Australia's Victoria state records second-highest daily rise in virus cases

MELBOURNE - Australia's Victoria state reported 779 new COVID-19 infections and two deaths on Sunday, off the previous day's record high as the country's prime minister presses state leaders to be ready to reopen once they meet vaccination targets.

The daily increase was still the state's second-highest, after the 847 cases logged on Saturday, as officials battle to contain a Delta variant outbreak that has taken root since mid-year.

Australia's two most populous states, Victoria and New South Wales, have been struggling to contain the highly infectious variant while they ramp up vaccinations to 80% of the population, a threshold that will allow officials to ease strict lockdown measures.

Three-quarters of Australians have had a first dose of vaccine, while just half have had both doses.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in an interview aired on Sunday that he expects states to open up borders and ease restrictions once the 80% vaccination threshold has been met.

"We each have a personal responsibility for looking after our own health. And so it's important that we do move forward," he told Channel 7's Sunrise program.

"There comes a time when you just got to move on and get on with it," he said from Washington, where he held a summit with his counterparts from the United States, Japan and India.

Morrison said his message to Australians was "that what I'd like them to have for Christmas is their lives back. And that's within the gift of governments. And that's a gift I'd like to see us give them."

New South Wales recorded nine deaths, according to government data on Sunday, while new locally acquired infections fell for a third day to 961, the lowest daily number in nearly a week, raising hopes that cases may have peaked, originally expected in mid-September, as vaccination rates climb.

"Whilst we are extremely encouraged by the downwards trend that we have seen, with Delta you cannot be complacent," said state Premier Gladys Berejiklian.

The state's first dose rate has risen to 85.2% of people over 16 years of age, while 59.1% of the population has had their second dose.

New South Wales has recorded 288 deaths in the Delta outbreak, accounting for nearly a quarter of the country's approximately 1,230 deaths.

State government officials are to finalize a roadmap this week for what to do when the 80% target is met, as focus shifts to when to reopen community activities to the unvaccinated.

Sporting events, regional travel, pubs, restaurants and other functions may remain off limits to unvaccinated people until as many as 90% of the state's adults have had two doses.

-reuters- 

Sweeping new vaccine mandates for 100 million Americans

WASHINGTON (AP) — In his most forceful pandemic actions and words, President Joe Biden on Thursday announced sweeping new federal vaccine requirements affecting as many as 100 million Americans in an all-out effort to increase COVID-19 vaccinations and curb the surging delta variant.

Speaking at the White House, Biden sharply criticized the roughly 80 million Americans who are not yet vaccinated, despite months of availability and incentives.

“We’ve been patient. But our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us,” he said, all but biting off his words. The unvaccinated minority “can cause a lot of damage, and they are.”

Republican leaders — and some union chiefs, too — said Biden was going too way too far in trying to muscle private companies and workers, a certain sign of legal challenges to come.

Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina said in a statement that “Biden and the radical Democrats ... have declared war against capitalism (and) thumbed their noses at the Constitution.”

AFL-CIO National President Everett Kelley insisted that “changes like this should be negotiated with our bargaining units where appropriate.”

The expansive rules mandate that all employers with more than 100 workers require them to be vaccinated or test for the virus weekly, affecting about 80 million Americans. And the roughly 17 million workers at health facilities that receive federal Medicare or Medicaid also will have to be fully vaccinated.

Biden is also signing an executive order to require vaccination for employees of the executive branch and contractors who do business with the federal government — with no option to test out. That covers several million more workers.

Biden announced the new requirements in a Thursday afternoon address from the White House as part of a new “action plan” to address the latest rise in coronavirus cases and the stagnating pace of COVID-19 shots that has raised doubts among the public over his handling of the pandemic.

Just two months ago Biden prematurely declared the nation’s “independence” from the virus. Now, despite more than 208 million Americans having at least one dose of the vaccines, the U.S. is seeing about 300% more new COVID-19 infections a day, about two-and-a-half times more hospitalizations, and nearly twice the number of deaths compared to the same time last year.

