The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is aiming to give full approval to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine by early September, according to The New York Times. 

The two-dose vaccine, which Pfizer developed in collaboration with German-based BioNTech, was granted emergency use authorization by the FDA last November. 
 
It is one of just three COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S. stockpile, along with the two-shot vaccine from Moderna and the single-dose version developed by Johnson & Johnson.   

The newspaper says the FDA is accelerating its normal timetable to grant full approval to the two-dose vaccine as the United States undergoes a new surge of coronavirus infections and hospitalizations caused primarily by the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19. 

The recent surge of new infections is mainly among people who have not gotten vaccinated. The Times quotes recent polls by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health care research group, which found that three of every 10 unvaccinated people in the U.S. said they more likely would take a fully approved vaccine.  
 
The surge has prompted a growing number of public and private entities to issue mandatory vaccinations for all of its employees, including an order last week by U.S. President Joe Biden for all employees of the federal government.

Pfizer applied for full authorization of its COVID-19 vaccine back on May 7, while Moderna filed for full approval on June 1. Johnson & Johnson said it plans to apply for full approval later this year.   

In Australia, authorities in New South Wales state Wednesday announced 233 new cases of confirmed COVID-19 infections in the state capital Sydney, the epicenter of the nation’s current surge of new infections. They also reported two new deaths, including a woman in her 80s who died Tuesday, and a man in his 20s who died at his home in Sydney, making him one of the youngest people in Australia to die from the disease.  
 
The unvaccinated man had been in isolation at his home for 13 days when his condition suddenly deteriorated.  

New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the man’s death shows “again how this disease is lethal, how it affects people of all ages.” 

The current outbreak has been traced to a Sydney airport limousine driver who tested positive for the Delta variant after transporting international air crews in late June. At least 16 people have died in this latest surge. The city of 5 million residents remains under a strict lockdown until August 28. 
 
Australia has been largely successful in containing the spread of COVID-19 through aggressive lockdown efforts, posting just 35,089 total confirmed cases and 927 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. But it has proved vulnerable to fresh outbreaks due to a slow rollout of its vaccination campaign, with only 15% of its citizens fully vaccinated.  

And authorities in China have announced that all 11 million citizens in Wuhan will undergo mandatory testing as an outbreak of the Delta variant spreads across the country, with cases confirmed in more than 35 cities. The central Chinese city, where the novel coronavirus first emerged in late 2019 before spreading across the globe, reported three new cases Monday. 

The new outbreak has been traced to Jiangsu province, where officials say the Delta variant was introduced last month at the airport in Nanjing, the provincial capital.  Authorities have suspended all domestic flights from Nanjing and nearby Yangzhou.  

A separate outbreak in the city of Yangzhou has been traced to infected passengers who traveled across the border from Myanmar.   

The latest figures from Johns Hopkins show 199.5 million people around the globe have been infected since the start of the pandemic, including 4.2 million deaths. The United States leads the world with 35.2 million total cases, with India in second place with 31.7 million infections, followed by Brazil with 19.9 million.   

The U.S. leads COVID-19 deaths with 614,295, followed by Brazil with 558,432 and India with 425,757. 

Information from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.  

The rise of violence between the Taliban and the Afghan government forces has triggered a new influx of Afghan refugees to Turkey. VOA’s Arif Aslan reports from Turkey’s Van province in this story narrated by Namo Al-Jaf.

Produced by: Farhad Fallahi        Camera: Arif Aslan  

A Belarusian Olympic sprinter who said she faced punishment if she returned to her country departed Japan Wednesday on a flight bound for Austria. 

Krystsina Tsimanouskaya was scheduled to land in Vienna Wednesday afternoon. She is then expected to travel on to Poland, where the government has offered her a humanitarian visa. 

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki posted Tuesday on Facebook that he had spoken with Tsimanouskaya and that she should be able to live in Poland without obstacles. 

Polish authorities granted Tsimanouskaya a humanitarian visa to seek political asylum on Monday after she alleged her team’s officials were trying to force her to fly home to Belarus against her wishes.

