coronavirus pandemic
Lebanese hospitals at breaking point as everything runs out
Drenched in sweat, doctors check patients lying on stretchers in the reception area of Lebanon’s largest public hospital. Air conditioners are turned off, except in operating rooms and storage units, to save on fuel.
Medics scramble to find alternatives to saline solutions after the hospital ran out. The shortages are overwhelming, the medical staff exhausted. And with a new surge in coronavirus cases, Lebanon’s hospitals are at a breaking point.
The country’s health sector is a casualty of the multiple crises that have plunged Lebanon into a downward spiral — a financial and economic meltdown, compounded by a complete failure of the government, runaway corruption and a pandemic that isn’t going away.
Read: Fuel tanker explodes in Lebanon, killing 20, wounding dozens
The collapse is all the more dramatic since only a few years ago, Lebanon was a leader in medical care in the Arab world. The region’s rich and famous came to this small Mideast nation of 6 million for everything, from major hospital procedures to plastic surgeries.
THE NEW NORMAL
Ghaidaa al-Saddik, a second-year resident, had just returned from a week off after an exhausting year. Back on duty for a week, she has already intubated two critical patients in the emergency room, both in their 30s.
She struggles to admit new patients, knowing how short on supplies the hospital is, scared to be blamed for mistakes and questioning if she is doing her best. Many patients are asked to bring their own medicines, such as steroids. Others are discharged too soon — often to homes where power outages last for days.
“You feel like you are trapped,” said al-Saddik.
The 28-year-old spends more nights in the staff dorms studying because at home, she has no electricity. She moved to an apartment closer to the hospital that she shares with two other people to save on rent and transportation. With the collapse of Lebanon’s currency amid the crisis, her salary has lost nearly 90% of its value.
With fewer and fewer residents, she must now do the rounds for about 30 patients, instead of 10. Her mentor, a senior virologist, has left Lebanon — one of many in a brain drain of medical professionals.
“I want to help my people,” she said. “But at the same time, what about me being a better doctor?”
RUNNING ON EMPTY
The Rafik Hariri University Hospital is Lebanon’s largest public hospital and the country’s No. 1 for the treatment of coronavirus patients. Lebanon has so far registered nearly 590,000 infections and over 8,000 deaths.
The hospital, which depended on the state power company, had to start relying on generators for at least 12 hours a day. Since last Monday, the generators have been the only source of power, running non-stop. Most of the hospital’s diesel, sold at the black market at five times the official price, is either donated by political parties or international aid groups.
To save on fuel, some rooms run only electrical fans in the sweltering summer heat. Not all hospital elevators are working. Bed capacity has been downsized by about 15% and the ER admits only life-threatening cases.
Read: Mired in crises, Lebanon hopes summer arrivals bring relief
It is a perpetual crisis that has left the hospital always on the brink, says its director, Firas Abiad. There are “shortages of almost everything.”
As Cuomo exits, Hochul to take office minus ‘distractions’
Andrew Cuomo neared the end of his decade as New York’s governor Monday, as he prepared to relinquish his tight grip on government to Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul in a midnight power transfer that will break another glass ceiling for women in state politics.
Cuomo, a Democrat, was set to end his term at 11:59 p.m., just under two weeks after he announced he would resign rather than face a likely impeachment battle over sexual harassment allegations.
Hochul was scheduled be sworn in as New York’s first female governor just after midnight in a brief, private ceremony overseen by the state’s chief judge, Janet DiFiore.
Read:Kathy Hochul to be 1st female NY governor after Cuomo leaves
The switch in leadership was happening in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Henri, which narrowly missed Long Island on Sunday but was dumping potentially dangerous amounts of rain over parts of the Catskill Mountains and Hudson River Valley, even after it was downgraded to a tropical depression.
The storm drew Cuomo back out into public view over the weekend, albeit briefly. He gave two televised briefings — warning New Yorkers to take the storm seriously with the same mix of scolding and reassurance that once made his daily COVID-19 briefings popular.
Perhaps if the storm had been catastrophic Cuomo might have been tempted to put off his resignation. But as the potential for danger diminished, he said there would be no change in his plans. “My final day is tomorrow,” he said Sunday.
Hochul, also a Democrat, will inherit immense challenges as she takes over an administration facing criticism for inaction in Cuomo’s distracted final months in office.
