07:50
Here’s the latest on a Malaysian coronavirus vaccination centre which was temporarily closed today after more than 200 workers tested positive for Covid-19.
The hub in hard-hit Selangor state was forced to close after 204 staff and volunteers out of 453 there tested positive, said Khairy Jamaluddin, minister in charge of the inoculation drive.
Those infected had low “viral loads” and none had serious symptoms, possibly because most workers at the site in Shah Alam city had been vaccinated, he said. He added that 400 of the workers there had been inoculated, but he did not say which vaccine they had been given.
Malaysia is using the Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca and Sinovac shots. “This is the first time we’ve had to shut down a [vaccination centre] because of positive cases, but we acted fast,” Khairy said, adding it would not hamper the overall programme.
The centre’s closure led to thousands of appointments being rescheduled, but it will re-open tomorrow after sanitisation, with new staff.
Health minister Adham Baba later told reporters nearly 700 new beds for virus patients had been added at hospitals in the capital, as well as in Selangor and Negeri Sembilan state, taking the total to over 5,000. He also announced an extra 1,200 medical staff would be hired and about 5,000 new volunteers brought in to help in the three hard-hit areas.
The country of almost 33 million people has so far reported more than 855,000 virus cases, and nearly 6,400 deaths. It has ramped up its jab drive by opening mass vaccination sites, and about 11% of the population are so far fully vaccinated while almost 25% have received a first dose.
07:33
As greater Sydney prepares for its fourth week of lockdown, a multibillion-dollar Covid assistance package has been announced by the federal and New South Wales governments.
The NSW treasurer, Dominic Perrottet, said the package would provide support for “every worker, for every business, right across the state”.
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, said the package would serve as a template for other extended lockdowns, and it was in the “national interest” to get the support right.
06:51
More than 20,000 French people a minute booked vaccine appointments in the hours after Emmanuel Macron announced that cafés, restaurants, shopping malls and trains would be out of bounds for unvaccinated customers from next month.
06:44
India’s Covid vaccination rollout has continued to falter due to supply shortages and vaccine hesitancy, casting doubt on the government’s pledge to vaccinate the entire population by December.
A number of states, including the capital, Delhi, said they had run out of vaccine stocks this week while others including Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra said vaccine supplies were running critically low in many areas, particularly for those aged between 18 and 45.
Manish Sisodia, the deputy chief minister of Delhi, tweeted that “vaccines have run out in Delhi again. The central government gives vaccines for a day or two, then we have to keep the vaccine centres closed for several days.”
The central government has disputed the claims of shortages and said all states were informed weeks in advance how many vaccines would be sent to them each month.
06:33
In the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, Australia was lauded by news outlets around the world as a model of how to handle the virus. The country recorded few cases and when there were outbreaks, authorities brought them under control.
A year later, Australia’s management of the pandemic is hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
“One day a rooster, the next a feather duster”, the Financial Times wrote in an editorial lamenting the glacial pace of the country’s vaccine rollout.
“Sydney in lockdown, borders shut and hardly anyone vaccinated. How long can Australia go on like this?” CNN said. The network has also reported on the backlash to Sydney’s graphic vaccine ad, which depicts a young woman – she looks younger than 40, the age limit to be eligible for a vaccine – gasping for air, alone in hospital.
Meanwhile, my colleague Calla Wahlquist reports that concerns about the spread of the Delta variant in apartment buildings has prompted a hard lockdown of two residential complexes in Sydney and Melbourne.
An apartment building in Bondi Junction in Sydney’s east remains under police guard after eight cases of Covid were detected across five of the 29 apartments, while residents of an apartment building in Maribyrnong in Melbourne’s north-western suburbs have been ordered to isolate after a removalist with Covid worked there last week.
06:22
Iraq Covid hospital fire death toll at least 66
The death toll in a fire that spread through a coronavirus hospital in southern Iraq rose to 66, health officials have said, as an angry crowd blaming local authorities for negligence gathered near the city’s morgue.
Reuters reports that more than 100 others were injured in last night’s fire in the city of Nassiriya, which an initial investigation showed began when sparks from faulty wiring spread to an oxygen tank that then exploded, local police and civil defence authorities said.
In April, a similar explosion at Baghdad Covid-19 hospital killed at least 82 and injured 110. The head of Iraq’s semi-official Human Rights Commission said the blast showed how ineffective safety measures in a health system crippled by war and sanctions still were.
“To have such a tragic incident repeated few months later means that still no [sufficient] measures have been taken to prevent them,” Ali Bayati said.
Anger spread among people gathered at Nassiriya’s morgue as they waited to receive relatives’ bodies. “No quick response to the fire, not enough firefighters. Sick people burned to death. It’s a disaster,” said Mohammed Fadhil, who was waiting there to receive his bother’s body.
Two health officials said the dead from the fire included 21 charred bodies that were still unidentified, according to Reuters. The blaze trapped many patients inside the hospital’s coronavirus ward, who rescue teams struggled to reach, a health worker said before entering the burning building.
Prime minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi had ordered the suspension and arrest of health and civil defence managers in Nassiriya, as well as the al-Hussain hospital’s manager, his office said.
Hello and greetings to everyone reading, wherever you are the in the world. Mattha Busby here to take you through the next few hours of global Covid developments. Thanks to my colleague Martin Belam for covering the blog up until now. Please feel free to drop me a line on Twitter or message me via email (mattha.busby.freelance@guardian.co.uk) with any tips or thoughts on our coverage.
Updated
06:13
That Germany would eventually this year reach a point where supply of vaccines would outstrip demand has long been anticipated by scientists and politicians. That this point would be reached in July is coming as a surprise to many.
Several vaccination centres across Germany have in recent days voiced concern that they are running below capacity, with spare appointments going unbooked. “The last time we administered as few first doses of vaccine as yesterday was in February”, health minister Jens Spahn tweeted on Monday. “But unlike in February there’s plenty of vaccines around now”.
France’s decision to make the jab mandatory for care workers is being followed with intense interest, but the independent German Ethics Council that advises the federal government is split on the issue.
Geneticist and council member Wolfram Henn called for compulsory vaccinations for nursery workers and teachers, telling Rheinische Post newspaper that “those who decide out of free choice to work with a group of vulnerable people carry a special responsibility in their field of work”.
But Ethics Council chair Alena Buyx advised against following the French precedent, saying the rates of vaccinations in comparative fields of work were much higher in Germany.
Several German municipalities are working to increase the incentives to get the jab instead: in the populous state of North-Rhine Westphalia, authorities are from this week starting to offer drop-in vaccinations on shopping miles, at sports venues and inside shopping centres. From 16 to 18 July people in Cologne can be vaccinated without appointment outside the city’s historic cathedral.
Economist Nora Szech, of the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology, has proposed upping incentives even further by offering a €500 reward for people to get their shot of vaccine. Those who had already been vaccinated would need to be compensated retrospectively, she added: “That way, we will get to 90%”.
Roughly 43% of the entire German population is fully vaccinated as of this Tuesday; 58.7% have had at least one shot. In view of the transmissibility of the Delta variant, Germany’s disease control agency has proposed a target vaccination rate of 85%.