 Tsimanouskaya told officials in Tokyo she feared she would not be safe in Belarus from the autocratic government of President Alexander Lukashenko.  

“They made it clear that upon return home I would definitely face some form of punishment,” she told The Associated Press in a Tuesday videocall interview. “There were also thinly disguised hints that more would await me.”  

Her departure from Tokyo comes days after she provoked backlash in state-run media in Belarus by criticizing how official were managing the Belarusian Olympians. 

On her Instagram account, Tsimanouskaya said she was put on the country’s 4x400 relay team even though she has never raced in the event.    

The Belarus National Olympic Committee has been led for more than 25 years by Lukashenko and his son, Viktor.    

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Lukashenko government was trying to force Tsimanouskaya to leave the Games “simply for exercising free speech.” 

Some information in this report came from the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.  

A pair of special congressional primaries Tuesday in Ohio could serve as litmus tests for the moods of the Republican and Democratic parties heading into next year’s midterm elections. 

After the stinging defeat of one of his endorsed congressional candidates in Texas last week, former President Donald Trump’s sway as a kingmaker among Republicans was tested in central Ohio’s 15th Congressional District, where his candidate won. 

He had endorsed coal lobbyist Mike Carey from among a formidable field of 11 GOP primary contenders for the seat vacated by Republican Steve Stivers in May. Stivers had backed one of three sitting lawmakers in the race — state Rep. Jeff LaRe — for the job. 

In the Cleveland area, progressives and Democratic centrists are in fierce competition for the 11th Congressional District seat formerly held by Rep. Marcia Fudge, a Democrat appointed as President Joe Biden’s housing chief in March. 

Former state Sen. Nina Turner, a leading national voice for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns, is the best known among 13 Democrats running in the primary and the choice of Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others. 

Cuyahoga County Councilwoman Shontel Brown, a centrist backed by Hillary Clinton, influential House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, the Congressional Black Caucus, several leading unions and over 100 local leaders, enjoyed a surge in national support in July. 

The race comes at a pivotal moment for the progressive movement. Centrists have been ascendant in the early months of the Joe Biden era, while the party’s left flank has faced a series of defeats — in New York City’s mayoral race, a Virginia gubernatorial primary and a Louisiana House race. 

Meanwhile, a contingent of moderates are worried that a leftward drift could cost the party seats in the midterms next year. Biden hasn’t heeded the left’s calls for more aggressive action on certain issues, including voting rights and immigration. 

That’s left progressive leaders searching for new strategies that can bolster its influence. 

Turner will add another voice to those efforts, joining Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of New York, and a class of younger, relatively new lawmakers who have made it their mission to push the Democratic leadership to the left. 

But Turner’s history of biting criticism of fellow Democrats no doubt irked her party’s establishment — she once likened supporting Biden to being forced to eat excrement — and has given Brown something to campaign against on the campaign trail. 

For Republicans, the Columbus-area race emerged as a test of Trump’s influence, particularly after the former president backed the loser in a Texas primary last week. As president, Trump boasted of his sway over politicians’ political fortunes, with a strong record of backing winners. Since he left office, candidates have scrambled to get his endorsement, even lining up at times for reality-show style interviews. 

All of the candidates in the GOP primary billed themselves as conservatives and many boasted more legislative-branch experience than Carey. 

State Sen. Stephanie Kunze has spent almost nine years in the Ohio House and Senate, championing legislation to tackle opiate addiction, infant mortality and sexual violence. She had won the endorsement of the GOP in the district’s largest county, Franklin, and of the Value In Electing Women PAC. 

Sen. Bob Peterson has been a state lawmaker since 2012. A farmer and former president of the Ohio Farm Bureau, he was backed by the powerful political arm of Ohio Right to Life and former Senate President Larry Obhof. 

On the Democratic side, state Rep. Allison Russo, a health policy consultant, defeated Greg Betts, a former Army officer and decorated combat veteran, for the nomination. 

