India hopes to receive up to 500 million doses of coronavirus vaccine by July to inoculate about 250 million people, its health minister has said.
The health ministry has recorded some 6.55 million infections, with 75,829 in the past 24 hours, while COVID-19-related deaths have totalled 101,782.
“There is a high-level expert body going into all aspects of vaccines,” Harsh Vardhan wrote on Twitter on Sunday. “We expect to receive & utilise 400 to 500 million doses & cover approx [200 million-250 million] people by July 2021.”
Serum Institute of India and private companies have been teaming up with organizations from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to U.S. drug developer Novavax Inc in a scramble to secure vaccines for the country of 1.3 billion people.
India has set up committees to look into various aspects of the vaccine supply chain, including availability timelines for various vaccines, while obtaining commitments from manufacturers to ensure the maximum doses are available, Vardhan said.
He said the federal government is committed to taking all measures to ensure “fair and equitable” distribution of vaccines once they are ready.
The country, second only to the United States in caseload, has scope for higher infections as a large chunk of the population remains unexposed to the virus, a survey showed on Tuesday.
To prioritise the distribution of coronavirus vaccines, the health ministry aims to prepare a list of key personnel, such as frontline health workers, by the end of the month.
Thousands of people protested against coronavirus restrictions in southern Germany on Saturday, police in the country have said.
Despite the large turnout, organisers failed to mobilise enough people for a planned human chain around Lake Constance, while counter demonstrators also turned up in their thousands to show support for the government’s measures to control coronavirus.
Overall, police counted between 10,500 and 11,000 people taking part in the demonstrations in Konstanz on Saturday. A police spokesman added that warm weather was likely to draw in further participants to the two-day protests on Sunday. “So far the situation is calm,” they added.
Organisers of the anti-restrictions protests had initially hoped to mobilise more than 200,000 people.
In response, local authorities in southern Germany had imposed measures such as social distancing to avoid further infections and banned the use of Germany’s imperial Reichsflagge, a symbol used by neo-Nazis and other far-right groups as an alternative to the swastika flag.
Anti-lockdown marches in Germany have attracted a mixed crowd including anti-vaxxers, as well as neo-Nazis and members of far-right groups including the opposition party Alternative for Germany (AfD).
In late August, protestors who stormed the steps of the Reichstag in Berlin – some bearing the Reichsflagge – during mass protests against coronavirus curbs, were condemned by leading German politicians.
Updated
at 7.15am EDT
Global coronavirus cases approaching 35 million
Covid-19 cases across the world are approaching 35 million, according to a John Hopkins University tracker which monitors country’s official figures.
As of Sunday (12pm GMT), cases stood at 34,937,150 since the beginning of the pandemic, although this is subject to change as government’s report their daily caseloads.
Over one million people have also died after contracting the virus. The total official death tally across the globe is currently 1,033,678, although this is also likely to increase as new figures are recorded throughout the day.
The five country’s with the highest recorded numbers of Covid-19 infections according to John Hopkins are:
1. US – 7,393,244
2. India – 6,549,373
3. Brazil – 4,906,833
4. Russia – 1,209,039
5. Colombia – 848,147
The country’s which have reported the most coronavirus-related deaths are:
1. US – 209,399
2. Brazil – 145,987
3. India – 101,782
4. Mexico – 78,880
5. UK – 42,407
Updated
at 6.59am EDT
Poland’s total number of coronavirus cases passed the 100,000 mark on Sunday, according to the health ministry’s Twitter account, as infection rates surge in the country which has reported daily records three times in the past week.
While Poland’s total number of cases remains well below that in many western European virus hotspots, reaching 100,000 illustrates how the spread of Covid-19 has accelerated in a country which avoided the worst of the first wave and where in July the prime minister played down risks ahead of an election.
The country of 38 million has now reported a total of 100,074 cases of the coronavirus and 2,630 deaths. On Sunday it reported 1,934 new daily cases and 26 deaths, after performing over 25,900 tests.
The UK’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, has offered advice to US president Donald Trump following his positive Covid-19 test result.
Johnson was admitted to intensive care at a hospital in London in early April to receive oxygen treatment after he contracted the virus.
Johnson told BBC One’s Andrew Marr show on Sunday:
I’m sure that President Trump is going to be fine, he has got the best possible care.
The most important thing to do is follow his doctors’ advice.
He also pointed out the problems that obesity can have when fighting the virus – although he insisted he was not commenting on Donald Trump’s weight.
