Coronavirus: What's happening around the world on Monday
U.S. warns against travel to Britain due to surge in COVID-19 cases amid reopening
The latest:
The United States has upgraded its travel warnings for Britain, Indonesia and three other destinations, advising Americans not to travel to those locations due to a surge in coronavirus cases.
But in Britain, England is moving ahead with re-opening plans and lifted nearly all restrictions to help drive an economic recovery,
The British government also said it decided not to inoculate most children and teenagers against COVID-19 until more safety data on the vaccines become available.
The decision to hold off giving shots to most people under age 18 was based on the recommendation of an expert advisory panel. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization said the health benefits of universal vaccination don't outweigh the risks for most young people who typically suffer only mild symptoms of the virus.
Meanwhile, England's car plants, railways, supermarkets and pubs warned the government on Monday that a COVID-19 tracing app, which has told hundreds of thousands of workers to isolate, was wrecking the recovery and pushing supply chains to the brink of collapse.
Cases of COVID-19 in Britain hit around 50,000 a day on some days last week.
Deaths remain far lower than in the winter thanks to vaccines, but have risen from less than 10 a day in June to about 40 a day in the past week.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has dialed down talk of freedom in recent weeks, urged the public to "proceed cautiously" and "recognize that this pandemic is far from over."
Automaker Stellantis said its Vauxhall van factory in Luton would move from three shifts to two shifts for the duration of this week, and Nissan adjusted production in some areas of its Sunderland plant to counter lower staffing numbers.
"The pingdemic is here and businesses need urgent change," Richard Walker, the managing director of supermarket chain Iceland, said on Twitter.
Britain's biggest rail operator, Govia Thameslink, said it may need to cancel some services in London and South East England. Retailer Marks & Spencer said it may have to reduce business hours.
"Where the industry will see the pain is in the supply chain, because logistics runs tight anyway to be efficient," Marks & Spencer CEO Steve Rowe said in a statement.
Pub operator Greene King said it had to temporarily close 33 pubs last week due to a lack of staff. British baker Warburtons said it was struggling to maintain local deliveries as more staff self-isolate, exacerbating a national driver shortage.
The crisis has overshadowed Johnson's "freedom day" on Monday, which ended more than a year of lockdown restrictions in England.
Smaller businesses, however, are particularly alarmed.
"Having just one of my customers test positive will close my entire business for two weeks with no financial support," said Helen Williams, owner of Willow Bridal Boutique in northwest England.
-From Reuters, last updated at 8:13 p.m. ET
What's happening in Tokyo
An alternate on the United States women's gymnastics team, Kara Eaker, has tested positive for COVID-19 in an Olympic training camp in Japan.
Al Fong, the personal coach for both Eaker and fellow Olympic alternate Leanne Wong, confirmed the positive test in an email on Monday. The coach said Eaker, 18, was vaccinated against the novel coronavirus two months ago.
Eaker and Wong have been placed in isolation.
Earlier, officials said a third athlete at the Olympic Village in Tokyo has tested positive for COVID-19, with the Czech Republic team reporting the latest case Monday in a player on the country's beach volleyball team.
Two South African men's soccer players had their COVID-19 cases announced Sunday. The players and a team video analyst who tested positive one day earlier were moved to the "isolation facility" managed by the Olympic organizing committee.
Their 21 close contacts around the South Africa team now face extra scrutiny before their first game Thursday against Japan in Tokyo. The monitoring regime includes daily testing, travelling in a dedicated vehicle, training separately from teammates not affected and being confined to their rooms for meals.
The Olympics, which were postponed for a year because of the pandemic, are set to officially open Friday and run until Aug. 8.
Japan has seen a total of 842,018 reported cases of COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University's coronavirus tracker, with 14,993 reported deaths.
Tokyo reported 1,008 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, the 29th straight day that cases were higher than seven days previously. It was also the fifth straight day with more than 1,000 cases. The Olympics will open under a state of emergency in Tokyo and three neighbouring prefectures.
-From The Associated Press, Reuters and CBC News, last updated at 7:40 a.m. ET
What's happening around the world
As of early Monday afternoon, more than 190.6 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University, with more than four million reported deaths.
The Dutch government says it is donating 745,000 doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine to countries in need that have appealed to the Netherlands for help.
The government announced Monday that Tanzania and Namibia will be among the recipients. The Dutch government will arrange transport of the vaccines.
Spanish officials are celebrating that half of Spain's residents, or roughly 24 million people, have been fully vaccinated already, although they say that a steep increase in contagion is sending worrying numbers of patients into hospitals. In Canada, Tuesday's numbers also reached 50.27 percent of the population that was fully immunized.
In Africa, Tunisia's government decided to deploy the armed forces to vaccinate people in the regions with the worst infection rates and in areas with particularly low vaccination rates.
Tunisia is recording one of the world's highest daily per-capita infection rates and has reported Africa's highest per-capita pandemic death toll. The country has reported a total of 546,233 cases of COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University's case-tracking tool, with 17,527 reported deaths.
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In the Americas, Brazil's health regulator Anvisa said on Monday that it has approved trials with a third dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19. Anvisa said a third dose of the vaccine would be administered to 10,000 volunteers between 11 and 13 months after the second shot.
In the Middle East, Iran on Monday imposed a week-long lockdown on the capital, Tehran, and the surrounding region as the country struggles with another surge in the coronavirus pandemic, state media reported. The lockdown — the country's fifth so far — will begin on Tuesday and last until next Monday. All bazaars, market places and public offices will close, as well as movie theaters, gyms and restaurants in both Tehran province and the neighbouring province of Alborz.
Iran reported 25,441 new cases on Monday and 213 deaths over the past day, bringing the overall death toll to 87,374 from among more than 3.5 million confirmed cases in the pandemic.
Saudi citizens will need two COVID-19 vaccine doses before they can travel outside the kingdom from Aug. 9, state news agency SPA reported on Monday, citing the Ministry of Interior. The decision was made based on new waves of infection globally, new mutations and the "low efficacy of one vaccination dose against these mutations," the statement said.
In the Asia-Pacific region, Vietnam put its entire southern region in a two-week lockdown starting midnight Sunday, as confirmed COVID-19 cases exceeded 3,000 for the third day in a row. The lockdown order includes the Mekong Delta and Ho Chi Minh City metropolis, the country's financial and economic hub with over 35 million people — nearly a third of Vietnam's population.
Officials say they have to act as the number of infections reached nearly 50,000 since the outbreak re-emerged at the end of April after several months of no cases being recorded.
-From Reuters and The Associated Press, last updated at 8:17 p.m. ET
With files from The Associated Press, CBC News and The Canadian Press