“We are in the tough stretch and it could last for a while,” Biden said of the current state of the pandemic.

After months of using promotions to drive the vaccination rate, Biden is taking a much firmer hand, as he aides blamed people who have not yet received shots for the sharp rise in cases that is killing more than 1,000 people per day and imperiling a fragile economic rebound.

In addition to the vaccination requirements, Biden moved to double federal fines for airline passengers who refuse to wear masks on flights or to maintain face covering requirements on federal property in accordance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.

Biden announced that the federal government will work to increase the supply of virus tests, and that the White House has secured concessions from retailers including Walmart, Amazon, and Kroger to sell at-home testing kits at cost beginning this week.

The administration was also sending additional federal support to assist schools in safely operating, including additional funding for testing. And Biden will call for large entertainment venues and arenas to require vaccinations or proof of a negative test for entry.

The requirement for large companies to mandate vaccinations or weekly testing for employees will be enacted through a forthcoming rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that carries penalties of $14,000 per violation, an administration official said. The White House did not immediately say when it would take effect, but said workers would have sufficient time to get vaccinated.

The rule would also require that large companies provide paid time off for vaccination.

Meanwhile, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will extend a vaccination requirement issued earlier this summer — for nursing home staff — to other healthcare settings including hospitals, home-health agencies and dialysis centers.

Separately, the Department of Health and Human Services will require vaccinations in Head Start Programs, as well as schools run by the Department of Defense and Bureau of Indian Education, affecting about 300,000 employees.

Biden’s order for executive branch workers and contractors includes exceptions for workers seeking religious or medical exemptions from vaccination, according to Psaki. Federal workers and contractors will have 75 days to get fully vaccinated. Workers who don’t comply will be referred to their agencies’ human resources departments for counseling and discipline, to include potential termination.

“We would like to be a model” to other organizations and business around country, Psaki said of the federal workforce.

An AP-NORC poll conducted in August found 55% of Americans in favor of requiring government workers to be fully vaccinated, compared with 21% opposed. Similar majorities also backed vaccine mandates for health care workers, teachers working at K-12 schools and workers who interact with the public, as at restaurants and stores.

Biden has encouraged COVID-19 vaccine requirements in settings like schools, workplaces and university campuses, and the White House hopes the strengthened federal mandate will inspire more businesses to follow suit. On Thursday, the Los Angeles Board of Education was expected to vote on requiring all students 12 and older to be fully vaccinated in the the nation’s second-largest school district.

Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, said in late July it was requiring that all workers at its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, as well as its managers who travel within the U.S. be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Oct. 4. But the company stopped short of requiring shots for its frontline workers.

CVS Health said in late August it would require certain employees who interact with patients to be fully vaccinated by the end of October. That includes nurses, care managers and pharmacists.

In the government, several federal agencies have previously announced vaccine requirements for much of their staffs, particularly those in healthcare roles like the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Pentagon moved last month to require all servicemembers to get vaccinated. Combined, the White House estimates those requirements cover 2.5 million Americans. Thursday’s order is expected to impact nearly 2 million more federal workers and potentially millions of contractors.

Biden’s measures should help, but what’s really needed is a change in mindset for many people, said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.

“There is an aspect to this now that has to do with our country being so divided,” said Sharfstein. “This has become so politicized that people can’t see the value of a vaccination that can save their lives. Our own divisions are preventing us from ending a pandemic.”

American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union of federal employees, said that while it strongly encourages vaccinations, workers should have a say in new mandates affecting them.

“Put simply, workers deserve a voice in their working conditions,” said national President Everett Kelley. “We expect to bargain over this change prior to implementation, and we urge everyone who is able to get vaccinated as soon as they can do so.”

Larry Cosme, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, called the mandate for federal workers “ill conceived,” saying, “Vaccination should be promoted through education and encouragement – not coercion.”

More than 177 million Americans are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, but confirmed cases have shot up in recent weeks to an average of about 140,000 per day with on average about 1,000 deaths, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Most of the spread — and the vast majority of severe illness and death — is occurring among those not yet fully vaccinated. So-called breakthrough infections in vaccinated people occur, but tend to be far less dangerous.

