The acceleration of the spread of the delta-mutated version of the Corona virus is forcing countries to tighten health restrictions again, in one moment in which the World Health Organization has warned of the need to treat this strain as a “warning” that requires intensified efforts to prevent the emergence of more dangerous mutations.
China has imposed local closure measures, in coinciding with a mobilization of the army in Australia and the extension of the state of emergency in Japan. The use of face masks has again become mandatory in the areas most affected by the virus in the United States, as United States President Joe Biden tries to step up the slow vaccination campaign.
A woman undergoes a corona examination in Sydney
And China, where the outbreak first appeared in (central) Wuhan city in late 2019, finds that the containment policy first applied last year is threatened, with new infections recorded from Nanjing. in the east of the country, and it spreads in five states and it spread to Beijing for the first time once six months ago.
After nine Nanjing Airport employees tested positive on July 20, 184 cases were recorded in Jiangsu Province (east) and 206 nationwide on Friday. Quarantine measures have been imposed on hundreds of thousands of residents in this region and Beijing.
It turned out that most of the newly infected people in China were vaccinated. Shanghai infectious disease expert Zhang Wenhong said in a tweet that vaccines can “slow the spread rate and reduce the mortality rate”, but undoubtedly cannot “eliminate the virus”.
In the same context, e in An ominous leaked internal reminder, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the delta mutant is contagious, similar to chickenpox, and is likely to cause more severe cases of the disease and those who become infected who have received the vaccine they can transmit the infection to the same extent as this is the case in those who have not received the vaccine. The center said “the war has changed” due to the delta mutant.
For their part, European researchers have warned that limiting preventive measures, such as wearing masks and maintaining social distancing in one moment in the entire population has not yet been vaccinated, would increase the possibility of new vaccine-resistant mutations emerging.
“unprecedented speed”
“Delta is a warning that the virus is evolving, but it is also a call to action, to do something before more dangerous forms of the mutant appear,” said Dr. Mike Ryan, the emergency officer at the World Health Organization, during a press conference in Geneva.
Maria van Kerkhove, technical manager for COVID-19 at the World Health Organization, said the prove have shown that the delta mutant is transmitted between socially mixed people.
“Let me be very clear: we don’t see the delta mutant specifically targeting children,” he said in a press conference.
The delta mutant has appeared so far in 132 countries and is more transmissible than previous versions of the virus, including those of concern.
In Japan, a week after the Olympics began, authorities extended the state of health emergency in Tokyo until the end of August, extending it to four other prefectures.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Sog said on Friday that “the infection is spreading at an unprecedented rate”, especially among young people, with 10,000 infections a day at an unprecedented rate. record.
And Olympic Games organizers recorded 27 new event-related injuries, three of them among players, at the highest rate despite stringent measures.
For their part, Americans, including those who have received two doses of the vaccine, have been called upon to pledge to put back masks in areas where the rate of infection has increased. In an effort to move the vaccination process forward, President Joe Biden instructed local authorities to transfer $ 100 to each person who accepts the vaccine.
Patient Corona in intensive care in a Utah hospital in the United States
Broadway theater goers, closed from March 2020, must have received the vaccine as a condition to attend the shows starting next September.
The United States also announced on Friday that it had supplied three million doses of the Moderna vaccine to Uzbekistan. in a gesture aimed at strengthening relations with the Central Asian country on the border with Afghanistan.
third dose
After being proactive in initiating vaccination campaigns and believing that its residents had become immune, Israel re-enforced the health certificate when entering. in places where there are more than 100 people.
The authorities have launched a “complementary” vaccination campaign, which provides for the administration of a third dose of the vaccine to those over 60 years of age. Israeli President Isaac Herzog was among those who received a third dose on Friday.
In Europe, where several countries are facing a fourth wave of the epidemic, the authorities are taking various measures. The Spanish authorities have extended the curfew in Barcelona and in part of Catalonia. France has imposed lockdown measures starting this weekend on the islands of Martinique and Réunion, with authorities describing the health situation as “tragic”.
According to one studio published Friday, people who did not receive the vaccine make up about 85% of hospitalized patients and 78% of deaths in France.
Prepare oxygen cylinders in Java, in Indonesia, while the number of injured increases
And from 9 August, passengers on French trains should expect at any moment to be asked to present a health certificate.
And Germany, starting Sunday, requires unvaccinated tourists to show a test negative to the virus when they reach its territory, that is in airplane, in auto or in train.
Saving lives
In the Philippines, authorities announced on Friday that 13 million citizens in the Manila region will be placed in quarantine, starting next week, in a difficult decision to “save lives”.
Despite the growing pressure in around the world to speed up vaccination campaigns remains very uneven, with high-income countries giving one media 97 doses per 100 people, compared to only 1.6 doses in poor countries.
From the Corona vaccination campaign on the island of Fiji
The Kovacs program, which is supposed to allow poor countries to receive vaccines for free, expects to receive 250 million doses of the vaccines in the next six to eight weeks, according to the World Health Organization.
In Burma, the authorities have warned of a “desperate” situation, inviting the UN Security Council to guarantee the administration of vaccines, despite the political crisis that the country is experiencing since the coup that overthrew the civil authority six months ago.
In Africa, Senegal, which has remained relatively immune to the outbreak for a long time, is experiencing an unprecedented spread of the infection, like the rest of the continent, and its overcrowded hospitals lack oxygen.
Tunisia, where the death rate is higher in North Africa is struggling to cope with the virus with the number of infections in increase, while intensive care rooms suffer from a shortage of oxygen cylinders.
Corona virus has claimed the lives of 4,202,179 people worldwide since the World Health Organization office in China reported the onset of the disease in late December 2019, according to a census conducted by Agence France-Presse based on official sources on Friday. .
The average number of new cases per day globally increased by 10% in a week to 575,918 infections as of Thursday and the epidemic continues to spread due to the great delta mutant.
The World Health Organization, taking into account the excess mortality directly or indirectly related to Covid-19, believes that the outcome of the epidemic may be two or three times greater than that officially announced.
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