Here's the latest on the COVID-19 pandemic from around the world overnight.
Europe
UK
Britain recorded 28,612 new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday (local time), down from 31,808 a day earlier, and 103 deaths, higher than the 92 reported on Friday, official data showed.
The data also showed that 46,997,495 people have received their first dose of a vaccine, while 39,210,356 have received both jabs and are fully protected.
An increase in cases in September is widely expected as workers return to offices and school and university terms begin, but there is growing confidence a surge in cases can be managed without a return to restrictive measures.
On Saturday, Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) member Professor Neil Ferguson - once nicknamed 'Professor Lockdown' - said he believes the UK is now in a position where it can avoid imposing "crisis measures".
"I think it's unlikely we will need a new lockdown or even social distancing measures of the type we've had so far," he told The Times.
Fellow government scientific advisor John Edmunds, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, agreed, saying he believes the NHS will be able to cope with the expected winter surge without the need for restrictions.
However, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is reportedly pressing ahead with authorising contingency plans for "firebreak lockdowns", should the NHS be overwhelmed by cases towards the end of the year.
According to local media, the government is prepared for local, regional or national lockdowns in order to protect the NHS from being swamped in the event of a major outbreak.
Italy
Twenty-two virus-related deaths were reported on Saturday (local time), compared with 24 the day before, while the daily tally of new infections rose from 6599 to 6902.
Italy has registered a total of 128,209 deaths linked to COVID-19 since its outbreak emerged in February last year, the second-highest toll in Europe after the UK and the eighth-highest in the world. The country has reported 4.39 million cases to date.
Patients hospitalised with COVID-19 - not including those in intensive care - stood at 2533 on Saturday, up from 2449 a day earlier, the health ministry said.
There were 29 new admissions to intensive care, down from 32 on Friday. The total of intensive care patients increased to 288 from 277.
Some 293,863 tests for COVID-19 were carried out over the past 24 hours, compared with a previous 244,657, health officials said.
France
Protesters marched in cities across France on Saturday in a fourth consecutive weekend of demonstrations, denouncing what they see as oppressive rules compelling health workers to receive vaccinations and citizens to carry a health pass for a number of daily activities.
They rallied through the streets of Paris, Nice, Montpellier and other towns, waving placards reading, "No to dictatorship" and chanting, "Macron, we don't want your health pass".
More than 230,000 took part in the nationwide protests, the highest number over the past month, the interior ministry said.
The protests have united a disparate group against President Emmanuel Macron's legislation, which is meant to help contain a fourth wave of infections spreading across France and safeguard the country's economic recovery.
Among the protesters are hard-left anarchists and far-right militants, remnants of the anti-government 'Yellow Vest' movement that shook Macron's leadership during 2018-2019, and also other citizens who are anti-vaccine or consider the health pass to be discriminatory.
From Monday, people will be required to show a health pass to eat in a restaurant, access non-emergency treatment in a hospital or travel on an intercity train. They are already needed to access swimming pools, museums and nightclubs.
Health employees have until September 15 to get their vaccinations or face suspension.
"I'd rather not be paid than be forced to have the vaccine," hospital psychiatrist Diane Hekking told Reuters as she protested in Paris.
Similar health passes - which show proof of vaccination or a recent negative test - have been introduced in other European countries, but France's pass and its mandatory vaccine order for health workers are perhaps the most far-reaching.
Health Ministry data showed nine in every 10 COVID-19 patients admitted to intensive care in late July had not been vaccinated. A majority of French support the health pass, surveys show.
France recorded 25,755 new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday (local time) and 32 new deaths in hospital.
Asia
Indonesia
President Joko Widodo said in a video released Saturday (local time) COVID-19 infections have started to surge outside the populous Java-Bali islands, and movement restrictions are needed to stem transmission.
"The people's mobility needs to be stemmed. For at least two weeks," he said, adding cases are surging in provinces such as West Sumatra and East Nusa Tenggara.
He did not specify where and when such restrictions would take place.
Indonesia's current mobility restrictions are in place until August 9.
China
The Delta variant is wreaking havoc in China, with the highly transmissible strain spreading to about 40 cities - including the original COVID-19 epicentre, Wuhan.
The country reported 124 new cases on Friday, 80 of which were locally transmitted.
It's believed the latest outbreak began in the eastern city of Nanjing in Jiangsu province on July 20, after nine airport cleaners tested positive.
Wuhan recorded 15 positive cases on Thursday, the first outbreak in the city of 11 million since last year.
Americas
US
The US surpassed 100,000 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Saturday (local time), a milestone driven by the highly transmissible Delta variant and low vaccination rates in the South, according to local media.
Health officials fear cases, hospitalisations and deaths will continue to soar if more Americans don't embrace the vaccine.
Nationwide, 50 percent of residents are fully vaccinated and more than 70 percent of adults have received at least one dose, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
"Our models show that if we don't [vaccinate more people], we could be up to several hundred-thousand cases a day, similar to our surge in early January," CDC director Rochelle Walensky said on CNN this week.
Hospitalisations and deaths are also increasing, but remain below the peaks seen early this year before vaccines became widely available. More than 44,000 Americans are currently hospitalised with the virus, according to the CDC - up 30 percent in a week and nearly four times the number in June.
The situation is particularly dire in the south, which has some of the lowest vaccination rates in the US.
However, physician and immunologist Dr Anthony Fauci - who serves as the director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases - believes there will be "a flood" of vaccine mandates at businesses and schools across the nation, as soon as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issues a full approval for a COVID-19 vaccine.
"Organisations, enterprises, universities, colleges that have been reluctant to mandate at the local level will feel much more confident," Dr Fauci told local media on Friday (local time).
Reuters / Newshub.
