I remain extremely concerned about the slow pace of vaccination in the less privileged regions of the world.

Dr. Denise Gestaldo has brought to our attention the struggle of Zimbabwean nurses. On 6 July, the Zimbabwean government arrested 13 nurses at the Harare hospital. They were protesting their deteriorating pay and working conditions. Those nurses have since been released on bail -- but have been dismissed from their jobs. With the inflation rate hovering around 1000%, the cost of living has risen so rapidly that public sector salaries are now almost worthless.

The official counting of deaths is just a fraction of the real toll of COVID-19 in about every country affected by the pandemic. The New York Times, doing important work, found at that least 60,000 more people have died during the coronavirus pandemic than the official Covid-19 death counts report, a review of mortality data in 15 countries shows — providing a clearer, if still incomplete, picture of the toll of the crisis.