Oman's COVID-19 task force said on Thursday that vaccination against the coronavirus will become mandatory for citizens to be able to enter public service buildings and various commercial venues, including restaurants, starting September 1.
"[Coming] into force on Wednesday September 1st 2021: To adopt the principle of vaccination as a condition to access government and private sector units, plus commercial complexes, restaurants and other commercial activities, as well as attendance to cultural, sport and other collective events," the Supreme Committee on COVID-19 said in a statement.
Another regulation coming into force on September 1 is that foreign travelers will be required to be fully vaccinated with one of the vaccines approved in Oman — these include Sputnik V, Pfizer/BioNTech, Oxford/AstraZeneca, and Sinovac — and undergo a PCR test upon arrival. Travelers testing positive will have to be quarantined for a week and get another test on the eighth day, the committee said.
The curfew from 5 p.m.-4 a.m. (13:00-00:00 GMT) restricting business activities and movement will be lifted this coming Saturday, the committee said.
Oman confirmed 186 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, which brought the total to 300,914, and seven new related fatalities, bringing the total death toll to 4,020.
The UAE's emirate of Abu Dhabi on Thursday ended restrictions that have been in place since July now that COVID-19 cases are falling nationwide.
On July 19, the emirate imposed a curfew from midnight until 5:00 a.m. while special services disinfected the streets. During this period, people could leave their homes only in case of immediate need. Movement of public and personal transport was also prohibited.
"The Abu Dhabi Emergency, Crisis and Disasters Committee has announced the National Sterilisation Programme in Abu Dhabi emirate has achieved its objectives and will conclude today, Thursday, 19 August 2021," the emirate government media office said.
Authorities advised citizens to continue to follow precautionary measures for protecting health and safety, the statement added.
Nationwide, daily infections have been going down steadily since early August. On Thursday, the UAE registered 1,077 new cases, the lowest since late 2020. The country does not provide statistics for each of its seven emirates.
The UAE has so far registered over 706,000 cases of COVID-19 and 2,012 deaths caused by the disease.
American and Algerian officials inaugurated a state-of-the-art field hospital to treat civilian COVID-19 patients with plans to open an identical unit in the coming months, the US military's Africa Command (AFRICOM) said on Thursday.
“Algerian officials from the Ministry of Health accepted the donation by the Overseas Humanitarian, Disaster, and Civic Aid program of the U.S. Department of Defense,” AFRICOM said in a press release.
The field hospital will serve Algeria’s civilian population and is equipped with a negative pressure isolation system specifically designed to treat patients with infectious diseases. It has 35 beds, five of which include intensive care systems, the release said.
At a ceremony inaugurating the unit, the defense attache at the American Embassy, Colonel Chris D’Amico, said the US plans to deliver an identical field hospital to Algeria’s Health Ministry in the coming months.
US President Joe Biden told ABC in an interview that he and his wife, Jill, will get their COVID-19 booster shots, discounting concerns of inequitable global access to vaccines.
"We're gonna get the booster shots... We got our shots all the way back in, I think December. So it's past time... yes, we will get the booster shots," Biden told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos.
When asked whether he was comfortable with Americans getting a third shot when millions worldwide haven't had their first, he said "absolutely."
"We're providing more to the rest of the world than all the rest of the world combined. We got enough for everybody... We're keepin' our part of the bargain. We're doin' more than anybody," he said, adding that more than half a billion shots would be shipped worldwide from the US.
The number of adults testing positive for COVID-19 antibodies appears to be declining among older age groups in the UK, according to new data released on Thursday by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
“In some regions and countries, we are starting to see a decline in the percentage of people testing positive for antibodies amongst the oldest age groups, although rates amongst these age groups remain high,” the ONS said, adding that antibody positivity is increasing among younger people.
The study, based on a sample of blood tests results up to the week beginning July 26, showed that among those aged 70 to 75, COVID-19 antibodies dropped from 94.9% to 92.9%, while for those aged 80 and over, the figure was 92.4%.
According to the report, most older people who are vaccinated will retain higher antibody levels than prior to vaccination, but may have a lower number of antibodies in the blood at the time of testing.
It takes between two and three weeks after infection or vaccination for the body to produce enough antibodies to fight the infection, but the length of time antibodies remain at detectable levels in the blood is not fully known, the ONS said.
Older and vulnerable in the UK were the first to be offered the COVID-19 vaccine when the vaccination campaign began in December, 2020.
Around 77.5% of the country’s adult population - estimated at 53 million – have so far received the two recommended doses.
More than one-tenth of hospitalized coronavirus patients in Germany have been fully vaccinated, a spokesperson for respiratory emergencies at the German association of intensive care medicine DIVI said.
