(Reuters) – Romania’s government waived COVID-19 quarantine rules on Friday for Ukrainians crossing the border after Russia launched an all-out invasion, while China reported its highest daily count of infections arriving from outside the mainland in nearly two years, most of them from Hong Kong.
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
* Germany does not have leeway to ease restrictions more quickly, and Germans should not think that the pandemic is over as the number of new daily infections is still very high, German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said.
* Sweden should have adopted tougher early measures and the government assumed clearer leadership as COVID-19 hit, though the mostly voluntary no-lockdown strategy was broadly correct, a commission reviewing the pandemic response said.
* The European Union’s health regulator on Thursday backed giving a booster shot of Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine to adolescents aged 12 and over, as well as the expanded use of Moderna’s shot in children aged 6 to 11.
AMERICAS
* A three-week long protest in Canada against pandemic measures that snarled trade and shuttered Ottawa’s core likely cost billions in trade delays, tens of millions in lost sales for businesses, and left behind a hefty policing and clean-up tab.
* Medicago’s vaccine on Thursday became the world’s first plant-based shot approved against COVID-19 after Health Canada cleared it for use in adults.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* Hong Kong has contracted a Chinese firm to build eight isolation and treatment facilities to help fight a worsening COVID-19 outbreak, as the government said daily cases in the financial hub surged beyond 10,000 – a new record.
* Drugmaker Shionogi & Co has applied for approval to make and sell its oral COVID-19 treatment in Japan.
* This year’s World Team Table Tennis Championships in Chengdu, China has been pushed back to the end of September from its April dates due the spread of the Omicron variant, the International Table Tennis Federation said.
AFRICA AND MIDDLE EAST
* The Omicron BA.2 sub-variant appears to be more infectious than the original BA.1 sub-variant, but does not cause more severe disease, the head of Africa’s top public health body said.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* Valneva expects to start delivering its vaccine in Europe soon after it is recommended for conditional approval by the end of March, the French vaccine maker said as it received an initial regulatory assessment.
* Moderna Inc executives said on Thursday they believe a fourth vaccine shot will be needed late this year due to waning protection from earlier doses.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* British consumer confidence suffered its biggest month-on-month drop in February since the start of the pandemic, as people worried about fast-rising inflation, higher taxes and interest rates going up, a survey showed.
* Japan’s industrial output likely fell for a second month in January as the fast spread of the Omicron variant disrupted car production, a Reuters poll showed.
(Compiled by Valentine Baldassari and Uttaresh.V; Edited by Shounak Dasgupta and Milla Nissi)