Federal officials are moving ahead with plans to begin administering booster shots of the mRNA vaccines to bolster protection against the more transmissible delta variant. Last month Biden announced plans to make them available beginning on Sept. 20, but only the Pfizer vaccine will likely have received regulatory approval for a third dose by that time.

Officials are aiming to administer the booster shots about eight months after the second dose of the two-dose vaccines.

Associated Press writers Anne D’Innocenzio, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Hannah Fingerhut contributed.

-Associated Press-

Australia reports 1,684 new COVID-19 cases, plans merry Christmas

MELBOURNE - Australia reported 1,684 new cases of the coronavirus on Sunday as authorities race ahead with vaccinations in a bid to end lockdowns on the populous southeast coast in the hope of making Christmas as close to normal as possible.

More than 15 million people in Victoria state, neighboring New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory have been under stay-at-home orders as officials struggle to quell Australia's worst wave of the coronavirus infections, driven by the Delta variant.

New South Wales reported 1,485 cases of Delta and three further deaths on Sunday. Victoria had 183 new cases, while the Australian Capital Territory had 15. There was also one new infection reported in Queensland, which is not under a lockdown.

The lockdowns, which keep borders between states and territories closed, are part of a federally advised strategy to manage the outbreaks until at least 70% of those aged 16 and older get fully vaccinated.

The plan envisages that Australia might start reopening its international border, closed since March 2020, when 80% of people get their shots.

"When we get those vaccination rates, life will look better and feel better and we certainly will not have to have a state-wide lockdown ever again when we hit the 80% double dose vaccination rates," said Gladys Berejiklian, premier of New South Wales.

Only about 37% of eligible people have been vaccinated nationwide, due to the scarce supply of the Pfizer vaccine and public unease about the AstraZeneca shot. The pace has picked up considerably with the federal government racing to secure more Pfizer shots.

Based on current rates, the 70% target may be achieved in late October of early November.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison reiterated that the Delta outbreak could not be fully eliminated - a successful strategy used by states and territories in earlier waves - but that achieving the vaccination targets could open up interstate travel.

"And everyone can make plans for a family Christmas, with all our loved ones at the dinner table, cracking bon-bons and bad jokes together," Morrison told the Sunday Herald Sun.

"Nobody wants COVID to be the virus that stole Christmas, and we have a plan and the vaccinations available to ensure that's not the case."

Australia has recorded just under 62,000 COVID-19 cases and 1,040 deaths, far fewer than many other countries. 

-reuters-

Small Chinese COVID-19 vaccine studies show positive signs vs Delta variant

With the coronavirus largely stopped at China’s borders it can be hard to assess just how well the national vaccination drive is working against the highly transmissible Delta variant of the disease.

But two small peer-reviewed studies indicate that the vaccines might just be effective.

In one study, researchers with the Chinese Academy of Sciences collected 28 serum samples from participants three weeks after they received the full three doses of a vaccine by Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical.

They tested the serum to see how well the vaccine, known as ZF2001, neutralised several variants of the coronavirus, according to a study published in the journal The Lancet on Friday.

The researchers, who included Gao Fu, head of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, found that the serum from people given the vaccine showed roughly equivalent sensitivity against the Epsilon variant, the one first detected in the United States, and the Delta variant, first detected in India, as compared with the ancestral strain first detected in Wuhan.

“ZF2001 preserved the neutralising activity against the newly emerging Delta variant,” the researchers wrote.

But it was much less effective against the Beta variant, first identified in South Africa, and the Gamma variant, first identified in Brazil.

According to the paper, the levels of neutralising antibodies dropped “1.1 times” for the Epsilon variant, 1.2 times for the Delta variant, 1.8 times for the Beta variant first identified in South Africa and 1.5 times for the Gamma variant, first identified in Brazil.

Of the 28 people sampled, 16 had their shots over a period of 4-6 months and 12 had the doses over two months.

