Protesters put stickers on the regional ministry of health during a demonstration in Marseille, southern France, Saturday, Aug. 14, 2021. Thousands of people, from families to far-right sympathizers, marched in dozens of cities across France for a fifth straight Saturday to denounce a COVID-19 health pass needed to access restaurant, long-distance trains and other venues. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)
Australia's biggest city of Sydney recorded its deadliest day of the pandemic on Monday, while residents in Melbourne face a nightly curfew and a further two weeks of lockdown amid a surge in infections.
* All 16- and 17-year-olds in England will be offered their first COVID-19 vaccine dose by Aug. 23, according to a target set by British Health Secretary Sajid Javid.
* Protesters have marched in cities across France for a fifth consecutive weekend against rules compelling them to show a COVID-19 health pass for daily activities, but in lesser numbers than a week ago.
* Indonesian President Joko Widodo said in his annual state of the nation speech that there was a need to strike a balance between health and economic interests amid a surge in COVID-19 cases in Southeast Asia's biggest country.
* The Japanese government is set to extend its "state of emergency" soft lockdown in regions including Tokyo to the middle of September as well as adding several other regions, the Sankei Shimbun daily reported.
* South Korean police mobilised hundreds of buses and set up dozens of checkpoints on Sunday to head off political rallies in Seoul, as some groups pushed ahead with annual protests in defiance of warnings over the spread of the novel coronavirus.
* Australia has purchased about 1 million doses of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine from Poland to add to its inoculation efforts in Sydney and its home state, which on Saturday entered a snap lockdown amid record new infections.
* Big Wall Street banks have started enforcing stricter mask and vaccine requirements for staff, sometimes communicating them behind the scenes, in an effort to combat coronavirus infections in their offices while avoiding a fierce national debate about individual rights.
* Incoming New York Governor Kathy Hochul said on Sunday that she supported mask mandates for children in school as a necessary safety step for helping New York get through a new wave of COVID-19 infections.
* A three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia late Saturday set a quick schedule to consider whether to allow a new Biden administration COVID-19 residential eviction ban to remain in place.
* The number of children hospitalised with COVID-19 in the United States hit a record high of just over 1,900 on Saturday, as hospitals across the South were stretched to capacity fighting outbreaks caused by the highly transmissible Delta variant.
* U.S., British and Italian leaders must hold an emergency summit before the U.N. General Assembly to end vaccine inequality and send more shots to Africa and other low-income nations, former British prime minister Gordon Brown said.
* Iran is to impose a one-week lockdown and a ban on road travel amid a fifth COVID-19 surge in the worst-hit country in the Middle East, state television reported on Saturday.
* U.S. drugmaker Merck & Co Inc has initiated a rolling submission to Health Canada for Molnupiravir, an oral antiviral therapy treatment for COVID-19, it said in a statement on Friday.
* Asian share markets slipped on Monday after a raft of Chinese data showed a surprisingly sharp slowdown in the engine of global growth, just as much of the world races to stem the spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19 with vaccinations.
Visit our Covid-19 vaccine dashboard for updates on the roll out of the vaccination program and the rate of Coronavirus cases Ireland