Back in the 11th District, Laverne Gore, a business owner, consultant, trainer and community activist, defeated Felicia Ross, a self-described “Jane of all trades,” in the Republican primary. 

Winners of the August primaries will face off in the Nov. 2 general election. 

Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman told a Senate panel Tuesday that the Biden administration supports repeal of the 2002 congressional authorization for the war in Iraq, saying it is no longer necessary to protect Americans or U.S. national security interests abroad. But some Republican senators expressed concern, saying repeal of the so-called war powers authorization could send the wrong message to adversaries like Iran. VOA's senior diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine reports. 

Calling it a major milestone, U.S. President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday that the country has shipped more than 110 million doses of coronavirus vaccine to 65 nations that are among the hardest hit in the world. 

"This is more than the donations of all 24 countries that donate any vaccine to other countries, including China and Russia," Biden said during remarks in the White House East Room.  

The president emphasized that Washington is making no demands for its donations of doses.  

"And there's no favoritism and no strings attached. We're doing this to save lives to end this pandemic," Biden said.  

In response to a question from VOA on whether other high-income countries should follow the lead of the United States, the president replied: "I think those countries that have been able to cover their population and have the ability to provide either dollars and/or vaccines for the 100 or so net-poor nations that need help should do so."  

Biden added that some Group of 7 countries, which made such pledges at their recent summit in England, have followed through.

"We've kept the commitment that we would do what we said, which is more than all the rest of the countries combined this far," the president noted.  

Tom Hart, acting chief executive officer of the ONE campaign, a global organization fighting extreme poverty and preventable disease, agreed with Biden's call for other prosperous countries to do more.  

"The U.S. is leading the global COVID-19 fight, but the rest of the world must step up to the plate and match the Biden administration's ambition and action. With COVID-19 raging globally and new variants emerging constantly, wealthy countries face a clear choice: Share more doses and shorten the pandemic or continue to hoard doses and prolong COVID-19 indefinitely," Hart said in a statement.  

A September summit that the U.S. president plans to host "must be a turning point, with new, additional commitments to get vaccines to everyone and address the devastating economic impact of COVID-19. Everyone is on the hook to deliver," Hart added.  

"The Biden administration's efforts to share excess vaccine doses with other countries will save lives and help end the pandemic faster in the U.S. and around the world," Sean Simons, press secretary for the ONE Campaign, told VOA. "We won't end this pandemic anywhere unless we beat it everywhere." 

Most of the U.S. vaccine doses have been shipped through the World Health Organization-managed COVAX cooperative, as well as through regional partnerships such as the African Union and Caribbean Community.  

Biden said that his administration has fulfilled its pledge to give at least 80 million vaccine doses to other nations around the globe and that they are a down payment on hundreds of millions of more doses that the United States will deliver in the coming weeks. 

"Starting at the end of this month, the administration will begin shipping a half a billion Pfizer doses that the United States has pledged to purchase and donate to 100 low-income countries in need," according to a White House statement.  

The president's announcement comes amid an increase in infections in the United States and around the world, fueled by the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus.  

During the past month, average daily new cases of COVID-19 in the United States have surged above 85,000. That is higher than the peak seen last summer and is at a level not seen since mid-February of this year.  

Biden, in his Tuesday remarks, criticized moves by some U.S. states to forbid mask mandates.  

"As of now, seven states not only ban mask mandates but also ban them in their school districts, even for young children who cannot get vaccinated," the president noted. "Some states have even banned businesses and universities from requiring workers and students to be masked or vaccinated."  

Biden called such edicts disappointing and said if governors "aren't willing to do the right thing to beat this pandemic, then they should allow businesses and universities who want to do the right thing to be able to do it."  

The president repeated his appeal for governors to help, "but if you aren't going to help, at least get out of the way. The people are trying to do the right thing. Use your power to save lives."  

Governors opposing mask mandates say it should be a matter of individual choice. They also claim such mandates are not enforceable nor do they encourage more people to be vaccinated.