COVID-19 has refused to abate. Schools are set to reopen in the coming weeks, with big decisions to be made about whether to require masks for students or vaccination for teachers. The state’s economic recovery from the pandemic is still incomplete.
Cuomo’s resignation comes after an independent investigation overseen by state Attorney General Letitia James concluded there was credible evidence he’d sexually harassed at least 11 women, including an aide who said he groped her breast and has since filed a complaint with the Albany County Sheriff’s Office.
Investigators also said Cuomo’s senior staff retaliated against at least one of those women and worked to undermine the credibility of others.
Cuomo insists he didn’t touch anyone inappropriately and called the allegations “unfair” and “untruthful,” but said he wouldn’t force the state to endure an impeachment trial he couldn’t win.
Read:New York Governor Andrew Cuomo resigns over sexual harassment
Separately, Cuomo was facing a legislative investigation into whether he misled the public about COVD-19 deaths in nursing homes to protect his reputation as a pandemic leader and improperly got help from state employees in writing a pandemic book that may net him $5 million.
Cuomo has offered few hints about his plans or where he’ll live after leaving the Executive Mansion. He told New York magazine in a recent interview that he’s “not disappearing.”
In his resignation speech Aug. 10 he spoke with pride about his record of legalizing same-sex marriage, expanding paid family leave and boosting the statewide minimum wage to $15.
Hochul will need to quickly build her own team of advisers who can help steer the administration for at least the next 16 months.
She plans to keep on Cuomo-era employees for 45 days to allow her time to interview new hires, but said she will not keep anyone found to have behaved unethically. At least 35 employees in the governor’s office have left since February, according to staff rosters.
Hochul, who said she didn’t work closely with Cuomo and wasn’t aware of the harassment allegations before they became public, has vowed no one will ever call her workplace “toxic.”
“I have a different approach to governing,” Hochul said Wednesday in Queens, adding, “I get the job done because I don’t have time for distractions, particularly coming into this position.”
Hochul has already said she plans to run for a full four-year term next year.
She’ll do so as the state Democratic Party grapples with an internal struggle between moderate and liberal New Yorkers.
Read: Cuomo’s top aide resigns as governor faces harassment furor
Hochul, who once represented a conservative Western New York district in Congress for a year and has a reputation as a moderate, is expected to pick a left-leaning state lawmaker from New York City as her lieutenant governor.
State Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs praised Hochul as “formidable.”
“She’s very experienced and I think she’ll be a refreshing and exciting new governor,” he said.
Global Covid cases near 212 million
With the highly contagious Delta variant spreading rapidly across several countries, the global Covid-19 caseload is also fast approaching the grim milestone of 212 million.
The total caseload and fatalities stand at 211,800,166 and 4,430,770, respectively, as of Monday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (JHU).
So far, 4,922,573,973 vaccine doses have been administered across the world.
Read: 'India likely to have Covid shot for children by September'
The US, which is the world's worst-hit country in terms of both cases and deaths, has so far logged 37,709,810 cases, according to JHU, while 628,503 people have lost their lives to Covid to date.
Brazil currently has the world's second-highest pandemic death toll after the United States and the third-largest caseload after the United States and India.
The country has recorded 20,570,891 cases with 574,527 fatalities so far, according to the health ministry.
The third worst-hit country India's COVID-19 tally rose to 32,424,234 on Sunday, as 30,948 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours across the country, showed the federal health ministry's latest data.
Besides, as many as 403 Covid deaths since Saturday morning took the total death toll to 434,367.
Read:Over 4.4 million Covid cases reported worldwide in one week
Situation in Bangladesh
Bangladesh logged 139 Covid-related deaths in 24 hours till Sunday morning, one day after the lowest record in about two months amid concern over the unlocking of the country from restrictions imposed to check the spread of the virus.
The country on Saturday saw 120 Coronavirus related deaths and the upward curve of the fatalities was at its peak on August 5 and 10 with 264 deaths.
Besides, 4,804 more people came out positive with the virus after testing 31,689 samples during the last 24 hours, according to a handout issued by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
The fresh numbers pushed the country’s total fatalities to 25,282 while the cases reached 14, 61,994.
Read:DGHS chief vows action in instances of stealing Covid jabs
Meanwhile the case positivity rate fell to 15.16% from Saturday’s 16.71%, said the DGHS.