"There are at the moment 12-13% of vaccinated Covid patients in North Rhine-Westphalian clinics. This share can be extrapolated nationwide," Christian Karagiannidis told the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper.
Only a few of those patients ended up in intensive care, he said. Vaccine breakthroughs are mostly observed in people with weakened immune systems, such as those receiving immunosuppressive treatment.
Health Minister Jens Spahn estimates that almost 64% of Germans have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, with slightly over 58% being fully vaccinated.
Coronavirus infections have been on the rise across Germany. The national institute for infectious diseases RKI said on Thursday morning that it registered 8,400 new cases in the past 24 hours, up from 5,638 a week ago.
The European Union will recognize from Friday COVID-19 certificates, issued by Ukraine, Turkey and North Macedonia, the European Commission announced.
"The Commission adopted today three equivalence decisions for North Macedonia, Turkey and Ukraine. This means that the countries will be connected to the EU's system and that COVID certificates issued by North Macedonia, Turkey and Ukraine will be accepted in the EU, as of tomorrow, under the same conditions as the EU Digital COVID Certificate," the statement read.
The EU Digital COVID-19 Certificate Regulation has been applied since 1 July, with several non-EU states such as Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, joining the system.
The Delta variant of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 reduces the effectiveness of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines in fully vaccinated people, although they still help prevent severe symptoms of the disease, according to a University of Oxford study released on Thursday
"SARS-CoV-2 vaccination still reduces new infections, but effectiveness and attenuation of peak viral burden are reduced with Delta," scientists said.
Researchers said that there was no evidence that effectiveness varied by dosing interval, but they found that protection was higher among those vaccinated following a prior infection and younger adults.
"The vaccines are better at preventing severe disease and are less effective at preventing transmission," Koen Pouwels, one of the lead researchers of the study, was quoted as saying.
According to the expert, the fact that you see more viral load with the Delta variant undermines hopes of achieving herd immunity.
The study, which was conducted in partnership with the UK Office for National Statistics and the Department of Health and Social Care, also found that the protection offered by the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine declines faster than that of the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca.
The Delta variant, first identified in India, became dominant in the United Kingdom after being classified as a variant of concern on 28 April, accounting for 99 percent of the positive cases by June 27.
The study, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, compared the results of about 2.6 million nose and throat swabs taken from more than 384,500 adults between December 2020 and mid-May 2021, and more than 811,600 test results from 358,983 adults between mid-May and 1 August 2021.
Russia registered 21,058 COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, up from 20,914 the day before, taking the overall tally to 6,684,531, the federal response centre said on Thursday.
"Over the past day, 21,058 COVID-19 cases were confirmed across 85 Russian regions, including 1,863 cases (8.9%) without clinical symptoms," the centre said, adding that the rate of increase grew to 0.32%.
Moscow has the highest number of new cases with 2,142 daily infections, up from 1,590 the day before. The Russian capital was followed by St. Petersburg with 1,563 new cases, down from 1,636, and the Moscow region with 949 cases, down from 1,240.
The response centre reported 791 new deaths linked to the coronavirus, down from 799 the day before, raising the country's death toll to 173,700.
In the same 24 hours, 24,017 COVID-19 patients were discharged from hospitals across the country, up from 20,713 the day before, bringing the total to 5,963,054.
Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency Anvisa said it had denied request by the Brazilian Butantan institute for the approval of Chinese CoronaVac for use in vaccinating children aged between 3 and 17 for lack of sufficient data.
The Instituto Butantan biologic research center is producing CoronaVac.
"Vaccination of children and teenagers with CoronaVac vaccine is not approved… It was impossible to prove the vaccine’s efficacy and safety for this age group, based on information by the Butantan Institute. Data on immunogenicity leave unclear the duration of protection provided by the immunizing agent," Anvisa stated on Wednesday.
Also, no conclusion on side effects or vaccine efficacy among children with associated diseases was made, chiefly due to the insufficient number of tests’ participants, the agency noted.
Only Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine has so far been approved by Anvisa for vaccinating people over 12 years old in Brazil. The Janssen laboratory has received a permit to conduct experiments with children under 18 in the Latin American country.
India has confirmed 36,401 new cases of the coronavirus over the past 24 hours, with the total number of those infected having reached 32,322,258 the country's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Thursday.
The death toll from the disease has reached 433,049 people, with 530 new fatalities being recorded over the past day.
More than 31.52 million people have recovered in India since the start of the outbreak.
A day earlier, the country confirmed 35,178 new coronavirus cases, with 440 fatalities.
