* Britain reported 25,161 new cases, meaning the rise in coronavirus cases between August 3 and 9 stood at 5.2 per cent compared with the previous seven days.

ASIA-PACIFIC

* China reported more infections in its latest outbreak while some cities added rounds of mass testing in the bid to stamp out infections.

* Nine patients died in a Russian hospital in the southern city of Vladikavkaz after an oxygen pipe burst underground, cutting supply to an intensive care ward, Russian news agencies reported.

* Indonesia extended its curbs on populous Java and Bali islands until August 16, but will ease them in 26 areas, as official data showed infections have plunged in the capital Jakarta but are increasing elsewhere.

* Australia expanded a lockdown to a rural town and the coastal region of Byron Bay, NSW.

* Nearly a fifth of hospitals in the Philippines are nearly full as a surge in infections spreads across the country.

* Brunei reported a record daily tally of new cases on Monday, following the detection over the weekend of the Southeast Asian country's first locally transmitted cases in 15 months.

AMERICAS

* Cases and hospitalisations in the United States are at a six-month high, fuelled by the rapid spread of the Delta variant across swathes of the country grappling with low vaccination rates.

* The Pentagon said it will seek US President Joe Biden's approval by mid-September to require 1.3 million military members to get vaccinated, anticipating full regulatory clearance for a vaccine by then.

* Long delays were reported at Canada's border as it opened to fully vaccinated American tourists for the first time in 16 months.

* The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned against travel to Israel, France, Thailand, Iceland and several other countries because of a rising number of cases in those nations.

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

* One person is now dying from COVID-19 every two minutes in Iran, state TV said.

MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS

* BioNTech said repeat shots of its vaccine, of which more than a billion doses have now been supplied worldwide, was a better strategy than tailoring the product it developed with Pfizer to new variants.

* The mRNA vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech may be less effective than Moderna's against the Delta variant, according to two reports posted on medRxiv on Sunday ahead of peer review.

* Swissmedic has approved the Moderna vaccine for 12- to 17-year-olds.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

* Global share prices treaded water on Monday as sharp falls in gold and oil prices and concerns over the spread of the Delta variant dented sentiment.

* US job openings jumped to a fresh record high in June and hiring also increased, an indication that the supply constraints that have held back the labour market remain elevated even as the pace of the economic recovery gathers momentum.

GLOBAL

DEATHS 4,315,486

CASES 204,098,545

RECOVERED 183,276,380

Australian Associated Press