Covid cases rise across the globe

Global infections soared to half a million daily, largely driven by the virulent Delta strain as the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that "more dangerous" variants of Covid-19 could tear across the world.

An AFP tally of official sources found that after an initial dip, cases have been rising again worldwide since the end of June, topping 540,000 on Tuesday and again on Wednesday.

"The pandemic is nowhere near finished," the WHO's emergency committee said in a statement on Thursday.

It highlighted "the strong likelihood for the emergence and global spread of new and possibly more dangerous variants of concern that may be even more challenging to control".

The EU's disease agency said yesterday it was predicting a sharp increase in cases, with nearly five times as many new infections by August 1.

The expected rise in cases was linked to the highly-transmissible Delta variant, first identified in India, along with the relaxing of measures in European countries.

In its coverage area -- which includes the European Union, Norway and Iceland -- the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) expected to see 420 cases per 100,000 inhabitants for the week ending on August 1, up from just under 90 last week, it said in a weekly report.

By the week after, the number of new cases is expected to rise above 620 per 100,000 inhabitants.

The virus has reappeared in places long believed to have dodged the worst of the pandemic, with Australia -- lauded for its successful "Covid zero" strategy -- facing a resurgence that has grown to almost 1,000 cases nationwide in a month.

More than 12 million Australians are now under stay-at-home orders after Melbourne residents began their first day of a snap lockdown, joining Sydneysiders already deep into weeks-long restrictions.

French authorities said yesterday that face masks will again be required in all public spaces indoors and out in a southern region bordering Spain, after infections soared this week because of the Delta variant.

Wearing a face mask at an indoor public establishments will once again be mandatory in Los Angeles starting this weekend due to a steady increase in Covid-19 infections and hospitalizations, health authorities said Thursday.

Los Angeles is the first large US metropolis to reimpose the use of face masks -- regardless of vaccination status -- in shops, grocery stores, restaurants and workplaces to help contain the pandemic.

The British government's chief medical adviser said England's coronavirus crisis could return again surprisingly quickly and the country is not yet out of the woods, as infections surged ahead of the lifting of legal restrictions, reports Reuters.

"We are not by any means out of the woods yet on this," Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said late on Thursday during a webinar hosted by the Science Museum.

PRAY AT HOME

Indonesia's religious minister yestrday called on people to pray at home during next week's Islamic holiday to avoid the risk of spreading the coronavirus, as some regions complained of a lack of supplies of Covid-19 vaccines.

Fuelled by the spread of the more virulent Delta variant, Indonesia has repeatedly reported record infections and Covid-19 deaths in recent weeks, prompting some health experts to declare the country Asia's new epicentre for the virus.

Philippine health officials yesterday warned of a possible surge in infections as the first locally transmitted cases of the Delta variant were recorded and more than three million people went into lockdown.

In India, the government has ordered 660 million vaccine doses for August-December, its largest procurement, local news reports said yesterday, as state authorities and health experts warned that shortages could leave millions vulnerable if infections surge again.

ORIGINS INVESTIGATION

China yesterday rebuffed WHO accusations that it failed to share raw data needed for an investigation into Covid-19's origins, insisting experts were given adequate access when they visited the country this year.

The WHO is facing intensifying pressure for a new, in-depth investigation into the pandemic's origins after the UN agency sent a team of independent, international experts to China's Wuhan in January -- more than a year after Covid-19 first surfaced there.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters Thursday that one of the main challenges during the first phase of the investigation was that "the raw data was not shared," and urged China to "be transparent, to be open and cooperate" on a second phase of the investigation.

But China's foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian insisted the country had allowed experts "to see the original data that needed special attention," although "some information involves personal privacy and cannot be copied and taken out of the country."

Zhao also dismissed Tedros' claims that "there was a premature push" to rule out the theory that the virus could have leaked from a virology lab in the central Chinese city.