China reports 17 new cases of mystery virus

Critics have slammed the government for a slow vaccine rollout and insufficient prevention measures. There is also growing concern over the future of tourism, as officials roll out a new scheme to draw visitors.

Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company returns to the stage after an enforced 18-month absence due to the coronavirus pandemic, at a specially built open-air theatre in the bard's home town. The cast rehearses Phillip Breen's production of The Comedy of Errors.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announces a snap lockdown in Australia's second-largest city, bringing the total number of Australians under stay-at-home orders to around 12 million. Melbourne and surrounding Victoria will join Sydney in a 'hard and fast' lockdown, Andrews says, as Australia battles an outbreak of the Delta variant.

With Thailand going through its worst pandemic wave to date, protesters in Bangkok defied COVID restrictions to call for Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down.

Managers in Germany are not feeling overly optimistic about the coming months, a major business confidence barometer shows. Two major concerns are clouding their outlook.

Workers prepare mattresses and blankets for 1800 cardboard beds at a field hospital at a warehouse in Don Muang International Airport in Bangkok. Thailand is among a host of Southeast Asian countries that kept infection numbers low during 2020 but now face record numbers of cases amid slow vaccination campaigns.

One of America's largest events -- Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago -- is underway this weekend, to the delight of fans and to the despair of others. The four day music festival is expected to draw more than 100,000 people to downtown Chicago each day, at a moment when coronavirus cases are on the rise and vaccinations have plateaued. Lollapalooza has said their policy is for unvaccinated people to wear masks and show a recent negative Covid test.

Crowds of commuters emerge from a train station in Tokyo during morning rush hour. Last week Japan extended the virus state of emergency in Tokyo due to rising cases of the coronavirus in the capital.

Nearly 1,200 people received their Covid-19 vaccine jab in one day says an El Menzah vaccination centre official in Tunis, as the vaccination campaign speeds up in Tunisia, which has suffered the biggest number of Covid-19 deaths in North Africa. The country, which has been struggling to contain its outbreak of Delta variant, hopes to vaccinate half of its population by mid-October.

Indonesia's coronavirus death toll topped 100,000 on Wednesday as the country struggles to control the spread of the Delta variant. The impact of the pandemic can be seen at the Rorotan public cemetery, one of the biggest Covid burial sites in the nation.

The 57-year-old Swiss woman was found covered in a black sheet near a waterfall. Thai authorities have boosted security on the island of Phuket.

New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announces that the country is heading for a three-day lockdown after identifying a single case of locally transmitted Covid-19 suspected to be the Delta variant. New Zealand had not recorded any infections in the community for six months.