Brazil Records More Than 500,000 Deaths From Covid And More

 

• Brazil surpassed 500,000 deaths from Covid-19 on Saturday, the Health Ministry said, registering 2,301 new fatalities in the past 24 hours.

• Belgium will ban entry to non-EU travellers from Britain in order to limit the spread of the Delta variant. Britain is on a list of 27 nations that will also face the order which will take effect by June 27 at the latest, Jan Eyckmans, the spokesman for health minister Frank Vandenbroucke, told AFP.

• Thousands took to the streets across Brazil to protest against President Jair Bolsonaro’s pandemic response, including his not acquiring vaccines fast enough and for questioning the need for mask-wearing, Reuters reports.

• The UK has recorded 10,321 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, compared to 10,476 on Friday, bringing the total to 4,620,968. A further 14 deaths were recorded, bringing the total to 127,970.

• Mexico City schools that had just gone back to in-person classes will be closed again starting on Monday as the capital climbs into a higher tier of coronavirus risk, education authorities said. Mexico City officials had loosened restrictions on gatherings in schools, hotels, stores and restaurants just two weeks ago as the dense urban zone moved into the lowest risk tier of the government’s four-level “traffic light” model, Reuters said. But the federal health ministry put Mexico City a step higher on the scale for 21 June to 4 July.

• Cambodia reported 20 deaths – its worst one-day death toll. The southeast Asian nation detected its first Delta variant cases and authorities urged people to be vigilant. Cambodia has recorded one of the world’s smallest caseloads thus far, but the outbreak that was first detected in late February has caused infections to climb to 42,052 cases with 414 deaths.

• A third wave “is definitely under way” in the UK, according to a government scientific adviser. Prof Adam Finn, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said: “It’s going up, 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.”

• Surge testing is to begin in two parts of England, the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care said. The county of Cumbria, in the north-west, and the south London borough of Lambeth will see intensive testing and genomic sequencing from Saturday.

• Several English football grounds were being used as vaccination centres, including the London Stadium and Stamford Bridge. Long queues formed as the UK government pushes everyone aged 18 or older to start getting jabs.