Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Sullivan.
India has again suffered a record one-day death toll. According to the health ministry, 4,529 people were confirmed dead in the last 24 hours. It is the highest daily toll of any country on earth over the course of the pandemic and the first time India has seen a figure over 4,500.
Meanwhile, according to an AFP tally more than 1,500,017,337 vaccine doses have now been administered in 210 countries and territories.
Nearly three fifths of the total have been given in three countries: China (421.9 million), the United States (274.4 million) and India (184.4 million).
Here are the other key recent developments:
- Ukrainian lawmakers have voted to dismiss the health minister who has faced criticism for the slow pace of the nation’s coronavirus vaccination effort, AP reports.
- Argentina reported a record one-day coronavirus death toll of 745 on Tuesday as the country is hit by a second wave of infections that has brought the number of positive tests recorded in a 24-hour period to 35,543.
- Bahrain will vaccinate adolescents aged 12-17 with two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, state news agency BNA said, citing the country’s national medical taskforce for combatting the coronavirus on Tuesday.
- Algeria has backed off a decision to reopen land borders closed because of the coronavirus pandemic but will go ahead with a plan to partially resume international flights from next month, the presidency said on Tuesday.
- Mexico aims to ensure its population has had at least one Covid-19 vaccine shot by October, before the onset of colder weather, the president Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Tuesday.
- Kuwait’s cabinet said on Tuesday that direct commercial flights for India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka are limited to departing flights only, while cargo flights will continue, until further notice, the cabinet wrote on Twitter.
- Sudan will restrict all travellers who have visited India within the prior two weeks, the country’s health emergency committee said in a statement. India’s Covid-19 caseload topped 25 million on Tuesday, and there are concerns about the spread of a new, highly infectious variant, B.1.617, first found there.
- An extended halt to exports of Covid-19 vaccines from India risks undermining vaccination efforts already underway in Africa, according to one of the continent’s top health officials.
- Residents of two tower blocks in Germany have been put under quarantine after a woman was diagnosed with the infectious Covid Indian variant, an official said.
- Malaysia reported 47 new coronavirus deaths, a new record in fatalities for a second successive day.
- Singapore has authorised the use of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds in order to extend protection to more groups.
