(Bloomberg) — The U.S. government is poised to being offering booster shots as soon as next month, with the country facing a renewed wave of infections fueled by the highly transmissible delta variant.

New Zealand, which has run a successful Covid elimination strategy, will enter a lockdown after reporting its first community transmission since February. Switzerland recorded its biggest jump in infections in months, and the government has redoubled efforts to get more people vaccinated. South Africa expects a fourth wave to start in early December.

Hong Kong announced it will hike quarantine for medium-risk places to 14 days. Business groups in the city are already opposing measures announced on Monday that curbed travel. Singapore, which has been mulling opening its borders, said it’s considering a plan to allow groups of vaccinated travelers to enter the country on carefully controlled itineraries.

Key Developments:

Global Tracker: Cases top 208 million; deaths pass 4.37 millionVaccine Tracker: More than 4.7 billion doses administeredDelayed Wuhan report adds crucial detail to Covid origin puzzleWhere are we in the quest for Covid treatments?: QuickTakeBusinesses in Hong Kong slam tightened Covid travel curbsBooster shots for Americans eight months after vaccination

Greece Sees Biggest Case Jump Since April (11 a.m. NY)

Greece reported 4,205 new cases, the highest daily increase since April 6 and the third-biggest one-day jump since the start of the pandemic. Greek authorities are worried by the situation on the island of Crete, which is a popular vacation destination for foreigners and Greeks alike. The Heraklion area of the country’s largest island saw the third-biggest increase in new cases nationwide after Thessaloniki and central Athens.

U.K. Authorizes Moderna for Adolescents (9:15 a.m. NY)

Britain’s drug regulator authorized Moderna Inc.’s shot for children as young as 12, though few are likely to receive it in the near term as the country remains an outlier in its policy on vaccinating kids.

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The U.K. Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency extended the existing conditional marketing authorization for the Spikevax shot. It is up to the government’s advisory committee — the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation — to decide if and when the vaccine will be offered to to 12- to 17-year-olds.

The vaccine is the second after Pfizer Inc.’s to be authorized in the U.K. for use in older children, though Britain is currently only offering shots to those aged 16 and up, and to vulnerable kids aged 12 to 15 who have underlying health conditions or who live with immunosuppressed adults.

Swiss Cases Jump; Vaccine Demand Weak (8:20 a.m. NY)

Switzerland recorded 3,150 new infections within the last 24 hours, the biggest daily increase in months. Since early July, the number of hospitalizations has risen 10-fold, Patrick Mathys of the Federal Office of Public Health said.

The government has redoubled efforts to get more people vaccinated with a publicity campaign this week. Just 56% of the public has received at least one dose. With demand for vaccinations weak, the government agreed take delivery of just half the 1 million doses it was due to receive from Moderna.

“Vaccines globally are in very short supply and they should be located where they actually can be used,” Mathys said.

U.S., Singapore to Discuss Virus Response (7:57 a.m. NY)

Singapore expects to discuss areas of cooperation, including the pandemic response, during U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’s visit in the city state next week, Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said in a Facebook post Tuesday.

S. Africa White Adults Most Vaccine-Hesitant (7:36 a.m. NY)

Vaccine hesitancy is most pronounced among White adults in South Africa, which is struggling to keep immunization centers busy just three months into the rollout, a survey showed. Only 52% of White adults in the country are willing to get a Covid-19 shot, compared with three-quarters of Black adults, researchers from the Human Sciences Research Council and the University of Johannesburg said in the highlights of a report due to be released on Wednesday.

Separately, South Africa may open registrations to allow people aged between 18 and 34 to get vaccinated as early as this week, Eyewitness News reported, citing Health Minister Joe Phaahla.

Iran’s Daily Cases Surpass 50,000 (6:02 a.m. NY)

Iran reported a record number of daily cases, with new infections surpassing 50,000 for the first time. The country had 50,228 cases and 625 deaths overnight, according to the Health Ministry, bringing the total figures to more than 4.5 million infections and 99,100 fatalities.

Serbia Set to Rollout Boosters (6 a.m. NY)

Serbia is offering booster shots to people who completed their initial, two-dose vaccination at least six months ago. The new rollout is starting with transplant patients and others with weakened immunity, as well as health workers, frequent travelers and nursing home residents.

The Balkan country is struggling to advance the inoculation rate from around 50% of its population of 7 million, amid some vaccine skepticism. Weeks of accelerating Covid cases soared on Tuesday to almost 1,500 new infections, the highest daily total since late April.

S. Africa Expects Fourth Wave, New Variant (4:11 p.m. HK)

South Africa expects a fourth wave of infections to start on Dec. 2 and to last about 75 days, said Salim Abdool Karim, former chairman of the government’s ministerial advisory committee on Covid-19.

The government assumes that the wave will follow a similar pattern to the current one and that there will be a new variant by then, he said at a Government Technical Advisory Centre conference. Data suggest the current wave will end around Aug. 26.

