Brazil's death toll from Covid-19 has surpassed 500,000 as experts warn that the world's second-deadliest outbreak may worsen due to delayed vaccinations and the government's refusal to back social distancing measures.

Only 11 per cent of Brazilians have been fully vaccinated and epidemiologists warn that, with winter arriving in the southern hemisphere and new variants of the coronavirus circulating, deaths will continue to mount even if immunisations gain steam.

Brazil has registered 500,800 deaths from 17,883,750 confirmed Covid-19 cases, according to Health Ministry data, the worst official death toll outside the United States. Over the past week, Brazil has averaged 2,000 deaths per day, according to a Reuters report.

Barbara and Christine Colucci long to remove their masks and kiss their 102-year-old mother, who has dementia and is in a nursing home in Rochester, New York. They would love to have more than two people in her room at a time so that relatives can be there too.

“We don’t know how much longer she’s going to be alive,” Christine Colucci said, “so it’s like, please, give us this last chance with her in her final months on this earth to have that interaction.”

Pandemic restrictions are falling away almost everywhere — except inside many of America’s nursing homes. Rules designed to protect the nation’s most vulnerable from Covid-19 are still being enforced even though 75 per cent of nursing home residents are now vaccinated and infections and deaths have plummeted.

Family members and advocates question the need for such restrictions at this stage of the pandemic, when the risk is comparatively low. They say the measures are now just prolonging older people’s isolation and accelerating their mental and physical decline.

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Queen Elizabeth II was smiling broadly as she attended the final day of the Ascot races, AP reports.

The 95-year-old queen, a keen racing fan and racehorse owner, has attended Ascot almost every year of her seven-decade reign. She was absent last year, when the event was held without spectators because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Dressed in a mint-green outfit and matching hat, the queen was applauded by the crowd as she arrived to cheer on four horses she owns that were racing. She smiled broadly as she inspected one of her horses, Reach for the Moon, after it finished a close second.

Turkey has received five million more doses of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by China's Sinovac, said the state-run Anadolu news agency.

Reuters reports Turkey's vaccination programme has accelerated this week, with more than 1m injections a day being administered since Monday.

The Israeli health ministry said that Covid-19 vaccines delivered by Israel and then rejected by the Palestinian Authority (PA) over their expiration date were fine, Reuters reports.

The "vaccine delivery transferred to the PA yesterday was perfectly in order," the Israeli health ministry said in a statement.

The dates were known and agreed to by both parties, it said. "The vaccines delivered to the Palestinians are identical in every way to the vaccines currently being administered to Israel's citizens."

Delays in coronavirus vaccine shipments to Malawi have caused health facilities to run out of doses as hundreds are due to receive a second shot, the health minister said.

The southern African country has so far received 300,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from the United Nations, 102,000 from the African Union and 50,000 donated by India, AFP reports.

Inoculations started in April and the country was expecting a second UN shipment of 900,000 by the end of May, four weeks before the first vaccinated Malawians would be due a second dose.

But Health Minister Khumbize Kandodo said that batch had been delayed by a recent surge in coronavirus cases in India, the world's main AstraZeneca supplier, which forced the country to temporarily halt major vaccine exports to meet local demand.

Oman's Supreme Committee for Combating Coronavirus has said the country will reimpose a curfew and suspend all commercial activities from 8pm until 4am following a spike in Covid-19 cases, Reuters reports.

The curfew, which will start on Sunday, will restrict the movement of people and vehicles, with an exception for home delivery services, the committee statement said.

Afghanistan’s government is racing to ramp up supplies of oxygen as a deadly third surge of Covid-19 worsens, a senior health official told The Associated Press in an interview.

The government is installing oxygen supply plants in 10 provinces where the increase in Covid cases in some areas is hovering around 65 per cent, health ministry spokesman Ghulam Dasigi Nazary said.

Meanwhile, hospitals are rationing their oxygen supplies. Afghans desperate for oxygen are banging on the doors of the few oxygen suppliers in the Afghan capital, begging for their empty cylinders to be filled for Covid infected loved ones at home.

Read the full story here.

Sindh has reported 565 coronavirus cases and 13 deaths during the last 24 hours, according to the Chief Minister's office.

During this period, 10,825 samples were tested. The total number of cases has increased to 331,659 and the death toll is 5,327.

Brazil's death toll from Covid-19 is expected to pass 500,000 as experts warn that the world's second deadliest outbreak may worsen due to delayed vaccinations and the government's refusal to back social distancing measures.

Only 11 per cent of Brazilians have been fully vaccinated and epidemiologists warn that, with winter arriving in the southern hemisphere and new variants of the coronavirus circulating, deaths will continue to mount even if immunisations gain steam, Reuters reports.

Brazil has registered 498,499 deaths from 17,801,462 confirmed Covid-19 cases, according to Health Ministry data on Friday, the worst official death toll outside the United States.

Over the past week, Brazil has averaged 2,000 deaths per day.