Race is on between vaccine drive, Delta variant: Scientist

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson (left) chats with teachers and students in the Arts and Design area during a visit to Kirklees College Springfield Sixth Form Centre in Dewsbury, northern England. Pic/AFP

A new wave of Coronavirus infections is "definitely underway" in England due to the Delta variant first identified in India, a British government advisory scientist said on Saturday.

"The race is firmly on between the vaccine programme and the Delta variant third wave," said Professor Adam Finn, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), Xinhua news agency reported.

Acknowledging the recent surge in infections, Finn told the BBC, "Perhaps we can be a little bit optimistic it's not going up any faster, but nevertheless it's going up - so this third wave is definitely under way."

Noting that the highest number of cases of the Delta variant is among 16-25 year-olds, Finn said that older people are still "much more likely to end up in hospital."

"As far as vaccines are concerned, the main emphasis everywhere at the moment is immunising adults because it's adults that suffer predominantly from this infection," he said.

Meanwhile, epidemiologist Mike Tildesley said he is "cautiously hopeful" that hospital admissions in Britain will not be on the same scale as in January. Tildesley, a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M), another government advisory body, said cases have been "creeping steadily" over the past month "but we haven't yet seen that reflect in hospital admissions and deaths".

"I'm cautiously hopeful that whilst we probably will expect some sort of wave of hospital admissions over the next few weeks, it won't be the same scale that we saw back in January."

The recent data published by Public Health England showed the AstraZeneca vaccine is 92 per cent effective against hospitalisation from the Delta variant after two doses, and the Pfizer vaccine is 96 per cent effective against hospitalisation after two doses.

Britain sees over 10k cases

Britain reported more than 10,000 Coronavirus cases for the third consecutive day on Saturday as there has been a 79 per cent rise in the highly contagious Delta variant in the country in the past week. Britain has reported another 10,321 Coronavirus cases in the latest 24-hour period, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 4,620,968, according to official figures released on Saturday, Xinhua news agency reported.

No flights to Peru from India, SA, Brazil

Peru has extended the suspension of commercial flights from India, South Africa and Brazil until July 11 to prevent the further spread of Covid-19, the government announced. The measure, published in the official newspaper ‘El Peruano', was adopted on Saturday after the second case of the Delta variant was discovered in the country, reports Xinhua news agency.

University students queue up to receive the China National Biotec Group Covid-19 vaccine at a university in Wuhan. Pic/AFP

China completes giving 1 billion vax doses

More than 1 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered in China, as the country is pushing ahead with the largest vaccination drive in its history, according to the National Health Commission (NHC) on Sunday. It took the country just five days to hit its most recent 100-million dose increase, Xinhua news agency reported citing the NHC as saying. China accelerated its pace of free Covid-19 vaccinations for the whole nation since late March.

Most of Italy to be under white zone

Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza has signed a new ordinance, extending the white or lowest-risk pandemic zone to most of the country from Monday onwards. "The new ordinance will become effective on Monday," the Minister said on Saturday.

Two Israel schools report Covid outbreak

The Israeli Ministry of Health reported a Covid-19 outbreak in two schools in the town of Binyamina, 60 km north of Tel Aviv, which has infected 45 students. The outbreak concerns a primary school and a middle school, Xinhua news agency quoted the Ministry as saying on Saturday. An extensive testing operation revealed the outbreak.

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4,08,990
No. of new cases reported globally in the past 24 hours

17,83,08,964
Total no. of cases worldwide

38,62,031
Total no. of deaths worldwide

Source: WHO/Johns Hopkins

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