Latest on the worldwide spread of coronavirus

Shafaq news/ So far, COVID-19 is affecting more than 215 countries and territories around the world.

Worldometers.com which shows the latest update of countries and territories and their continental regional classification based on the United Nations Geoscheme showed that global coronavirus cases rose to more than 186 million cases. (186,356,010.)

4,026,894 deaths and 170,495,131 recoveries were recorded according to Worldometers.

The United States still rank the first 34,676,896 cases, and 622,213 deaths, meanwhile India is in the second place with 30,752,950 cases and 405,967 deaths.

The other countries in the top infected countries list are respectively, Brazil, France, Russia and Turkey.

As for the Arab World, Iraq ranks the first (25th worldwide) with 1,406,289 cases and 17,444 Deaths, followed by Jordan (36th worldwide) with 755,480 cases and 9,812 deaths.

UAE, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco are also among the most infected Arab countries.

MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS

* Drugmaker Pfizer said it is seeing waning immunity from its coronavirus vaccine and says it is picking up its efforts to develop a booster dose that will protect people from variants

ECONOMIC IMPACT

* Asian shares stumbled to two-month lows on Friday and were set for their worst weekly performance since February as confidence took a beating over the global spread of the Delta coronavirus variant and worries it could stall a worldwide economic recovery. Reuters said.

* Diverse reasons are driving the rotation in stocks and a slide in bond yields, but weakness in travel, leisure and other COVID-19-sensitive stocks suggest that fears of the Delta variant are doing their part. It added.