Focus on Asia as Covid cases top 25 million

German police stop far-right activists who tried to storm parliament; New York’s Museum of Modern Art opens after six-month gap

LONDON: Global coronavirus cases crossed 25 million on Sunday in a surge led by record daily Covid-19 infections in India.

The data showed steady global growth as the epicentre shifts again, with India taking centre stage from the US and Latin America. Globally, there were more than 843,000 deaths, considered a lagging indicator given the two-week incubation period of the virus.

A million additional cases have been detected globally roughly every four days since mid-July. Even nations such as New Zealand and South Korea, which had largely controlled their outbreaks, are battling new infection clusters. Masks will become mandatory from Monday

on public transport and flights in New Zealand.

German leaders on Sunday condemned the “unacceptable” attempt by protesters to storm the Reichstag parliament building during a mass rally against coronavirus restrictions. Some of the protesters on Saturday carried the flag of the former German Reich. “Flags from the Reich and far-right profanity in front of the German parliament are an unacceptable attack on the heart of our democracy,” President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Instagram. “We will never accept this.”

Hong Kong embarked on the world’s biggest experiment in voluntary testing. As of Sunday morning, 310,000 people signed up for the free virus test. The two-week effort aims to reach most of its 7 million residents.

Visitors cheer as NYC reopens Met Museum

There was some cheer on Saturday in New York, once among the world’s biggest hotspots. Visitors raised their arms, clapped and lined up to get tickets as New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art reopened its doors to the public in a festive atmosphere after a six-month closure.

Latin America - the worst-hit region - was still struggling with its first wave, with Covid-19 deaths in Brazil crossing 120,000, second only to the US. Brazil’s curve “has stabilised now, but at a very dangerous level: nearly 1,000 deaths and 40,000 cases per day”, said Christovam Barcellos, a researcher at the public health institute Fiocruz.

US defence dept probing Moderna vaccine patents

Moderna’s patents that were filed or awarded are being probed by the US defence department’s research arm, The Financial Times reported, saying the company failed to disclose government funding as required by federal law.

Knowledge Ecology International, a patient advocacy group, said in a report this week that researchers didn’t disclose in vaccine patents where they got about $25 million in grants from the department’s defence advanced research projects agency, or Darpa, for its vaccine technology, the newspaper said.

“It appears that all past and present Darpa awards to Moderna include the requirement to report the role of government funding for related inventions,” the FT cited Darpa spokesman Jared Adams as saying. “Darpa is actively researching agency awards to Moderna to identify which patents and pending patents, if any at all, may be associated with Darpa support.”

Moderna said it complied with patent reporting requirements, including those related to Darpa, the newspaper said. The company is in talks to potentially supply Japan with 40 million doses of its vaccine candidate.

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