Delta variant cloud over Covid-19 success stories across the globe

Israel — a world leader in vaccinations which has inoculated about 85 per cent of its adult population — is again asking people to wear masks in indoor public spaces amid a coronavirus outbreak driven by the arrival of the highly contagious delta variant.

The variant of concern  also forced downtown Sydney and the city’s eastern suburbs, which include Bondi Beach, to go into a one week lockdown from midnight Friday as authorities struggled to contain a spike in the delta variant in the city.

In Thailand, the national Covid-19 panel announced a one-month clampdown on movements from all residential camps for construction and factory workers in metropolitan Bangkok and four other provinces, as infections continued to climb.  The contagious delta variant is now fast spreading in Thailand.

Fiji, too, recorded a surge of 300 new daily infections on Thursday, after going a full year without recording a single community case until April — when the Delta variant arrived.

The variant is also threatening Africa with a brutal third wave. It has been reported in 14 African countries.

Covid claims 2 Seychellois inoculated by Covishield

Seychelles, which has vaccinated a greater proportion of its people than any other nation, said genetic sequencing of samples shows that the so-called beta variant, first discovered in South Africa last year, is behind a surge in cases. The Indian Ocean island nation has mainly offered Sinopharm and AstraZeneca vaccines, the latter made under license in India and known as Covishield, to its 98,000 people. The health ministry has reported at least two people fully vaccinated with Covishield have recently died of the coronavirus.

Iran leader gets home-made vaccine shot

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei received his first dose of a homegrown Covid-19 vaccine on Friday, state television reported, amid an effort to speed up its vaccination rollout. Iranian pharmaceutical company Shifafarmed made the COVIran Barekat vaccine based on deactivated virus, and the first study of the safety and effectiveness began in late December. Iran has not published data about efficacy of the vaccine, but claims that people who get the home made jab have about 85% immunity to the deadly virus.