Overview: Covid international developments briefs

Factbox - Latest on the worldwide spread of the coronavirus President Joe Biden will push world leaders on Wednesday to do more to curb the COVID-19 pandemic, and announce a U.S. pledge to buy 500 million more vaccine doses to donate to other countries. Reuters Staff U.S.

* Britain and South Korea have agreed to swap over 1 million COVID-19 vaccine doses with each other, with the United Kingdom sending a first batch of Pfizer shots in the coming weeks and Korea returning the same volume by the end of the year.

* All Italians will likely be offered a third dose of vaccines in 2022 and after that recurring boosters will be needed, a health ministry adviser told daily Il Messaggero.

* Almost 40 million people in Russia have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, the TASS news agency reported quoting Anna Popova, the head of the consumer watchdog.

* Brazil’s health minister tested positive for COVID-19 hours after accompanying President Jair Bolsonaro to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. ...

* Panama will offer a third vaccine dose to moderate and severely immunocompromised people starting this week.

* Police in Australia’s Melbourne arrested more than 200 people after projectiles thrown by protesters injured two officers on the third consecutive day of demonstrations against COVID-19 curbs.

* China’s northeastern city of Harbin went into semi-shutdown after reporting new locally transmitted cases for the first time since early February.

* New Zealand may not get back to having zero cases in the community, the director general of health said as the country continues efforts to stamp out the Delta variant.

* Thailand pushed back plans to re-open Bangkok and some other major cities to foreign arrivals until November. ...

* All Indian children aged 12 or older will become eligible for vaccinations from next month, when drug maker Cadila Healthcare launches its ZyCoV-D product, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

* South Korea said it would donate more than 1 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to Vietnam next month....