COVID-19 WRAP | SA records just over 10,000 new Covid-19 cases in 24 hours

August 08 2021 - 20:49

France seeks volunteers to help battle Covid-19 in Caribbean territories

France's health minister on Sunday appealed for volunteer doctors and nurses to travel to the overseas territories of Guadalupe and Martinique as a wave of Covid-19 infections overwhelms hospitals on the two Caribbean islands.

Health Minister Olivier Veran said the first medical staff would fly out on Tuesday, as health authorities race to administer Covid-19 shots but come up against a deep-rooted culture of vaccine-hesitancy.

Only 21% of the populations of Guadalupe and Martinique have received a first dose of a vaccine, according to the independent Covid Tracker website citing August 5 data, compared with two thirds of all French people having received one dose and 55% being fully vaccinated.

-Reuters

August 08 2021 - 19:00

SA records just over 10,000 new Covid-19 cases in 24 hours

SA recorded 10,008 new confirmed Covid-19 cases, bringing the cumulative total of cases in the country to 2,533,466 and the number of active cases to 160,679.

The national death toll stands at 74,813 Covid-19 related deaths after an increase of 190 daily deaths in the last 24 hours.

8,588,464 vaccines have been administered in total since the beginning of the vaccine rollout with a recovery rate of 90.7%.

August 08 2021 - 18:00

US teachers' union shifts stance to back vaccine mandate as Covid surges

US teachers should be required to get vaccinated against Covid-19 to protect students who are too young to be inoculated, the head of the nation's second-largest teachers' union said on Sunday, shifting course to back mandated shots as more children fall ill.

"The circumstances have changed," Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, told NBC News' "Meet the Press" program.

"It weighs really heavily on me that kids under 12 can't get vaccinated."

"I felt the need ... to stand up and say this as a matter of personal conscience," she said.

-Reuters

August 08 2021 - 17:21

Italy reports 11 Covid-19 deaths on Sunday, 5,735 new cases

Italy reported 11 coronavirus-related deaths on Sunday compared with 22 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections fell to 5,735 from 6,902.

Italy has registered 128,220 deaths linked to Covid-19 since its first outbreak emerged in February last year, the second highest toll in Europe after Britain and the eighth in the world.

The country has reported 4.4 million cases to date.

-Reuters

August 08 2021 - 14:10

Beyond Delta, scientists are watching new coronavirus variants

The continued spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has spawned a Greek alphabet of variants - a naming system used by the World Health Organization to track concerning new mutations of the virus that causes Covid-19. Some have equipped the virus with better ways of infecting humans or evading vaccine protection.

Scientists remain focused on Delta, now the dominant variant rising rapidly around the world, but are tracking others to see what may one day take its place.

The Delta variant first detected in India remains the most worrisome. It is striking unvaccinated populations in many countries and has proven capable of infecting a higher proportion of vaccinated people than its predecessors.

-Reuters

August 08 2021 - 11:40

Russia reports 22,866 new Covid-19 cases, 787 deaths

Russia reported 22,866 new Covid-19 cases on Sunday, including 2,761 in Moscow, taking the national tally to 6,447,750 since the pandemic began.

The government coronavirus task force also said 787 people had died of coronavirus-linked causes in the past 24 hours. It has confirmed a death toll of 164,881 people.

Russia registered around 463,000 excess deaths from April 2020 to June this year during the pandemic, according to Reuters calculations based on data released by the state statistics service on Friday. 

-Reuters

August 08 2021 - 08:08

India reports 39,070 new coronavirus cases in last 24 hours

India reported 39,070 new cases of the coronavirus in the last 24 hours, the federal health ministry said on Sunday, taking its tally to 31.93 million cases.

Deaths rose by 491, taking total fatalities to 427,862.

-Reuters