Texas deployed another 2,500 medical staff and equipment to healthcare facilities throughout the state as hospitalisations near a record.

Illinois issued broader measures to contain the Delta-fuelled outbreak, mandating masks indoors statewide and expanding vaccine requirements to all healthcare workers, teachers from preschool through to high school, and students and staff at higher education institutions. Kentucky, Florida and Georgia led US states in per-capita hospital admissions.

The UK plans to study why some vaccinated people suffer breakthrough infections and others don’t. India recorded the most daily cases in more than a month.

Key developments

• Global Tracker: Cases top 214.3 million; deaths pass 4.4 million
• Vaccine Tracker: More than 5.06 billion doses administered
• Most big hedge funds mandate vaccinations for return to offices
• Are Covid shots working? What the real world tells us: QuickTake
• The hybrid work revolution is already transforming economies
• September promised return to normal that continues to elude US

CVS limits purchase of home tests

CVS Health is limiting customers’ purchases of rapid, over-the-counter Covid-19 tests, with a maximum of six packages available online and four in its pharmacies, as the spread of the Delta variant spurs demand.

Put in place this week, the limits apply to Abbott Laboratories’s BinaxNOW along with a test from the startup Ellume, according to an email from a company spokesperson. Both tests are available without a prescription. Abbott and Ellume didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Surging interest in rapid virus tests had made the products a scarce commodity at some online retailers and in certain stores.

Arkansas inmates prescribed anti-parasite drug

Arkansas health officials are investigating reports that a county jail prescribed to inmates an anti-parasite drug often used for livestock, the Associated Press reported.

Amy Embry, director of the Arkansas Medical Board, said the investigation opened two days ago, but declined to give details. The sheriff of Washington County confirmed on Tuesday that inmates had been prescribed ivermectin, AP reported. The US Food and Drug Administration has warned against using the drug — which is approved in lower doses to treat two conditions in humans caused by parasitic worms — to prevent or treat Covid-19.

Texas deploys more help to hospitals

Texas Governor Greg Abbott deployed another 2,500 medical staff and equipment to healthcare facilities throughout the state as the hospitalisation rate nears a record set in January.

The Lone Star state had 13,928 hospitalised patients on Tuesday, close to the record 14,218 set on 11 January, before vaccinations became more widespread. Almost half of the state’s trauma service areas had fewer than five beds available in intensive care units, with four areas having run out of them altogether.

The new deployment brings the total number of additional, state-funded medical personnel to 8,100.

South Carolina mandates masks on school buses

Masks will be required on school buses starting on Monday in South Carolina, even as they remain illegal inside schools.

“More protective measures are needed to lower the risk of virus transmission and keep our schools open and operating as safely as possible,” Molly Spearman, state superintendent of education, wrote in a memorandum released on Thursday.

Several local school districts have defied a state law that bans mask mandates in schools. South Carolina has one of the nation’s worst per capita outbreaks, according to CDC data.

Rationed care fears in New Mexico

Bed and staffing shortages could push New Mexico hospitals to ration care in a matter of days, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported. About 50 patients were on intensive care unit waiting lists as of Wednesday, according to the newspaper.

“Our hospitals are virtually full” and New Mexico could implement so-called crisis care standards if nothing changes, David Scrase, state human services secretary and acting health secretary, was quoted as telling reporters on Wednesday.

Faced with the Delta variant, officials in Idaho also said this week they may have to ration care.

UK to study why breakthrough cases happen

The newly formed UK Health Security Agency will lead a study into why some vaccinated people get breakthrough infections and others don’t.

The study involves about 50,000 staffers in the National Health Service who enrolled in other Covid-related studies under which they get PCR tests every two weeks and regular antibody tests. Antibody results of those who test positive for Covid-19 despite having two vaccine doses or a previous confirmed infection will be analysed for how their immune response differs from those who don’t contract the virus.

Understanding the immune response will help “vaccine developers who can target key components of the immune response effectively for future booster vaccines,” said Susan Hopkins, Public Health England’s Covid response director.

Wyoming prison staff now fuelling infections

The Wyoming Department of Corrections is attributing an increase in Covid-19 infections largely to unvaccinated staff, the Casper Star-Tribune reports. The most recent round of testing results revealed 24 positives, including 15 employees, the newspaper said.

“Historically, we’ve had far more positives in our inmate population, as a percentage of the population, than we’ve had for staff,” said Paul Martin, a corrections department spokesman quoted by the Star-Tribune. “I think that trend is changing now.”

LA schools report 2,600 cases

Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest in the US, has 2,612 active cases among staff and students, a rate of infection that puts it higher than the district’s service area overall. Only six of the cases were connected to school-based transmissions and none were among vaccinated people.

