Funeral director Wayne Bright has seen grief piled upon grief during the latest COVID-19 surge. A woman died of the virus, and as her family was planning the funeral, her mother was struck down. An aunt took over arrangements for the double funeral, only to die of COVID-19 herself two weeks later. “That was one of the most devastating things ever,” said Bright, who also arranged the funeral last week of one of his closest friends. Florida is in the grip of its deadliest wave of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, a disaster …

Some cities in Brazil are providing booster shots of the COVID-19 vaccine, even though most people have yet to receive their second jabs, in a sign of the concern in the country over the highly contagious delta variant.Rio de Janeiro, currently Brazil’s epicenter for the variant and home to one of its largest elderly populations, began administering the boosters Wednesday. Northeastern cities Salvador and Sao Luis started on Monday, and the most populous city of Sao Paulo will begin Sept. 6. The rest of the nation will follow the next …

A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released Friday says the coronavirus can cause “severe illness” in children and adolescents.From late June to mid-August, when there was an “increased circulation” of the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus, weekly COVID-associated hospitalization rates for children and adolescents rose nearly fivefold. Hospitalization rates, however, were “10 times higher among unvaccinated than among fully vaccinated adolescents,” the study said.India’s health ministry said Saturday morning that 42,618 new COVID cases were reported in the previous 24-hour period and 330 deaths.India is …

Cuban authorities on Friday launched a national campaign to vaccinate children ages 2-18 against COVID-19, a prerequisite set by the communist government for schools to reopen amid a spike in infections.Children 12 and older will be the first to receive one of the two domestically produced vaccines, Abdala and Soberana, followed by younger kids.Schools have mostly been closed in Cuba since March 2020, and students have been following lessons on television. With the school year starting Monday, they will continue learning remotely until all eligible children are vaccinated.Laura Lantigua, 17, …