02 August 2021

• China reports seven cases of coronavirus in Wuhan, as the Delta variant continues to spread across the country. Source 

• The European Union’s  foreign policy chief,  Josep Borrell Fontelles, said that the bloc has fallen far short of its pledge to donate coronavirus vaccines to Africa and Latin America- a gap that China is now filling. “The president of the Commission said we are going to give not 100, but 200 million doses to Africa.. Yes, but when? The problem isn’t just the commitment, but the effectiveness.”

European countries have contributed about 10 million doses to Africa —which has a population of 1.5 billion. “It’s certainly insufficient,” said Mr. Fontelles, adding that Europe’s failure has “geopolitical consequences …China’s expansion in Africa and Latin America should concern us and should occupy us a great deal.” Source

• Regeneron issues a press release to announce that the US FDA has expanded the indication for REGEN-COV (casirivimab and imdevimab) to include use as COVID-19 post-exposure prophylaxis for people at high risk for progression to severe COVID-19, who are not fully vaccinated or are not expected to mount an adequate response to vaccination, and have been exposed to a SARS-CoV-2 infected individual, or who are at high risk of exposure to an infected individual due to infections occurring in the same institutional settings (such as nursing homes or prisons). Source

• Researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology in Hyderabad and Kanpur, who predicted the Delta variant-driven surge earlier this year are forecasting a smaller wave of coronavirus infections that may peak in October at 100,000 infections to 150,000 infections per day. Source 

Return to the timeline