Moscow reports highest daily death toll, Luxembourg's prime minister tests positive for coronavirus

Berlin: Moscow on Sunday recorded its worst daily coronavirus death toll since the pandemic began, with officials saying 144 people had died from the virus in 24 hours.

Russia is grappling with a deadly third wave due, in part, to a slow vaccination drive. Just have 14% of the adult population have received one dose.

The reports from Moscow come a day after Russia's second city, Saint Petersburg, reported a spike in fatalities.

Saint Petersburg has hosted six Euro 2020 matches and will welcome a quarterfinal game on Friday. Spectator numbers have been capped, but the authorities still expect over 26,000 people at the city's main stadium.

Authorities believe that an explosion of new infections since mid-June is due to the so-called delta variant, which was first discovered in India.

Europe

Luxembourg's prime minister, Xavier Bettel, has tested positive for the coronavirus and is self-isolating for 10 days after showing "light symptoms," his office said on Sunday.

Bettel attended an EU summit on Thursday and Friday, but his spokeswoman said there were "no head of state of government figures on the list of the prime minister's close contacts."

Bettel has so far only received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, aides said.

A Green lawmaker in Germany has called for the country's health agency to shorten the wait between the first and second vaccine doses in a bid to combat the delta variant.

Janosch Dahmen said the doses should be spaced out over a maximum of three weeks "urgently."

He told the Welt Am Sonntag that there was "hard data" to show this helps curb infection rates against delta.

France said it had 1,345 patients in intensive care with COVID-19 symptoms on Sunday, four fewer than a day earlier, according to government data.

Protesters in the United Kingdom demonstrated against the continued shutdown of the entertainment industry.

Nightclubs have been hard hit by successive lockdowns, and hundreds of people took to the streets of London to urge the government to scrap restrictions immediately.