Tag Archives: Delta coronavirus variant

Sydney to tighten COVID-19 curbs, Australian capital to enter lockdown

By Renju Jose

SYDNEY (Reuters) -Extra Australian military personnel may be called in to ensure compliance with lockdown rules in Sydney, the New South Wales state government said on Thursday, as the highly infectious Delta coronavirus variant spreads into regional areas.

The move comes as Australia’s capital city, Canberra, 260 km (160 miles) southwest of Sydney, announced a snap one-week lockdown from Thursday evening after reporting its first locally acquired case of COVID-19 in more than a year. Authorities later confirmed an additional three cases, all close contacts of the first case, an unnamed man.

Australia is battling to get on top of the fast-moving Delta strain that has plunged its two largest cities – Sydney and Melbourne – into hard lockdowns.

“We are making sure that we do not leave any stone unturned in relation to extra (military) resources,” New South Wales (NSW) state Premier Gladys Berejiklian said at a media conference in Sydney, the state capital.

Some 580 unarmed army personnel are already helping police enforce home-quarantine orders on affected households in the worst-affected suburbs of Sydney, Australia’s most populous city.

Several regional towns scattered across NSW have also been forced into snap lockdowns after fresh cases, raising fears the virus is spreading out of control.

Despite seven weeks of lockdown in Sydney, daily infections continue to hover near record highs. NSW on Thursday reported 345 new locally acquired cases, most of them in Sydney, up from 344 a day earlier.

Lockdown rules were tightened in three more local council areas in Sydney, limiting the movement of people to within 5 km (3 miles) of their homes.

Joe Awada, the mayor of Bayside Council, one of the areas placed under additional restrictions, questioned why more targeted curbs were not introduced.

“I mean to lockdown 200,000 residents because of three suburbs is not acceptable to me,” Awada told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Officials also reported the deaths of two men in their 90s, taking the total deaths in the latest outbreak to 36. A total of 374 cases are in hospitals, with 62 in intensive care, 29 of whom require ventilation.

In Canberra, authorities said the one-week lockdown was needed as they were unsure how the man is his 20s acquired COVID-19.

Canberra has largely escaped any COVID-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic, and confirmation of a Delta variant saw panic buying at the supermarkets and long lines at testing sites.

Neighboring Victoria state on Thursday reported 21 new locally acquired cases, up from 20 a day earlier, as 5 million residents of Melbourne, the state capital, prepare to enter a second week of lockdown.

Of the new cases, six spent time outdoors while infectious, a number which authorities have said must return to near zero before restrictions can be eased.

Australia has largely avoided the high coronavirus numbers seen in many other countries, with just over 37,700 cases and 946 deaths, and several states remain almost COVID-free despite the outbreaks in Sydney and Melbourne.

But the rapid spread of the Delta variant in New South Wales and a slow vaccine rollout has left the country vulnerable to a new wave of infections.

Only around 24% of people above 16 years of age are fully vaccinated.

(Reporting by Renju Jose; additional reporting by Colin Packham in Canberra, Editing by Stephen Coates, Richard Pullin and Sam Holmes)

Oil falls in volatile session on concerns over COVID spread

By Bozorgmehr Sharafedin

LONDON (Reuters) -Oil fell on Tuesday in volatile trade as concern over rising cases of the Delta coronavirus variant weighed on prices while expectations of a lower U.S. inventories lent some support.

Benchmark Brent crude oil futures fell $1.22, or 1.7%, to $71.67 a barrel by 1236 GMT.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was down $1.42, or 2%, at $69.84 a barrel.

Both had risen more than 60 cents earlier in the session.

“The oil market continues to alternate between concerns about tight supply on the one hand and about looming demand outages on the other,” Commerzbank analysts said.

Despite recent fluctuations, Brent has risen more than 40% this year, helping earnings of oil firms.

BP, ConocoPhillips , Diamondback Energy Inc and Continental Resources Inc all reported strong second-quarter earnings this week.

Concerns over the spread of Delta variant in the United States and China, the top oil consumers, weighed on prices.

In China, the spread of the variant from the coast to inland cities has prompted authorities to impose strict measures to bring the outbreak under control.

“Delta-related concerns will likely keep oil markets volatile over the coming weeks, but at the same time we also see flying activity across Europe and the U.S. continue to grind higher, supporting oil demand,” Staunovo said.

