EUROPE
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* All 16- and 17-year-olds in England will be offered their first COVID-19 vaccine dose by August 23, according to a target set by British Health Secretary Sajid Javid.
* Protesters have marched in cities across France for a fifth consecutive weekend against rules compelling them to show a COVID-19 health pass for daily activities, but in lesser numbers than a week ago.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* Indonesian President Joko Widodo said in his annual state of the nation speech that there was a need to strike a balance between health and economic interests amid a surge in cases in Southeast Asia's biggest country.
* The Japanese government is set to extend its "state of emergency" soft lockdown in regions including Tokyo to the middle of September as well as adding several other regions, the Sankei Shimbun daily reported.
* South Korean police mobilised hundreds of buses and set up dozens of checkpoints on Sunday to head off political rallies in Seoul, as some groups pushed ahead with annual protests in defiance of warnings over the spread of the novel coronavirus.
* Australia has purchased about one million doses of Pfizer's vaccine from Poland to add to its inoculation efforts in Sydney and NSW, which on Saturday entered a snap lockdown amid record new infections.
AMERICAS
* Big Wall Street banks have started enforcing stricter mask and vaccine requirements for staff, sometimes communicating them behind the scenes, in an effort to combat coronavirus infections in their offices while avoiding a fierce national debate about individual rights.
* Incoming New York Governor Kathy Hochul said on Sunday that she supported mask mandates for children in school as a necessary safety step for helping New York get through a new wave of infections.
* A three judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia late Saturday set a quick schedule to consider whether to allow a new Biden administration COVID-19 residential eviction ban to remain in place.
* The number of children hospitalised in the United States hit a record high of just over 1900 on Saturday, as hospitals across the South were stretched to capacity fighting outbreaks caused by the highly transmissible Delta variant.
MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
* US, British and Italian leaders must hold an emergency summit before the UN General Assembly to end vaccine inequality and send more shots to Africa and other low-income nations, former British prime minister Gordon Brown said.
* Iran is to impose a one-week lockdown and a ban on road travel amid a fifth surge in the worst-hit country in the Middle East, state television reported on Saturday.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* US drugmaker Merck & Co Inc has initiated a rolling submission to Health Canada for Molnupiravir, an oral antiviral therapy treatment for COVID-19, it said in a statement on Friday.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* Asian share markets slipped on Monday after a raft of Chinese data showed a surprisingly sharp slowdown in the engine of global growth, just as much of the world races to stem the spread of the Delta variant with vaccinations.
GLOBAL
DEATHS 4,374,961
CASES 207,995,805
RECOVERED 186,466,822
Australian Associated Press
