Coronavirus: What’s happening around the world on Monday – CBC.ca

The latest:

England’s car plants, railways, supermarkets and pubs warned the government on Monday that a COVID-19 tracing app, which has told hundreds of thousands of workers to isolate, was wrecking the recovery and pushing supply chains to the brink of collapse.

Cases of COVID-19 in Britain hit around 50,000 a day on some days last week.

Alerts, or “pings,” sent out by the official app telling anyone identified as a contact of someone with the disease to self-isolate for 10 days have caused huge disruptions in schools, businesses and the health-care system.

The crisis, which comes just as the government lifts nearly all restrictions in England to help drive an economic recovery, has been dubbed the “Pingdemic.”

Under pressure, the government said later on Monday it would allow workers in critical roles, such as air traffic controllers and train signallers, to carry on working despite being “pinged” if they were fully vaccinated.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Finance Minister Rishi Sunak and Health Minister Sajid Javid are all isolating after Javid tested positive. Some pubs have shut, supply chains are teetering and the car breakdown service AA warned of longer response times at call centres.

Automaker Stellantis said its Vauxhall van factory in Luton would move from three shifts to two shifts for the duration of this week, and Nissan adjusted production in some areas of its Sunderland plant to counter lower staffing numbers.

“The pingdemic is here and businesses need urgent change,” Richard Walker, the managing director of supermarket chain Iceland, said on Twitter.

Britain’s biggest rail operator, Govia Thameslink, said it may need to cancel some services in London and South East England. Retailer Marks & Spencer said it may have to reduce business hours.

“Where the industry will see the pain is in the supply chain, because logistics runs tight anyway to be efficient,” Marks & Spencer CEO Steve Rowe said in a statement.

People arrive for the ’00:01′ event organized by Egyptian Elbows at Oval Space nightclub, as England lifted most COVID-19 restrictions at midnight, in London, England, early Monday morning. (Natalie Thomas/Reuters)

Pub operator Greene King said it had to temporarily close 33 pubs last week due to a lack of staff. British baker Warburtons said it was struggling to maintain local deliveries as more staff self-isolate, exacerbating a national driver shortage.

The crisis has overshadowed Johnson’s “freedom day” on Monday, which ended more than a year of lockdown restrictions in England.

Smaller businesses, however, are particularly alarmed.

“Having just one of my customers test positive will close my entire business for two weeks with no financial support,” said Helen Williams, owner of Willow Bridal Boutique in northwest England.

-From Reuters, last updated at 12:45 p.m. ET

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What’s happening in Tokyo

WATCH: Get the latest on what’s happening with COVID-19 in Tokyo ahead of the Olympic Games: 

A rising number of COVID-19 infections among athletes arriving at Tokyo 2020 has complicated an already tight protocol for protecting everyone from the virus, says freelance reporter Phoebe Amoroso in Tokyo. 3:20

An alternate on the United States women’s gymnastics team has tested positive for COVID-19 in a training camp in Japan, the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee said Monday.

The USOPC did not say if Olympic champion Simone Biles or any of the other favourites to win the team gold were isolated because of contact tracing. The positive test was the latest in a growing line of daily reports of athletes and others testing positive at the pandemic-delayed Olympics. The unnamed gymnast was the first American.

Earlier, officials said a third athlete at the Olympic Village in Tokyo has tested positive for COVID-19, with the Czech Republic team reporting the latest case Monday in a player on the country’s beach volleyball team.

Two South African men’s soccer players had their COVID-19 cases announced Sunday. The players and a team video analyst who tested positive one day earlier were moved to the “isolation facility” managed by the Olympic organizing committee.

Their 21 close contacts around the South Africa team now face extra scrutiny before their first game Thursday against Japan in Tokyo. The monitoring regime includes daily testing, travelling in a dedicated vehicle, training separately from teammates not affected and being confined to their rooms for meals.

The Olympics, which were postponed for a year because of the pandemic, are set to officially open Friday and run until Aug. 8.

Japan has seen a total of 842,018 reported cases of COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus tracker, with 14,993 reported deaths.

Tokyo reported 1,008 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, the 29th straight day that cases were higher than seven days previously. It was also the fifth straight day with more than 1,000 cases. The Olympics will open under a state of emergency in Tokyo and three neighbouring prefectures.

-From The Associated Press, Reuters and CBC News, last updated at 7:40 a.m. ET

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What’s happening around the world

A Tunisian medic provides care for COVID-19 patients at the Charles Nicole hospital’s emergency room in the capital Tunis late last week. (Fethi Belaid/AFP/Getty Images)

As of early Monday afternoon, more than 190.6 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University, with more than four million reported deaths.

In Africa, Tunisia’s government decided to deploy the armed forces to vaccinate people in the regions with the worst infection rates and in areas with particularly low vaccination rates.

Tunisia is recording one of the world’s highest daily per-capita infection rates and has reported Africa’s highest per-capita pandemic death toll. The country has reported a total of 546,233 cases of COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University’s case-tracking tool, with 17,527 reported deaths.

• Have a coronavirus question or news tip for CBC News? Email: Covid@cbc.ca

In Europe, more than 100,000 people marched across France on Saturday to protest against President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to force vaccination of health workers and require a COVID-19-free certificate to enter places such as restaurants and cinemas.

In the Americas, Brazil’s health regulator Anvisa said on Monday that it has approved trials with a third dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19. Anvisa said a third dose of the vaccine would be administered to 10,000 volunteers between 11 and 13 months after the second shot.

Minneapolis Federal Reserve president Neel Kashkari said many U.S. economic sectors faced rapidly rising prices and were struggling to adjust to reopening after the shutdown.

WATCH | Misinformation plagues U.S. COVID-19 vaccine rollout, officials say: 

U.S. officials say misinformation has plagued the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, and case counts across the country are rising. 2:02

In the Middle East, Iran on Monday imposed a week-long lockdown on the capital, Tehran, and the surrounding region as the country struggles with another surge in the coronavirus pandemic, state media reported. The lockdown — the country’s fifth so far — will begin on Tuesday and last until next Monday. All bazaars, market places and public offices will close, as well as movie theaters, gyms and restaurants in both Tehran province and the neighbouring province of Alborz.

Iran reported 25,441 new cases on Monday and 213 deaths over the past day, bringing the overall death toll to 87,374 from among more than 3.5 million confirmed cases in the pandemic.

Saudi citizens will need two COVID-19 vaccine doses before they can travel outside the kingdom from Aug. 9, state news agency SPA reported on Monday, citing the Ministry of Interior. The decision was made based on new waves of infection globally, new mutations and the “low efficacy of one vaccination dose against these mutations,” the statement said.

A man rides a scooter on a quiet street in Vung Tau, Vietnam, on Sunday. Vietnam has put its entire southern region in a two-week lockdown as confirmed daily COVID-19 cases exceeded 3,000 for the third day in a row. (Hau Dinh/The Associated Press)

In the Asia-Pacific region, Vietnam put its entire southern region in a two-week lockdown starting midnight Sunday, as confirmed COVID-19 cases exceeded 3,000 for the third day in a row. The lockdown order includes the Mekong Delta and Ho Chi Minh City metropolis, the country’s financial and economic hub with over 35 million people — nearly a third of Vietnam’s population.

Officials say they have to act as the number of infections reached nearly 50,000 since the outbreak re-emerged at the end of April after several months of no cases being recorded.

-From Reuters and The Associated Press, last updated at 12:40 p.m. ET

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