 million out of the expected 180 million doses in the second quarter of 2021.
The disruptions in supply prompted the EU to launch two lawsuits against the vaccine producer over its alleged violations of its advance purchase agreement with the bloc. The legal actions aim at ensuring the on-time delivery of vaccine doses, while the EU does not seek to impose punitive measures on AstraZeneca.
New York City’s public schools will fully reopen in September, with no more remote learning option for its one million students, as the city makes rapid recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Monday.
“New York City Public Schools’ one million kids will be back in their classrooms in September, all in person, no remote,” de Blasio said in an announcement on the MSNBC network. “Everyone's been waiting for this. We're going to be back, strong, ready and safe. COVID is plummeting in this city.”
As of 19 May, the seven-day average of new coronavirus cases in New York City was reported at 629, a drop of around 1,700 from 19 April.
Over 7.6 million vaccine doses had been administered in the city, up from 5.8 million a month prior, according to the city's Health Department.
“It's just amazing to see the forward motion right now, the recovery that's happened in New York City,” de Blasio said. “But you can't have a full recovery without full-strength schools and everyone back sitting in those classrooms, kids learning again. So that's what we're going to have in September.”
New York City was almost entirely shut down a year ago as it became the main COVID-19 hotspot in the United States. Last week, the city’s subway system was fully reopened for the first time in a year to run 24 hours again to facilitate the reopening scheduled for bars, restaurants, theaters and public events.
The southeastern Pakistani province of Sindh has imposed a nighttime curfew starting Tuesday, after seeing a spike in coronavirus cases.
"From 8 p.m. people will not be allowed to travel around the city unnecessarily," the provincial government tweeted.
It said police would be deployed in the streets to impose the restrictions and check vehicles.
The curfew comes a day after the government prolonged the lockdown for another two weeks, ordering businesses to close on Friday and Sunday and restricting commerce to 5 a.m.-6 p.m. schedule during the rest of the week.
Infections have been on the rise in the cities of Karachi, Hyderabad and Sukkur. Ninety patients were admitted in Karachi in the past day, compared to 31 in the capital of Islamabad. The province reported 261 deaths in less than a month, with 604 people being on ventilators.
Spanish Tourism Minister Fernando Valdes said on Monday that he hoped the UK government would move his country from the amber to green category when London reviews its COVID-19 traffic light system for international travel on 7 June.
"I have to expect that on the next review that Spain is going to change its notification," Valdes told Sky News broadcaster.
The Spanish minister said that Madrid is having conversations with UK authorities and trying to provide them with all the information they need to reevaluate the situation.
The Spanish government on Monday lifted travel rules for travellers from the UK, meaning that UK tourists no longer need to take COVID-19 test in order to be allowed to enter the country, but UK officials are strongly advising nationals not to travel to countries listed in the amber category.
Upon lifting the ban on non-essential travel last week, the UK government put in force a traffic light system that listed countries as green, amber and red based on their coronavirus risk, with green and amber representing the fewest restrictions for travellers and red the most.
Travellers from both amber and green countries must show a negative Covid-19 test before departure, but only amber passengers are required to isolate at home for 10 days when they come back.
Only UK and Irish citizens, and foreign nationals with resident rights, are allowed to travel to England from a red list country and are required to quarantine for 11 days in an approved hotel at a cost of £1,750 ($2,473) per person.
The UK government has pledged to review on 7 June the current "green list," which only includes a handful of countries or territories.
China has administered over 500 million coronavirus vaccine doses so far, the national health commission said on Monday.
Last week, the Asian country, which has over 1.4 billion citizens, reported administering over 449.5 million doses.
"As of 23 May, 31 Chinese regions reported having used 510, 858,000 [shots of] vaccines against COVID-19," the commission said in a statement, without specifying how many people were injected with one or two jabs or what are the statistics for each approved vaccine.
Accordion to China's leading pulmonologist, Zhong Nanshan, the country will have 40 percent of its population vaccinated by June. Meanwhile, the head of China's vaccine makers association says Beijing hopes to vaccinate up to 70 percent of citizens by the end of 2021.
