Unequal access to vaccines skews global recovery: IMF chief economist

The global economy is recovering from the pandemic at an uneven pace due to unequal access to vaccin­ations, with the Delta variant threatening those countries lacking essential medical supplies, the IMF's chief economist warned on Wednesday.

"Right now what we are seeing is highly unequal access to vaccinations, including thera­peutics and diagnostics. Therefore, what we're seein­g is a diverging recovery,” IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath said during a webinar at the annual meeting of the E­urop­ean Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

"The number one issue is how do we get to a point where we have good coverage of populations in terms of vaccination rates everywhere in the world."

Putin rejects mandatory jabs as Russia sees record deaths

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was opposed to mandatory coronavirus vaccinations for Russians but urged the jab-sceptic population to get inocul­ated, as his country battles a deadly third wave. His comments came as Russia earlier Wednesday repo­rted 669 coronavirus dea­ths in past 24 hours, a pan­demic high of fatalities for the second day in a row, accor­ding to a government tally.

Kim Jong Un sounds alarm on Covid-19

Kim Jong Un’s warning that North Korea faced a “great crisis” over a quar­antine breach is raising more questions about what’s going wrong inside his secretive regime. North Korea has recently been bracing its people for a tough road ahead.

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