The results showed that participants with longer intervals between the second and third dose had greater resilience to variants.

“The better performance of the extended interval regimen is probably because of the longer antibody maturation in the recipients than in those with the shorter interval regimen,” the researchers wrote.

“Our data are consistent with common practice of using the 0, 1, and 6 months regimen for subunit vaccines against diseases such as hepatitis B, and provide guidance to further optimise the vaccination regimen.”

ZF2001 was authorised for emergency use in China and Uzbekistan in March this year.

The Uzbekistan government announced on the weekend that the vaccine had been approved for local production.

Researchers in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou also concluded that two other more widely used inactivated vaccines by Sinovac and Sinopharm were effective in preventing cases caused by the Delta variant.

The assessment, published earlier this month in Emerging Microbes & Infections, was based on observation of a community outbreak in the city in late May and early June when an imported Delta case infected 153 people.

Of the infected, 38 were vaccinated and 115 were not.

The researchers tracked 74 people infected with Covid-19 and 292 close contacts as the controls to explore vaccine efficacy in real-world settings.

The participants were aged 18-59 years and most were vaccinated with the Sinovac jabs. Some people have been given both vaccines, but researchers said they did not separate them in the study because it was not designed to compare the two and both vaccines were based on the same widely available technology.

The team included researchers from the Guangzhou Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Health, and Sun Yat-sen University, including respiratory expert Zhong Nanshan.

They found that a single dose of inactivated vaccine yielded a vaccine efficacy of only 13.8 per cent, not sufficiently protective against the Delta strain infection. After two doses, the efficacy rose to 59 per cent against the coronavirus in general and 70.2 per cent against moderate disease.

The efficacy against severe disease was estimated as 100 per cent, but researchers said it might be overestimated because there were only two severe Covid-19 patients in the control group.

There were no severe and critical cases or deaths among the vaccinated study participants, and all the 16 severe or critical cases were not vaccinated.

“We speculated that the inactivated vaccine could prevent severe Covid-19 well,” they wrote. “The two-dose dosing scheme of the inactivated vaccines was effective against the Delta variant infection in real-world settings, with the estimated efficacy exceeding the World Health Organization minimal threshold of 50 per cent.”

They said their findings could have important global implications because more than 350 million inactivated vaccines had been exported worldwide as of June.

But they cautioned that the efficacy results should be considered in the context of stringent containment efforts in China.

The selection of controls, people who live, work or travel with confirmed cases “might have affected the estimated vaccine efficacy”, the researchers wrote.

The Delta variant has put countries around the world on the guard with some considering booster shots for better protection.

A report by the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention published last week showed two doses of mRNA vaccines were 74.7 per cent effective against infection among nursing home residents in March and May. But this declined significantly to 53.1 per cent during June and July when the Delta variant circulation predominated.

The report suggested an additional dose of Covid-19 vaccine might be considered for nursing home and long-term care facility residents to optimise a protective immune response.

-South China Morning Post-

New Zealand's Delta outbreak tops 100 cases

WELLINGTON - New Zealand on Monday reported 35 new cases of COVID-19, taking the total number of infections in its current outbreak to 107.

The health ministry said in a statement that 33 new cases are in Auckland and two are in the capital Wellington.

-reuters-

Australia clamps down on ‘most concerning day of the pandemic’

Australia's biggest city announced tighter COVID restrictions including heavier fines and tighter policing on Saturday as authorities battled to contain a Delta outbreak and said they were seeing the "most concerning day of the pandemic" so far.

After months of pursuing a "COVID zero" strategy, Australia has been struggling to bring a resurgence of coronavirus cases under control, with more than 10 million people under lockdown in its two largest cities and the capital Canberra.

Residents of Sydney, going into an eighth week under stay-at-home orders, will now face heftier fines for flouting rules or lying to contact tracers, with current restrictions proving insufficient to stop the spread.

Lockdown restrictions were also extended across the entire state of New South Wales for the first time this year, coming into force on Saturday afternoon for at least seven days.

