India gives out 25 million COVID-19 vaccine doses on prime minister’s birthday | CBC News

The campaign took place Friday as Modi turned 71. The country’s health ministry said Saturday the special drive had raised India’s overall vaccinations to more than 790 million.

Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya called the feat “a golden chapter … written in the history of the country and the world.”

Only China has administered more. China’s government said this week it had given more than 2.16 billion shots and that one billion people were fully vaccinated.

India, a country of nearly 1.4 billion people, has given at least one dose to more than 62 per cent of eligible adults and two doses to about 21 per cent. Health ministry officials say they plan to administer over a billion shots by mid-October.

India has reported more than 33 million coronavirus cases and 444,529 deaths. The country is recording over 30,000 new COVID-19 cases a day.

WATCH | What we know about COVID-19 vaccines in pregnant people: 

What’s happening across Canada

• Health authority, N.B. working to meet demand for COVID-19 tests amid surge in cases.

• Outbreaks are ‘a weird moment’ for P.E.I. Here’s one expert’s advice on how to cope.

• N.S. reports 18 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday.

• Masks once again mandatory in N.L.’s indoor public spaces, schools.

WATCH | Calgary doctor worries about triage amid COVID-19 surge:

Calgary doctor worries about triage amid COVID-19 surge

Emergency room physician Dr. Joe Vipond says the crush of seriously ill people from COVID-19 may force doctors to make life or death decisions for patients. ‘We never wanted to be in this position,’ he said. (Nancy Walters/CBC) 1:09

What’s happening around the world

As of Saturday morning, more than 227.7 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus tracker. The reported global death toll stood at more than 4.6 million.

In the Asia-Pacific region, police in Australia used pepper spray to subdue protesters Saturday at an anti-lockdown rally in Melbourne, the country’s second-largest city.

About 1,000 demonstrators gathered in the suburb of Richmond after the location of the protest was changed at the last minute to evade authorities.

There were minor scuffles as well as a violent confrontation involving a handful of protesters. Several protesters were arrested.

Most of the demonstrators defied regulations by failing to wear masks.

Some 2,000 police officers were deployed at road checkpoints and barricades, and on roving patrols, to try to stop the rally going ahead in breach of public health orders.

Melbourne’s sixth lockdown began on Aug. 5. Melbourne is the capital of Victoria state, which on Saturday reported 535 new infections and one COVID-19 death in the latest 24-hour period.

In the Americas, an exhibition of more than 600,000 white flags representing Americans who have died of COVID-19 opened on Friday, covering more than 20 acres of the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

In the Middle East, the capital of the United Arab Emirates has ended a policy requiring those coming in from other emirates to have a recent negative coronavirus test. Abu Dhabi made the announcement Saturday, saying that people from the UAE’s six other emirates could enter the capital from Sunday without getting a test.

In Asia, Vietnam has approved Cuba’s Abdala vaccine for use, the government said on Saturday, as the Southeast Asian country battles its worst outbreak of COVID-19. Abdala becomes the eighth COVID-19 vaccine approved for use in Vietnam, which has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the region, with only 6.3 per cent of its 98 million people having received at least two shots.