Australia notched a fresh Covid-19 daily case record with the Delta variant raging in the country’s southeast even with roughly half its population in lockdown.
New South Wales recorded 1,290 new cases overnight, a day after hitting a previous high of 1,218 new cases, Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters Monday. Cases in Australia’s most-populous state have topped 20,000 despite months of stay-at-home orders in Sydney, after the outbreak was triggered by an unvaccinated chauffeur infected while transporting airline crew in the city in June.
Victoria state is poised to extend its month-long lockdown beyond this week after recording 73 new cases. Authorities in the Australian Capital Territory are also discussing whether its lockdown will be extended after recording 12 new cases.
Key developments:
New Zealand extends lockdown for largest city
New Zealand extended the lockdown of Auckland, its biggest city, for a further two weeks as it prepares to ease some restrictions elsewhere in the country.
Auckland will remain at alert level 4 while all of the country south of the city will move to level 3 restrictions at midnight on August 31, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told reporters on Monday. Level 4 restrictions require people to stay at home with severe travel restrictions and few exceptions. Level 3 isn’t as strict but still urges people to stay home where possible.
Earlier, the country’s health authorities reported what they believe to be the country’s first death linked to Pfizer Inc.’s Covid-19 vaccine.
A woman died from myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle wall, following her vaccination, New Zealand’s Covid-19 Vaccine Independent Safety Monitoring Board said in an e-mailed statement on Monday. It said myocarditis is known to be a rare side effect of the Pfizer vaccine. The case has been referred to the coroner.
Hon Hai founder to buy 30 million doses
Terry Gou, the billionaire founder of iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., said he plans to buy 30 million more doses of the BioNTech vaccine next year and donate them to the Taiwanese government.
In a late-night Facebook post Sunday, Gou said he had asked BioNTech about their delivery schedules for next year and whether or not they could reserve 30 million doses for Taiwan. The German company’s response was “not bad,” Gou said.
Taiwan has struggled to secure sufficient vaccines for its population of 23.5 million, with around 4 percent of people fully inoculated. Despite months of negotiations, the government was unable to reach an agreement with BioNTech and its Chinese distributor, Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group Co., prompting the corporate and civic sectors to step in to act as intermediaries.
Gou’s generosity is widely seen as the first step toward a renewed bid for the presidency. Gou declared his intention to run against President Tsai Ing-wen in the 2020 election but failed to win the nomination of the opposition Kuomintang. Taiwan’s next presidential election is scheduled for early 2024.
Thailand’s new cases drop to lowest level in one month
Thailand reported 15,972 new Covid-19 infections, the lowest level since July 27, according to government data released on Monday.
The decline comes ahead of the relaxation of some business restrictions this week. There were 256 new deaths in the past 24 hours, taking the country’s fatality toll to 11,399.
Japan health minister signals Tokyo emergency end unlikely
Japan’s health minister Norihisa Tamura said lifting the state of emergency in Tokyo and other areas when the current order expires September 12 will be “very difficult” given that case numbers remain at high levels and the medical system is under immense strain.
Tokyo’s daily cases would ideally need to come down to about 500 a day, Tamura told NHK’s “Sunday Debate” program. On Sunday, the city reported 3,081 new cases and the seven-day average was 3,784.
LA patients trending younger
Covid-19 hospital patients in Los Angeles County are trending younger, with a median age of 51 among those who are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing county health data.
The median age of vaccinated people who are hospitalized is 66, the newspaper said. The data also show that even healthy people who are unvaccinated are more likely to be hospitalized than vaccinated people generally.
Anthony Fauci said the door is open to administering booster shots in the US sooner than eight months after a completed Covid-19 vaccination, a possibility President Joe Biden has raised.
“We’re still planning on eight months. That was the calculation we made,” Fauci, Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. However, “we’re totally open to any variation in that based on the data,” he added.
Fauci also said he favors requiring shots for schoolchildren as “a good idea” for the US, where only people 12 years and older are eligible for vaccination.
US public-health advisers are moving slowly toward considering the nationwide plan for booster doses of Covid-19 vaccines to ward off the fast-spreading Delta variant, even as the Biden administration seeks a September 20 kickoff.
While the booster plan laid out earlier this month had targeted individuals who received their last shot at least eight months ago, President Joe Biden said Friday that Americans may get their added vaccinations even faster—just five months after finishing their standard immunization. The White House quickly clarified its stance, saying that the plan hasn’t changed, but Biden’s interest in a rapid rollout is clear.
German state may ban unvaccinated from restaurants
The German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg is considering banning unvaccinated people from restaurants and concerts as pressure grows on authorities to act, according to a report in the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.
Infections have been rising steadily in recent weeks, but authorities have vowed not to reimpose widespread lockdown restrictions. Instead they are looking to target unvaccinated people to encourage more Germans to get Covid-19 shots.
Immunizations have leveled off with some 60 percent of the population fully inoculated. On Sunday, infections rose to 74.1 per 100,000 people over the past seven days, the highest level since mid-May.
On Sunday, protests against pandemic restrictions continued in Berlin. On Saturday, more than 100 people were detained, according to Tagesspiegel. Bloomberg News