World Coronavirus Dispatch: Delta barely sensitive to single dose in study

Pfizer outlines booster dose plans, South Korea raises curbs to highest level in Seoul, and other pandemic-related news across the globe

Philippines lets children go out after a year of staying home

After keeping them at home for more than a year, the Philippines has allowed children to visit parks, playgrounds, and restaurants, among other places. However, they are not allowed to go to malls. The relaxations apply to areas that are at levels one or two in terms of infections, and at which the curbs are the least. Economic managers have been calling for looser movement curbs on kids as family activities can help drive consumer demand and boost an economy that’s struggling to recover. The Philippines is battling one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in Asia, with nearly 1.46 million cases and more than 25,000 deaths as of July 8. The daily case count has eased from a record-high in April. Read here

Let's look at the global statistics

Global infections: 185,573,594

Global deaths: 4,010,729

Vaccine doses administered: 3,356,247,321

Nations with most cases: US (33,790,505), India (30,752,950), Brazil (18,962,762), France (5,861,128), Russia (5,638,901).

Source: John Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center

Pfizer outlines booster dose plans

Pfizer outlined its plans for a booster dose that could be given six to eight months after the original two doses, in the wake of emerging threats from highly contagious variants. The pharma major said it has received initial data from an early human study showing that a third dose of its existing coronavirus vaccine is safe and can raise neutralising antibody levels by 5 to 10 fold compared with the original vaccine. It is looking to apply for emergency use authorisation after it gets more data. Separately, Pfizer and BioNtech are planning to test a vaccine exclusively against the Delta variant, currently the dominant strain sweeping the world. Read here

How does the Delta variant dodge the immune system?

Researchers in a study, published in Nature, found out the effectiveness of vaccines and antibodies produced after a natural infection, that reveals a lot about how the Delta variant evades the antibodies that target certain parts of the virus. It found that Delta was barely sensitive to one dose of vaccine, confirming previous research that suggested that the variant can partly evade the immune system. However, previous studies suggest that one dose of vaccine is still enough to prevent hospitalisation or death from the virus, suggesting that people who have recovered from Covid-19 still need to be vaccinated to fend off some variants. Read here

South Korea raises Covid restrictions to highest level in Seoul

South Korea will raise coronavirus curbs to their highest level yet in the Seoul area, prime minister Kim Boo-kyum said, warning that a record rise in new cases had reached “maximum crisis level”. The country had previously been held up as a model of how to combat the pandemic, with the public largely following social distancing and other rules, but it was slow to start its vaccine rollout due to supply shortages. On Friday it recorded 1,316 cases, its highest daily rise since the pandemic began, with most new infections in the capital of Seoul and its surrounding areas, home to almost half the South Korean population. Read here