Coronavirus live news: Taiwan to ease restrictions; vaccinations rising in US states with high cases

Vaccinations are beginning to rise in some states where Covid cases are soaring, White House officials said Thursday in a sign that the summer surge is getting the attention of vaccine-hesitant Americans as hospitals in the south are being overrun with patients.

Coronavirus coordinator Jeff Zients told reporters that several states with the highest proportions of new infections have seen residents get vaccinated at higher rates than the nation as a whole. Officials cited Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri and Nevada as examples.

“The fourth surge is real, and the numbers are quite frightening at the moment,” the governor of Louisiana, John Bel Edwards, said on a New Orleans radio show. Edwards, a Democrat, added: “There’s no doubt that we are going in the wrong direction, and we’re going there in a hurry.”

Louisiana, for example, reported 2,843 new cases Thursday, a day after reporting 5,388 – the third-highest level since the pandemic began. Hospitalisations are up steeply in the last month, from 242 on 19 June to 913 in the latest report. Fifteen new deaths were reported Thursday.

Just 36% of Louisiana’s population is fully vaccinated, state health department data shows. Nationally, 56.3% of Americans have received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Warner Thomas, president and CEO of the Ochsner Health system serving Louisiana and Mississippi, said the system had seen a 10% to 15% increase in people seeking vaccination over the past week or two.

Taiwan will ease its Covid restrictions from next week though some will remain in place, the government said on Friday, with rapidly falling case numbers giving authorities confidence to further lower the alert level.

Reuters: Taiwan implemented restrictions on gatherings, including closing entertainment venues and limiting restaurants to take-out service, in mid-May following a spike in domestic cases after months of no or few cases apart from imported ones.

While some of those curbs were eased this month, the so-called level 3 alert has been in force and is due to end on 26 July.

Premier Su Tseng-chang said the alert would be lowered to level 2 from Tuesday. “The domestic epidemic has gradually stabilized and is heading towards a good direction,” Su said.

“Citizens should still strictly follow all pandemic prevention guidance to guard this hard-earned achievement after restrictions are relaxed.”

The health ministry will announce details of the new guidance later on Friday, he said.

Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Sullivan.

Taiwan will ease its Covid restrictions from next week though some will remain in place, the government said on Friday, with rapidly falling case numbers giving authorities confidence to further lower the alert level.

Meanwhile in the US, vaccinations are beginning to rise in some states where cases are soaring, White House officials said Thursday, in a sign that the summer surge is getting the attention of vaccine-hesitant Americans as hospitals in the South are being overrun with patients.

Here are the other key recent developments:

• Workers from 16 key services including health, transport and energy will not have to isolate after being pinged by the NHS Covid app, as it was revealed that more than 600,000 people in England and Wales were sent self-isolation alerts last week.
• Advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will consider evidence suggesting that a booster dose of Covid vaccines could increase protection among people with compromised immune systems. Last week, Israel began administering third doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to immunocompromised people. Some experts believe the CDC is nearing a similar recommendation in the US.
• Chile announced that its citizens and foreign residents would be allowed to travel outside the country if they were fully inoculated against coronavirus, a fresh perk for Chileans participating in one of the world’s fastest vaccination campaigns.
• The White House said China’s decision to reject a World Health Organization plan for a second phase of an investigation into the origin of the coronavirus which would have a greater focus on a possible lab leak was “irresponsible and dangerous”.
• The EU has said that 200 million Europeans had been fully vaccinated, more than half of the adult population but still short of a 70% target set for the summer.
• Tax raids were carried out on the offices of one of India’s most popular newspapers, after months of critical coverage of the government’s handling of the pandemic.
• Johnson & Johnson’s Covid jab is much less effective in mitigating the symptoms of those with the Delta or Lambda variants than against the original virus strain, a new study suggested.
• Peruvian police dismantled an alleged criminal ring that had charged as much as $21,000 per bed for seriously ill Covid-19 patients in a state-run hospital. Authorities arrested nine people in an early morning raid on Wednesday, including the administrators of Lima’s Guillermo Almenara Irigoyen public hospital, according to reports.
• German pharmacies stopped issuing digital Covid-19 vaccination certificates after hackers created passes from fake outlets, the industry association said. The German Pharmacists’ Association said hackers had managed to produce two vaccination certificates by accessing the portal and making up pharmacy owner identities.