World News in Brief: May 2

Amid spike in COVID-19 cases, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi Sunday held a virtual meeting with experts to review oxygen availability in the country, officials said.

Passengers wait to take the train to travel back hometown for Eid al-Fitr festival in Jakarta, Indonesia, May 1, 2021. Indonesia has issued a letter of prohibition on travels using land, air and water transportation means from May 6 to May 17, to curb the pandemic during the Islamic post-fasting festivity Eid al-Fitr. (Photo: Xinhua)
Passengers wait to take the train to travel back hometown for Eid al-Fitr festival in Jakarta, Indonesia, May 1, 2021. Indonesia has issued a letter of prohibition on travels using land, air and water transportation means from May 6 to May 17, to curb the pandemic during the Islamic post-fasting festivity Eid al-Fitr. (Photo: Xinhua)

* China has administered 270.41 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Saturday, the National Health Commission said on Sunday. That compares with 265.06 million doses given as of Friday, up 5.34 million doses.

* The death toll from COVID-19 has surged to 103 in Cambodia on Sunday after seven new fatalities were reported in the last 24 hours, the Ministry of Health (MoH) said in a statement.

* Cuba on Saturday registered the lowest number of daily COVID-19 cases in the last two weeks, after reporting 915 new infections and 10 deaths in the last 24 hours.

* Russia confirmed 8,697 new COVID-19 infections over the past 24 hours, taking the nationwide tally to 4,823,255, the official monitoring and response center said Sunday. The national COVID-19 death toll rose by 342 to 110,862 in the past day, while the number of the country's recoveries grew by 7,339 to 4,443,922.

* The number of COVID-19 patients with severe symptoms hit a record 1,050 across Japan on Sunday, according to the latest figures from the health ministry and local authorities. The previous record was 1,043 on Jan. 27 when several prefectures were under the second state of emergency over the coronavirus.

* The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) warned on Sunday that the United States "will face worse and worse crisis" after US President Joe Biden called the DPRK's nuclear program a "serious threat," reported the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held telephone conversations with his Kyrgyz and Tajik counterparts on Saturday to discuss the armed clashes on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border.

* More than 100 million adult Americans have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as of Saturday, according to data of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The fully vaccinated account for 30.5 percent of the US population.

* India's new coronavirus cases dipped marginally on Sunday but deaths from COVID-19 jumped by a record 3,689, with one more state going into lockdown as the nation's creaky healthcare system is unable to cope with the massive caseload.

* Brazil began the month of May reporting 2,656 deaths from COVID-19 as well as 66,964 new cases, rasing the national death toll to 406,437 and the total caseload to 14,725,975, the Ministry of Health said on Saturday. The daily average number of deaths in the last seven days was 2,421, while the figure for April was higher than 3,000, according to the ministry.

* Chilean President Sebastian Pinera announced on Saturday that the country will accelerate its mass vaccination program against COVID-19 after already having 6.6 million people fully vaccinated.

* Another 1,907 people in Britain have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 4,418,530, according to official figures released Saturday.

* Stable new COVID-19 infection numbers in Germany are fuelling hopes that intensive care units won't be overburdened, the head of the German hospital federation (DKG) told the mass tabloid newspaper Bild.

* Britons need to be "patient for a short period" ahead of the next planned relaxation of coronavirus restrictions in England on May 17, a government advisory scientist said Saturday.

* Australia's second-largest state of Victoria on Sunday committed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 50% by 2030, based on 2005 levels, and to power all government operations like schools and hospitals with renewable energy within the next four years.

* The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 16,290 to 3,416,822, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Sunday. The reported death toll rose by 110 to 83,192, the tally showed.

* Demand for oxygen has been rising in Nepal as more and more hospitalized COVID-19 patients are in need of oxygen.

* An earthquake of magnitude 6.0 struck offshore Coquimbo in Chile, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC)said on Sunday. The quake was at a depth of 10 km (6.21 miles), EMSC added.

Xinhua,Reuters