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Sydney’s virus outbreak means plans for an Australian-Singapore travel bubble have been delayed until at least year-end, the Australian Trade Minister said. New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian warned the lockdown in the city may have to be extended beyond July 16.
Thailand reported its second-highest ever daily case and death totals on Sunday, after it imposed a night curfew and tightened restrictions. Malaysia’s director-general of health told the Bernama news agency that he expected a stabilization in case numbers in the next one to two weeks after the country reported a second straight daily record for infections on Saturday.
U.S. cases remain elevated after delta was declared the nation’s dominant strain, spreading particularly in areas with low vaccination rates. The tourist town of Branson, Missouri has become a hot spot for the more-contagious variant in the U.S.
Key Developments:
Hong Kong Says Airport Case Is ‘Untraceable’ (5:20 p.m. HK)
Hong Kong said the case of the airport porter who contracted a more-contagious mutation of the virus has been classified as untraceable, though it’s likely the 50-year-old man caught it while at work.
The patient was tested July 9 and found to be carrying the L452R mutation, said Dr. Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the Communicable Disease Branch of the Centre for Health Protection in Hong Kong. This ends a 33-day streak of zero community cases in the city, SCMP reported.
Moscow Sees Infections Leveling Out (5:04 p.m. HK)
Moscow officials believe the city has passed the peak of infections and will start to see levels stabilize, RIA Novosti reported on Sunday, citing the capital’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin. Russia has reported more than 700 deaths during the last six days, with the seven-day average hitting a high of 725.
Israel Data Suggests Vaccine May Weaken in Time (4:12 p.m. HK)
Data collected in Israel suggests that the protection afforded by the Pfizer Inc.- BioNTech SE vaccination weakens over time, Ynet news website reported.
People who were among the earliest vaccinated figure prominently among the new cases, though even among this group, protection against severe illness remains strong, according to the data presented to the Health Ministry.
Malaysia Could See Stabilization in Cases (9:38 a.m. HK)
Malaysia may see virus cases stabilize in the next one to two weeks amid a tightened lockdown and as it ramps up vaccination, the country’s health director-general said in an interview with state news agency Bernama.
Desperation is growing in Malaysia after it recorded 9,353 new cases on Saturday, a second straight daily record, and 9,105 on Sunday. The spike in cases over the last few days was due to targeted screenings, the health director-general said.
The latest figures bring the total number of infections in the Southeast Asian nation to 836,296, Malaysia’s health director general Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a Tweet.
Longer Lockdown Looms in Sydney (9:30 a.m. HK)
The Australian state of New South Wales recorded 77 new virus cases on Sunday, the highest total during the recent resurgence. State Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she expected daily cases to top 100 soon and called again on the community to respect the lockdown rules.
Total cases in the delta outbreak are now at 566 and Berejiklian has warned that unless it is quickly brought under control, Sydney’s lockdown will need to stay in place beyond July 16. The state also recorded its first death of the current outbreak -- a woman in her 90s who acquired the virus in her home.
Thailand Reports Second-Highest Cases (9:11 a.m. HK)
Thailand reported 9,539 new Covid-19 cases and 86 deaths on Sunday. That’s the second-highest for both infections and fatalities since the pandemic began.
The nation has implemented a night curfew, a ban on gatherings of more than five people and is limiting services and operating hours for restaurants and shopping malls for two weeks. The move to tighten restrictions follows a relentless surge in infections and hospitalizations that have stretched the nation’s health care system, especially in the virus epicenter Bangkok.
Australia-Singapore Bubble Delayed (7:10 a.m. HK)
Sydney’s virus outbreak means plans for an Australian-Singapore travel bubble have been delayed until at least the end of the year, the Australian Trade Minister said Sunday.
While opening the travel corridor remains a priority, the scale of an outbreak that has forced the country’s largest city into a renewed lockdown means plans are on hold, Dan Tehan told the Sydney Morning Herald.
“It has been put back due to the third wave of the virus,” he said. “The hope might be towards the end of the year that you could look at a travel bubble with Singapore.”
Businesses Urge U.K. to Drop Self-Isolation (7 a.m. HK)
Britain’s biggest business lobby called on the government to drop self-isolation rules when other Covid restrictions end, seeking to inject confidence into a push to get workers back to offices.
