Covid LIVE: ZyCoV-D is likely to be launched in early October, says report

The national recovery rate was recorded at 97.49 per cent, the health ministry said.

11:15 AM

Cuba readies for tourism season amid Covid

Cuba is readying to kick start its tourism season in November amid efforts to contain the sharpest spike in daily Covid-19 cases, deaths and hospitalisations since the onset of the pandemic early last year.

 

"In the coming days, we have to work hard to set all the conditions" for tourists, Xinhua news agency quoted Tourism Minister Juan Carlos Garcia as saying on Friday.

 

"Cuba has always been, and will continue to be, a safe destination," Garcia said.

 

Between January and August, Cuba only received 164,763 international visitors due to the pandemic and travel restrictions.

10:58 AM

WHO seeks more data from Sputnik V makers for granting EUL

The World Health Organisation has sought some more data from Russia's Gamaleya National Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, developer of COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V for according Emergency Use Listing status for the jab.

 

Sputnik V is currently manufactured in India and being sold by Dr Reddy's Laboratories under Emergency Use Authorisation route. According to WHO website, though several meetings were held as part of the process for EUL, the status of assessment column says On hold, awaiting completion of rolling submission. Anticipated date will be set once all data is submitted and follow-up of inspection observations completed, WHO said on the decision date for EUL. 

10:35 AM

Alaska Governor: Biden's vaccine order 'un-American'

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy said President Joe Biden's effort to require millions of U.S. workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19 is ill conceived, divisive, and un-American.

 

At a time in which we are called to work together, forced medical procedures run counter to our collective sense of fairness and liberty, the Republican said in a statement.

 

My administration is aggressively identifying every tool at our disposal to protect the inherent individual rights of all Alaskans.

10:21 AM

India records 33,376 new coronavirus cases, 308 deaths

India saw a single-day rise of 33,376 coronavirus infections, taking the overall tally of cases to 33,208,330, while the number of active cases increased marginally since Friday to stand at 391,516, according to the Union Health Ministry.

 

The death toll climbed to 442,317 with 308 daily fatalities, according to the data updated at 8 am.

 

The number of active cases have increased to 391,516, comprising 1.18 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 97.49 per cent, the health ministry said.

 

An increase of 870 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours. On Friday, the country had recoded 390,646 active cases.

10:21 AM

Sri Lanka is running out of money for imports as Delta rages

Sri Lanka’s dwindling foreign exchange reserves risk spiraling into a crisis that could force the South Asian nation to tighten policy more aggressively and seek an International Monetary Fund bailout. 

 

After meeting a $1 billion debt repayment in July from reserves, the government has only enough dollars to cover less than two months of imports. The nation buys wheat, sugar and milk powder from abroad and, with the Sri Lankan rupee down 7.3% this year, the import bill is soaring, stoking inflation and raising concerns about panic buying and hoarding.

 

While authorities maintain they will repay $1.5 billion of foreign bond payments due in January and July, a Bloomberg gauge of one-year default probability has risen almost 20 percentage points, to Asia’s highest level at about 28%.

10:18 AM

Two new cases take COVID-19 tally of Andamans to 7,579

The COVID-19 situation in Andaman and Nicobar Islands is under control as the Union Territory reported two new cases, which took the tally to 7,579, a health department official said on Saturday.

 

One new patient has a travel history, and another was detected during contact tracing, he said.

 

The death toll remained at 129 as no new fatality due to the infection was reported in the last 24 hours, the official said.

 

10:05 AM

Britain's GDP growth stalls amid Covid surge

Britain's gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have grown only by 0.1 per cent monthly in July, 2.1 per cent lower than its pre-pandemic level in February 2020, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

 

The service output remained broadly flat in July following the strong growth of 1.5 per cent in June, whereas output in the production sector increased by 1.2 per cent and the construction sector decreased by 1.6 per cent, Xinhua news agency quoted the ONS as saying on Friday.

 

"As the summer slowly ends, there's little doubt that the UK recovery has stalled since our last monthly economic update in July," said James Smith, a developed markets economist at financial services firm ING.

 

9:47 AM

Mizoram logs 725 new COVID-19 cases, positivity rate at 10.73%

Mizoram reported 725 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours taking the active tally to 12, 347, informed Department of Information and Public Relations (DIPR), Mizoram on Saturday.