Police would boost patrols and checkpoints while hundreds more defense force personnel will help enforce stay-at-home orders as the outbreak in the most populous state of New South Wales hit another daily record of 466 community cases.

"Today is the most concerning day of the pandemic that we've seen," state premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters in Sydney.

Describing efforts to curb the outbreak as a war against the "diabolical" Delta strain, Berejiklian said Australia was facing a significant threat from the outbreak. 

"For some time, we thought Australia was different to other parts of the world, but we're not," she said. 

Police commissioner Mick Fuller said he had sought additional powers after officers reported people using loopholes to evade restrictions.

Residents are still allowed to leave their homes for exercise, shopping, health care and essential work -- but police would ramp up efforts to enforce restrictions, he said.

Rules for leaving Sydney were also tightened to prevent the outbreak from spreading further into other regions.

The nation's capital, which is surrounded by New South Wales, was sent into lockdown earlier this week while the second-largest city of Melbourne is battling its own outbreak.

The resurgence has increased criticism of the country's sluggish vaccine rollout, with just a quarter of eligible Australians so far fully vaccinated.

Agence France-Presse

Delta variant pushes US cases, hospitalizations to 6-month high

NEW YORK—Coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in the United States are at a six-month high, fueled by the rapid spread of the Delta variant across swathes of the country grappling with low vaccination rates.

Nationwide, COVID-19 cases have averaged 100,000 for three days in a row, up 35% over the past week, according to a Reuters tally of public health data. The surge of the disease was strongest in Louisiana, Florida and Arkansas.  

Hospitalizations rose 40% and deaths, a lagging indicator, registered an 18% uptick in the past week with the most fatalities by population in Arkansas.

The intensifying spread of the pandemic has led to cancellation of some large high-profile events. One notable exception is an annual motorcycle rally in South Dakota, which has been proceeding as planned. 

Florida set records for hospitalizations for eight days in a row, according to the analysis. In that state, most students are due back in the classroom this week as some school districts debate whether to require masks for pupils. 

The head of the nation's second-largest teachers' union on Sunday announced a shift in course by backing mandated vaccinations for U.S. teachers in an effort to protect students who are too young to be inoculated.

The number of children hospitalized with COVID-19 is rising across the country, a trend health experts attribute to the Delta variant being more likely to infect children than the original Alpha strain.

With the virus once again upending Americans' lives after a brief summer lull, the push to vaccinate those still reluctant has gained fresh momentum.

States including California, New York and Virginia have mandated vaccinations or weekly testing for state employees, as well as several cities.

The administration of President Joe Biden set new rules late last month requiring federal workers to provide proof of vaccination or face regular testing, mask mandates and travel restrictions.

In the private sector, a growing number of companies are also mandating COVID-19 vaccinations. United Airlines, meatpacker Tyson Foods Inc and Microsoft are requiring employees get vaccinated. 

STURGIS CROWDS

The evolving pandemic and the rapid community spread spurred by the Delta variant have already prompted the cancellation of some large-scale events. Last week, organizers canceled the New York Auto Show that had been set for later this month.

The New Orleans Jazz Fest was canceled for the second straight year as Louisiana fights a severe outbreak.

But fears about the Delta variant seem to not have dampened the mood in Sturgis, a small town in South Dakota that welcomes hundreds of thousands of motorcycle enthusiasts for the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.

This year's gathering, taking place Aug. 6-15, might already be attracting record crowds.

"It is one of the biggest crowds I have seen," Meade County Sheriff Ron Merwin said in an email. "I think there will definitely be some spread."

The city of Sturgis has partnered with health officials to provide COVID-19 self-test kits to rally-goes but the event does not require proof of vaccination or mask-wearing.

Last year, the rally became the super-spreader event that many feared it would become.

While cases and hospitalizations were relatively low in South Dakota when the event started on Aug. 7, 2020, three months later the state set a record for hospitalized COVID-19 patients and new infections.

