(Reuters) – Here’s what you need to know about the coronavirus right now:
Shanghai COVID cases hit daily record
China’s financial hub Shanghai on Tuesday reported a fifth consecutive daily record for locally transmitted COVID-19 asymptomatic cases amid the highly infectious Omicron variant.
Although small compared with outbreaks in other countries, the rise is significant as Shanghai redoubles its efforts to implement China’s “dynamic clearance” policy designed to curb each flare-up.
The city is pressing ahead with a block by block testing scheme after already completing more than 30 million tests.
Restarting global travel will barely impact COVID spread – HK study
The full reopening of international travel in Hong Kong will have “marginal impact” on the spread of COVID-19, an academic study said on Tuesday, as the financial hub begins to unwind strict coronavirus measures.
The study, titled “Forward planning, after HK’s fifth wave of Omicron BA.2”, expects a sixth wave to begin in June as measures to control the spread of the disease are relaxed in the months ahead and the city boosts vaccination rates.
As long as visitors are fully vaccinated and test negative upon boarding a flight to the Chinese-ruled territory, they would have a negligible impact, according to experts from the University of Hong Kong, the World Health Organization and the Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health.
U.S. FDA advisers to discuss COVID boosters in April
The U.S. drug regulator said on Monday a panel of independent advisers will meet on April 6 to discuss considerations for use of COVID-19 vaccine booster doses.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said no vote was planned at this meeting and there will not be any discussion of any of the COVID vaccine makers’ applications for additional boosters.
Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, as well as rival Moderna, last week sought emergency use authorization from U.S. health regulators for a second COVID booster shot, as a surge in cases in some parts of the world fueled fears of another wave of the pandemic.
Pfizer to sell up to 4 mln courses of COVID pills to UNICEF this year
Pfizer said on Tuesday it will sell up to 4 million courses of its oral COVID-19 antiviral treatment Paxlovid to UNICEF for use in 95 low-income countries.
The deal accounts just over 3% of Pfizer’s projected production of 120 million Paxlovid courses for this year. The company said the 95 countries covered in the UNICEF deal account for around 53% of the world’s population.
Former Takeda vaccine chief to lead new COVID antiviral venture
Aerium Therapeutics, a venture-backed startup, on Tuesday announced industry veteran Rajeev Venkayya will lead the company and released data that showed its two experimental monoclonal antibodies neutralized coronavirus variants, including Omicron and its fast-spreading subvariant BA.2, in lab studies.
Venkayya brings instant credibility to the new venture. He left Tokyo-based Takeda Pharmaceutical Co last month after serving as president of its global vaccine business.
(Compiled by Linda Noakes; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
