Delta Covid variant first found in India spreads to 62 countries, hot spots form in Asia and Africa, WHO says
The P.1 variant, now named Gamma, which was first detected in Japan in people who had traveled from Brazil, has spread to 64 countries, according to the WHO. Even countries with high vaccination rates are seeing a rise in cases over the last week or two, “so no one is out of the woods,” Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Program said in a Q&A hosted by the WHO on Wednesday across social media platforms. In Bahrain, where about 55% of the population is inoculated with at least one dose, Covid cases have been spiking since the beginning of May, reaching the highest level of daily reported cases since the beginning of the pandemic, according to Our World in Data. “Relaxation of public health and social measures, increased social mobility, virus variants and inequitable vaccination are a very dangerous combination,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s Covid-19 technical lead, said in explaining some of the recent surges. The Western Pacific region is reporting