The World Health Organisation (WHO) has expressed concern that countries were easing virus restrictions around football games at the Euro 2020, noting that some areas were already seeing rising cases.

“WHO is concerned about easing of restrictions in some of the host countries,” Robb Butler, an executive director at WHO's Regional Office for Europe, said in a statement to AFP.

“A few of the stadiums hosting the tournament are now increasing the number of spectators allowed into the stadium to watch a game,” Butler said.

In some “host cities, Covid-19 cases are already on the rise in the area where matches will be held,” added Butler.

More than 70 per cent of Americans aged 30 or older have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, the White House said, even as President Joe Biden is set to fall short of reaching his goal of giving a shot to the same percentage of all American adults by Independence Day.

The Biden administration is releasing the new data showing it expects to reach 70pc of Americans aged 27 or older with at least one shot by the July 4 holiday. A White House official said it is now redoubling its focus on vaccinating younger Americans aged 18-26, who have proved to be least likely to get a vaccine when it’s available for them, according to an AP report.

The White House said meeting Biden’s vaccination goal is less important than the pace of the nation’s reopening, which is exceeding even its own internal projections as the overwhelming majority of the nation’s most vulnerable people are fully vaccinated and cases and deaths are at their lowest rates since the earliest days of the pandemic.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has received a Moderna coronavirus vaccine as her second jab, after getting AstraZeneca as the first, a spokesman has said.

According to AFP, the 66-year-old took her first dose of AstraZeneca's vaccine in April, more than two weeks after German authorities recommended use of the jab only for people aged 60 and over.

In 2019, she sparked concerns for her health with a series of shaking spells in public but has appeared to be in good condition since then.

China plans to keep pandemic border restrictions in place for at least another year amid fears over the emergence of new variants and a calendar of sensitive events, Reuters quoted a Wall Street Journal report as saying.

The provisional timeline for reopening of the borders for the second half of 2022 was set during a meeting of China's cabinet in mid-May, the report added.

China sharply reduced transport links with other countries as the coronavirus, which first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, spread around the world last year.

Sindh has reported 517 new coronavirus cases and 14 additional fatalities in the last 24 hours, according to a statement shared by Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah's office.

The province's caseload has risen to 333,194 while the death toll stands at 5,358.

According to the statement, 789 more people recovered in the last 24 hours and 13,243 tests were conducted.

Switzerland has said children between 12 and 15 years old could be vaccinated against Covid-19 with the shot from Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.

The recommendation follows approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine earlier this month for 12-15-year-olds by Switzerland's drug regulator, and is aimed primarily at youth in groups who may be at high risk of severe disease should they contract Covid-19, including those suffering from a chronic condition, or those who have contact with somebody in a risk group, according to Reuters.

The country, which has until now been vaccinating people 16 and over with the Pfizer/BioNTech shot, added the younger age group with the goal of both preventing rare serious infections in younger people and reducing sources of possible transmission.

Moscow's mayor has said residents would only be allowed to visit cafes and restaurants in the city if they could show they had been vaccinated against Covid-19, recently tested negative or had the coronavirus in the last half year.

The new restrictions, which were announced on Mayor Sergei Sobyanin's blog, are due to come into effect on June 28. Russia has reported a surge in Covid-19 cases this month which authorities have blamed on the new Delta variant.