(Reuters) – Hong Kong will roll out compulsory testing for COVID-19 starting in mid-March for its 7.4 million residents, leader Carrie Lam said, as university researchers predicted new infections could peak at a staggering 180,000 a day next month.
DEATHS AND INFECTIONS
* Eikon users, see COVID-19: MacroVitals https://apac1.apps.cp.thomsonreuters.com/cms/?navid=1592404098 for a case tracker and summary of news.
EUROPE
* Queen Elizabeth will miss a planned virtual engagement because she is still experiencing mild cold-like symptoms after testing positive for COVID-19, a spokesman for Buckingham Palace said.
* European Union countries agreed to open their borders to travellers from outside the bloc who have had shots against COVID-19 authorised by the World Health Organization, easing restrictions on those who received Indian and Chinese vaccines.
* Italy will no longer require people coming from outside the European Union to isolate after entering the country as of March 1, its health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
* Ireland said it will drop most of its remaining pandemic-linked restrictions from Feb. 28 as an Omicron-fuelled wave of infections ebbs.
AMERICAS
* Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada had to start healing after police cleared downtown Ottawa of a truckers’ blockade that had paralysed the city for three weeks in a protest against restrictions.
* The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday turned away a challenge to Maine’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers, rebuffing for the second time a group of plaintiffs who sought a religious exemption.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* Hong Kong authorities said they found COVID-19 in samples taken from the packaging of imports of frozen beef from Brazil and frozen pork skin from Poland, vowing to step up inspections of imported food.
* Indian vaccine maker Biological E. Ltd said on Monday its COVID-19 vaccine received an emergency use approval in the country for use in children aged 12 to 18.
AFRICA AND MIDDLE EAST
* Uganda plans to impose fines on people who refuse to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and those who fail to pay could be sent to prison under a new public health law which lawmakers are scrutinising, parliament said.
* South Africa has changed its vaccination rules in an effort to encourage more people to get jabs, health authorities said.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* A large study into rare blood clots linked with AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine found between just one and three cases per million, and only after the first dose, shedding fresh light on the side-effects from the shot.
* Antibodies triggered by a third dose of Sinopharm’s COVID-19 shot given to those who completed its primary two-dose regimen dropped sharply after six months, and a fourth shot did not significantly boost them against Omicron, a Chinese study showed.
* Getting infected twice with two different Omicron coronavirus subvariants is possible, but rarely happens, a Danish study has found.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* Global markets clawed back losses as investors clung to hopes that Moscow’s deployment of troops to two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine will be as far Russia goes. [MKTS/GLOB]
* German business morale improved in February across all sectors as hopes for an end to the coronavirus crisis more than offset worries about the Ukraine conflict, though a possible escalation remains a major risk, a survey showed.
* Turkey’s economy is expected to have expanded 11% in 2021 after bouncing back strongly from the pandemic, a Reuters poll showed, though it should cool off this year to 3.5% due to soaring inflation and a recent currency crisis.
* Kuwait’s government owes 2.35 billion dinars ($7.78 billion) in late payments to public entities, according to the finance ministry, in a sign of a deepening cash crunch the oil-exporting nation has faced since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
($1 = 0.7336 pounds)
(Compiled by Marta Frackowiak, Uttaresh.V and Shinjini Ganguli; Edited by David Evans and Maju Samuel)
