Covid live: Delta variant will dominate globally in months – WHO; Rome cases surge linked to Euro 2020 celebrations

WHO warns world is set to pass 200m cases within weeks; fivefold increase in Rome cases linked to Euro 2020 celebrations

• Fauci turns tables on inquisitor Rand Paul
• Delta variant accounts for 83% of new cases in US, CDC director says
• UK border officials told not to make Covid checks on safe list arrivals
• India’s excess deaths during Covid ‘could be 10 times official toll’

2.13pm BST

The highly transmissible Delta variant of the coronavirus now accounts for 83% of all sequenced cases in the US, a top federal health official said on Tuesday.

“This is a dramatic increase, up from 50% [in] the week of 4 July,” Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said in Senate testimony.

1.55pm BST

Germany’s infection levels will pass 400 per 100,000 people in September if cases keep rising at their current pace, the health minister has said.

Around 60% of the population have received at least one vaccine dose, Jens Spahn said in remarks reported by Reuters, while about 47% are fully vaccinated.

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