Britain’s vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi has said that people in England are expected to continue wearing face masks indoors from July 19 even though the legal requirement to do so would be dropped.
UK PM Boris Johnson will confirm on Monday whether most coronavirus restrictions including social distancing and mandatory mask-wearing will be lifted the following week as widely expected.
The UK is seeing a sharp surge in coronavirus cases. It’s partly driven by the more transmissible Delta variant and partly by increased social mixing with the easing of lockdown rules. New cases now stand at over 34,000 a day.
Yellen ‘very concerned’
US treasury secretary Janet Yellen said on Sunday she was “very concerned” about the risk that new variants could pose to the global economic recovery from the pandemic.
“We are very concerned about the Delta variant and other variants that could emerge and threaten recovery,” she told reporters following a G20 meeting in Venice. “We are a connected global economy, what happens in any part of the world affects all other countries.”
In Thailand, beauty contestants who took part in a pageant last month could face criminal charges for not wearing masks, police said on Sunday, after a cluster of 22 infections emerged from the event.
Thirteen contestants and nine others associated with the Miss Grand Samut Sakhon pageant, which was held at a Bangkok venue late June, have tested positive for the virus, officers said.
Thailand is grappling with a deadly third wave of Covid-19 infections with 9,539 new cases announced on Saturday and 86 deaths.
