Delta puts brakes on post-Covid normality

Nations across the globe hit new pandemic highs and reimposed Covid-19 restrictions yesterday as the highly contagious Delta variant forced governments to put the brakes on plans to return to normality. 

The highly transmissible Delta variant, first detected in India, is sweeping the globe as countries race to inoculate their populations to ward off fresh outbreaks and allow for economies and daily life to recover.

The European Union -- lambasted early on in the pandemic response for a botched vaccine acquisition programme – yesterday said it has delivered enough shots to cover 70 percent of the bloc's population.

"By tomorrow, some 500 million doses will have been distributed to all regions of Europe," EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.

But according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the proportion of adults aged 18 years or over fully vaccinated in the EU and European Economic Area is still only 44.1 percent.

Supply shortages in South Korea have meant only about 11 percent of the country's 52 million population is fully vaccinated, according to health authorities.

The nation, held up as a model of how to combat the pandemic, reported 1,378 new coronavirus cases yesterday, a third straight record high.

From tomorrow, gatherings of more than two people will be banned after 6:00 pm, schools, bars and clubs will be closed.

In Pakistan, where less than eight percent of the population has been vaccinated, the government said only those who had received jabs would be allowed to fly.

"We could face dangerous consequences if we do not take steps to control the Delta variant," the National Command and Operation Centre said in a statement.

The country of around 215 million people has largely escaped the worst of the pandemic, with under a million recorded infections and around 23,000 deaths -- although cases are on the rise again.

After an "exponential" rise in cases in recent days, officials in the autonomous northeastern Spanish region of Catalan said they had no choice but to reimpose restrictions.

Nightclubs will close and a negative Covid-19 test or proof of vaccination will be needed to take part in outdoor activities involving more than 500 people.

Russia also announced that cases continued to surge and it had a new record number of daily deaths, the fifth since the beginning of the month.

The 752 new deaths yesterday bring Russia's total toll to 142,253. The country also recorded 25,082 new infections, meaning there have been more than 5.7 million cases.

Less than 20 percent of Russians have received a single dose, despite shots of locally developed vaccines being readily available.

Meanwhile, a White House official said on Friday that The United States was shipping 3 million doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to Indonesia, with another 1.5 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine heading to Nepal and 500,000 Moderna doses to Bhutan.

The shipments are part of the Biden administration's pledge to share an initial batch of 80 million US-made vaccines globally amid concern about the wide disparity in vaccination rates between advanced and developing countries.

While vaccines have been successful in mitigating the worst effects of infections, concerns have been raised about how well some of them will cope with more virulent strains.

In Indonesia, which is fighting a ferocious wave of infections, more than a dozen fully inoculated frontline health workers have died, according to the country's medical association.

Authorities said on Friday that medics would be given a third booster jab using the vaccine made by US company Moderna, to provide them extra protection.

The Southeast Asian nation has been depending heavily on China's Sinovax shots amid the global shortage of alternatives that have been mostly supplied to rich nations.

In another development, an advisory panel of the World Health Organization on Friday said that the benefits of mRNA Covid-19 vaccines outweigh the very small risk they might cause heart inflammation, as the jabs reduce hospitalisations and deaths.

In a statement, the WHO said that reports of two rare conditions - myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart, and of its lining, called pericarditis - had typically occurred within days of vaccination, mainly among younger males after the second dose.

"Very rare cases of myocarditis and pericarditis have been observed following vaccination with the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines," it said, referring to the two vaccines using such technology, by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

"The benefits of mRNA Covid-19 vaccines outweigh the risks in reducing hospitalizations and deaths due to Covid-19 infections," it said.