In the month of November alone, the state lost 521 people to COVID-19, nearly three times the number of deaths reported in October, according to a Reuters tally. (Reporting by Maria Caspani, Editing by David Gregorio)

-reuters-

Sydney suffers worst pandemic day as lockdown nears 6 weeks

SYDNEY— Sydney reported its worst day of the COVID-19 pandemic on Thursday with five deaths and a record rise in locally acquired infections as a weeks-long hard lockdown is struggling to contain the highly contagious Delta strain of the coronavirus.

Four of the five people that died were unvaccinated while one had one dose, New South Wales state health authorities said, as they implored residents to get inoculated as early as possible.

Authorities also announced a one-week lockdown from Thursday in the region surrounding the state's second-largest city of Newcastle, 140 kms north of Sydney, after six cases were reported there.

That will place an additional 615,000 people under lockdown, raising the total in New South Wales under strict stay-home restrictions to 6 million people out of 8 million in the state, or about a quarter of Australia's population.

The authorities suspect the outbreak began with a beach party near Newcastle after people traveled from Sydney, an apparent violation of the city's lockdown.

"Our strongest focus... is getting to the bottom of how the disease was transmitted and introduced into Newcastle," New South Wales Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant told reporters, as most cases were still being detected in Sydney, the state capital and Australia's largest city.

There were 259 new COVID-19 cases in Sydney, out of 262 in all of New South Wales, health authorities said, daily records for the city and the state, which reported a previous high of 239 on Sunday.

There have been more than 4,300 cases in New South Wales during the latest surge that began seven weeks ago after the first case of the Delta variant was detected in an unvaccinated, unmasked limousine driver who transported overseas airline crew.

'GET VACCINATED'

In the state of Queensland, whose capital Brisbane is under lockdown, another 16 COVID-19 cases were reported on Thursday, the same as the previous two days.

In the state of Victoria, officials are trying to trace three new cases without links to prior infections that were among eight reported on Thursday. The state reported zero cases for the first time in a month on Wednesday.

One of the three unlinked cases includes a teacher in a school in Melbourne, the state capital.

New South Wales health officials are imploring residents, especially people above 60, to get inoculated.

The five deaths in Sydney included three men in their 60s, one man in his 70s and a woman in her 80s, taking the total number of deaths in the latest outbreak in New South Wales to 21.

"Please now is the time to strongly consider getting vaccinated... I put out a plea to you - make an appointment. Get vaccinated," Chant said.

With around 35,200 COVID-19 cases and 932 deaths, Australia has avoided the high caseloads of other developed countries but its vaccination figures are among the lowest, with only 20% of its population over 16 fully vaccinated.

New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian has tied the vaccination rate to easing lockdown restrictions on Aug. 28, setting a target of 6 million shots by the end of the month that would cover half the state's adult population. About 4 million doses have been given so far in New South Wales.

But the growing list of new venues where COVID-19-positive people have visited while infectious is tempering any optimism. About one-fifth of cases reported in New South Wales on Thursday were active in the community, in line with the trend over the last several days.

Victoria also provided an example of how active community cases are likely to cause more cases.

The state, which ended a lockdown only weeks ago, announced that the eight new cases are mostly linked to at least 3,000 close contacts. Authorities warned that would significantly rise, raising the prospect of more curbs.

"Given our understanding of the school community as well as the other exposure sites that are coming online, we would pretty quickly pass 5,000 to 10,000 primary and secondary close contacts within hours if not days," Victoria Health Minister Martin Foley said in Melbourne.

-reuters-

S. Korea detects its first two cases of Delta Plus COVID-19 variant

SEOUL- South Korea has detected its first two cases of the new Delta Plus COVID-19 variant, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said on Tuesday, as the country battles with its fourth wave of infections nationwide.

The Delta Plus variant is a sub-lineage of the Delta variant first identified in India, and has acquired the spike protein mutation called K417N, which is also found in the Beta variant first identified in South Africa.

Reports of Delta Plus cases have been few so far, and a handful of countries, including Britain, Portugal and India, have reported some cases.