LAUSD recorded more than 3,600 cases among students and employees in baseline testing before school started between 2 and 15 August.

Classes resumed on 16 August with mandatory testing and mask wearing. The district’s overall case rate was 38 per 100,000 people, compared with 31 for the community it serves.

Illinois mandates masks

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, a Democrat, issued a statewide indoor mask mandate starting on Monday and expanded vaccine requirements, saying “we are running out of time as our hospitals run out of beds.”

Pritzker’s administration required this month that employees at state-run congregate facilities be vaccinated. That mandate now expands to all healthcare workers, including those in public and private nursing homes; teachers and staff at Pre-K through to 12th-grade schools; and personnel and students at higher education institutions.

Covered individuals must receive their first dose by 5 September or be subject to regular testing. The shrinking hospital-bed capacity is mostly due to tight staffing, rather than space constraints, Pritzker told a news conference.

Kentucky, Florida lead in hospital admissions

Kentucky, Florida and Georgia led US states in per-capita hospital admissions for Covid-19 during the week that ended on Monday, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention update published on Thursday.

Florida had the most admissions during the period with almost 15,100 new patients, reflecting the strain the Delta variant puts on healthcare. The per-capita number varies widely, from 31.1 per 100,000 residents in Kentucky to a low of 2.2 in Vermont.

The CDC reported 5,665 US deaths during the week ending on Tuesday, a 23% increase compared with the previous seven-day period.

Pfizer taps Brazil producer

Pfizer and BioNTech announced a deal with a Brazilian manufacturer to produce 100 million doses of their vaccine annually for Latin America.

Under the terms announced on Thursday, the Brazilian pharmaceutical company Eurofarma Laboratorios SA will perform the so-called fill-and-finish process in which the vaccine is put into sterile vials. Eurofarma will begin manufacturing finished doses at its facility in Sao Paulo in 2022.

NYC to vaccinate at religious services

New York City will deploy mobile vaccination vans at 50 religious services this weekend in yet another effort to promote vaccine participation in what Mayor Bill de Blasio calls a “Weekend of Faith.” Anyone who gets a first shot will receive a $100 cash card.

“We need a maximum number of people vaccinated particularly as kids go back to school,” De Blasio said during a Thursday news briefing.

All adults in the city’s public schools must be vaccinated by 27 September to comply with a city Board of Health directive. About 4.8 million, or 58% of the city’s residents have been fully vaccinated, which remains almost 200,000 short of a goal to have a fully vaccinated five million by June.

US, Israel resilience slips, Europe steady

Bloomberg’s August Covid Resilience Ranking showed stark shifts as the Delta variant slipped through strict border curbs in some places and dented the protection provided by vaccination in others.

Countries leading vaccination and reopening efforts like the US and Israel dropped as Delta drove new infections. That seeded breakthrough infections of people fully immunised while sending unvaccinated people into critical-care wards.

Places highly ranked previously for stamping out the virus’s spread, like New Zealand and Australia, also plunged, as Delta infiltrated their defences, forcing strict lockdowns.

European nations were the most resilient with a middle-ground strategy of widespread immunisation and reopening based on vaccination status. Nine of the top 10 were from the continent, with Norway holding on to the top spot for a second month.

Taiwan says vaccination goal achievable

Taiwan’s target of having 70% of the population at least partially vaccinated by year-end should be “achievable,” Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said at a briefing in Taipei.

The country expects to get the first batch of BioNTech vaccines ahead of schedule, according to Taiwan Centers for Disease Control. The shots will be shipped by the factory in late August.

India cases reach one-month high

India recorded 46,164 new cases on Thursday, the most for a single day in more than a month. Kerala reported a surge in infections that could threaten the state’s economy, which had held steady in July as cases declined.

The total tally now stands at 32.6 million. Almost 604 million vaccine doses have been administered so far, but only 9.6% of India’s population is fully inoculated against the virus, according to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker. Covid-related deaths rose by 607 in a day to 436,365, according to the latest health ministry data.

Israel cases at record despite vaccinations

Israel, one of the most vaccinated countries in the world, posted record new infections.

Israel was the first to approve booster doses in late July. That followed an early, aggressive approach to immunising its people. More than 72% of the population is covered using the most effective mRNA shots available. DM

— With assistance from John Boudreau, Malavika Kaur Makol, Fiona Rutherford, Shruti Date Singh, Henry Goldman, Christopher Palmeri, Sarah McGregor, Vincent Del Giudice, Deirdre Hipwell and Catarina Saraiva.