COVID-19: What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this week

Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have passed 596.1 million globally, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of confirmed deaths has now passed 6.45 million. More than 12.5 billion vaccination doses have been administered globally, according to Our World in Data.

Russia reported more than 30,000 new confirmed daily COVID-19 cases on 17 August – the first time figures have hit this level since mid-March.

The World Health Organization has recommended the use of French firm Valneva's COVID-19 vaccine.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has praised military medics for leading the country's response to a COVID-19 outbreak.

Canada's health ministry has authorized the use of Pfizer/BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine as a booster for children aged 5 to 11.

The US Food and Drug Administration has asked Pfizer to test the effects of an additional course of its antiviral Paxlovid among people who experience a rebound in COVID-19 after treatment.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has tested positive for COVID-19, forcing him to cancel a planned trip to Tunisia to attend a key conference on African development.

The number of people in the United Kingdom infected with COVID-19 is continuing to fall, Office for National Statistics figures show.

About 2.3 million people in the Philippines were pushed into poverty between 2018 and 2021, largely due to the economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the country's statistics agency says.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says it will prioritize its public health response in a restructure, following criticism of its handling of COVID-19 and the monkeypox outbreak.

An external report into the CDC's response says its public guidance caused confusion, while important information was sometimes released too late to inform federal decisions.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said that the agency is undertaking a series of changes designed to make it more nimble at responding, quicker at providing data and less focused on publishing fully vetted scientific papers.

"For 75 years, CDC and public health have been preparing for COVID-19, and in our big moment, our performance did not reliably meet expectations," Walensky told CDC staff.

A new study from the University of Oxford has investigated neurological and psychiatric diagnoses in over 1.25 million people following a diagnosed COVID-19 infection.

It found that new diagnoses of disorders including psychosis, dementia, seizures and "brain fog" remain more common two years after COVID-19 compared with other respiratory infections. However, the increased risks of depression and anxiety after COVID-19 are short-lived, the research published in The Lancet Psychiatry found.

"It is good news that the excess of depression and anxiety diagnoses after COVID-19 is short-lived, and that it is not observed in children," said Professor Paul Harrison who headed the study. "However, it is worrying that some other disorders, such as dementia and seizures, continue to be more likely diagnosed after COVID-19, even two years later. It also appears that Omicron, although less severe in the acute illness, is followed by comparable rates of these diagnoses."