A work-from-home recommendation expires July 19, but self-isolation rules for fully vaccinated contacts of those who have tested positive for the coronavirus are set to be maintained until Aug. 16.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Boris Johnson will promise in a major speech this week that al fresco dining will become the norm in Britain under plans to revolutionize town centers and tackle economic inequalities after the pandemic.
Woman Dies Infected With Two Variants (6:14 a.m. HK)
A 90-year-old woman died after becoming infected with two different strains of Covid-19, revealing another risk in the fight against the disease, Belgian researchers found.
In the first peer-reviewed analysis of an infection with multiple strains, scientists found the woman had contracted both the alpha variant, which first surfaced in the U.K., and the beta strain, first found in South Africa. The infections probably came from separate people, according to a report published Saturday and presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases.
The woman was admitted to a Belgian hospital in March after a number of falls, and tested positive for Covid-19 the same day. She lived alone, receiving nursing care at home, and hadn’t been vaccinated. Her respiratory symptoms rapidly worsened and she died five days later.
U.K. Pushes for Less Time Between Jabs (5:37 p.m. NY)
U.K. officials have asked the nation’s vaccination committee to shorten the gap between coronavirus vaccinations to four weeks in a push to accelerate the administration of second doses, according to a report in The Sunday Times.
The request for advice on shortening wait times for a second shot comes amid surging infections of the virus’s delta variant and the imminent easing of virus-related restrictions in the U.K. Health experts say that while full vaccination provides protection against serious illness and death from variants including delta, one dose is far less effective.
Earlier, new figures showed U.K. hospital cases increased by more than 56% in a week. Some 3,081 people were admitted as of July 6, only two days after the country passed 2,000 for the first time since April. Another 32,367 cases and 34 deaths were also reported on Saturday.
Portugal Passes Vaccine Milestone (4:13 p.m. NY)
Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa said in a tweet on Saturday that 70% of the country’s adult population has now been given at least one dose of a vaccine, earlier than planned.
The government accelerated its vaccination campaign after the country started reporting a new increase in cases during June in some regions including Lisbon, with a high incidence of the delta variant.
U.S. Vaccinations Dip to Pre-Biden Lows (3:40 p.m. NY)
U.S. vaccinations have plunged to levels before Joe Biden was sworn in as president, despite the spread of the delta variant that is fueling a new rise in infections. The U.S. recorded 599,000 vaccinations on Saturday, the lowest level since early January, according to the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker. Daily vaccinations peaked in mid-April at almost 4 million.
Biden missed his goal of administering at least one does of vaccine to 70% of adults in the U.S. by July 4. That number is now 67.5%, according to the CDC. The administration is focusing on communities hardest-hit by the delta variant, also largely the pockets in the U.S. that are least vaccinated. It has begun deploying health officials to support local “trusted messengers” to go door-to-door to encourage vaccines.
Cases remain elevated, as the delta variant was declared the nation’s dominant strain and is spreading largely in areas with low vaccination rates. Weekly cases were above 100,000 for the second consecutive week, the most since early June. Slightly more than 23,000 new cases were reported on Friday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg.
G-20 Finance Chiefs Sound Alarm (3:20 p.m. NY)
Global finance chiefs signaled alarm over threats that could derail a fragile recovery as they concluded a meeting that sought to start reshaping the post-pandemic economic order.
New variants of the coronavirus and an uneven pace of vaccination could undermine a brightening outlook for the world economy, according to a communique agreed to on Saturday by Group of 20 finance ministers at a gathering hosted by Italy in Venice. They resolved to keep up support for growth to ensure recoveries can continue to take hold.
Anti-Vaccine Priest Removed (2:08 p.m. NY)
A Catholic priest in Wisconsin who violated Covid-19 restrictions and urged parishioners not to be a “guinea pig” by taking a vaccine was removed from his parish, according to a statement by the Diocese of La Crosse.
In May, Bishop William Patrick Callahan had requested the resignation of Father James Altman, who had also said that Catholics couldn’t be Democrats. The letter on Friday said that Callahan and the diocese “have spent over a year, prayerfully and fraternally, working toward a resolution” relating to Altman’s statements and activities -- and were now immediately removing him.
In April, a church bulletin from Altman’s parish declared that a Covid vaccine was an “experimental use of a genetic altering substance that modifies your body -- your Temple of the Holy Spirit” and questioned whether the inoculations worked.
— With assistance by Andrew Janes, Emily Cadman, Faris Mokhtar, Yantoultra Ngui, and Alexander Sazonov
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