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Japan Begins Workplace Vaccination Program

VOA News

   Thousandsof Japanese companies began the rollout of their
   workplacevaccineprogramsMonday,inoculatingcompanyworkers and their
   families.

   Some of the companies had been critical ofwhat they said was
   thegovernment'sslow pace ofJapan'sCOVID-19 inoculationcampaign.

   Toyota and Suntory are amongthe companiesparticipatinginthe workplace
   program with vaccines provided by the government.

   Thousands of people are expected to receive shots through the workplace
   initiative.

   Thestart of theworkplace program comes just weeks before theopening of
   theTokyo Olympics.

   In India, the health ministryreported 53,256 new COVID casesMondayin
   theprevious24-hour period, the lowest daily number in88 days, orabout 3
   months.

   Taiwan recorded its lowest number of new COVID-19 infections since May
   15.Health officials announced 75 new infections Monday.Sunday Taiwan
   received 2.5 million COVID-19 vaccines from the United States.

   There are more than 178 million global COVID infectionsas of Monday,
   according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.The U.S. has
   the most with 33.5 million, while Brazil has18 million.

   Brazil became the second country, behind the United States, to record
   more than half a million COVID-19 deaths, a Health Ministry official
   said Saturday.

   Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga tweeted,"500,000 lives lost due to the
   pandemic that affects our Brazil and the world,"according to
   antheAgenceFrance-Presse."The third wave is arriving; there's already a
   change in the case and death curves," Ethel Maciel, an epidemiologist
   from Espirito Santo University, toldAFP. "Our vaccination (program),
   which could make a difference, is slow and there are no signs of
   restrictive measures; quite the contrary."

   Britain held its first full music festival since all mass events were
   canceled in March of last year, the start of the pandemic.

   About 10,000 fans attended a three-day Download Festival held
   atDoningtonPark in central England. The event, which ended on
   Sunday,featured 40 U.K.-based bands.

   All of those who attended, which was only about a tenth of the
   festival'spre-pandemicaudience, wererequiredto take COVID-19 tests
   before the event. Neither masks nor socialdistancingprotocols
   wasrequired, event organizers said.

   Britain has recordednearly 128,000COVID-19-related deaths, the fourth
   most in the world and the worst in Europe. It also ranks seventh in the
   number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus, with 4.6 million.

   Last week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson delayed by four weeks a planned
   lifting of coronavirus-related restrictions.

   The restrictions were set to be lifted Monday but will now run through
   July 19. Britain is battling the highly contagious Delta variant of the
   virus, which was firstidentifiedin India.

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