The recovery rate rose to 93.29%, but the case fatality increased to 1.73% compared to the same period.
The country is currently seeing around 170 deaths and 6,800 cases on a seven day average.
Oxygen plant among earthquake-damaged buildings in Haiti
As if Haiti’s 7.2 magnitude earthquake, a tropical storm and the coronavirus pandemic weren’t enough, the temblor damaged the only medical oxygen plant in the southern part of the country.
The building that housed the oxygen concentrator machines that the region depended on partially collapsed, and the machines were upended. The Etheuss company is run by the a family famous for their vetiver perfume oils plant in the city of Les Cayes, one of the areas hardest hit by Saturday’s earthquake.
“We are trying to get the oxygen production started again. That is our responsibility, because many people depend on it,” said Kurtch Jeune, one of the brothers who run the plant, as he showed reporters through the damaged, rubble-strewn plants on Thursday.
The quake left concrete pillars and roofs at the facility leaning, and cement block rubble battered the tanks, electrical system and the delicate web of copper tubing that fills vital oxygen plants. “The oxygen generators are upside down,” Jeune said. “We did get a promise of help from the public works department to get the rubble out with excavators.”
Read: Tensions over aid grow in Haiti as quake’s deaths pass 2K
Jeune said that, apart from two medical oxygen plants in the capital, Port-au-Prince, his factory was the only one serving local hospitals. As the COVID-19 pandemic grinds on, Jeune says demand for oxygen has gone up 200% in the last month.
“We have the capacity to supply 40 oxygen cylinders per day,” Jeune said. “We supply several hospitals.”
The powerful earthquake that struck Haiti’s southwestern peninsula killed at least 2,189 and injured 12,268 people, according to official figures. More than 300 people are estimated to still be missing, said Serge Chery, head of civil defense for the Southern Province, which includes the small port city of Les Cayes.
More than 100,000 homes were damaged or destroyed, leaving about 30,000 families homeless, according to official estimates. Hospitals, schools, offices and churches also were demolished or badly damaged.
The earthquake was trailed by a tropical storm that brought heavy rain and strong winds at the beginning of the week.
Private relief supplies and shipments from the U.S. government and others began flowing more quickly into Haiti on Thursday, but the Caribbean nation’s entrenched poverty, insecurity and lack of basic infrastructure still presented huge challenges to getting food and urgent medical care to all those who need it.
Read: What makes Haiti prone to devastating earthquakes
Adding to the problems, a major hospital in the capital of Port-au-Prince, where many of the injured were being sent, closed for two days beginning Thursday to protest the kidnapping of two doctors, including one of the country’s few orthopedic surgeons.
The abductions dealt a blow to attempts to control criminal violence that has threatened disaster response efforts in the capital.
Further, a group of 18 Colombian volunteer search-and-rescue workers had to be escorted out of the quake-hit city of Jeremie under police protection after a false rumor circulated that they had been involved in the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moise. The workers took shelter Wednesday night at a civil defense office, and police escorted them to the airport on Thursday.
Moise’s killing, still unsolved, is suspected of being carried out by a group of Colombian mercenaries. Despite what happened to the Colombian rescue workers, Haiti is welcoming “everyone who is coming to bring assistance,” said Jerry Chandler, the head of the national Civil Protection Agency.
Health care facilities in the Western Hemisphere poorest nation were already at a critical point before the earthquake because of the pandemic. The country of 11 million people has reported 20,556 cases and 576 deaths of COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Haiti received its first batch of U.S.-donated coronavirus vaccines only last month via a United Nations program for low-income countries.
The rest of Jeune’s factory, which produces an essential oil used in fine perfumes, was also badly damaged.
Read: Rescuers racing in Haiti as storm threatens to follow quake
The family’s business processes bales of beige, stringy roots culled from the vetiver plant to produce more than half the world’s vetiver oil.
Vetiver oil is also used for cosmetics, soaps and aromatherapy. It generates an estimated $12 million in revenue a year and employs anywhere from 15,000 to 60,000 farmers.
The damage to the factory threatens Haiti’s already perilous rural economy, plagued by drought, soil erosion and tropical storms.