 

The state's positivity rate stands at 10.73 per cent.

 

According to the state bulletin, the number of cumulative cases in the state has mounted to 69,751 including 57,171 recoveries and 233 deaths.

9:25 AM

Thailand mulls new tourism incentives to revive Covid-hit economy

Thailand is mulling on new tourism incentives to revive its Covid-19 pandemic-battered economy, betting on higher vaccination rates that allow quarantine-free travels.

 

After more than one year of border control and an initiative to bring back foreign visitors to the resort island Phuket from July, Thailand is set to reopen more of its popular tourist destinations to fully-vaccinated foreign visitors starting next month, reports Xinhua news agency.

 

Regions including the capital city Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Chon Buri, Phetchaburi and Prachuap Khiri Khan are set to reopen to vaccinated foreign visitors from October 1, while another 21 destinations may reopen from mid-October, the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) announced on Friday.

9:02 AM

Biden’s sweeping vaccine mandate stops short of domestic flyers

Among the major measures President Joe Biden announced this week to get more Americans vaccinated, one high-profile move was missing: requiring vaccines or negative tests to get on an airplane.

 

Countries including France, Italy and Canada have imposed requirements, or will, for domestic travel as a way to slow the spread of the coronavirus and its emerging variants. Vaccine and testing requirements have taken hold widely for international flights, and the U.S. is weighing further restrictions on visitors, including a vaccine requirement for all foreign nationals. 

 

But, at home, the U.S. still only requires a mask for domestic flights, despite calls from some health experts to raise the bar and require proof of vaccines or a negative test.

 

8:39 AM

Global Covid-19 caseload tops 223.7 million

The global coronavirus caseload has topped 223.7 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 4.61 million and vaccinations soared to over 5.64 billion, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

 

In its latest update on Saturday morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload, death toll and vaccination tally stood at 223,790,289, 4,616,142 and 5,640,209,397, respectively.

 

The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 40,856,200 and 658,957 respectively, according to the CSSE.

8:33 AM

Covid-19 nowhere near 'under control' in US, says Anthony Fauci

Expressing concerns over the rising COVID-19 cases, White House Chief medical Adviser Anthony Fauci on Thursday said deadly pandemic is nowhere near "under control" in the US.

 

Fauci reiterated that the only way out of this pandemic is vaccination. "Right now, we're still in pandemic mode, because we have 1,60,000 new infections a day. That's not even modestly good control," Fauci was quoted as saying by The Hill.

 

"In a country of our size, you can't be hanging around and having 100,000 infections a day. You've got to get well below 10,000 before you start feeling comfortable," he said during his interview with AXIOS.

8:01 AM

Iran reports 21,114 new Covid-19 cases, 5,258,913 in total

Iran's Health Ministry on Friday reported 21,114 new Covid-19 cases, taking the country's total infections to 5,258,913.

 

The pandemic has so far claimed 113,380 lives in the country, after 445 new deaths were registered in the past 24 hours, said the update by Iran's Ministry of Health and Medical Education.

 

A total of 4,509,905 people have recovered from the disease or been discharged from hospitals across the country, while 7,418 remain in intensive care units, according to the ministry.

7:41 AM

BioNTech to seek approval soon for vaccine for 5-11 year old children

BioNTech is set to request approval across the globe to use its Covid-19 vaccine in children as young as five over the next few weeks and preparations for a launch are on track, the biotech firm's two top executives told Der Spiegel.

 

BioNTech has said it expected to file its regulatory dossier on the five to 11 year olds in September. US Food and Drug Administration said on Friday clinical trials testing Covid-19 vaccines for children are expected to include a monitoring period of at least two months after half the participants get the shots to ensure safety.

 

7:39 AM

World Health Organization calls for global governance against pandemic

The Pan-European Commission on Health and Sustainable Development convened by the World Health Organization (WHO) called for global governance and recommended the establishment of a Global Health Board "under the auspices of the G20".

 

The Commission made the remarks during a press conference at the WHO Regional Office in Copenhagen on Friday.

 

According to WHO, Covid-19 demonstrated how some governance structures failed to protect societies from the worst impacts of the pandemic, with some countries resorting to responses informed by politics rather than science, the Xinhua news agency reported.