Record number of cases recorded across Africa – as it happened

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Jane Halton, former head of the federal Department of Health in Australia, said the country’s government needs to be doing more to ensure it’s easy for aged care workers to vaccinated.

She says this could include sending in teams to homes, rather than just relying on workers to get the jab in their own time.

That would be our preference.

Our preference would be that this is made as easy as possible for workers. We’ve done this for the aged care residents themselvess, our preference would be that this made is made as easy as possible.

Now the good news is, some providers are actually arranging this as we speak. Some providers are making sure either they bus their workers to centres to have them vaccinated, or they bring that capability on site.

So we believe this is an immediate priority waiting until the first of September, for the first dose, our strong preference would be to have that achieved well before that date.”

The latest Covid-19 situation in Australia:

Brazil registered 22,703 new Covid-19 cases and 695 new deaths in the past 24 hours, the country’s health ministry said on Monday.

That brought the total in Brazil to 18.79 million cases and 525,112 deaths , Reuters reports.

Moroccan pharmaceutical firm Sothema will soon start producing 5 million doses of China’s Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine in the North African country, state news agency MAP reported.
The announcement was made at a ceremony chaired by King Mohammed VI during which the Moroccan government, Sinopharm and Sothema, whose formal name is Société Thérapeutique Marocaine, also signed deals to produce the vaccine in the African country, which has a population of about 36 million. During the same event, the Moroccan government also signed a deal with Sweden’s Recipharm to set up a plant in Morocco to produce other key vaccines, Reuters reports.

Morocco, which rolled out a Covid-19 vaccination campaign in January, has inoculated more people against the virus than other African countries.

It had administered 19.23 million doses of the Sinopharm and AstraZeneca vaccines as of July 5.

Germany’s public health institute said the UK, India, Portugal and Russia were no longer “areas of variant concern”, reducing travel restrictions for people arriving in Germany from those countries.

All four countries had been downgraded to “high incidence areas”, the Robert Koch Institute said, meaning their citizens can now travel to Germany and quarantine on arrival for 10 days, Reuters reports.

The quarantine period can be shortened to five if they test negative for Covid-19.

“If you have spent time in a high incidence area prior to entry, the relevant test may not be conducted earlier than five days after entry,” the institute said on its website.

I’m signing out for the evening and this blog will be put on pause, so head over to the UK live blog where there will be more coverage of the lifting of restrictions in England.

For the rest of the world, here’s a summary of what we’ve covered today.

• Indonesia is calling for oxygen to be redirected to its hospitals, where there are major shortages. During an oxygen outage at a hospital in Yogyakarta city on Saturday 33 people died. Indonesia reported on Monday a record 29,745 new coronavirus infections and 558 deaths, health ministry data showed.
• Save the Children said more vaccines need to reach Indonesia to stop the spread of the virus. The charity said children are suffering from the current outbreak in Indonesia, with almost 600 killed.
• Bangladesh has suffered its worst day, with 164 deaths and 9,964 new infections. The government has extended the current lockdown into next week as hospitals on border areas struggle with the Delta variant, which was first identified across those borders in India.
• Africa recorded its record number of cases over the past week, according to a count by AFP. There were 36,000 new infection reported per day, driven by a surge in South Africa.
• England will lift regulations on wearing face masks and social distancing in public spaces. There has been strong opposition however to the idea of allowing people to ride public transport without face coverings, especially as infections are currently rising.
• Spain recorded more than 30,000 new infections since Friday, an 85% increase on the previous weekend. The Delta variant has spread among mostly unvaccinated young people.
• The UN’s refugee agency UNHCR said the pandemic has made displaced women and girls more vulnerable to domestic violence, sexual violence and early marriages.
• Sri Lanka received its first delivery of Pfizer vaccines bought through the World Bank’s financing for developing countries who have not been able to purchase vaccines in the way richer nations have, forcing them to wait on donations.
• Egypt’s statistics agency noted that deaths were almost 15% higher during the first of this year compared to the same period in 2019. It did not say what the underlying causes were.
• There’s a growing controversy in Thailand after a leaked health ministry document has prompted calls for medical staff inoculated against Covid to be given a booster of an mRNA vaccine, because it included a comment that such a move could dent public confidence in Sinovac Biotech’s vaccine. Thailand reported 6,166 new Covid infections today, and 50 new fatalities.
  
• The Duchess of Cambridge is having to self-isolate after coming into contact with someone who later tested positive for coronavirus, Kensington palace said. Kate was due to spend the day with William celebrating the 73rd anniversary of the NHS at two major events but will now have a self-isolation period at home.
• Infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci says about 99.2% of recent Covid deaths in the US involved unvaccinated people.
  
• In China the city of Ruili, home to more than 210,000 people, has been locked down again after the discovery of cases imported from neighbouring Myanmar.

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Ivory Coast has sent mobile clinics into busy areas like markets in the main city Abidjan to speed up vaccinations, Reuters reports.