Expectations of a return of Iranian crude to the markets also had a negative impact.

Iran’s new president, Ebrahim Raisi, said on Tuesday his government would take steps to lift “tyrannical” sanctions imposed by the United States on its energy and banking sectors.

Iran and six powers have been in talks since April to revive a nuclear pact. But Iranian and Western officials have said significant gaps remain.

The sixth round of indirect talks between Tehran and Washington adjourned on June 20, two days after Raisi was elected president. Parties involved in the negotiations have yet to announce when the talks will resume.

Meanwhile, a preliminary Reuters poll showed U.S. crude and product inventories likely declined last week, with both distillates and gasoline stockpiles predicted to have fallen for a third straight week.

(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin in London Additional reporting by Naveen Thukral in Singapore; editing by David Holmes and Jason Neely)

White House sending special teams to COVID-19 hot spots to combat Delta variant

By Andrea Shalal and Carl O’Donnell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House on Thursday said it would send out special teams to hot spots around the United States to combat the highly contagious Delta coronavirus variant, and urgently called on Americans who have not been vaccinated to get shots.

White House COVID-19 senior adviser Jeffrey Zients told reporters the “surge response” teams would be ready to speed additional testing supplies and therapeutics to communities that were experiencing increases in COVID-19 cases.

The seven-day-average number of COVID-19 cases in the United States has risen 10% since last week, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director (CDC) Rochelle Walensky said on a Tuesday press call.

The more easily transmitted Delta variant, which was first detected in India, is thought to have become the second most prevalent coronavirus variant in the United States, she added.

“It is clear that communities where people remain unvaccinated are communities that remain vulnerable,” Walensky said, adding that 1,000 counties in the United States have vaccination rates below 30%.

Zients said federal personnel will assist communities with public health staffing and the CDC will provide assistance in containing potential outbreaks.

The United States remains a world leader in COVID-19 vaccinations, with more than 180 million Americans having received at least one shot.

(Reporting by Lisa Lambert, Carl O’Donnell and Andrea Shalal; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Bill Berkrot)

Delta, Kappa variants surge in Italy to nearly 17% of cases, health institute says

By Reuters Staff

MILAN (Reuters) – The Delta coronavirus variant and its sibling Kappa have surged in Italy in the past month, accounting for nearly 17% of total COVID-19 cases, the national health institute ISS said on Friday.

The Delta variant was becoming dominant, it said.

Both Delta, also known by the designation B.1.617.2 , and Kappa, or B.1.617.1, are sublineages of a variant that was originally detected in India. Delta is considered a “variant of concern” by the WHO.

“Cases of the Kappa and Delta variants…rose from 4.2% in May to 16.8% in June”, based on data extracted on June 21, the institute said.

“Our epidemiological monitoring shows a rapidly evolving picture that confirms that also in our country, as in the rest of Europe, the Delta variant of the virus is becoming dominant,” Anna Teresa Palamara, director of ISS Infectious Diseases Department, said in a statement.

The Alpha coronavirus variant, originally detected in the UK in 2020, remains the most widespread in Italy, representing 74.9% of cases, the institute said.

Italy has registered 127,380 deaths linked to COVID-19 since the virus emerged in February last year, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the eighth-highest in the world. The country has reported 4.26 million cases to date.

Coronavirus cases have now been steadily falling for weeks. The daily tally of new infections decreased to 927 from 951 on Thursday, the health ministry said, while coronavirus-related deaths were 28 against 30 the day before.

How UK PM Johnson decided to delay COVID reopening

By Alistair Smout

LONDON (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday delayed by a month his plans to lift the last COVID-19 restrictions in England after modelling showed that thousands more people might die due unless reopening was pushed back.

The move was due to the rapid spread of the Delta coronavirus variant, which is more transmissible, associated with lower vaccine effectiveness against mild disease and could cause more hospitalizations in the unvaccinated.

He said the extra time would be used to speed up Britain’s vaccination program – already one of the world’s furthest advanced – with two thirds of the population expected to have had two shots by July 19.

Here are the details behind the decision:

WHAT AND WHO ARE THE MODELS AND THE MODELLERS?

