The US is the most affected country, with over 32.8 million cases and a death toll in excess of 583,000.
Next comes India, which has been experiencing a major crisis in the last few weeks, with 23.7 million cases and over 258,000 deaths. Brazil has confirmed over 15.3 million infected and around 428,000 fatalities from the pandemic.
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WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – The US is not satisfied with the initial investigation of COVID-19 origins and supports the ongoing probe into the causes of coronavirus pandemic, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday.
“[US is] not satisfied with the original investigation. Yes, [US] supports an ongoing investigation to get to the bottom of what happened with COVID-19,” Blinken said during a briefing. “This is so important because we need to understand what happened, if we are going to have the best possible opportunity to prevent it from happening again.”
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The White House has officially lifted its mask-wearing requirement effective immediately for individuals who have been fully vaccinated, the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) said on Thursday.
"Effective immediately, pursuant to the new CDC guidance, mask-wearing requirements are lifted at the White House complex for those who are 14 days after their last required dose of one of the COVID-19 shots," the WHCA said in a statement.
"Anyone who is fully vaccinated can participate in indoor and outdoor activities, large or small, without wearing a mask or physical distancing", said CDC director Rochelle Walensky.
BEIJING (Sputnik) - China supports the proposal of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to waive intellectual property protection for coronavirus vaccines, Commerce Ministry spokesman Gao Feng said on Thursday.
"The members of WTO are currently discussing the global accessibility of vaccines. China believes that WTO can play a positive role in this issue. China supports the WTO's proposal to waive intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines and other anti-epidemic products and proposed to move the stage of textual consultation", Feng said.
The head of WTO, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and US President Joe Biden also recently lent support to waive coronavirus vaccine patents. Okonjo-Iweala said on Monday, she expects that WTO member countries will make a decision to waive coronavirus vaccine patent at the WTO's 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) which will take place from 30 November to 3 December in Geneva. According to her, an urgent solution must be found as to the waiver for COVID-19 vaccines in order to speed up vaccination around the world.
A proposal to waive patents on coronavirus vaccines was offered by India and South Africa at WTO in 2020. It was supported by almost 60 countries. It gained momentum after the US backed it last week. It is argued that the waiver of patents will increase access to doses in poorer countries. On the other hand, some European countries such as Germany, France, Italy officially oppose the proposal to waive patents. They affirm that patents encourage firms to invest and produce COVID vaccines in record times.
TORONTO (Sputnik) - The Canadian province of Ontario is extending the province-wide stay-at-home order until June 2, at the earliest, Premier Doug Ford announced on Thursday.
“We need to maintain the stay-at-home order and all public health measures until, at least, 2 June”, Ford said during a press briefing.
While Ontario’s public health officials have seen declining numbers of new COVID-19 infections since the stay-at-home order was introduced more than a month ago, provincial hospitals remain at capacity and resources are stretched to the limit.
Extended public health measures will allow the province’s vaccine rollout to make additional headway, Ford noted.
Ontario’s public health authorities are recording an average of 2,500 new cases daily since the introduction of a third province-wide lockdown since the onset of the pandemic. Experts estimate that variants - particularly the B.1.1.7 one first identified in the United Kingdom - now make up the vast majority of all new cases.
To date, Ontario has reported 502,171 cases and 8,405 virus-related deaths since the onset of the pandemic a year ago.
"I think we have to wait a little bit longer to see how the data is looking but I am cautiously optimistic about that and provided this Indian variant doesn't take off in the way some people fear, I think certainly things could get back much, much closer to normality", Johnson told broadcasters during a visit to a primary school in County Durham, northeast England.
"In the week ending May 8, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 473,000, a decrease of 34,000 from the previous week's revised level", the department said in a statement. "This is the lowest level for this average since March 14, 2020 when it was 256,500".
"According to experts' data, the analysis of the genome sequences of the coronavirus isolates found in the students does not allow attributing them to the 'Indian' strain, which people are now commonly afraid of. There is no data from which it could be concluded that these particular isolates from the Ulyanovsk students pose a greater danger than the regular coronavirus", the Central Research Institute of Epidemiology said in a statement.
"We are anxious about it [the Indian strain] - it has been spreading," Johnson said, adding that there would be meetings later on Thursday to discuss what to do.
"We're ruling nothing out," Johnson added. "At the moment I can see nothing that dissuades me from thinking we'll be able to go ahead on Monday and June 21 everywhere".
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russia registered 8,380 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, up from 8,217 the day before, taking the overall tally to 4,913,439, the coronavirus response centre said on Thursday.
"Over the past day, 8,380 coronavirus cases were confirmed across 84 Russian regions, including 1,347 cases (16.1 percent) without clinical symptoms", the centre said, adding that the rate of increase stands at 0.17 percent.