Updated
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Health journalist and former neuroscientist, David Cox, has written about the evidence of lingering heart damage after initial symptoms of Covid-19 have dissipated.
The first indications the virus could affect the heart came from the original centres of the outbreak. Peter Liu, chief scientific officer at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, recalls receiving emails first from doctors in Wuhan during January and February, and then those in Italy as the pandemic reached Europe. They described a number of patients in intensive care wards with myocarditis or inflammation of the heart muscle.
“Because of my long-standing interest in how viral myocarditis can lead to heart failure, they asked me to participate in clinical data analysis to understand the impact of Covid-19 on the heart,” he says.
In March, the findings began to emerge. Of 68 patients who had died in one particular study, doctors reported that a third of these deaths had been caused by a combination of respiratory and heart failure. In a larger study, cardiologists at the Renmin hospital of Wuhan University found that of 416 patients, nearly 20% had cardiac injuries.
You can read more about the possible long-term effects of Covid-19 on our hearts here:
Cineworld will close all of its cinemas in the UK, Ireland and the US this week because of the impact of the pandemic, Reuters news agency has reported.
It comes after the release of upcoming Bond film No Time to Die was pushed back again until April 2021. It was originally due out in April this year but had already been pushed back to November.
The Sunday Times reported that the cinema giant would close all of its 128 theatres in the UK and Ireland, putting 5,500 jobs at risk.
It added that bosses were preparing to write to UK prime minister Boris Johnson and culture secretary Oliver Dowden to warn the industry had become “unviable” because of the postponing of big releases.
Last month, Cineworld announced half-year losses of $1.6bn.
Although demand rose for tickets to Christopher Nolan’s Tenet in August and September, other big-budget releases such as Fast and Furious sequel F9 have been postponed.
New daily cases in Russia pass 10,000 for first time since May
Russia’s new Covid-19 cases have topped 10,000 for the first time since May.
On Sunday, Russia’s coronavirus crisis centre reported 10,499 new infections – the biggest daily tally since 15 May, when the outbreak was at its peak and lockdowns were in place.
The country’s death toll also climbed by 107 to 21,358 in the previous 24 hours.
Updated
at 4.52am EDT
Hello, Amy Walker here. Welcome to today’s live global coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
The biggest news so far today is the US president Donald Trump’s continuing stay at a hospital after testing positive for Covid-19.
On Saturday evening, he posted a video message on Saturday evening saying that he is “doing well”, his wife Melania is “doing very well” and the next few days will be the “real test”. Meanwhile, his medical team says: “while not out of the woods yet, the team remains cautiously optimistic”.
Across the pond, coronavirus cases continue to surge in some European countries. On Saturday, France reported a daily record of 16,972 new cases, as well as 49 new deaths, while Italy recorded 2,844 new cases – its highest daily tally since April, when the country was still in lockdown.
In the UK, 12,872 new infections were reported in the 24 hours to Saturday, nearly double the number reported a day earlier, which was blamed on reporting delays from previous weeks, as it came to light that the government does not currently know Saturday’s actual number of new infections.
I’ll be keeping you up to date with today’s key developments. But first, here’s a roundup of the news over the past few hours:
- Top Trump aide Nick Luna has tested positive for Covid-19.
- Joe Biden’s campaign is committing to releasing the results of all future Covid tests the candidate takes.
- US secretary of state Mike Pompeo will depart for Japan on Sunday but will not go to Mongolia and South Korea as originally planned, after Trump’s diagnosis.
- Germany has reported 2,279 new cases, bringing the total number to 299,237. Two people were reported to have died, bringing the death toll to 9,529.
- Victoria, the state of Australia most affected, recorded just 12 new cases and one life lost in the past 24 hours. That’s the equal lowest death toll for almost a month.
- Mexico’s confirmed coronavirus cases rose to 757,953 on Saturday, according to the health ministry, with a total reported death toll of 78,880.
- Brazil on Saturday registered 599 new coronavirus deaths and 26,310 new confirmed cases.
- Tunisian authorities will ban all gatherings and reduce working hours for employees in the public sector in order to stop the rapid spread of the coronavirus
- Ireland is seeing a “significant escalation” in coronavirus infections, after reporting the highest daily death toll since May and the third-highest number of daily cases recorded to date.
- Thousands of Israelis protested again across the country on Saturday, flouting a new law meant to curb anti-government demonstrations during a new national coronavirus lockdown
Updated
at 4.07am EDT