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 Japan's inoculations off to snail-pace start
Japan's COVID-19 inoculation campaign is moving at a glacial pace,
hampered by a lack of supply and a shortage of speciality syringes
that underscore the enormous challenge it faces in its aim to
vaccinate every adult by the year's end.
Since the campaign began three weeks ago, just under 46,500 doses
had been administered to frontline medical workers as of Friday.
At the current rate, it would take 126 years to vaccinate Japan's
population of 126 million. By contrast, South Korea, which began its
vaccinations a week later than Japan, had administered nearly seven
times more shots as of Sunday.
India's richest state has half of new, active cases
India's richest state of Maharashtra accounts for more than half of
both new and total active infections, health ministry data showed on
Monday, although a team of experts said the state's current wave
might be "less virulent".
Experts say India's relatively low hospitalisation and fatality
rates suggest the pandemic is approaching its next phase of largely
manageable local outbreaks, such as those being seen in the western
industrialised state.
India's tally of 11.23 million infections is the world's highest
after the United States, with the state accounting for 11,141 of the
18,599 new cases reported in the past 24 hours.
Fauci upbeat on vaccinations for U.S. teens by autumn
High school students in the United States should be able to receive
COVID-19 vaccinations by the autumn, with younger students likely to
be cleared for vaccinations in early 2022, top U.S. infectious
disease official Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Sunday.
Fauci said he expected the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention to issue relaxed guidelines for people who have already
been vaccinated within "the next couple of days", but urged
continued vigilance on mitigation measures for the more than 80% of
Americans still awaiting shots.
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 "We're going in the right
direction. We just need to hang in there a bit
longer," Fauci told CBS.
Thailand to reduce quarantine for vaccinated
travellers
Thailand will from next month reduce its
mandatory quarantine from 14 to seven days for
foreigners arriving in the country who have been
vaccinated against the coronavirus, its Health
Minister said on Monday.
Vaccinations must be administered within three months of the travel
period and visitors will still be required to show negative COVID-19
test results within three days of their departure, Anutin
Charnvirankul told a news conference.
Those not yet inoculated but with coronavirus-free certificates
would be quarantined for 10 days.
East Timor imposes first lockdown
The tiny Southeast Asian nation of East Timor will put its capital
city on a lockdown for the first time, its government said on
Monday, amid fears it could be facing its first local outbreak.
A "sanitary fence and mandatory confinement" will be imposed in Dili
for seven days from midnight Monday with residents asked to stay
home unless necessary to leave, the country's council of ministers
said in statement.
A former Portuguese colony with a population of 1.2 million, East
Timor has detected just 122 cases, most of which were imported.
(Compiled by Linda Noakes; Editing by Alex Richardson)
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