Australia’s Delta variant compared to the 100 other countries battling the highly contagious strain
As Australia scrambles to contain the spread of the Delta variant, this is how it has spread to more than 100 countries and how they are battling to stop it.
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The Covid-19 global death toll has passed four million, with the fight complicated by the emergence of strong variants that have fuelled outbreaks even in countries that had successfully dodged the early phases of the pandemic.
Australia, where restrictions have been reimposed, announced its first virus-related death in the Sydney outbreak as authorities warned the situation is expected to worsen, especially with an overwhelmingly unvaccinated population.
“Tomorrow and the few days afterwards will be worse, much worse than we’ve seen today,” said Gladys Berejiklian, NSW Premier.
More than 100 countries around the world are already worse off than Australia.
They include: Algeria, Argentina, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus*, Belgium, Bhutan, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China*, Croatia*, Czech Republic, DRC, Denmark, Fiji, Finland, France, French Guiana, French Polynesia, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guam, Guadeloupe, Hungary*, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo*, Kuwait, Laos, Latvia*, Lebanon, Lithuania*, Luxembourg, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta, Martinique, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia*, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand*, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Reunion*, Romania, Russia, Saba, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone*, Singapore, Sint Maarten, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine*, UAE, UK, US, Uzbekistan*, Vietnam, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
*Not verified by WHO official sources.
Here’s how some are battling with the highly-transmissible Delta variant:
US and Canada
The Delta variant is now the dominant strain of coronavirus in the United States.
At least half of America’s 50 states have seen an uptick of at least 10 per cent in Covid-19 cases over the past week, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
The rapid spread of the Delta variant has put additional pressure on the nation’s vaccine rollout, which is languishing in some states.
The Delta variant now accounts for 51. per cent of all new Covid-19 infections in the US, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated.
“We should think about the Delta variant as the 2020 version of Covid-19 on steroids,” Andy Slavitt, a former senior adviser to Joe Biden’s Covid Response Team, told CNN.
“It’s twice as infectious. Fortunately, unlike 2020, we actually have a tool that stops the Delta variant in its tracks: It’s called vaccine.”
The current vaccines distributed in the US are authorised for emergency use only.
Full approval for the Pfizer vaccine could come as early as this month.
But Pfizer said it was seeing waning immunity from its vaccine. The company is now accelerating its efforts to develop a booster dose that will protect people from variants.
Meanwhile, Canada said the Delta variant is causing a greater-than-expected resurgence of cases, requiring that vaccinations are sped up.
More than 76 per cent of eligible Canadians have had at least a first dose, and more than 26 per cent have had a second, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has confirmed.
United Kingdom
In the UK the Delta variant became dominant a few weeks sooner than in the US.
Britain’s medical experts say that vaccination progress is the only way around the variant causing yet another severe and prolonged wave of the pandemic.
In the UK, both cases and deaths are now higher than they were when the Delta variant first took over the country in mid-May, with cases climbing exponentially faster than deaths. Currently, average daily deaths in the UK are twice what they were when the Delta variant became dominant, and cases are about 12 times what they were.
Nevertheless, the UK is still on track to lift all restrictions by 19 July which prime minister Boris Johnson has proclaimed as “Freedom Day”.
Some experts are not in favour of the British PM ditching all restrictions, and the hashtag #JohnsonVariant was recently trending on Twitter.
The UK is now a test case for using vaccines and possibly “health passports” to navigate successive waves of coronavirus instead of more lockdowns and social restrictions which have crippled the economy and caused an outcry from the business sector.
Europe
Countries on the Continent eager to reopen for the Northern summer tourist season after a year of economic devastation are now going back into lockdown to battle a wave of infections caused by the Delta variant.
Spain, Portugal, Greece and Cyprus are among those now tightening restrictions.
France and Germany have warned citizens against holidaying in Spain and Portugal, while Germany added Cyprus to its list of flagged destinations, meaning travellers who are not fully vaccinated will have to self-isolate on return.
In Portugal, people hoping to check into a hotel or eat in a restaurant now have to present proof of vaccination or a negative test.
In Cyprus, which currently leads Europe in cases, people must show proof of vaccination or a negative test to go to the cinema or the theatre.
In Greece, restrictions are being reimposed on restaurants, bars and nightclubs, with seated customers only permitted from this week.
In France, award-winning actress Lea Seydoux skipped the Cannes Film Festival having tested positive for Covid-19, even after being fully vaccinated, raising the issue of the effectiveness of avalable vaccines against the hyper-transmissible Delta strain.
In Belgium, an unvaccinated 90-year-old woman who died after falling ill with Covid-19 was found to be infected with both the Alpha and Beta variants of the coronavirus at the same time, researchers said on Sunday, local time, adding that the rare phenomenon may be underestimated.
Across Europe, the fear is that there will be a new wave like Britain’s unless the EU ramps up its vaccine rollout.
On Saturday, local time, Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said the EU had hit its target of delivering enough coronavirus vaccine to cover 70 per cent of the adult population.
G20 leaders on Sunday, local time, pushed back against the return of restrictions, citing the economic toll on people’s lives, with vaccinations the only answer to the breaking the coronavirus cycle.
India
The Delta variant has also become the dominant strain in its country of origin, leading to India’s crippling second wave which saw thousands of bodies piling up in crematoriums, parking lots and mass burials in shallow graves or cremations in funeral pyres.
To make matters worse, medical experts identified a complication involving a deadly flesh-eating ‘black fungus’ (or mucormycosis) linked to the Delta variant; and last month, the Indian government detected a new mutation in the Delta coronavirus variant, prompting it to classify it as a variant of concern.
The Indian health ministry classifies a variant as one of concern as soon as there’s evidence for increased transmission.
