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Brazil counted a record number of new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, while Russia saw its highest tally since late January, highlighting the unequal state of the pandemic around the world and the need to promote vaccination.
Brazil counted 115,228 new infections in a single day, the most since the start of the outbreak, according to its health department, confirming that a third wave is underway. The nation of 212 million counted 2,392 new deaths, bringing its total to 507,109, the second highest official number after the U.S., according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.
Both Brazil and Russia are lagging in getting their citizens vaccinated. Brazil has fully inoculated just 11% of its population, the Johns Hopkins data show, while Russia has achieved vaccination of just 10.8% of its population of about 144 million.
The U.S. program, meanwhile, has slowed in recent days, as fewer people are making vaccination appointments. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker is showing that 150.8 million people, or 45.4% of the overall U.S. population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have have received two doses of the vaccines developed by Pfizer Inc.
PFE,
with German partner BioNTech SE
BNTX,
or Moderna Inc.
MRNA,
or one of Johnson & Johnson’s
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single-dose vaccine. That’s up from 45.3% a day earlier.
The number of U.S. adults receiving at least one dose of a two-dose regimen increased to 65.6% from 65.5% a day ago. The Biden administration said Thursday that over 70% of the U.S. population that’s 30 or older has received at least one shot.
But experts are concerned over the take-up rate in the South, in particular, where many states are still below 40% of their populations fully vaccinated. The list includes Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. In Ohio, a lottery offering millions of dollars in prize money as an incentive to get a jab has ended, with the state vaccination rate still below 50%.
Republican Gov. Mike DeWine announced the Ohio program in May, and it generated a strong initial response, with a 43% boost in vaccinations in the first week.
“Clearly the impact went down after that second week,” DeWine said Wednesday.
Underscoring the risk posed by new variants of the virus, notably the delta variant that was first detected in India and is now in at least 85 countries, Danish health officials are urging soccer fans who attended the UEFA European Championship group-stage match between Denmark and Belgium on June 17 in Copenhagen to get tested for COVID, having found at least three people testing positive for the highly infectious variant. About 4,000 people were seated close to those individuals, according to the Associated Press.
“India and Taiwan are still improving but new cases are increasing or still high South East Asia, Africa, Russia, Mexico and Brazil,” Danske Bank analysts wrote in a note.
“In other words, COVID-19 risks are declining in the developed world due to mass vaccination but not in emerging markets and developing countries with limited access to vaccine.”
In medical news, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it plans to add a warning about highly rare cases of inflammation of the heart in adolescents and young adults after being vaccinated with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, Reuters reported. Those vaccines use the same mRNA technology. CDC officials meeting Wednesday acknowledged a possible link to the vaccines, while stressing the protection they offer from COVID-19 more than offsets risks.
The U.S. government plans to study the immune responses of pregnant and postpartum women who have received a COVID-19 vaccine. The observational study, which is being funded by the National Institutes of Health, will also evaluate how and if antibodies are passed to infants via the placenta and through breastfeeding.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, said in a news release that “tens of thousands” of women have been immunized against COVID-19 and no safety concerns have emerged, but he noted that there are no robust clinical data about vaccinating this group of individuals. Pregnancy is considered a risk factor for developing a more serious form of COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Latest tallies
The global tally for the coronavirus-borne illness headed above 179.6 million on Thursday, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University, while deaths climbed above 3.89 million.
The U.S. continues to lead the world in total cases at 33.6 million, with a death toll of 602,838.
India is second in total cases at 30 million and third by fatalities at 391,981, although those numbers are expected to be undercounted given a shortage of tests.
Brazil has the third highest caseload at 18.2 million, according to Johns Hopkins data, and is second in deaths at 507,109.
Mexico has fourth highest death toll at 231,847 and 2.5 million cases.
In Europe, Russia has overtaken the U.K. in COVID deaths. Russia has recorded 129,278 fatalities, while the U.K. has had 128,291, making Russia the country with the fifth highest death toll in the world and the highest in Europe. Russia reported 20,182 new cases on Thursday, its highest daily total since Jan. 24.
China, where the virus was first discovered late in 2019, has had 103,627 confirmed cases and 4,846 deaths, according to its official numbers, which are widely held to be massively underreported.
