Live Updates: UK Records 5,341 New COVID-19 Cases Over Past 24 Hours

The United State will continue to press China to be transparent on the issue of the origins of the novel coronavirus, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Monday.

"I don’t think we just give up that easily. We will continue to press in coordination with the international community China to be transparent, to be forthcoming with data and information," Psaki said during a ress briefing. "We are not going just to stand by and accept they’ve said they are not going to participate."

Psaki said the United States is engaging and will continue to engage China at the highest levels while also working through the World Health Organization and with international partners to exert pressure on China to release the underlying data.

On Sunday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States needs to delve deeper into the origins of the novel coronavirus and hold China accountable.

Blinken said the Biden administration is determined to get to the bottom of the novel coronavirus origins issue, but noted that China has not "given us the transparency we need" and needs to be held accountable. The secretary of states called on China to make available all information relating to the pandemic and allow full access for international inspectors.

Speaking at the Saturday GOP convention in North Carolina, former US President Donald Trump blamed the coronavirus pandemic on China, saying that Beijing should pay all countries a minimum of $10 trillion in reparations.

Trump also accused the Biden administration of blocking a thorough investigation of the origins of the coronavirus.

Biden recently ordered the US intelligence community to produce a report re-examining the origins of the novel coronavirus and to help determine whether the disease leaked from a lab or spread from an infected animal to a human.

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned on Tuesday against lifting coronavirus-related restrictions across the world "too quickly" while COVID-19 variants are actively spreading globally.

A number of countries and separate regions have been easing or completely lifting COVID-19 restrictions in recent weeks with the approach of summer, as well as a drop in the number of infections. The Belgian capital was the latest among them, with Brussels Mayor Philippe Close announcing on Monday the cancellation of the mandatory mask-wearing outdoors from June 9.

"With the increased global transmission of variants of concern, including the Delta variant, lifting restrictions too quickly could be disastrous for those who are not vaccinated," Tedros said at a press briefing.

The Delta variant has recently become of particular concern, as it became prevalent in some countries, causing a sharp surge in infections. The new mutant variant was first detected in India last month. It is also known as a "double mutant" due to it possessing two mutations of particular concern, L452R and E484Q.

A plane of the state company Aerolineas Argentinas took off from Buenos Aires to Moscow to collect the active ingredient to allow the manufacture of Sputnik V in Argentina, air company sources informed Sputnik.

"The plane left at 2:30 am today [05:30 GMT]," the sources said, adding that the Airbus 330-200 is expected to land at Moscow-Sheremetyevo International Airport at midnight local time on Tuesday.

In addition, the plane is supposed to return with a new batch of Sputnik V vaccines. This is the 19th flight that Aerolineas Argentinas has sent to Russia to get vaccine shipments.

Russian President Vladimir Putin along with his Argentine counterpart, Alberto Fernandez, announced on Friday that the Latin American country will begin producing the vaccine developed by the Gamaleya Institute in the coming days.

For its part, the private laboratory Richmond is going to be responsible for mass production of Sputnik V, after the first batch was delivered to the Russian Gamaleya institute that at the end of May confirmed the quality of the vaccine produced in the Latin American country.

Argentina became the first Latin American country both to authorize the use of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine and to proceed to local production. In April, it announced its plans to produce 4-5 million doses of Russia's drug monthly and expects to bring yearly production to 500 million doses.

According to the latest data of the Ministry of Health of Argentina, the country’s immunization campaign began at the end of last December, and so far more than 11 million people have been vaccinated, of which more than 3 million have received two vaccine shots.

According to Johns Hopkins University, the death toll in Argentina has risen to 81,214, and the number of detected cases to more than 3.9 million.

US drugmaker Moderna has filed a request with European and Canadian health regulators for approval to immunize adolescents with its COVID-19 vaccine, the company said on Monday.

“We are pleased to announce that we have submitted for conditional marketing approval of our COVID-19 vaccine with the European Medicines Agency for use in adolescents in the European Union,” said Stéphane Bancel, Chief Executive Officer of Moderna, in a statement.

The company has also filed for authorization with Canada’s regulatory body, Health Canada, and intends to file for an Emergency Use Authorization among younger segments of the population with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the near future, Bancel added.

Moderna’s top executive said that the company’s vaccine has proven to be highly effective in teens during clinical trials, with none of the 3,732 adolescents, who received both doses of the vaccine, having developed COVID-19.

Should Moderna’s application be granted, it will be the second vaccine that will gain emergency use authorization from in the EU and Canada use on adolescents after the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Less than a quarter of all adult Americans are now practising strict social distancing, according to a new Gallup poll released on Monday.

