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]]>Australia’s three largest cities were in lockdown on Saturday, as New South Wales recorded 319 community cases of the virus and five more deaths — a third straight day of record case numbers.
With the virus continuing to spread through Sydney’s sprawling suburbs, despite the city heading into its seventh week of lockdown, state Health Minister Brad Hazzard expressed frustration that people appeared to be ignoring restrictions and urged residents to stay at home.
“That is the biggest thing you can do for all of us and for yourself, to make sure that we beat this Delta virus that is wreaking havoc across the world,” Hazzard told media.
He also announced that the city of Armidale, about six hours’ drive northwest of Sydney, would join around 60 percent of Australia’s 25 million residents already under stay-at-home orders.
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]]>The post WHO Chief Scientist Warns Against The Next 6 Months appeared first on The Edge Media.
]]>Adults and children had resistance in 65 percent of cases, as per the ICMR’s serosurvey, and according to Dr. Swaminathan. However, these results show that kids have been minimally impacted by Covid.
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]]>The post South Africa indicates that it may resume using AstraZeneca vaccine appeared first on The Edge Media.
]]>Newly appointed South African health minister Joe Phaahla told a press briefing the government was planning to start using other vaccines, including Sinovac and AstraZeneca vaccine.
“It was approved … also that the AstraZeneca vaccine, which has now been shown to be effective against the Delta variant, that we should also look at bringing it back into use,” Phaahla said.
Earlier this year, the South African government halted the use of Covishield, a version of AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured by Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII), after a study showed the vaccine provided minimal protection against mild to moderate illness caused by the Beta variant. South Africa sold the Covishied doses it had purchased from SII to African Union.
The South African health minister’s remark suggests the country may consider using the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine again, given its high level of effectiveness against the Delta variant which is swiftly becoming the dominant strain across the world. A recent study of real-world data from Canada showed one dose of AstraZeneca’s Vaxzevria helped reduce hospitalisations or deaths by 87%.
As Johnson & Johnson has applied for emergency use approval in India for its single-shot Covid-19 vaccine, its efficacy against variants announced by South Africa is encouraging. Glenda Gray, the joint lead investigator of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine trial in South Africa, said that the single-shot vaccine offers protection against severe disease and death.
Gray told a media briefing that J&J shot, which is being used in the national vaccine programme alongside Pfizer’s, offered 67% efficacy against infection when the Beta variant dominates and about 71% when the Delta variant dominates.
Consistently after receiving the vaccine, there was very little death occurring in the vaccinated group as compared to the control group and showing a remarkable up to 96.2% protection against death,” Gray said.
(With inputs from agencies)
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]]>The post Delta is a warning says WHO after it’s outbreak in China and Australia appeared first on The Edge Media.
]]>China’s most serious surge of coronavirus infections in months spread to two more areas Saturday — Fujian province and the sprawling megacity of Chongqing.
More than 200 cases have been linked to a Delta cluster in Nanjing city where nine cleaners at an international airport tested positive, with the outbreak spanning Beijing, Chongqing and five provinces as of Saturday.
The nation where the disease first emerged has rushed to prevent the highly transmissible strain from taking root by putting more than one million people under lockdown and reinstituting mass testing campaigns.
Worldwide, coronavirus infections are once again on the upswing, with the World Health Organization announcing an 80 percent average increase over the past four weeks in five of the health agency’s six regions, a jump largely fuelled by the Delta variant.
First detected in India, it has now reached 132 countries and territories.
“Delta is a warning: it’s a warning that the virus is evolving but it is also a call to action that we need to move now before more dangerous variants emerge,” the WHO’s emergencies director Michael Ryan told a press conference.
He stressed that the “game plan” still works, namely physical distancing, wearing masks, hand hygiene and vaccination.
But both high- and low-income countries are struggling to gain the upper hand against Delta, with the vastly unequal sprint for shots leaving plenty of room for variants to wreak havoc and further evolve.
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]]>The post Delta variant spreading faster than other variants of concern, shows WHO reports appeared first on The Edge Media.
]]>The latest data from the World Health Organization (WHO) showed a “substantial” uptick in the Americas and the Western Pacific, which jumped 30 per cent and 25 per cent, respectively.
An average of around 5,40,000 cases was reported globally each day over the past week as compared to 4,90,000 cases reported daily the week before.
The number of deaths reported this week increased sharply with over 69,000 deaths, a 21 per cent increase when compared to the previous week. The cumulative number of cases and deaths reported globally is almost 194 million and over 4 million respectively.
WHO said that over the seven days, the highest number of new cases was reported in the United States, which saw more than half a million new infections, representing a skyrocketing 131 per cent increase.