"The first case (in South Korea) was identified in a man in 40s who has no recent travel records," the KDCA told Reuters in a text message.

Test results in people who have been in contact with the man showed that a family member of his tested positive, but the KDCA did not confirm the patient was infected with Delta Plus.

"The second case was found in an overseas traveler," KDCA said.

Health authorities have said several major vaccines work against the highly contagious Delta variant, which has already become dominant in many countries, but have raised concern new strains may evade some vaccines.

Some scientists have said the Delta Plus variant may be even more transmissible. Studies are ongoing in India and globally to test the effectiveness of vaccines against this mutation.

South Korea reported 1,202 new COVID-19 cases for Monday, raising the total to 202,203 infections, with 2,104 deaths.

The country on Tuesday said it has given 20 million people, or 39% of its population, at least one dose of a vaccine, while 14.1% have been fully vaccinated.

South Korea aims to immunize at least 36 million people by September. 

-reuters-

Millions under coronavirus lockdown as China battles Delta outbreak

Millions of people were confined to their homes in China Monday as the country tried to contain its largest coronavirus outbreak in months including seven positive tests found in Wuhan, where the virus first emerged in late 2019.

China reported 55 new locally transmitted cases on Monday as an outbreak of the fast-spreading Delta variant reached over 20 cities in more than a dozen provinces.

The Wuhan cluster came after the official daily tally was released, but it was confirmed by state media which said the infections had been traced to a train station.

"The seven were identified as migrant workers," Xinhua reported, citing COVID-19 prevention and control officials. 

Major cities including Beijing have now tested millions of residents while cordoning off residential compounds and placing close contacts under quarantine.

Over 1.2 million residents were placed under strict lockdown for the next three days in the central city of Zhuzhou in Hunan province Monday, as authorities roll out a citywide testing and vaccination campaign, according to an official statement.

"The situation is still grim and complicated," the Zhuzhou government said.

Beijing had previously boasted of its success in bringing domestic cases down to virtually zero after the coronavirus first emerged in Wuhan, allowing the economy to rebound.

But the latest outbreak, linked to a cluster in the city of Nanjing where nine cleaners at an international airport tested positive on July 20, is threatening that success with more than 360 domestic cases reported in the past two weeks.

In the tourist destination of Zhangjiajie, famed for its national forest park, an outbreak spread last month among theatre patrons who then brought the virus back to their homes around the country.

Zhangjiajie locked down all 1.5 million residents on Friday.

Officials are urgently seeking people who have recently travelled from Nanjing or Zhangjiajie, and have urged tourists not to travel to areas where cases have been found.

Meanwhile, Beijing has blocked tourists from entering the capital during the peak summer holiday travel season.

Only "essential travellers" with negative nucleic acid tests will be allowed to enter after the discovery of a handful of cases among residents who had returned from Zhangjiajie.

Top city officials on Sunday called for residents "not to leave Beijing unless necessary".

The capital's Changping district locked down 41,000 people in nine housing communities last week.

Fresh cases were also reported on Monday in the popular tourist destination of Hainan as well as in flood-ravaged Henan province, national health authorities said.

Agence France-Presse

US COVID cases rising rapidly, as Delta dominates

WASHINGTON  - COVID cases are rising rapidly in the United States as the highly contagious Delta variant dominates and vaccinations stagnate, data showed Wednesday.

The seven-day-average of new cases was 13,859 as of July 6, up 21 percent compared to two weeks earlier, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Cases attributed to the most recent days might rise further because of a reporting lag following the July 4 holiday weekend.

The spike comes as the Delta variant, which is more transmissible than any previous strain, accounted for around 52 percent of cases in the two weeks ending July 3, according to the CDC.

Despite having among the highest availability of vaccines of any country, America's immunization campaign has dropped off steeply since April. 

President Joe Biden narrowly missed his goal of having 70 percent adults at least partly vaccinated by Independence Day, with the current figure at 67 percent.

Regions in the Midwest and South with lower vaccination rates are experiencing higher case rates than regions with high vaccination rates such as the Northeast, a trend that has become increasingly clear in recent weeks.

