Coronavirus live updates: Maharashtra reports 8,602 new Covid cases in last 24 hours

More than 900,000 people in France rushed to set up appointments to get vaccinated on Monday night after the president warned that people would see curbs imposed on them if they did not have a health pass that covered a vaccine or negative Covid test. Unveiling sweeping measures to combat a surge in infections, Emmanuel Macron said vaccination would not be compulsory for the general public for now but stressed that restrictions would focus on those who are not vaccinated. The president said health workers had to get vaccinated by Sept. 15 or face consequences.

Australian authorities reported a slight easing in new covid-19 cases in Sydney on Tuesday, but left open the possibility of extending a lockdown in the country's largest city to douse an outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant. New South Wales State Premier Gladys Berejiklian warned the harbour city's more than 5 million residents not to become complacent as she reported 89 new locally transmitted cases, down from Monday's record high for the year of 112 cases.“One day is not a trend, the numbers will keep bouncing around,” Berejiklian said in a televised conference, urging people to stay home except for urgent reasons.

The Delta variant is ripping around the world at a scorching pace, driving a new spike in cases and deaths, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said, warning that the variant, now in over 104 countries, is expected to soon be the dominant Covid-19 strain circulating worldwide. Addressing a press briefing on Monday, he said that last week marked the fourth consecutive week of increasing cases of Covid-19 globally, with increases recorded in all but one of WHO's six regions, adding with concern that after 10 weeks of declines, deaths are increasing again.