The country has approved four coronavirus vaccines — those developed by companies Sinovac, Sinopharm and its subsidiary, China National Biotech Group, as well as CanSino Biologics.
Over 60% of US residents are planning to travel within the country at least once between June and September, which is similar to the share of those who usually did so before the COVID-19 pandemic, a new survey revealed.
According to the survey by Morning Consult, 63% of respondents said they had traveled domestically during an average pre-pandemic summer, while 64% of respondents said they were planning to make at least one domestic trip this summer.
As for taking multiple domestic trips, 23% of respondents said they had such plans for this summer, compared to 31% who usually made multiple summer trips in the past.
The poll also found that 16% of US adults were planning at least one trip outside the country between June and September, compared to 21% who used to travel internationally at least once during an average summer.
The COVID-19 pandemic also had an impact on the generational gap with regard to international and domestic travel. The youngest adults, or so-called millennials, appeared slightly more likely than they were in previous years to travel domestically and outside the United States than their older peers.
The poll was conducted from 4 to 6 May among 2,200 US adults.
Cyprus has recorded the first blood clot death in a person who was given the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine, the national Phileleftheros newspaper reported on Monday, citing the State Health Services Organization (SHSO).
According to the media, the victim is a British woman, 39, who was hospitalized in critical condition in Nicosia. She received the vaccine in Paphos in early May.
Charalambos Charilaou, the SHSO spokesman, said that the EU drug regulator will determine whether the death was linked to the vaccine.
He added that another woman, 40, had post-inoculation blood clotting. She is currently in good condition and is receiving treatment in Nicosia.
Cyprus has administered over 500,000 shots against COVID-19. Around 356,000 people have received at least the first dose, while more than 155,000 have been fully immunized
The Chinese Foreign Ministry refuted on Monday US media reports suggesting that three employees of the Wuhan Institute of Virology fell gravely ill right before the outbreak of COVID-19.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Sunday, citing intelligence data, that three Wuhan lab employees were so sick, as of November 2019, that they had to seek medical assistance, which, according to the newspaper, should support the hypothesis that the virus could have originated in China.
"The Wuhan Institute of Virology issued a statement on 23 March of this year, which stated that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had not encountered any cases of the novel coronavirus infection until 30 December 2019. The statement said that, as of 23 March 2021, no Institute employee had contracted the coronavirus. Therefore, the publication about the illness of three employees of the Wuhan Institute of Virology is absolutely untrue," ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a press briefing.
A new batch of 1.3 million COVID-19 vaccines has arrived in Venezuela from China, President Nicolas Maduro said.
"I announce that a new phase of national vaccination starts this week, 1,300,000 new vaccines have arrived for Venezuelans directly from China these days," Maduro said Sunday on Venezolana de Television.
He added that the shipment enables the country to accelerate the immunization campaign.
The president reiterated that his goal is to continue the vaccination campaign from June to August, so that Venezuela could get back to normal by the end of the year. In addition, Maduro stated that Venezuela had stabilized the second wave of COVID-19 in recent weeks.
The Latin American country has confirmed over 220,000 cumulative COVID-19 cases, including 2,513 deaths. More than 316,000 vaccine doses have been administered in Venezuela.
World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom called on Monday for vaccinating at least 10 percent of every country against COVID-19 by September.
"Today, I'm calling on member states to support a massive push to vaccinate at least 10 percent of the population of every country by September, and a drive to December to achieve our goal of vaccinating at least 30 percent by the end of the year," Tedros told the World Health Assembly.
The WHO chief also slammed the "scandalous" vaccine inequality.
At least 115,000 healthcare workers have died from COVID-19 globally, World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom said on Monday.
"For almost 18 months, health and care workers all over the world have stood in the breach between life and death. They have saved countless lives, and fought for others who despite their best efforts, slipped away. Many have themselves become infected, and while reporting is scant, we estimate that at least 115,000 health and care workers have paid the ultimate price in the service of others," Tedros said at the World Health Assembly, as quoted in the WHO Twitter.