Haiti produces more than 70 tons of vetiver oil a year, surpassing Indonesia, China, India, Brazil and the neighboring Dominican Republic. It is one of the country’s top exports, with up to 10,000 hectares (24,700 acres) harvested annually. But more than 60% of the crop still comes from individual producers, many of whom are struggling financially, according to Gabriel Gelin, a spokesman for the United Nations Environment Program in Haiti.
Global Covid cases near 210 million
The global Covid-19 caseload is fast nearing 210 million as the highly contagious Delta variant continues to devastate several countries even with mass inoculations underway.
The total caseload and fatalities from the virus stand at 209,934,849 and 4,402,002 respectively, as of Friday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (JHU).
So far, 4,824,375,876 Covid vaccine doses have been administered across the globe, as per the university data.
Read: Over 4.4 million Covid cases reported worldwide in one week
More than 4.4 million Covid cases and 66,000 deaths were reported worldwide in the past week as Covid-19 is continuing to spread around the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.
The number of new infections in seven days surpassed last week's number by 2%, while the mortality rate was roughly flat, the UN agency added.
The US has logged 37,293,969 cases and 625,166 deaths to date, according to the JHU data. The death toll in the United States is the highest in the world.
Brazil currently has the world's second-highest pandemic death toll after the United States and the third-largest caseload after the United States and India.
The country has recorded 20,494,212 cases with 572,641 fatalities so far, according to the health ministry.
The third worst-hit country, India's Covid-19 tally rose to 32,322,258 on Thursday, as 36,401 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours across the country, as per the health ministry's data.
Read:'India likely to have Covid shot for children by September'
Besides, as many as 530 deaths were reported due to the pandemic since Monday morning, taking the total death toll to 433,049.
India is likely to have its indigenous Covid-19 vaccine for children by September, Director of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)'s National Institute of Virology (Pune) Priya Abraham said.
Abraham's remarks came amid the ongoing phase II and III trials of Covaxin for the 2-18 age groups.
Situation in Bangladesh
Bangladesh logged 159 more coronavirus-related deaths and 6,566 fresh infections in 24 hours till Wednesday morning, in a decreasing trend in both fatalities and cases even though concerns remained over the virulent Delta variant of the virus.
The country has been seeing fatalities below 200 for the last seven days, a slight improvement from the July 25-August 13 period when daily deaths were recorded over 200.
Read: What we know about Covid-19 booster shots
The fresh numbers took the country’s total fatalities to 24,874 and the cases to 1,447, 210, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS)
The new cases were detected after testing 37,226 samples, which lowered the case positivity rate to 17.64%, still much higher than that of the WHO recommendation of bringing it below 5%.
Meanwhile, the case fatality rate remained static at 1.72%.
US struggles to speed Kabul airlift despite Taliban, chaos
The United States struggled Thursday to pick up the pace of American and Afghan evacuations at Kabul airport, constrained by obstacles ranging from armed Taliban checkpoints to paperwork problems. With an Aug. 31 deadline looming, tens of thousands remained to be airlifted from the chaotic country.
Taliban fighters and their checkpoints ringed the airport — major barriers for Afghans who fear that their past work with Westerners makes them prime targets for retribution. Hundreds of Afghans who lacked any papers or clearance for evacuation also congregated outside the airport, adding to the chaos that has prevented even some Afghans who do have papers and promises of flights from getting through.
It didn’t help that many of the Taliban fighters could not read the documents.
In a hopeful sign, State Department spokesman Ned Price said in Washington that 6,000 people were cleared for evacuation Thursday and were expected to board military flights in coming hours. That would mark a major increase from recent days. About 2,000 passengers were flown out on each of the past two days, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said.
Read:UNHCR issues non-return advisory for Afghanistan
Kirby said the military has aircraft available to evacuate 5,000 to 9,000 people per day, but until Thursday far fewer designated evacuees had been able to reach, and then enter, the airport.
Kirby told reporters the limiting factor has been available evacuees, not aircraft. He said efforts were underway to speed processing, including adding State Department consular officers to verify paperwork of Americans and Afghans who managed to get to the airport. Additional entry gates had been opened, he said.
And yet, at the current rate it would be difficult for the U.S. to evacuate all of the Americans and Afghans who are qualified for and seeking evacuation by Aug. 31. President Joe Biden said Wednesday he would ensure no American was left behind, even if that meant staying beyond August, an arbitrary deadline that he set weeks before the Taliban climaxed a stunning military victory by taking Kabul last weekend. It was not clear if Biden might consider extending the deadline for evacuees who aren’t American citizens.
