RationalWiki:What is going on with the coronavirus?/June 2021

June 2021
Nearly 2,000 new infections in Scotland, linked to the Euro2020 football match against England at Wembley. Fiji's outbreak worsens amidst a proliferation of misinformation and government inaction that is a familiar story from all over the world. Covid restrictions continue to ease in several European countries. Sixteen more locations are added to the "green list" of places Brits can travel to without having to quarantine when they come home. South Africa firmly in the grip of a third wave, with case incidences and hospitalisations already exceeding the peaks of their second wave. After over 100 days without a single community case, Wellington, New Zealand's capital city, moves into Alert Level 2 after a tourist tested positive for the virus upon returning back to Australia A man stopped for not wearing a face mask on a train was found to be carrying ₤60,000 worth of heroin and crack cocaine. Covid vaccines are now being offered to all over 18s in England. Helen Clarke, co-chair of the Independant Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response set up by the WHO, slams WHO for early opposition to travel ban from China. She notes that countries that did not institute an early travel ban have not been able to control the virus prior to vaccines arriving. Also notes that "the jury is still out" on the lab leak origin hypothesis. CureVac NV's CVnCoV vaccine has failed its trial, showing only a 47% efficacy rate. The EU had pre-ordered up to 400 million doses of the vaccine. In spite of the decision to delay easing the remaining Covid restrictions in England, special exceptions will be made for the Wimbledon men's and women's finals which will be played in front of full capacity crowds The planned lockdown easing (scheduled to take place on 21 June) will be postponed by 4 weeks due to rapidly rising new infections. All adults in Wales have been offered a first Covid vaccine and six weeks ahead of schedule too. With a population of slightly less than 1 million Fiji is experiencing its first wave of Covid, with 900 cases since April. The government refused to institute a state of emergency and strict nationwide lockdown, instead instituting local restrictions, but even those have resulted in anti-lockdown protests due to shortages of food. G7 leaders have pledged to donate 1 billion vaccine doses to poorer nations by next year. The FDA has announced that more than 60 million doses of the J&J vaccine, produced by Baltimore-based Emergent BioSolutions, cannot be used, due to possible contamination. In other news, Emergent's CEO dumped $10 million worth of stock, before the first announcement of the contamination of 15 million doses was made. Denmark is scrapping its mask mandate except for public transport on June 14th, and is planning to scrap all COVID rules by October 1st. Bitcoin 2021 conference, held in Miami, has become a likely superspreader event. Antivaxxer "expert" claims during hearing that the Covid-19 vaccine causes magnetism and makes spoons stick to a person's body. A subsequent speaker agrees and tries to demonstrate using a key and a bobby pin -- it doesn't go quite as planned. Media regulator and ombudsman Ofcom has reported that half of all British adults watched Internet porn during the pandemic. Traffic has been strong with Canadian PornHub & YouPorn, and British OnlyFans sites. 'Joints for Jabs': Licensed marijuana stores in Washington will offer free joints as an incentive to get vaccinated. [https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-57393931 Portugal is moved from the UK's "green list" — the list of countries that Brits van visit without having to quarantine for 10 days when they return — to the "amber list". That wasn't a popular move with British tourists who were there at the time.] Former feminist, and now full-time anti-vaxxer, Naomi Wolf - who once claimed that Belfast without 5G felt as calm and peaceful "as it did in the 70s" - has been banned from Twitter for her tweets about Covid and the vaccine. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-57325343 Argentina has lost the right to host the Copa America soccer tournament due to the rising number of Covid cases there. So instead the tournament is being held in Brazil, where about 463,000 people have died of the coronavirus.] [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-57307861 After a review, Peru's official Covid death toll has more than doubled from 69,342 to over 180,000. That means it is now the country with the world's highest per capita death rate.] Stage-four lockdown in Melbourne extended by seven days after officials worry that the Kappa variant "will explode" as total cases rise to 60. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-57308592 The World Health Organization introduces a new system for naming Covid-19 variants. They will now be named after letters of the Greek alphabet instead of geographic locations. The UK variant is now Alpha, the South African variant is Beta and the Indian variant is Delta.] London's Heathrow airport opens a terminal just for arrivals from the UK's "red list" of 43 counties with a high risk of Covid.