A Hong Kong research has found a "heightened risk" of a rare condition that involves non-permanent facial paralysis after COVID-19 inoculations with China's Sinovac vaccines, but scientists urged more people to get immunized in a city that has spent months struggling to attain herd immunity.
A team from the University of Hong Kong discovered that if 100,000 people had been administered with the Sinovac CoronaVac doses, there would be around 4.8 more cases of Bell's Palsy within 42 days.
In India, the country has reported 35,176 new cases over the past 24 hours, an increment from the five-month low of 25,164 the previous day, bringing the country's total cases to around 32.1 million. Fatalities climbed by around 440 to 432,518.
India has inoculated 5.5 million people since Tuesday, bringing the total number of shots administered in the whole country to more than 560.5 million.
In Thailand, health officials Wednesday said they had tallied 312 fatalities, a record increase for a second straight day, taking total death figures to 8,284, based on health data.
Thailand registered 20,514 new cases, bringing total infection figures to 968,956 since the pandemic broke out in 2020.
In Malaysia, some 43 new cases of the highly contagious Delta variant were detected between Aug. 10 and Aug. 17, increasing the total so far to 466.
There were no new infections of other variants of concern for the period, according to Health director-general Tan Sri Noor Hisham Abdullah.
To date, Malaysia's cumulative number of variant cases is 710. Of these, 689 involve variants of concern (VOC) and 20 cases of variants of interest (VOI).
In Japan, authorities extended its state of emergency in the capital city of Tokyo and other regions. They announced new protocols that cover seven more prefectures to contain a surge in infections threatening the city's medical infrastructure.
Officials said that Japan's current state of emergency was set to expire on Aug. 31 but will now last until Sept. 12. Tokyo announced 4,376 new infections as of Tuesday, after a record 5,772 on Friday.
Over in Vietnam, health officials confirmed 9,594 new local patients in 40 cities and provinces Tuesday, an increase of 950 compared to Monday's tally.
Vietnam has immunized more than 15 million of its population against the new variants, with more than 1.4 million receiving two shots.
In China, hopes for a full and fast recovery for the country's local tourism industry in the near term are bleak as the sector continues to reel from the negative effects of the virus.
Travel curbs have been tightened, eased, and then tightened again in response to the recent increase in infections driven by the Delta variant that has dealt a heavy blow to the tourism industry.
Globally, there are currently 209 million cases of the virus, with 4.38 million deaths.