"Less than a quarter of U.S. adults, 22 percent, now say they are completely or mostly isolating from non-household members," the polling company said in a release. "This figure, from Gallup's May 18-23 probability-based web panel survey, is down from 30 percent in April and 48 percent in January."

Forty percent report still isolating partially or a little, while 38 percent of the adult public are making no attempt to isolate at all, Gallup said.

However, more than four in 10 Americans are still avoiding large crowds and 26 percent are avoiding small gatherings, the pollster said.

The web survey was conducted May 18-23 with a random sample of 3,572 adults across the US and bears a margin of sampling error of plus-minus 3 percent.

India's paramilitary force unit- Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), is all set to take over the security of the country's indigenous Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin manufacturers Biotech in Hyderabad city.

CISF provides security to industrial installations in India and is one of the country's four paramilitary forces.

Bharat Biotech is the leading manufacturer of vaccines and leading biotech in India. Covaxin, India's indigenous COVID-19 vaccine by Bharat Biotech is developed in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)- National Institute of Virology (NIV).

British consumer’s confidence index jumped by 3.1 points to a record five-year high of 113.6 in May, assisted by the easing of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions and the beginning of the economic recovery, according to a survey released on Monday.

The poll conducted online by the polling firm YouGov and the Center for Economics and Business Research between May 1-31 included questions on household finances, property prices, job security, and the level of business activity at people's workplace over the past 30 days, as well as expectations for the next 12 months.

"The YouGov/Cebr Consumer Confidence Index points to another strong increase in sentiment in May as people flocked to pubs and restaurants following the lifting of some restrictions on indoor socialising," Kay Neufeld, head of forecasting and thought leadership at the Center for Economics and Business Research, was quoted as saying.

Any score above 100 means more consumers are confident than not, and May’s 113.6 index is the highest reached since April, 2016, despite growing concern that a potential third COVID-19 wave, triggered by the coronavirus variant first identified in India, might derail the government’s plan to lift all social distancing measures within two weeks.

Almost a quarter of adult Americans reported they are unwilling to get vaccinated, while 78 percent of them said they are unlikely to change their mind in the future, a new Gallup poll revealed on Monday.

Two prevailing reasons for Americans not to get vaccinated were a lack of confidence the vaccines were safe (23 percent) and a belief the virus doesn’t pose a serious health risk (20 percent), according to the poll.

The poll results also showed that 60 percent of US adults have been fully vaccinated against the novel coronavirus, 4 percent have been partially vaccinated, and 12 percent plan to be inoculated, making it a total of 76 percent Americans.

Over a half of US adults said they were worried about people who are not planning to get vaccinated, including 25 percent of those who are very worried, the poll found.

The poll showed a significant difference along the partisan line with 46 percent of Republicans and only 6 percent of Democrats saying they were hesitant to get inoculated.

The poll was conducted between May 18-23 with a random sample of 3,572 adults, aged 18 and older.

The authorities in the Belgian capital of Brussels have decided to cancel the mandatory wearing of face masks outdoors, except for the busiest shopping streets and squares, starting June 9, Mayor Philippe Close said on Monday.

The decision is the latest in a series of rulings to ease coronavirus-related restrictions as the epidemiological situation improves, with over 53% of adults having been vaccinated at least once. Last week, the federal government announced the easing of restrictive measures throughout the country from June 9, with restaurants resuming services indoors, among other measures.

"Vaccination continues, the rates [of the spread of the coronavirus] are falling. As of June 9, wearing a mask will no longer be required outdoors, save for a few busy shopping streets," Close tweeted.

At the same time, a recent court decision backed the federal government's right to introduce its own restrictions as part of measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

According to the RTBF broadcaster, on Monday the Brussels Court of Appeal reversed an earlier ruling that orders issued by the country's interior minister regarding the introduction of emergency measures to counter the spread of the coronavirus have no legal basis, citing laws on civil defence and security, as well as on the role of police.

In early March, the Human Rights League organization filed a suit against the coronavirus-related measures, saying that restrictions infringe on fundamental freedoms. A first-instance court in Brussels fulfilled the demand on March 31 and obligated the Belgian government to lift the coronavirus restrictions within 30 days over "absence of legal basis" for imposing the restrictions. The government challenged the verdict.

The Constitutional Court has a final say in the dispute, as it is set to decide to what extent the government's actions to combat the pandemic, as well as the laws in force, are in line with the constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.