Coronavirus news: 45-week gap between 2 Covishield doses boosts immunity, Oxford study finds

Saudi Arabia will start inoculating young people aged 12 to 18 against Covid-19 with the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine after it was approved by the Saudi Food and Drug Authority, the health ministry said on a tweet on Sunday.

Five states that are home to just over a quarter (27%) of India’s adult population account for threequarters of private vaccine doses, according to data presented by the government to the Supreme Court. Not surprisingly, these states are the ones that contain some of largest metros — Maharashtra, Karnataka, Bengal, Delhi and Telangana in that order. Interestingly, in the most populous state of UP, just 4.8 lakh doses were administered in the private sector, a little over what was administered in Gujarat, with less than half of UP’s population.

Mainland China reported 21 new cases of Covid-19 on June 27, up from 14 a day earlier, the national health authority said on Monday. The National Health Commission said in its daily bulletin that all of the new cases were imported infections originating from overseas, and were spread over seven provinces and municipalities. The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, stood at 22, up from 21 a day earlier.

Last month, Delhi’s district authorities issued 77,715 challans for violation of Covid-19 norms. As more and more economic activities have been allowed as part of the gradual unlock process in the capital, the number of challans has also gone up and the figure for this month stood at nearly 1.3 lakh till Sunday noon, a rise of nearly 66.6%.

Health experts have called for strong surveillance on four emerging coronavirus variants, apart from the Delta-plus (B.1.617.2.1 or AY.1) strain, which has already been designated as a variant of concern (VOC). The variants to be watched out for includes B.1.617.3, a sibling of the Delta variant (B.1.617.2); B.1.1.318, which has 14 mutations; and Lambda (C.37), which was designated as a variant under investigation on June 23.