Of the four Covid-19 mutations that WHO has designated “variants of concern”, the UN agency said that the Alpha variant is present in 182 countries, Beta is in 131, Gamma in 81 and after reaching eight new countries in the past week, the Delta variant is now in 132 countries
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]]>The post Delta Variant Can Affect People With Both Doses Of Vaccination appeared first on The Edge Media.
]]>SARS-CoV-2 is continually turning and gaining genetic alterations as it travels across countries. As a result, new variations emerge that are considerably more deadly than the initial. According to Public Health England, 58.3 percent of the 3,692 individuals admitted in the UK with the Delta strain were unvaccinated, while 22.8 were completely immunized.
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]]>The post Delta variant to become dominant strain : WHO appeared first on The Edge Media.
]]>Delta, which was first detected in India, has now been recorded in 124 territories — 13 more than last week — and already accounts for more than three-quarters of sequenced specimens in many major countries, the WHO said.
“It is expected that it will rapidly out-compete other variants and become the dominant circulating lineage over the coming months,” the UN health agency said in its weekly epidemiological update.
Of the three other coronavirus variants of concern (VOCs), Alpha, first detected in Britain, has been reported in 180 territories (up six from last week), Beta, first detected in South Africa, in 130 (up seven) and Gamma, first detected in Brazil, in 78 (up three).
According to SARS-CoV-2 sequences submitted to the GISAID global science initiative over the four weeks to July 20, the prevalence of Delta exceeded 75 percent in several countries.
Those included Australia, Bangladesh, Botswana, Britain, China, Denmark, India, Indonesia, Israel, Portugal, Russia, Singapore and South Africa.
“Growing evidence supports the increased transmissibility of the Delta variant as compared to non-VOCs. However, the exact mechanism for the increase in transmissibility remains unclear,” said the WHO.
(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by The Edge Media staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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]]>The post The people must remain vigilant about the Delta variant : Joe Biden appeared first on The Edge Media.
]]>The highly contagious Delta variant, also known as B.1.617.2, was first detected in India in December and is spreading quickly across the globe. In some parts of America, the Delta strain accounts for more than 80 per cent of new infections, including some Midwestern states like Missouri, Kansas and Iowa.
Earlier this month, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that new Covid infections with the Delta variant account for 51.7 per cent of the infections in the US.
Addressing his second Cabinet meeting on the completion of six months of his administration on Tuesday, Biden said that overall, Covid-19 deaths have come down dramatically. And in the last six months, they have come down by about 90 per cent due to the vaccination programme.
“But we have to stay vigilant, especially with the Delta variant that’s out there. While Covid-19 cases are rising, virtually all of the Covid deaths and hospitalisations are from unvaccinated people. Let me say it again: virtually all are from unvaccinated people,” he said.
He said the safest thing to do for the people is to get vaccinated. And “that’s why we’re focusing, on our next phase, on getting the unvaccinated vaccinated,” he added.
The White House has ramped up efforts to combat misinformation about the vaccines, especially in social media, and conduct more targeted outreach in communities across the country, including to young people.
Experts believe the Delta variant could be the most dominant strain in the country in the coming weeks.
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]]>The post Delta variant spreading at a great speed in Colombo appeared first on The Edge Media.
]]>We have noticed that between 25-30 per cent of new cases reported from Colombo are of the Delta variant,” Herath said.
The health officials said that about 35 cases of the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, have been found in Sri Lanka so far.
Sri Lanka is fighting the third wave of coronavirus. More than 1,000 new Covid-19 infections are recorded daily, in addition to nearly 50 deaths.
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]]>The post Covid-19 pandemic is now in the “early stages” of the third wave : WHO appeared first on The Edge Media.
]]>According to a PTI report, Tanvee Gupta-Jain, chief economist of UBS Securities India, said the third wave risks are real even more now as economic activity has improved sequentially for the seventh successive week to July 12, with several states gradually easing curbs on movement. The UBS report further said the pace of vaccination has also slowed down to under 3.4 million doses per day as against four million jabs earlier along with 45 per cent of the daily Covid-19 case count being reported from the rural regions of India.
In a note on Wednesday, Jain said that although the number of daily Covid-19 cases seems to have plateaued, the same still remains much above the 2021 trough and the drop in active caseload has also started to narrow down.
The report added that in more than 20 per cent of the top districts accounting for most of the daily cases and where the second wave of Covid-19 has not yet dialled down, the third wave has already set firmly in. The figure was only 5 per cent even a month before, it said.
Meanwhile, World Health Organization (WHO) director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday said the Covid-19 pandemic is now in the “early stages” of the third wave. “The Delta variant is now in more than 111 countries and we expect it to soon be the dominant Covid-19 strain circulating worldwide, if it isn’t already,” an UN report quoted Ghebreyesus as saying.
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