(Reuters) – Beijing stepped up quarantine efforts to end its month-old COVID outbreak as fresh signs of frustration emerged in Shanghai, where some bemoaned unfair curbs with the city of 25 million preparing to lift a prolonged lockdown in just over a week.
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.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* North Korea said on Tuesday there were no new deaths among fever patients in the country, the first time since it flagged a COVID-19 outbreak nearly two weeks ago, adding that it was seeing a “stable” downward trend in pandemic-related cases.
* Mainland China reported 688 new coronavirus cases on May 23, of which 156 were symptomatic and 532 were asymptomatic, the National Health Commission said.
AMERICAS
* The FDA set June 14-15 as the new meeting date to review Moderna’s emergency authorization request for its COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 6 months to 5 years and Pfizer’s vaccine for those aged 6 months through 4 years.
EUROPE
* AstraZeneca said on Monday its COVID-19 vaccine has been approved in the European Union by the bloc’s drugs regulator as a third-dose booster in adults.
AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST
* The number of foreigners arriving in Turkey last month more than tripled from a year earlier, with sector representatives expecting tourist numbers this year to return to around 2019 levels, leaving the 2020-21 coronavirus slump behind.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* Drugmakers Pfizer and BioNTech said on Monday that three doses of their COVID-19 vaccine generated a strong immune response in children under age 5 and was safe and well-tolerated in their clinical trial.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* Japan’s manufacturing activity expanded at the slowest pace in three months in May, as supply bottlenecks due to parts shortages and China’s COVID-19 lockdowns caused output and new orders growth to slow.
* The global job market is at risk of doing a U-turn on its path towards recovering to pre-COVID-19 levels as lockdowns in China and the war in Ukraine weigh on economies, the International Labour Organization said in a report on Monday.
* China will broaden its tax credit rebates, postpone social security payments and loan repayments, roll out new investment projects and take other steps to support the economy, state television quoted the cabinet as saying on Monday.
(Compiled by Rashmi Aich, Valentine Baldassari and Amy Caren Daniel; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Sriraj Kalluvila)
