Concern over sporting events as Russia battles Delta variant

Russia's Saint Petersburg posted record Covid-19 deaths Monday as it prepares to host a Euro 2020 quarter-final despite the worrying spread of the Delta variant, which is fuelling infection surges around the world and causing a headache for major sporting events. While wealthy countries have started bringing down infections through rapid vaccination drives, outbreaks are still raging from Bangladesh and Indonesia to South America -- fuelled in large part by the highly infectious Delta variant, which was first detected in India. The strain is now in 85 countries and is the most contagious of any Covid-19 variant so far identified, according to the World Health Organization. Faced with this surge in a pandemic that has already killed more than 3.9 million people worldwide, officials are racing to vaccinate their populations.