Health

Americans sunbathed on beaches, fished from boats and strolled on boardwalks this holiday weekend, but the occasional person wearing a mask was a constant reminder that the world is still battling the coronavirus pandemic.

First indications of the effectiveness of a potential vaccine against coronavirus may be available in the autumn, the head of the GAVI vaccine alliance told a Swiss newspaper, forecasting a long road from there to broad availability.

Indonesia confirmed on Sunday 526 new coronavirus infections, taking the total in the Southeast Asian country to 22,271 cases, said health ministry official Achmad Yurianto.

The Philippines' tally of coronavirus cases surpassed 14,000 on Sunday and the number of fatalities rose to 868, the health ministry said.

Russia on Sunday reported 153 coronavirus deaths over the previous 24 hours, the epidemic's highest daily toll, raising total fatalities to 3,541, the country's coronavirus crisis response centre said

Singapore's health ministry said on Sunday it had confirmed 548 more coronavirus cases, taking its tally of infections to 31,616.

Thailand on Sunday reported no new coronavirus cases and no new deaths, maintaining the total to 3,040 confirmed cases and 56 fatalities since the outbreak began in January.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 431 to 178,281, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Sunday.

China recorded three new confirmed COVID-19 cases on the mainland for May 23, following the first day with no new cases since the outbreak began, the National Health Commission (NHC) said in a statement on Sunday.

Massive disruptions to global immunisation programmes from the COVID-19 pandemic have health experts fearful that much of the developing world will not be able to get a vaccine for the new coronavirus, even once one is ready.

Mexican health authorities registered 3,329 new cases of the novel coronavirus in the country and 190 new deaths, a health official said on Saturday, bringing the total number to 65,856 cases and 7,179 deaths.

Brazil registered 965 new coronavirus deaths on Saturday, taking the total number of fatalities to 22,013, the Health Ministry said.

The University of Oxford's COVID-19 vaccine trial has only a 50% chance of success as the coronavirus seems to be fading rapidly in Britain, the professor co-leading the development of the vaccine told the Telegraph newspaper https://bit.ly/2LQTNos.

Coronavirus infection rates in France have slowed further and the number of COVID-19 patients in hospital and intensive care continued to fall, health ministry figures showed, a sign that social distancing is keeping contagion in check for now.

South America has become a new epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic with Brazil hardest-hit, while cases are rising in some African countries that so far have a relatively low death toll, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Saturday reported 1,595,885 cases of the new coronavirus, an increase of 24,268 cases from its previous count, and said the number of deaths had risen by 1,852 to 96,002.

Thailand on Saturday began testing a vaccine against the coronavirus on monkeys after positive trials in mice, an official said.

The United States plans a massive testing effort involving more than 100,000 volunteers and a half dozen or so of the most promising vaccine candidates in an effort to deliver a safe and effective one by the end of 2020, scientists leading the program told Reuters.

China recorded no new confirmed COVID-19 cases on the mainland for May 22, the first time it had seen no daily rise in the number of cases since the pandemic began in the central city of Wuhan late last year.

Russia said on Saturday that 9,434 new cases of the novel coronavirus had been reported in the last 24 hours, pushing its nationwide tally to 335,882.