Coronavirus Live News: Brazil in Record Daily Cases; rare side effect of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines | World News

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will add a warning to the Covid vaccines produced by Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna about rare cases of heart inflammation in adolescents and young adults, the agency announced Wednesday.

Advisory groups from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, meeting to discuss reported cases of the heart condition after vaccination, found that inflammation in adolescents and young adults is likely related to vaccines. , but that the benefits of the injections seemed to clearly outweigh the risk. .

Health regulators in several countries have been investigating whether Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna injections using new mRNA technology pose a risk and, if so, how serious.

Brazil has registered a single-day record of 115,228 new confirmed cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry said Wednesday, showing new signs of acceleration even as long-delayed vaccination efforts finally gained steam.

Brazil has also recorded the world’s highest Covid-19 death toll outside the United States, with more than half a million lives lost, according to the ministry’s official tally.

But while the situation in the United States and most wealthy nations improves thanks to higher vaccination rates, Brazil and many South American neighbors this month have seen their biggest outbreaks so far.

Brazil’s seven-day average for new coronavirus cases and deaths is now the highest in the world, having surpassed India last week, according to data compiled by Reuters.

The country has been slow to launch vaccines with only 12% of Brazilians fully immunized, according to data from the Health Ministry. Efforts have been accelerating recently, with certain states like Sao Paulo predicting vaccinations for all adults by September.

Hello and welcome to today’s live global coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.

Brazil has confirmed its highest total cases in a day, with a national record of 115,228 confirmed infections in the 24 hours through Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the US Food and Drug Administration will add a new warning to the Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccine fact sheets about rare cases of heart inflammation in adolescents and young adults.

We’ll have more on this shortly, but in the meantime, here are some of the key developments of the last few hours:

• The United States will ship 3 million doses of Johnson & Johnson one-jab Covid-19 vaccine to Brazil on Thursday, the country with the second highest number of coronavirus deaths in the world.
• The top European Union diplomat in Washington said the United States should ease Covid-19 travel restrictions on Europeans., calling it a mistake to prevent business executives from monitoring US investments.
• The proportion of infections caused by the Delta variant of the coronavirus has doubled in Germany in a week and it is likely to gain more traction over other variants, said the Robert Koch Institute’s public health agency.
• Tunisia has detected six cases of the Delta variant, The Health Ministry said on Wednesday, amid a rapid spread of the virus in the North African country.
• Angela Merkel said UK travelers should be quarantined wherever they arrive in the EU.as the union’s disease control agency predicted that the Delta variant of Covid will account for 90% of cases in member states by the end of August.
• The Australian federal government announced that it will shelve the controversial AstraZeneca vaccine in October after safety fears., which suggests that it will have sufficient supplies of other vaccines to meet the “allocation horizons” to vaccinate the population before the end of the year.
• A UK-backed study is investigating the antiparasitic drug Ivermectin as a possible Covid treatment after a pilot showed promising signs of efficacy. and several authorities around the world launched the cheap drug, reporting significant benefits, with data from January already suggesting that Covid mortality falls where it is used.
• Switzerland to remove most remaining coronavirus restrictions this weekend, the government confirmed, even for entry into the country, but non-Schengen arrivals must have been vaccinated.
• Greece will end the mandatory use of face masks outdoors and ease other restrictions imposed to curb the pandemic.authorities said, with infections now clearly on the decline.
• More than 150 employees of a hospital in Texas, USA, were forced to leave their jobs after refusing to be vaccinated against Covid.. Employees had been told they had to be vaccinated by June 7 or they would face a two-week suspension, as dozens of people protested the mandatory vaccination policy and filed an unsuccessful lawsuit.
• The US embassy in Thailand rejected a direct call to send coronavirus vaccines to its citizens. even when French officials begin a deployment to their expatriates in the country.