Covid-19: Global Cases Fall but the Virus Is Surging in Countries That Lack Vaccines
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May 12, 2021, 8:27 a.m. ETMay 12, 2021, 8:27 a.m. ET
The W.H.O. says a coronavirus variant first found in India is a “variant of concern.” The F.D.A. authorizes the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds.
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Buddhist monks were tested at a temple in Bangkok after a monk there died of Covid-19.Credit.Rungroj Yongrit/EPA, via Shutterstock
After a devastating year with wave after wave of coronavirus infections around the world, new cases and deaths are falling in many of the Western nations that were once among the hardest hit. But while the virus recedes in wealthy nations with robust vaccination campaigns, it is pummeling India and threatening to swamp Southeast Asian countries that until now had largely kept the virus at bay.
Funeral pyres of coronavirus victims at a makeshift crematorium in New Delhi on Sunday.Credit.Anindito Mukherjee/Getty Images
May 10, 2021
Amid a deepening crisis in India, the World Health Organization announced Monday that it had designated the B.1.617 variant, which has been growing more common in the country, as a variant of concern. Scientists still don’t know much about the variant, but they are worried that it might be helping to fuel the rise in the nation’s coronavirus infections, which experts say are probably undercounted.
“There is increased transmissibility demonstrated by some preliminary studies” of the variant, said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the technical lead of the W.H.O.’s coronavirus response.
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