US sees surge in Covid-19 cases, mulls booster shot
The Delta variant is driving a steep rise in cases in the US, prompting a return of certain curbs like use of masks
WASHINGTON: The US had its worst Covid week in three months, as weekly cases surged fourfold to 347,784 from a month earlier with the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant.
Florida made up about one in five cases as the number of infections rose to 73,199 from 45,584 for the week ending on Thursday, after almost doubling in the previous seven days. Along with Texas and Missouri, the three states accounted for 40% of cases this week.
Texas hospitals have started to run low on beds for the sickest virus patients as caseloads climb. Almost half of the state’s so-called trauma service areas have 10 or fewer intensive-care beds available, and one zone has zero, state health department figures showed. Texas recorded more than 5,000 new virus cases in the past 24 hours and hospitalisations swelled for the 21st consecutive day, state data showed.
An increase in cases and hospitalisations in Missouri prompted St Louis to require masks in indoor public places, regardless of vaccination status, mirroring a similar order already in place in Los Angeles. The state of Louisiana, where infections are rising at the fastest pace in the US, is recommending face coverings indoors if people can’t be six feet apart.
Meanwhile, US government health officials increasingly think vulnerable people will need Covid-19 vaccine booster shots, the New York Times reported, without saying where it got the information.
People who are 65 and older or who have issues with their immune systems most likely will require a third shot of the PfizerBioNTech or Moderna vaccine, according to the newspaper. That came just a few weeks after the administration said there wasn’t sufficient evidence to back booster shots, the newspaper reported.
The federal government is buying 200 million more doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine to prepare for future needs, such as boosters and shots for kids under 12.
White House press secretary
Jen Psaki says the Biden administration wants to have “maximum flexibility” to address changing conditions, and it’s “going to prepare for every contingency”.
In Australia, thousands of people took to the streets of Sydney and other cities on Saturday to protest lockdown restrictions amid another surge in cases, and police made several arrests after crowds broke through barriers and threw plastic bottles and plants. The protest comes as Covid-19 case numbers in the state reached another record with 163 new infections in the last 24 hours.
Vietnam announced a 15-day lockdown in the capital Hanoi starting on Saturday as a coronavirus surge spread from the southern Mekong Delta region.
The lockdown order, issued late on Friday night, bans the gathering of more than two people in public. On Friday, Hanoi reported 70 confirmed infections, the city’s highest, part of a record 7,295 cases in the country in the last 24 hours.