A hospital in Springfield, Missouri, ran out of ventilators to treat hospitalized COVID patients over the weekend, local media reported.

The city of 160,000's two hospitals were treating 213 COVID-19 patients as of Monday, up from 168 on Friday and 31 on May 24, the Kansas City Star said.

"The trajectory that we're likely to see is two different flavors of the pandemic in the United States, one in which it's more of a problem in places where there's a high level of unvaccinated individuals," Amesh Adalja of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security told AFP.

"In other parts of the country, the pandemic is largely going to be something that's managed as more of an ordinary respiratory virus," he added.

Adalja said that even with Delta becoming the dominant strain he envisioned a "decoupling" of hospitalizations and deaths from rising cases in highly vaccinated regions, as has been seen in Israel.

"Increasingly, I think we have to start to shift our focus away from cases and really look at hospitalizations, because that's what the vaccine was designed to do -- it was designed to decouple cases from hospitalization," he said.

Real world data has shown that the Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines have retained high efficacy against severe COVID and the same is almost certainly true of the Moderna vaccine, according to experts.

Agence France-Presse

India hits daily COVID vaccination record, as free shots opened to all adults

India recorded its highest-ever daily vaccination count on Monday as it opened up free shots to all adults.

The progress with inoculations came on International Yoga Day, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailing the practice's "protective" properties against the coronavirus.

The country's vaccination drive had significantly slowed in recent months due to a shortage of jabs and hesitancy, even as it battled a vicious surge in cases in April and May that overwhelmed the healthcare system in many places.

Case numbers have since fallen sharply and the authorities have again relaxed many restrictions, sparking fears of another wave.

The government had expanded the vaccine roll-out to include all adults aged below 45 on May 1, but states and private hospitals had to procure and buy the shots themselves for the younger age group, leading to confusion and shortages.

But New Delhi later changed tack, announcing it would procure 75 percent of vaccine supplies and distribute them to states so they could inoculate people for free.

The health ministry reported that a record 7.8 million jabs were administered on Monday, in contrast with an average of three million shots a day in recent weeks.

"Today's record-breaking vaccination numbers are gladdening. The vaccine remains our strongest weapon to fight COVID-19... Well done India!" Modi tweeted.

The country has administered 280 million shots in total, but barely four percent of people are fully vaccinated. The government aims to inoculate all of India's almost 1.1 billion adults by the end of the year.

"The vaccination drive is expected to pick up speed now... the daily vaccination has picked up over the last week and is expected to strengthen further," community health expert Rajib Dasgupta told AFP.

"However, both existing inequities as well as hesitancy merit deeper attention to make this a success." 

- Yoga push -

The free roll-out came as Modi marked the annual Yoga Day with an early-morning address to the nation, saying the practice had again proved itself to be a source of "inner strength".

"When I speak to frontline warriors, they tell me that they have adopted yoga as a protective shield in their fight against coronavirus. Doctors have strengthened themselves with yoga and also used yoga to treat their patients," the Indian leader said.

Public parks were re-opened in Delhi on Monday, but the number of events for Yoga Day was cut back around the country for the second year running because of the pandemic.

Yoga Day -- proposed by Modi and adopted by the United Nations in 2014 -- is observed mostly in India, but also worldwide on the Northern Hemisphere's longest day.

Throughout the pandemic, India's government has touted yoga and herbal medicines -- sales of which have boomed -- to protect and give relief to people infected with the virus.

But evidence is scant and the claims have faced pushback from India's doctors, who wore black armbands last month to protest Baba Ramdev, a guru with ties to the Modi administration who has said yoga can cure Covid-19.

India is the world's second most infected nation with nearly 30 million coronavirus cases and more than 388,000 deaths, although experts say the actual toll could be much higher due to underreporting.

Authorities said late Monday that the Amarnath Yatra -- an annual Hindu pilgrimage to a cave shrine in Kashmir that draws some 300,000 participants -- would be cancelled for the second straight year due to the pandemic.

Agence France-Presse