1. Germany may start vaccinating susceptible people with COVID-19 vaccine in September: according to a draft report from the German Ministry of Health on Aug. 1, local time, the government plans to strengthen COVID-19 vaccination for the elderly and those with low immunity from September. At the same time, it is recommended to promote COVID-19 vaccination for people between the ages of 12 and 17. According to the draft, a number of recent studies have shown that the protective effectiveness of some COVID-19 vaccines weakens over time, putting vulnerable people at risk of reinfection, so it is necessary to strengthen vaccination.

2.The death toll from forest fires in Turkey has risen to eight: on the evening of Aug. 1 local time, Turkish Agriculture and Forestry Minister Pakdemirli said the death toll from forest fires had risen to eight. Fakhruddin Alton, director of the press office of the Turkish presidential palace, said on social media on Aug. 2 that Turkey has mobilized all forces to fight the forest fire. So far, 122 of the 129 fires in Turkey’s 35 provinces have been brought under control.

3. Many parts of Ukraine suffered bad weather, two people were killed and more than 500 settlements were without power: on August 2, the Ukrainian State Emergency Bureau announced that affected by bad weather (storm), as of 7: 00 on the same day, 529 settlements in seven states of Ukraine have lost power. It is reported that western and northern Ukraine suffered a hurricane late at night on August 1, killing two people after a tree was blown down in the city of Lviv.

4.Eurozone: in the second quarter, the initial value of GDP rose 13.7 per cent year-on-year, is expected to rise 13.2 per cent, the previous value fell 1.3 per cent. In July, the initial value of CPI rose 2.2 per cent from a year earlier, the highest since October 2018, and is expected to rise 2 per cent and 1.9 per cent.

5. Tesla Australia’s largest energy storage power station fire, or burning for 24 hours, the fire is almost out of control. The battery energy storage project, located in Moorabool near Geelong, Australia, was officially registered a few days ago with an energy storage capacity of 300MW/450MWh, making it the largest battery energy storage project in Australia. At present, the project is still in the testing stage and has not yet been used. 

6.CDC: Delta strain is as contagious as chicken pox. “the war has changed.” Delta infects an average of eight to nine more people per infected person. After people who have been vaccinated with COVID-19 vaccine are infected with Delta mutant strain, the transmission of the virus may be the same as that of unvaccinated people, and the virus load in the two bodies is basically the same. At the same time, the document estimates that 35000 of the 162 million vaccinated people in the United States will develop symptoms of infection each week.

7.A number of cities and countries in Asia have recently announced a new record of new cases dominated by Delta virus. The number of new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Japan reached 10699 for the first time. Thailand also reported a new daily record of 18912 cases. Malaysia, a Southeast Asian country, is currently one of the hotspots of the epidemic, with 17786 new cases reported on July 31, setting another record for the number of people infected in a single day. 

8.South Korea: in July, exports totaled US $55.44 billion, up 29.6% from a year earlier, the highest in a single month since 1956 and the ninth consecutive month of growth. Of the 15 major export categories, 13 achieved double-digit growth. Of this total, semiconductor exports increased by 39.6 percent to US $11 billion, the highest in the same period last year; petrochemical and general machinery increased by 59.5 percent and 18.4 percent, respectively, and cars and computers increased by 12.3 percent and 26.4 percent, respectively. 

9.The British Government Emergency Advisory Group said recently that through the study of the existing novel coronavirus mutant strain and its evolutionary path, it is found that novel coronavirus may have a “antigen drift” mutation in the future-that is, when the virus mutates to a certain extent, the previous antibodies no longer work, leading to a further increase in infection and mortality. The team’s scientific advisers warned that the more lethal mutation was “almost certain to happen” to some extent, while the lethality rate of the strain could be as high as 35 per cent.