At the airport, military evacuation flights continued, but access remained difficult for many. On Thursday, Taliban militants fired into the air to try to control the crowds gathered at the airport’s blast walls. Men, women and children fled. U.S. Navy fighter jets flew overhead, a standard military precaution but also a reminder to the Taliban that the U.S. has firepower to respond to a combat crisis.
There is no accurate figure of the number of people — Americans, Afghans or others — who are in need of evacuation as the process is almost entirely self-selecting. For example, the State Department says that when it ordered its nonessential embassy staff to leave Kabul in April after Biden’s withdrawal announcement, fewer than 4,000 Americans had registered for security updates. The actual number, including dual U.S.-Afghan citizens along with family members, is likely much higher, with estimates ranging from 11,000 to 15,000. Tens of thousands of Afghans may also be in need of escape.
Read: Afghans protest Taliban in emerging challenge to their rule
Compounding the uncertainty, the U.S. government has no way to track how many registered Americans may have left Afghanistan already. Some may have returned to the United States but others may have gone to third countries.
At the Pentagon, Kirby declined to say whether Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had recommended to Biden that he extend the Aug. 31 deadline. Given the Taliban’s takeover of the country, staying beyond that date would require at least the Taliban’s acquiescence, he said. He said he knew of no such talks yet between U.S. and Taliban commanders, who have been in regular touch for days to limit conflict at the airport as part of what the White House has termed a “safe passage” agreement worked out on Sunday.
“I think it is just a fundamental fact of the reality of where we are, that communications and a certain measure of agreement with the Taliban on what we’re trying to accomplish has to occur,” Kirby said.
Of the approximately 2,000 people airlifted from the airport in the 24 hours ended Wednesday morning, nearly 300 were Americans, Kirby said. U.S. lawmakers were briefed Thursday morning that 6,741 people had been evacuated since Aug. 14, including 1,762 American citizens and Green Card holders, according to two congressional aides.
Although Afghanistan had been a hotspot for the coronavirus pandemic, the State Department said Thursday that evacuees are not required to get negative COVID-19 results.
“A blanket humanitarian waiver has been implemented for COVID-19 testing for all persons the U.S. government is relocating from Afghanistan,” the department said. Medical exams, including COVID-19 tests, had been required for evacuees prior to the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul, which added extra urgency to efforts to get at-risk Afghans out.
Additional American troops continued to arrive at the airport. As of Thursday there were about 5,200, including Marines who specialize in evacuation coordination and an Air Force unit that specializes in emergency airport operations. Biden has authorized a total deployment of about 6,000.
Hoping to secure evacuation seats are American citizens and other foreigners, Afghan allies of the Western forces, and women, journalists, activists and others most at risk from the fundamentalist Taliban.
Read:Taliban militants violently disperse rare Afghan protest
Will U.S. troops go beyond the airport perimeter to collect and escort people? Austin suggested on Wednesday that this was not currently feasible. “We don’t have the capability to go out and collect large numbers of people,” he told reporters.
Austin added that evacuations would continue “until the clock runs out or we run out of capability.”
Afghans in danger because of their work with the U.S. military or U.S organizations, and Americans scrambling to get them out, also pleaded with Washington to cut the red tape that has complicated matters.
“If we don’t sort this out, we’ll literally be condemning people to death,” said Marina Kielpinski LeGree, the American head of a nonprofit, Ascend. The organization’s young Afghan female colleagues were in the mass of people waiting for flights at the airport in the wake of days of mayhem, tear gas and gunshots.
Another Oxygen Express on its way to Bangladesh from India
Another Oxygen Express of Indian Railways has embarked on its journey to Bangladesh on Thursday with 198 MT Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) to help address respiratory distress caused by Covid-19.
This is 10th Oxygen Express of Indian Railways which will arrive here with the Liquid Medical Oxygen.
Read:Linde Bangladesh raises awareness on oxygen conservation
Nine other Oxygen Express trains delivered liquid oxygen to Bangladesh in July and August.
Linde Bangladesh is the importer of the medical oxygen exported by Linde India.
On April 24, this year he state-owned Indian Railways started operating the special oxygen trains service to supply liquid oxygen in 480 states across the country.