Over 10 million people in Russia are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and, overall, 25 million vaccine doses are administered in the country, Vasily Akimkin, the head of Russian watchdog Rospotrebnadzor's Central Research Institute of Epidemiology, said on Monday.
"More than 10 million people have been fully vaccinated, a total of more than 25 million vaccine doses have been administered," Akimkin said at a scientific conference.
Russia registered 8,406 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, down from 8,951 the day before, which brought the cumulative total to 5,009,911, the federal response centre said on Monday.
"Over the past day, 8,406 coronavirus cases were confirmed across 82 Russian regions, including 1,018 cases (12.1 percent) without clinical symptoms," the centre said, adding that the rate of increase fell to 0.17 percent.
Moscow confirmed 2,487 new coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, down from 2,924 the day before. The Russian capital was followed by St. Petersburg with 851 new cases, up from 842 the day before, and the Moscow Region with 766 cases, down from 769 the day before.
No new cases were recorded in the Chukotka autonomous region, the Nenets autonomous region and the Jewish autonomous region.
The response centre reported 319 new fatalities linked to the coronavirus, down from 357 the day before, raising the country's death toll to 118,801.
In the same 24 hours, 6,450 people were discharged from hospitals as recovered across the country, down from 7,297 the previous day, bringing the total to 4,624,212.
The number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in India has topped the landmark of 10 million among those aged 18-45 as part of third stage of mass vaccination, the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Monday.
"India has crossed a significant landmark in its fight against COVID19 pandemic today. The country has administered more than 1 Cr (1,06,21,235) Vaccine Doses for 18-44 age group under Phase-3 of Vaccination Drive," the ministry said in a statement.
The total number of inoculations is over 196 million, as of Monday morning, with most shots made in Maharashtra, the worst-affected Indian state, the ministry added.
Additionally, Monday marked the 11th consecutive day in India when daily recoveries outnumber new cases recorded per day. So far, the number of recoveries has exceeded 23.7 million.
"In another positive development, India has recorded less than 3 lakh [300,000] Daily New Cases for eight consecutive days now. The gap between Daily New Cases and Daily Recovered Cases has reduced to 80,229 today," the ministry added.
India launched its mass immunization campaign in January, using three vaccines – Covaxin, Russia's Sputnik V and India's version of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine. The first stage covered medical staff, policemen and emergency workers. Those aged over 45 received jabs during the second phase. The next stage began in early May and covers individuals aged 18-45.
urkey may soon abandon the requirement for Russian citizens to provide a negative PCR test for the coronavirus upon their entry, taking into consideration Russia's successful fight against the pandemic, Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Ersoy said.
Since December 30, 2020, all individuals over six year of age who enter Turkey must submit a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours prior to their flight.
"Our health ministry is considering several criteria for canceling the PCR tests. The most important criterion is the vaccination rate in the country of origin. They look at the daily number of new cases. If this number is below a certain level, then PCR tests become unnecessary, because it means that the pandemic is under control. In this regard, many countries have gradually begun to cancel mandatory PCR tests," Ersoy said.
The minister recalled that Turkey had registered Russia's Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19.
"I do not think we will face any problems after resuming air travel with Russia. Russia is successfully coping with the pandemic anyway. The number of cases is decreasing, and the number of vaccinated citizens is increasing every day. I hope we will soon move on to this stage [abandon the negative PCR test requirement for Russians]," Ersoy added.
India is now one of three countries in the world, along with the US and Brazil, where the coronavirus death toll stands at over 300,000 according to updated Health Ministry data.
The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in India stands at over 26.7 million, while the number of recovered individuals has surpassed 23.7 million. The COVID-19 death toll is at over 303,000. Around 2.7 million are currently being treated for the coronavirus infection in India.
Over 14 percent of India’s population (more than 196 million people) has been vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the Health Ministry.
India has seen a rapid surge in infection rates since the end of last month: the reported daily increase in COVID-19 cases was at over 300,000 from 21 April until 17 May. On some days, the number of new cases registered within a 24-hour period surpassed 400,000.