Models commissioned by the government showed that without a delay to the planned June 21 reopening, in some scenarios hospitalizations could match previous peaks in cases when ministers feared the health system could be overwhelmed.

Three models, made by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Imperial College London and the University of Warwick, fed into the government’s pandemic modelling subgroup SPI-M-O.

All three found that a delay would lower the peak of a new wave fueled by the Delta variant. A two-week extension would have a significant effect, but four weeks would reduce the peak in hospital admissions by around a third to a half, SPI-M-O said.

SPI-M-O will make fresh projections before July 19 when the full reopening is now expected to take place, with Johnson saying that he does not want to delay reopening again.

WHAT ABOUT THE VACCINES?

Britain has one of the fastest vaccine rollouts in the world, with over half of adults receiving both doses and more than three quarters receiving at least one, which has led some to question why restrictions need to be extended.

The modelers warned that while protection from vaccines was not perfect, without them, England would be heading back into lockdown.

Imperial epidemiologist Anne Cori told reporters that differences in who was eligible, in rates of uptake, and the fact that vaccine effectiveness was not 100%, all combined to create the possibility of a large wave of hospitalizations.

VACCINE AND DELTA

One worrying aspect of the Delta variant is evidence that it reduces protection from vaccines against symptomatic infection, although experts still hoped it would work against severe disease.

As Johnson announced the postponement, Public Health England published data showing shots made by Pfizer and AstraZeneca offer high protection against hospitalization from the variant identified in India of 96% and 92% respectively after two doses.

Asked if that data, released after the models were made, would have an impact on the projections, Cori said they had used different efficacy assumptions for their models, and PHE figures would help to narrow down the range of likely scenarios.

“The optimistic vaccine efficacy or perhaps the central (scenarios) are definitely more likely than the most pessimistic set of vaccine efficacies we had looked at,” she said.

WHAT ARE THE SOCIAL-ECONOMIC COSTS?

Many lawmakers in Johnson’s own party expressed dismay at the delay, with Steve Baker saying some people “increasingly believe they are never going to see true freedom again.”

Kevin McConway, emeritus professor of applied statistics at The Open University, said the delay would buy time to learn more about the Delta variant, and get more shots in arms.

But he said increased risks of opening on June 21 were hard to quantify, and economic costs were not being modelled with anywhere near the same rigor.

“I do wonder how the government can make good decisions on the balance between restrictions on what we can do, if they have detailed modelling of infections, vaccines, hospitalizations and deaths (including information on the likely uncertainties), but no detailed modelling (that I’ve seen) on the economic and social costs of the restrictions,” he said.

(Reporting by Alistair Smout; Editing by Josephine Mason and Alison Williams)

Delta coronavirus variant believed to have 60% transmission advantage: UK epidemiologist

LONDON (Reuters) – The Delta coronavirus variant of concern, first identified in India, is believed to be 60% more transmissible than the Alpha variant which was previously dominant in Britain, a prominent UK epidemiologist said on Wednesday.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that England’s full reopening from COVID-19 lockdown, penciled in for June 21, could be pushed back due to the rapid spread of the Delta variant.

Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London told reporters that estimates of Delta’s transmission edge over Alpha had narrowed, and “we think 60% is probably the best estimate”.

Ferguson said that modelling suggested any third wave of infections could rival Britain’s second wave in the winter – which was fueled by the Alpha variant first identified in Kent, south east England.

But it was unclear how any spike in hospitalizations would translate into a rise in deaths, as more detail was needed on how well the vaccine protects against serious illness from Delta.

“It’s well within possibility that we could see another third wave at least comparable in terms of hospitalizations,” he said.

“I think deaths probably would be lower, the vaccines are having a highly protective effect… still it could be quite worrying. But there is a lot of uncertainty.”

Britain has seen over 127,000 deaths within 28 days of a positive COVID-19 test, but has given more than three-quarters of adults a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

Public Health England has shown that the Delta variant reduces the effectiveness of Pfizer and AstraZeneca shots among those who have only received one shot, though protection is higher for those who have received both doses.

Ferguson said that up to a quarter of the Delta variant’s transmissibility edge over Alpha might come from its immune escape from vaccines, saying it was “a contribution but not an overwhelming contribution” to its advantage.

(Reporting by Alistair Smout; editing by Sarah Young and James Davey)