Read:India's fourth Oxygen Express arrives with 200 MT of medical oxygen
Bangladesh is the first foreign country where the Oxygen Express has been put into operation to deliver the life-saving gas amid rising Covid infections.
Global Covid cases top 209 million
The global Covid-19 caseload has now surged past 209 million as the highly contagious Delta variant continues to devastate several countries even with mass inoculations underway.
The total caseload and fatalities stand at 209,222,017 and 4,392,130 respectively, as of Thursday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (JHU).
So far, 4,787,668, 861 vaccine doses have been administered across the globe.
Read:'India likely to have Covid shot for children by September'
More than 4.4 million Covid cases and 66,000 deaths were reported worldwide in the past week, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced Wednesday.
The number of new infections in seven days surpassed last week's number by 2%, while the mortality rate was roughly flat, the UN agency added.
A total of 4,444,632 people were infected with Covid-19 across the world and 66,506 patients died from August 9 to 15.
As of August 18, some 208,833,116 coronavirus cases had been recorded in nearly 200 countries. Since the start of the pandemic, the Covid-19 death toll has reached 4,386,814.
So far, the US, India and Brazil have seen the highest number of confirmed cases and fatalities.
The US, which is the world's worst-hit country in terms of both cases and deaths, has so far logged 37,148,877 Covid cases. Besides, 624,209 people have lost their lives in the US to date, as per the JHU data.
Read:Over 4.4 million Covid cases reported worldwide in one week
Brazil currently has the world's second-highest pandemic death toll after the United States, and the third-largest caseload after the United States and India.
The country has recorded 20,457,897 cases with 571,662 fatalities so far, according to the health ministry.
The third worst-hit country, India's Covid-19 tally rose to 32,285,857 on Wednesday, as 35,178 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours across the country, according to the federal health ministry.
Besides, as many as 440 deaths due to the pandemic since Monday morning took the total death toll to 432,519.
Situation in Bangladesh
Bangladesh reported 172 more coronavirus-related deaths and 7,248 fresh infections in 24 hours till Wednesday morning as concerns remain over the virulent Delta variant of the virus.
The country has been seeing fatalities below 200 for the last six days, a slight improvement from the July 25-August 13 period when daily deaths were recorded over 200.
Read: Bangladesh reports 172 more Covid deaths, 7,248 fresh cases
The fresh numbers took the country’s total fatalities to 24,719 and the cases to 1,440,644, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS)
The new cases were detected after testing 41,014 samples, which lowered the case positivity rate to 17.67 % from Tuesday’s 19.18%, still much higher than the WHO recommendation of bringing it below 5%.
Meanwhile, the case fatality rate has increased to 1.72% after staying unchanged at 1.71% for some days.
What we know about Covid-19 booster shots
US health officials may soon recommend Covid-19 booster shots for fully vaccinated Americans.
A look at what we know about boosters and how they could help fight the coronavirus:
Why might we need boosters?
It is common for protection from vaccines to decrease over time. A tetanus booster, for example, is recommended every 10 years.
Researchers and health officials have been monitoring the real-world performance of the Covid-19 vaccines to see how long protection lasts among vaccinated people. The vaccines authorised in the US continue to offer very strong protection against severe disease and death.
Read: US okays Covid booster dose for those with weak immune systems
But laboratory blood tests have suggested that antibodies – one of the immune system's layers of protection – can wane over time. That does not mean protection disappears, but it could mean protection is not as strong or that it could take longer for the body to fight back against an infection.
The delta variant has complicated the question of when to give boosters because it is so much more contagious and much of the data gathered about vaccine performance is from before the delta variant was widely circulating. Delta is taking off at the same time that vaccine immunity might also be waning for the first people vaccinated.
France and Germany plan to offer boosters to some people in the fall. The European Medicines Agency said it too is reviewing data to see if booster shots are needed.
Read Dengue vs. COVID-19: Symptoms, when & where to test, ways of prevention
When would they be given?
It depends on when you got your initial shots. One possibility is that health officials will recommend people get a booster roughly eight months after getting their second shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.
Officials are continuing to collect information about the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which was authorised for use in the US in late February, to determine when to recommend boosters.
Who would get them?
The first people vaccinated in the US would likely be first in line for boosters too. That means health care workers, nursing home residents and other older Americans, who were the first to be vaccinated once the shots were authorised last December.
Read: US to recommend COVID vaccine boosters at 8 months
Booster? third shot? What's the difference?
