• Anti-lockdown protests sweep across Australia. David Elliott, police and emergency services minister for New South Wales, said “What we saw today were 3,500 very selfish boofheads. These are the sort of people who are going to prolong this lockdown.” Source
• In the US, recommendations for mask-wearing differ by vaccination status, making them difficult to enforce and confusing. As the Delta variant spreads across the country and rates of hospitalization for, and death from COVID-19 increase, public health experts are pressuring the US CDC to recommend masking even for fully vaccinated people. Source
• After a contract-tracing app in the UK led to a 600,000-plus person “ping-demic”, public health experts and politicians are concerned that people may be deleting or disabling it, although it is needed to halt the country’s epidemic. Source
• As Southeast Asia battles the Delta variant, AstraZeneca plans to ship coronavirus vaccines to the region. Although its partner, Siam Biosciences, was supposed to produce 180 million doses, two-thirds going to the region, the company, which has links with the Thai monarchy, has not been able to meet the need. Source
• As the number of coronavirus cases across Japan has increased by 105 percent during the past two weeks, Tokyo Olympic organizers announced 16 new positive coronavirus tests among people connected to the Games – now totaling 153 people, including 19 athletes. Source
• Cambodia has set up 21 “Care Centers” at wedding venues and sports stadiums across the country to deal with a surge of coronavirus. People who test positive for COVID-19, even if asymptomatic, are forced into them, saying they are more like prisons than hospitals. Source
• Ramil, a 9 year-old male snow leopard at the San Diego Zoo, has tested positive for coronavirus after developing a cough and runny nose. He shares space with a female snow leopard and two Amur leopards, who have been quarantined. The Zoo is not sure how Ramil became infected. Source