The World Health Organization’s representative in Vietnam said the coronavirus mutation first detected there does not meet the global health body’s definition of a new variant, although it is still very transmissible and dangerous. “There is no new hybrid variant in Vietnam at this moment based on WHO definition,” Kidong Park told Nikkei Asia. Instead, what Vietnamese officials found was a mutation of a variant first detected in India, he said, referring to the B.1.617.2 variant that the WHO now calls Delta.

Hanoi said Saturday that, using genetic sequencing, it has found a highly infectious new variant that combines characteristics of variants previously detected in Britain and India. Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long told reporters that the new variant was particularly contagious via air, while viral cultures revealed it replicates extremely quickly.

Here are some significant developments:
  • Bahrain is recommending Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus doses to high-risk individuals who have already received two shots of Sinopharm in the latest development to cast doubt on the Chinese-developed vaccine’s effectiveness.
  • President Biden declared June a “national month of action” as he revealed private-sector incentives in a bid to inoculate 70 percent of adult Americans with at least one coronavirus vaccine shot by the Fourth of July.
  • The Covax program to ensure the equitable distribution of coronavirus vaccines globally raised nearly $2.4 billion in fresh funding after a virtual conference Wednesday, allowing it to be able to deliver 1.8 billion fully subsidized doses to developing economies by early 2022.
  • Apple CEO Tim Cook encouraged employees to get vaccinated as the company said most staff would return to the office for at least three days a week from early September.
  • The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games took another blow this week after organizers said that roughly 10,000 volunteers have quit and a top medical adviser to the government expressed worries about the event going ahead.
  • The United States reported a seven-day average of 16,667 new infections on Wednesday, down almost 30 percent from the previous equivalent period. Hospitalizations have dipped sharply — as has the number of tests.