Poland to Let Employers Check Vaccinations (3:43 p.m. HK)

The Polish government expects parliament to approve regulations allowing employers to check whether workers are vaccinated, Health Minister Adam Niedzielski said in an interview with Wirtualna Polska. The rules, which may be voted on by parliament next month, would enable companies to move unvaccinated people away from jobs focused on direct contact with clients.

New Zealand Goes Into Lockdown (2:30 p.m. HK)

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern put the nation into a three-day lockdown after reporting the first community case of Covid since February. The country will be placed in lockdown at midnight tonight after discovery of a single case in Auckland, Ardern said at a news conference in Wellington. Auckland and the nearby Coromandel region will be in lockdown for seven days.

“Going hard and early has worked for us before,” she told reporters. She said officials assume the case is the delta variant, adding that strain “has been called a game changer, and it is.”

India’s Record Vaccination (1:05 p.m. HK)

India administered a record 8.8 million shots in a day, according to a government statement. India has given 554.7 million doses so far, but only 8.9% of the country’s population is fully inoculated, according to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker. India added 25,166 cases, while deaths rose by 437 to 432,079.

Booster Shots in the U.S. (11:50 a.m. HK)

The U.S. government is poised to offer booster shots as soon as next month, with the country facing a renewed wave of infections fueled by delta.

Biden administration officials are finalizing a plan expected to recommend booster shots eight months after people received their second dose, according to two people familiar with the deliberations who asked not to be identified. The plan is not yet finalized but an announcement could come as soon as this week, they said.

Singapore Pilot Programs (11:45 a.m. HK)

Singapore plans to set up pilot programs next month to allow vaccinated business travelers from some countries to enter on carefully controlled itineraries as it takes steps to reopen its borders.

Singapore is in talks with Germany, Australia, Canada and South Korea to be the first batch of countries for such arrangements, though it is also looking at the possibility of leisure travel, trade minister Gan Kim Yong told Bloomberg News in an interview Tuesday. He said factors like infections, vaccination rates and the ability to control outbreaks will be considered in these discussions.

Tsai Books Local Vaccine (11:40 a.m, HK)

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen will be among the first people to get the first domestically developed Covid-19 vaccine next week. Tsai signed up to get the Medigen shot on Aug. 23, the first day it’s available to the public, according to a Presidential Office spokesman. Around 42,000 Taiwanese have registered for Medigen vaccines via the government website since Monday, local media reported.

Promoting self-produced vaccines has been a crucial step in the government’s strategy as Taiwan faced difficulties in acquiring enough foreign doses. As of now, over 39% of Taiwan’s total population has received at least one injection.

Hong Kong’s New Quarantine Rules (10:41 a.m. HK)

Hong Kong will end a short-lived rule that allowed travelers from most parts of the world to spend just one week quarantined in a hotel, provided they had an antibody test proving they were vaccinated.

Hong Kong will no longer recognize the test results as a basis to shorten quarantines, Chief Executive Carrie Lam said at a briefing Tuesday. That effectively will leave New Zealand as the only country outside of China that qualifies for a seven-day quarantine for vaccinated travelers.

Business groups in the city reacted with dismay after travel curbs were tightened Monday for residents returning from more than a dozen countries — including the U.S., France and Spain.

Philippines Wants More Vaccines (10:20 a.m. HK)

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte asked for more vaccine doses from the U.S. In a taped briefing televised Monday night, he said the government is ready to pay for more supply. In the same briefing, the official leading the vaccine procurement, Carlito Galvez, said they expect 6 million shots to arrive this week after receiving 8.7 million in the previous two weeks. The government has so far administered 7.33 million shots this month, compared with a target for 15 million.

Delta Spreads Across Australia (10:15 a.m. HK)

Australia’s delta outbreak continues to spread despite more than half the nation’s 26 million people being placed into lockdown. New South Wales state recorded 452 new cases on Tuesday, down from the record of 478 set the previous day, with the vast bulk of those infections detected in Sydney. Melbourne and national capital Canberra are also enforcing stay-at-home orders.

Authorities are increasingly concerned that the outbreak’s spreading into the continent’s interior is threatening vulnerable Indigenous populations.

China Cases Dwindle (9:51 a.m. HK)

Cases in China are dwindling amid an intense slew of curbs authorities have put in place. Only six symptomatic infections were reported on Tuesday, down from 90 a week ago.In an interview with state-owned news agency Xinhua, Health Minister Ma Xiaowei vowed to keep the virus’s spread under control by the end of August. Ma told Xinhua the country’s health authorities will double down on measures to detect the virus’s breach from abroad early. He also vowed to strengthen curbs in hospitals treating Covid patients.

Meanwhile, Beijing Communist Party chief Cai Qi told the city’s officials to take measures to prevent spread of coronavirus at 2022 Winter Olympics venues, Beijing Daily reported.

Japan Set to Expand Emergency (9:29 a.m. HK)

Japan plans to expand its current virus emergency now in place for Tokyo and other areas to seven more prefectures as well as extend it to Sept. 12, trying to stem a delta variant-fueled surge that has sent infections to records.

Indonesia’s New Cases Lowest Since June (8:08

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