Transplant recipients and other people with weakened immune systems may not have gotten enough protection from vaccines, to begin with. They can now receive a third dose at least 28 days after their second shot as part of their initial series of shots needed for them to be fully vaccinated.
For those with normal immune systems, boosters are given much later after full vaccination – not to establish protection, but to rev it up again.
What questions remain?
Still unknown is whether people should get the same type of shot they got when first vaccinated. And the nation's top health advisers will be looking for evidence about the safety of boosters and how well they protect against infection and severe disease.
Read Liquid Medical Oxygen and Covid-19 Treatment: Things we need to know
Global access to vaccines is also important to stem the pandemic and prevent the emergence of new variants. Booster shots could crimp already tight global vaccine supplies.
What about the unvaccinated?
Dr Melanie Swift, who has been leading the vaccination programme at Mayo Clinic, says getting more shots into people who have not yet been vaccinated at all is "our best tool, not only to prevent hospitalisation and mortality from the delta variant but to stop transmission." Every infection, she says, "gives the virus more chances to mutate into who knows what the next variant could be."
"People who took the vaccine the first time are likely to line up and get their booster. But it is not going to achieve our goals overall if all their unvaccinated neighbours are not vaccinated," Swift says.
Read: Why might COVID-19 vaccine boosters be necessary?
Global Covid cases top 208 million
The global Covid-19 caseload has now surpassed 208 million, with the world still struggling to contain the second outbreak of the pandemic.
According to US-based Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the total case count mounted to 208,493,338 while the death toll from the virus reached 4,380,611 on Wednesday morning.
So far, 4,749,026,949 vaccine doses have been administered across the globe.
Read: US to recommend COVID vaccine boosters at 8 months
The US, which is the world's worst-hit country in terms of both cases and deaths, has so far logged 37,006,732 cases. Besides, 623,283 people have lost their lives in the US to date, as per the JHU data.
Meanwhile, U.S. experts are expected to recommend Covid-19 vaccine boosters for all Americans, regardless of age, eight months after they received their second dose of the shot, to ensure lasting protection against the coronavirus as the Delta variant spreads across the country.
Federal health officials have been actively looking at whether extra shots for the vaccinated would be needed as early as this fall, reviewing case numbers in the US as well as the situation in other countries such as Israel, where preliminary studies suggest the vaccine’s protection against serious illness dropped among those vaccinated in January.
Brazil registered 434 more Covid-19 deaths in the past 24 hours, raising its national death toll to 569,492, the health ministry said on Monday.
The ministry said that the total caseload rose to 20,378,570 after 14,471 new cases were detected during the period.
Brazil currently has the world's second-highest pandemic death toll after the United States, and the third-largest caseload after the United States and India.
India's Covid-19 tally rose to 32,250,679 on Tuesday, as 25,166 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours, as per the federal health ministry's latest data.
Read: Children account for 15% of new Covid cases in US
It was the lowest single-day spike in the past 154 days, according to the ministry.
Besides, 437 deaths due to the pandemic since Monday morning took the total death toll to 432,079.
Even though India is easing its restrictions amid a sharp drop in new Covid-19 cases, the threat of a third wave looms large, as experts predict another wave might hit the country by the end of August but say it will be less brutal.
The caseload will rise slowly instead of significantly, and the third wave will not be as chaotic as the second one, if the Delta variant remains dominant and no new variant emerges, experts have said.
Situation in Bangladesh
Bangladesh reported 198 more coronavirus-related deaths and 7,535 fresh infections in 24 hours till Tuesday morning.
The country has been seeing fatalities below 200 for the last five days, a slight improvement from the July 25-August 13 period when daily deaths were recorded over 200.
The fresh numbers took the country’s total fatalities to 24,547 and the Covid cases to 1,433,396, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
The new cases were detected after testing 39,278 samples, which lowered the case positivity rate to 19.18 % from Monday’s 21.08%.
Read: Lower age bar for Covid vaccination further: JS body
Meanwhile, the case fatality rate remained unchanged at 1.71%, said the DGHS.
During the period, the recovery rate rose to 91.73% with 12,950 more people recovering from the infection.
Meanwhile, the parliamentary standing committee on health and family welfare on Tuesday recommended lowering the age limit to receive Covid vaccines further from the existing 25 years.