The US is the worst-hit country, registering over 33 million cases and a death toll of 591,000. Next comes India, which has been suffering from a major wave of COVID-related deaths amid a medical crisis, recording around 27 million cases and over 311,000 fatalities. Brazil rounds out the top three, with more than 16.2 million cases and the second-highest death toll in the world of around 454,000.
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WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - California Governor Gavin Newsom announced that his state will distribute more than $116 million in cash prizes to residents who have received a coronavirus vaccine by way of a lottery-like selections on three dates in June.
“Ca[lifornia] is launching a $116.5 million giveaway for vaccinated Californians! $15 million in cash prizes for ten winners selected 6/15 $50k for winners on 6/4 and 6/11 Already vaccinated? You’re entered,” Newsom said via Twitter on Thursday.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - A computerized simulation predicted that a complete lifting of US COVID-19 restrictions by the US July 4 Independence Day holiday would create a new surge due to variants that would double the nation’s death toll if the nation falls short of the 60 percent vaccination goal set by President Joe Biden, the Rand Corporation said in a report.
“We simulated thousands of scenarios of how the pandemic potentially could unfold in the months ahead: Would new variants of the virus spread faster and further? Would vaccine hesitancy decrease? Each simulation produced projections for cases and deaths,” the report said on Thursday.
The simulations indicated that fully reopening an economy before the 60 percent target was met doubled the average number of COVID-19 deaths between Independence Day and the end of the year - nearly all of these deaths coming from the portion of the population that remained unvaccinated, the report said.
In scenarios where the July 4 target wasn't met, COVID-19 surges comparable to those of summer 2020 - before the vaccine was distributed - were three times more likely to occur in the weeks after social mixing at Independence Day picnics, barbecues, and baseball games, the report added.
The model assumed much of the surge would be driven by variants of the original strain from China - mutations that made the virus more transmissible though not more deadly, such as with strains circulating in Brazil and India.
On the other hand, the model predicted that by vaccinating 160 million American adults by July 4, about 60 percent of the population at least 18 years old, could save tens of thousands of American lives, the report said.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - A 68 percent majority of American adults believes the novel coronavirus probably originated in a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan, a Rasmussen Reports poll revealed on Thursday.
"The… survey finds that 68 percent of likely US voters believe it is 'Likely' that the COVID-19 virus originated in a Chinese laboratory, including 43 percent who think it’s Very Likely", a press release explaining the poll said.
The so-called lab-leak theory had largely been dismissed until President Joe Biden on Wednesday admitted that some US intelligence estimates pointed to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology as the source of the virus that causes COVID-19.
Biden ordered a divided US Intelligence Community - some of which accepted Chinese claims that the disease was spread from animals to humans - to re-examine the lab-leak theory and produce a report within 90 days.
Earlier this year, a joint report by Chinese scientists and the World Health Organisation concluded that the disease resulted from animal-to-human transmission.
However, the US State Department reported in January that several researchers at the Wuhan laboratory were hospitalized in the fall of 2021 with respiratory infections resembling COVID-19.
The State Department document had been largely overlooked until Biden admitted that the two possible scenarios had yielded divided assessments by US intelligence analysts.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The US government will discuss the donation of 80 million coronavirus vaccine doses, including logistics and recipients, at the meetings with its G7 partners, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said on Thursday.
"We have announced that we will be donating 80 million [vaccine] doses to the global community. What is happening now behind the scenes is that there is an internal policy process to determine how we can do that in an equitable and transparent way", Psaki said. "I know you are all eager to know where they are going, our process will be. That will certainly be a point of discussion, we expect, and certainly of any questions that come up from our partner countries in the G7 or conversations in NATO".
Psaki added that the ways to work together to get the coronavirus pandemic under control will be a significant topic of conversation at the upcoming G7 meetings.
Earlier in May, President Joe Biden announced the United States will donate 80 million coronavirus vaccines by end of June, including 20 million doses authorized for domestic distribution and 60 million AstraZeneca vaccines that have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Cyprus will cancel the COVID-19 curfew from 10 June as part of a gradual lifting of the restrictions, Health Minister Constantinos Ioannou said on Thursday.
The relevant decision was made at the Council of Ministers after "the clear improvement of the epidemiological data, over the last few days".
"From 29 May, the curfew will be in effect from 1 a.m. until 5 a.m. [22:00 – 02:00 GMT]. As of 10 June, the curfew will be terminated”, Ioannou said in a statement.
Starting 1 June, the government will allow a 50% capacity of enclosed spaces, such as theaters, places of worship, and others, as well as the reopening of cafes and restaurants.
Since 10 June, nightclubs across the country will reopen, and private enterprises would be allowed to lift a 50% capacity limit inside.
The new measures are to be effective until at least June 30, the statement read.
The minister noted that 51% of the country’s population has received at least one dose of a vaccine against the coronavirus, and 25% have completed the whole vaccination course.
Cyprus has been under a strict COVID-19-linked lockdown from April 26 to May 10 owing to a spike in virus cases. The curfew was from 9:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m.
To date, the authorities have detected over 70,000 coronavirus infections and more than 300 related fatalities.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) -Russia registered 9,039 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, up from 8,373 the day before, which brought the cumulative total to 5,035,207, the federal response centre said on Thursday.
"Over the past day, 9,039 coronavirus cases were confirmed across 84 Russian regions, including 1,293 cases (14.3 percent) without clinical symptoms", the centre said, adding that the rate of increase grew to 0.18 percent.
