Long Covid Symptoms Affecting More Than 1 In 20 Adults In UK

Bloomberg: U.K. Says ‘Long Covid’ Symptoms Hit 3.2 Million Adults
The U.K. said about 6.2% of its adult population, or 3.2 million people, are suffering lingering effects of the coronavirus that harm wellbeing and the ability to work. The Office for National Statistics said that six in 10 of those it surveyed who said they were affected by “long-Covid” said the disease hurt their general wellbeing, and half of those said to the condition made it difficult for them to do their job. (Akil Farhat, 7/21)

Newsweek: U.K. Reportedly To Stop Checking COVID Documentation For Visitors From Some Countries
Border officers from the United Kingdom will stop checking COVID documentation, such as proof of a negative test, for travelers from certain countries, according to leaked government documents reported on by British media Wednesday. The rule pertains to travelers entering the U.K. from green and amber list countries, which represent the two highest ranks in the government's three-tiered classification system for foreign travel, the Associated Press reported. The U.K. government recently eased quarantine protocols for amber list countries, which include most of Europe. The change triggered concerns that airport immigration lines would take hours for holiday travelers to get through, according to the AP. (Strozewski, 7/21)

The Wall Street Journal: Opening Its Economy As Delta Variant Surges, The U.K. Becomes A Covid-19 Test Case 
The battle between vaccines and the Delta variant of coronavirus is coming to a head in the U.K., closely watched by the rest of the world. At stake is whether advanced economies with high vaccination rates can enjoy something approaching pre-pandemic life in the face of fast transmitting versions of the virus. The experiment should give a strong signal of whether Covid-19 can be relegated to the status of a manageable, seasonal menace such as influenza and whether lockdowns and social distancing can be consigned to the past. (Douglas, 7/21)

AP: Death Rates Soar In Southeast Asia As Virus Wave Spreads
Indonesia has converted nearly its entire oxygen production to medical use just to meet the demand from COVID-19 patients struggling to breathe. Overflowing hospitals in Malaysia had to resort to treating patients on the floor. And in Myanmar’s largest city, graveyard workers have been laboring day and night to keep up with the grim demand for new cremations and burials. Images of bodies burning in open-air pyres during the peak of the pandemic in India horrified the world in May, but in the last two weeks the three Southeast Asian nations have now all surpassed India’s peak per capita death rate as a new coronavirus wave, fueled by the virulent delta variant, tightens its grip on the region. (Rising and Ng, 7/22)

AP: Man With Coronavirus Disguises As Wife On Indonesian Flight
An Indonesian man with the coronavirus has boarded a domestic flight disguised as his wife, wearing a niqab covering his face and carrying fake IDs and a negative PCR test result. But the cover didn’t last long. Police say a flight attendant aboard a Citilink plane traveling from Jakarta to Ternate in North Maluku province on Sunday noticed the man change the clothes in the lavatory. (Basri, 7/22)

CNN: India Coronavirus: More Than Two Thirds Of The Population May Have Antibodies, New Survey Shows 
More than two thirds of India's population may have Covid-19 antibodies, according to a new serological survey released Tuesday, providing yet more evidence the virus may have spread far more widely than official figures suggest. About 67.6% of Indians surveyed above the age of 6 showed antibodies, according to the nationwide study, which was conducted between June and July by the government-run Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). The survey covered 70 districts in 21 states, with 28,975 participants. (Jessie Yeung, Swati Gupta and Esha Mitra, 7/22)

AP: Thailand To Join COVAX, Acknowledging Low Vaccine Supply
The head of Thailand’s National Vaccine Institute apologized Wednesday for the country’s slow and inadequate rollout of coronavirus vaccines, promising it will join the U.N.-backed COVAX program to receive supplies from its pool of donated vaccines next year. Thailand is battling a punishing coronavirus surge that is pushing new cases and deaths to record highs nearly every day. There is fear that the numbers will get much worse because the government failed to secure significant vaccine supplies in advance of the onslaught. (Ekvittayavechnukul, 7/22)

AP: South African Firm To Make Pfizer Vaccine, First In Africa
A South African firm will begin producing the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, the first time that the shot will be produced in Africa, Pfizer announced Wednesday. The Biovac Institute based in Cape Town will manufacture the vaccine for distribution across Africa, a move that should help address the continent’s desperate need for more vaccine doses amid a recent surge of cases. (Meldrum and Petesch, 7/21)

Reuters: Peru Arrests State Hospital Workers For Charging COVID-19 Patients $21,000 Per Bed
Peruvian police said on Wednesday they had dismantled an alleged criminal ring that had charged as much $21,000 per bed for seriously ill COVID-19 patients in a state-run hospital, aggravating care in a country hit by one of the world's deadliest outbreaks of the virus. Authorities arrested nine people in an early morning raid on Wednesday, including the administrators of Lima's Guillermo Almenara Irigoyen public hospital, according to prosecutor Reynaldo Abia. (7/21)

Axios: France Makes COVID-19 Pass Mandatory For Tourist Venues, Leisure Activities 
France announced Wednesday that visitors will need a COVID-19 pass to visit tourist venues such as the Eiffel Tower as cases in the country begin to rise, CBS News reports. The new requirement comes after cases are starting to soar in the country and the Delta variant accounts for 96% of new cases, France's Health Minister Olivier Véran said, per CBS News. (Frazier, 7/21)

On China and the WHO —

Newsweek: Chinese Official Denies Wuhan Institute Of Virology Workers Caught COVID
A Chinese government health official denied that workers at the Wuhan Insitute of Virology (WIV) were infected with COVID shortly before the disease first emerged. Zeng Yixin, deputy head of China's National Health Commission, made his comments in a press conference in Beijing on Thursday. He also announced that China wouldn't be participating in the next stage of the World Health Organization's COVID origins investigation, which highlights the possibility the virus could have come from a Chinese lab. (Browne, 7/22)

Axios: China Rejects WHO COVID Origins Plan 
A top Chinese health official said Thursday the government doesn't accept World Health Organization plans for a follow-up investigation into COVID-19's origins — labeling a theory that it started from a laboratory leak a "rumor," per AP. National Health Commission Vice Minister Zeng Yixin's comments come days after WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it was "too early" to rule out the lab leak theory and proposed a second phase of study into the virus' origins. (Falconer, 7/22)

Also —

Bloomberg: Boy Dies Of Bird Flu In India’s First Case Of Human Death
India reported its first case of human death due to bird flu after a child succumbed to the disease. The 11-year-old who died at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi was infected with avian influenza, the first human case of bird flu in the country, according to the health ministry. Local media including Hindustan Times reported that the boy was infected with the H5N1 strain. Avian influenza is an illness that occurs mainly in birds like chickens and turkeys. While the H5N1 virus does not infect humans easily, the consequences for public health could be very serious if it becomes easily transmissible from person to person. Infection in humans can cause severe disease and has a high mortality rate, according to the World Health Organization. (Pradhan and Prakash, 7/21)