The United States, India, and Brazil are the worst-hit nations in terms of the number of registered coronavirus cases, while the highest number of COVID-19-related deaths has been observed in the United States, Brazil, Mexico, and India, according to Johns Hopkins University.
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Doctors in Malaysia will have to give preference to those who are more likely to cope with the disease when hospitalizing patients to intensive care units (ICU), given the epidemiological situation is deteriorating, Malaysian Health Chief Noor Hisham Abdullah said on Sunday.
"The Health Ministry has warned of possible scenarios in which doctors would have to make the difficult choice to prioritise ICU beds for patients with a high recovery potential over patients with low recovery potential (poor prognosis)," Noor Hisham said in a press conference, as quoted by The Straits Times.
He added that intensive care units are already filled by 104%, while hospitals for common coronavirus patients - by 85%.
Noor Hisham noted that the authorities cooperate with NGOs in organizing intensive care units amid the shortages of medical personnel.
Earlier this week, the Malaysian government announced the introduction of a nationwide lockdown from June 1 to 13 as the first stage of the strategy to tackle a resurgence in coronavirus infections. Besides, since April, the authorities have restricted travel between provinces and banned mass events and gatherings of any nature.
To date, Malaysia has registered nearly 560,000 COVID-19 cases and more than 2,650 related fatalities.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon on Sunday said that the vaccination campaign in Scotland showed encouraging results but noted that the related monitoring was still necessary.
It is absolutely the case that the key question for @scotgov now (and I’m sure governments elsewhere too) is whether & to what extent vaccines are breaking the link between cases & serious illness. Evidence so far is encouraging but we need to monitor... https://t.co/0BKZtoJw3k
— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) May 30, 2021
The immunization campaign in Scotland kicked off in December and uses vaccines by Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, and Pfizer/BioNTech.
To date, 3,234,311 first doses have been administered across Scotland with a population of 4.5 million people. A total of 2,022,728 people have completed the vaccination.
France has vaccinated 25 million people with at least the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, the government said on Sunday.
"#COVID19 | 25 million people have received at least one dose of the #Covid-19 vaccine," the government tweeted.
By 15 May, France has reached its goal to vaccinate 20 million people with at least one shot. By mid-June, France aims to vaccinate 30 million people in total.
France also aims to use all of its purchased vaccine doses.
Infection numbers have been on a decline in the country since mid-April.
The UK government is mulling compulsory coronavirus vaccinations for National Health Service staff, the minister for COVID-19 vaccine deployment told the BBC.
"It would be irresponsible for us as a government and ministers not to ask that question, not to think about it and consider it, because clearly, people [are] being infected in hospital through COVID ... who are very fragile. There is a precedent for this of course," Nadhim Zahawi said.
The vaccines minister added that surgeons are required to get vaccinated against Hepatitis B prior to operating patients because there is a responsibility to protect those who are most vulnerable and therefore, the same possibility should be explored in terms of COVID-19 vaccines.
Zahawi also called for caution as the country is to ease lockdown on 21 June.
"We have to look at the data and share it with the country; are we still vaccinating at scale? Big tick. Are the vaccines working? Yes. But are infection rates too high for us to then not be able to proceed because there are too many people going into hospital?" Zahawi continued.
The minister reassured that even though the answer is unknown to the last question, he hopes it will become clearer by 14 June.
Over 50% of people in their 30s in England have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine shot in just over two weeks since the start of the vaccine rollout to their age group, the National Health Service (NHS) said on Sunday.
"More than five million appointments have been made and 53% of people aged 30-39 have received at least one dose since the programme, the biggest in NHS history, began opening up to the age group on 13 May," the NHS said.
At the same time, the NHS is asking all those aged 50 and over as well as those who are in a risk group to get the second dose of their vaccine as soon as possible as the country battles the Indian variant of the virus.
The figures come after the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation suggested that the interval between the two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine should be shortened to eight weeks from the previous 12.
According to NHS England, 600,000 people have been asked to rearrange their second shot appointment to an earlier date.
In total, over 39 million people across the UK have been given at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, with some 24.9 million fully vaccinated.
Sixty percent of Britons believe the claim that at the start of the pandemic Prime Minister Boris Johnson deemed the coronavirus to be "just a scare story," a fresh Opinium poll shows in the wake of ex-chief adviser Dominic Cummings' allegations.
In a seven-hour statement before the parliament’s health and science select committees on Wednesday, Johnson’s former aide made an unprecedented attack on Johnson and Secretary of State for Health Matt Hancock, as he openly blamed them for tens of thousands of unnecessary coronavirus-related deaths. Cummings said, for example, that his boss was "unfit" to be prime minister and that at the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak he had downplayed the threat by calling it a "scare story" and repeatedly ignoring advice to lock the country down.
According to the Opinium findings, 71% of respondents do not trust Cummings, who is followed by Hancock (58%) and the prime minister (57%) in this ranking.
Still, the public believes that most of Cummings' claims are probably true, with 66% of respondents thinking that the cabinet was indeed pursuing a strategy of "herd immunity" at the start of the pandemic and 60% trusting the allegation that Johnson thought that the coronavirus was a scare story and described it as "the new Swine flu."
Russia registered 9,694 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, which brought the cumulative total to 5,063,442, the federal response centre said Sunday.
In the same 24 hours, 7,386 full recoveries and 355 deaths were recorded.
On Saturday, 9,289 cases were reported.
The Government of India has revealed that the country has crossed a major landmark in COVID-19 vaccination, administering over 210 million doses, total.
