Tokyo reported another large jump in virus cases on Thursday, again shattering records, as the government expanded restrictions to eight more regions just days before the Olympics ends.

Tokyo is already under a virus state of emergency but is seeing an exponential growth in cases, driven by the more contagious Delta variant.

Covid infections in Iran surged again Wednesday, hitting a new one-day record for a third straight day and taking total cases to more than four million.

Iran registered 39,357 new cases in the 24 hours to Wednesday, taking the total since the pandemic started to 4,019,084, the health ministry said.

New York has announced the introduction of a de facto vaccine pass for some public spaces, as China's Wuhan said it would test all 11 million residents after the coronavirus returned to the place where it first emerged.

Meanwhile, half of the European Union's population has now been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, an AFP tally showed on Tuesday, putting the bloc just ahead of the United States.

France's pharmaceutical giant Sanofi, which has lagged behind rivals in developing new generation mRNA Covid-19 vaccines, on Tuesday said it has purchased a U.S. firm specializing in the technology.

Sanofi will buy Translate Bio, with which it has been working to develop an mRNA Covid jab, for $3.2 billion (2.7 billion euros), the company said in a statement.

Iran announced more than 39,000 new Covid cases on Tuesday, the highest in a single day in the Middle East country worst hit by the pandemic.

The health authorities in Iran said another 378 people died of coronavirus and 39,019 tested positive in the past 24 hours.

Half of the population of the European Union has been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to an AFP tally Tuesday, putting it ahead of the United States in the inoculation drive.

Nearly 224 million people across the 27 member states have been covered, with Spain leading the pack of larger countries with 58.3 percent of its population vaccinated, followed by Italy (54.4 percent), France (52.9) and Germany (52.2).

Tunisia -- which has seen the world's worst Covid-19 death toll -- may be over the peak of the latest wave but the government must still speed up inoculations, the WHO said.

Kai Koyama was standing outside Tokyo's Olympic Stadium as fireworks burst overhead during the opening ceremony but unlike many of those around him he wasn't cheering, but protesting.

For months, polls showed strong opposition to the Games in Japan, which only grew as virus cases surged and the country's vaccine program got off to a sluggish start.

Millions of people were confined to their homes in China Monday as the country tried to contain its largest coronavirus outbreak in months with mass testing and travel curbs.

China on Monday reported 55 new locally transmitted coronavirus cases, as an outbreak of the fast-spreading Delta variant reached over 20 cities and more than a dozen provinces.

Imagine a Covid-19 vaccine that came as a pill: no needles, no medical professionals required to administer it, potentially delivered directly to people's homes.