The new variant, known as “Delta plus”, AY. 1 or B. 1.617.2.1, has an extra mutation in the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes Covid-19.
Fuelling the spread of the Delta variant within the country and across its borders were mass political rallies by the conservative government, religious festivals, and migrants travelling for work.
The state of Rajasthan declared mucormycosis, or black fungus, an epidemic in the wake of rising cases primarily among those recovering from the Delta variant of coronavirus.
The rare but potentially deadly fungal infection affects the respiratory tract, sometimes causing swelling and discoloration around the eyes and mouth.
India's prolonged and devastating wave of Covid-19 infections reached deep into rural India, and spread overseas.
Russia
Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, the head of Russia’s state coronavirus task force, said deaths in June have risen nearly 14 per cent due to the spread of the Delta variant that caused infections to soar and a record spike in deaths.
Russia has been struggling with a surge of infections with daily new cases rising from about 9,000 at the beginning of the summer to over 23,000 in early July, caused by the variant.
The slow vaccine rollout and reticence about the jab has contributed to the skyrocketing cases.
Russia was the first in the world to approve a Covid-19 vaccine for widespread use, but the general population has been hesitant to take it up, possibly because no trials had been completed on the vaccine’s safety and efficacy.
Brazil and Latin America
South American countries have been battling stubborn surges, particularly Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia, caused by the Delta variant.
Brazil’s health ministry reported a daily high record over the weekend amid signs that its outbreak is accelerating, according to Reuters.
The country’s 7-day average for cases is now the highest in the world, topping India.
The country has been slow to deploy vaccines, with only 12 per cent fully vaccinated.
Brazil has faced several challenges during the pandemic, including widespread poverty, poor infrastructure, and the president and his supporters not taking the threat seriously.
The rapid spread of the Delta variant across Latin America is also exposing crucial vaccine supply shortages for some of the world’s most vulnerable populations.
South Africa
Johannesburg, South Africa is currently in the grips of a massive wave of infections, with medics turning away patients at hospitals that have no beds.
Healthcare workers told CNN: “The third wave has been far more devastating, far more overwhelming.”
Authorities announced recently that the city’s own mayor had died of Covid-19 in hospital.
“It is my sad duty to confirm that the Executive Mayor of the City of Johannesburg, Cllr Geoffrey Makhubo has indeed succumbed to Covid-19,” said acting Executive Mayor and Member of the Mayoral Committee Eunice Mgcina via the official Twitter account of the city’s authorities.
Some 16 African countries are in resurgence, with the Delta variant detected in 10 of those countries.
Israel
A model nation for its speedy vaccination rollout which was embraced by a majority of the population, the Israeli government continues to break new ground.
Research out of Israel has shown the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine appears to be less effective against infections caused by the Delta variant compared to other strains of COVID-19.
In a brief statement, the government said that as of 6 June, the vaccine provided 64 per cent protection against infection.
In May – when the Alpha variant dominated in Israel and the Delta strain had not yet spread widely – it found that the shot was 95.3 per cent effective against all infections.
In Israel, average daily cases are now twice what they were in mid-April when the first cases of Delta were identified in the country.
The Delta variant now accounts for more than 90 per cent of new cases in the country, although average daily deaths have stayed consistently low.
China
China has acknowledged new cases are accelerating due to the Delta variant.
Li Bin, vice-minister of the National Health Commission, said, “Some cities have recently seen local clusters caused by imported cases of the Delta variant, including Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Ruili. These waves have reminded us that we cannot relax our pandemic control measures.”
But according to the Wall Street Journal, the spread of the Delta variant is raising fresh concerns about the efficacy of Chinese vaccines, which have been distributed through much of the developing world.
Sinopharm and Sinovac Biotech Ltd., the country’s leading Covid-19 vaccine developers, have said they are studying Covid-19 variants, including via lab experiments. Both companies have suggested that a third booster shot may be needed to boost protection after their current two-dose regimens.
The efficacy of the Chinese jabs against the Delta variant will affect how soon China can open its borders and impact the course of the pandemic throughout much of the developing world, where many countries are reliant on Chinese shots.
Asia
Asia has seen a dramatic rise in cases in a number of countries, with Thailand, Indonesia, Pakistan and Vietnam imposing fresh curbs as a result.
South Korea, once a model for Covid-19 response, has tightened restrictions in and around the capital Seoul after new daily infections hit their highest level since the pandemic began.
Indonesia has had to source emergency oxygen supplies from neighbouring Singapore as it struggles with shortages
Jakarta received three million doses of the Moderna vaccine from the US to try to combat the deadliest Covid-19 wave since the pandemic began.
It comes as Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous nation, reported its daily death toll hit a near-record of 1,007 deaths with over 36,000 new infections.
Thailand is grappling with a deadly third wave of infections with 9,539 new cases announced on Saturday and 86 deaths.
Thailand is introducing a seven-hour nightly curfew and Vietnam is also locking down after setting fresh records for daily case numbers or deaths.
South Pacific
The Delta variant has been found in French Polynesia and in Fiji, which is struggling to contain an outbreak thought to have been caused by someone breaching quarantine.
Fiji has reported record Covid-19 infections and deaths since the start of the pandemic.
According to Reuters, the mortuary at the Pacific island’s main hospital is already filled to capacity while others are dying at home.
Fiji has reported a total 10,000 cases and 52 deaths, but most have come since the emergence of the Delta variant in April.
The government has resisted calls for a national lockdown.
About 54 per cent of Fijians have received at least one dose of the AstraZeneca or Sinopharm vaccines, according to official data, while almost 9 per cent have received a second.
Meanwhile, Australia will donate 15 million vaccines to the Pacific island nations and East Timor by mid-2022.
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