The latest:
Iran has reported more new infections and deaths across the country than on any other single day since the pandemic began.
Health authorities logged over 39,600 new cases and 542 deaths from the virus. The daily death toll on Sunday shattered the previous record, set in November. The new all-time highs push Iran’s total number of infections over 4.1 million and pandemic deaths to over 94,000, the most in the Middle East.
The crush of new cases, fuelled by the fast-spreading delta variant, has overwhelmed hospitals. The country has never seen so many COVID-19 patients in critical condition, with 6,462 more severe cases reported Sunday.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last week ordered officials to discuss the possibility of a total national shutdown. The government has been loath to enforce such a lockdown, fearing the damage it would do to an economy reeling from years of U.S. sanctions.
Only 3.3 per cent of the total population of some 80 million has been fully vaccinated, according to the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford.
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What’s happening in Canada
What’s happening around the world
As of Sunday, more than 202.4 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported around the world, according to the coronavirus tracker maintained by U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University. The reported global death toll stood at more than 4.3 million.
In Africa, Tunisian authorities aim to vaccinate more than one million people aged 40 and over in only one day, compared with 30,000 to 60,000 a day previously. Authorities provided free buses for people going to vaccination centres, many set up in schools.
PHOTOS | Tunisia’s massive COVID-19 vaccination drive:
In Europe, the EU has caught up to the once-vaunted U.S. coronavirus vaccination effort despite a sluggish start. Now, some 60 per cent of EU residents have received at least one dose, compared to less than 58 per cent of Americans.
In Asia, Malaysia says it will ease lockdown restrictions for people who are fully vaccinated as the government seeks to allay public anger against perceived mismanagement of the pandemic. So far, 35 per cent of the country’s population has been fully vaccinated, and officials hope the figure will rise to 50 per cent by the end August.
In the Americas, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert, predicts regulators will give full approval to coronavirus vaccines by the month’s end, which he hopes will spur a wave of vaccine mandates in the private sector as well as schools and universities. U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is currently weighing what levers it can push to encourage more unvaccinated Americans to get their shots as the delta variant continues to surge.
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