(Reuters) – Shanghai reported new COVID-19 cases outside quarantined areas for the first time after five days of no infections, prompting stricter curbs in a district, but plans to end a prolonged city-wide lockdown on June 1 appeared to remain on track.
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.
AMERICAS
* The U.S. health agency has recommended children aged 5 to 11 take the COVID-19 vaccine booster at least five months after completing their primary vaccination course.
EUROPE
* The European health regulator endorsed the use of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine, Vaxzevria, as a booster.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* North Korea said it was achieving “good results” in its fight against its first confirmed COVID-19 outbreak, as the number of people with fever symptoms rose past 2 million.
* Hundreds of international teachers are looking to exit China as the pandemic and new rules on education reshape the country’s working environment. The situation is prompting international schools, which proliferated over the past two decades, to sound warning bells.
AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST
* Several outbreaks of monkeypox in Africa have been contained during the COVID-19 pandemic while the world’s attention was elsewhere, and outbreaks in Europe and the United States are a concern, Africa’s top public health agency said.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said reports of heart inflammation linked to the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine have been much lower in 5- to 11-year-old boys than in adolescents and young men, representing only a slightly elevated rate than normal.
* Vaccination after infection with SARS-CoV-2 may contribute to a reduction in the burden of long COVID symptoms, a new study suggests.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* China cut its benchmark reference rate for mortgages by an unexpectedly wide margin, its second cut this year as Beijing seeks to revive the ailing housing sector to prop up the economy.
* Roughly half of Taiwanese companies that had previously suspended work in China due to COVID-19 control measures have resumed production as curbs ease.
(Compiled by Dina Kartit, Aditya Soni and Devika Syamnath; Editing by Ed Osmond, Maju Samuel and Subhranshu Sahu)