After administering fewer than 800,000 doses since vaccinations began in March - enough for a single dose for just 3% of the population - Ivorian health authorities are now aiming to inoculate a million people in Abidjan over the next 10 days.

While acknowledging that will be a tall order, they hope to pick up the pace by targeting some of Abidjan’s most frequented places, especially its vast open-air markets where most of its 5 million residents shop for food and clothing.

At the market in the district of Adjame, which municipal officials say is visited by more than one million people a day, mostly female vendors and customers lined up to be vaccinated in an air-conditioned truck.

“We are very happy about the convenience of the vaccines. It suits everyone,” said Minigna Keita, who promotes cosmetic products at the market.

In the Treichville district, health workers roamed the market with megaphones, encouraging people to get vaccinated.

“This morning it was a little slow, but people have started to show up in large numbers after seeing that the first people vaccinated did not have any problems,” said Sylvie Sie, who coordinates vaccinations in the district.

Infections in Spain since Friday increased by 85% more than the previous weekend, with the outbreak of the Delta variant among young people behind the rise.

Spain recorded 32,607 since Friday according to official data.

The 14-day infection rate among 20-29 year-olds were at 640 per 100,000 - more than three times the national average.

Deaths in Egypt were 14.9% higher during the first of this year compared to last, the country’s statistics agency said on Monday, without giving the causes of death.

Reuters reports the statistics show 49,818 more deaths this year. Compared to 2019, the rise was even higher, amounting to 31%.

Egypt has officially recorded more than 16,000 deaths and 280,000 cases but the real number of infection is thought to be higher because of low testing rates and the exclusion of data from private testing.

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Bangladesh may have recorded its worst day of deaths and infections but local media are reporting more people on the streets, including day labourers in need of income and people out to get shopping.

Police in the capital Dhaka said they arrested 413 people for defying the lockdown. Since it was imposed last week more than 200 people have been hit with heavy fines of 89, 450 Bangladeshi taka (£838).

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5 Jul 202112.40 EDT

Ian Sample

As England prepares to ease coronavirus restrictions further, the messaging from ministers has changed. We have reached, it seems, a tipping point in the pandemic where rules will be replaced by personal decisions. The mantra now is about living with coronavirus, much as we do with seasonal flu.

The pandemic has invited countless comparisons between coronavirus and influenza and the diseases do have some features in common. Both are contagious, potentially lethal respiratory viruses. They can spread through aerosols, droplets and contaminated surfaces. And they share some of the same symptoms in the form of fever, cough, headaches and fatigue. In the winter ahead, one challenge the NHS faces is separating the Covid patients from the flu cases.

But there are striking differences between coronavirus and flu that matter for public health. Coronavirus spreads faster than influenza and can cause far more serious illness. The symptoms of coronavirus can take longer to show, and people tend to be contagious for longer, making them more prone to passing it on.

Greece could lower the age for vaccinations to 15 after it was recommended by the country’s vaccination committee, Reuters reports.

Government approval is still required to turn the recommendation, which notes parental consent would be necessary, into policy. Currently the lower age for vaccinations is 18.

“This summer is being overshadowed by the Delta variant, which can be highly contagious in a very short exposure time,” Theodoridou said. “We believe (vaccinating teenagers) is a safe step towards normality,” said the committee’s head Maria Theodoridou.

On Monday, health authorities reported 801 cases and six deaths, bringing total infections to 426,963.

As of Monday, 38.2% of Greece’s eligible population was fully vaccinated while 47.7% had had one dose, officials said.

5 Jul 202112.23 EDT

Andrew Pulver

It represents a huge step forward to something like normality in the film industry: the Cannes international film festival is reopening for business on Tuesday after cancellation of its physical edition last year. The ebb and flow of the coronavirus pandemic forced the festival, and its thousands of attendees from both the film business and the media, to change its plans on multiple occasions, and it will finally achieve lift-off with the world premiere of the Sparks musical Annette, Cannes’ first in-person screening since May 2019.

Eve Gabereau, managing director of UK distributor Modern Films, says it is “surreal, crazy and daunting” to return to Cannes, but that “it is important and great to be going – for the industry at large, professionally for my company, and for me personally”.

She adds: “Cannes is so important because of the buzz created around new films and talent, that allows us as an industry to come together and to build the year ahead, both for local markets and on a global scale. There are of course other great festivals that fulfil a similar role but there is something about Cannes – it feels like the starting point of it all.”

Traditionally, with its competition, special screenings and associated events, Cannes has provided a platform for independent and non-English language films, and its awards – led by the Palme d’Or – can propel even the most obscure product of world cinema to international acclaim. At the same time, its high-profile red-carpet premieres provide a dose of paparazzi glamour that rivals the Academy Awards. And operating concurrently to the festival is the perennially busy Cannes Marché du Film, where producers sell their films to distributors all over the world in what amounts to a giant industry trade fair.