(Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised against travel to the Czech Republic, Hungary and Iceland because of a rising number of COVID-19 cases in those countries.
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
* Russia will lift its COVID-19 ban on flights to countries including Bangladesh, Brazil, Mongolia, Costa Rica and Argentina from Dec. 1, the government coronavirus task force said.
* Greek public health sector workers protested in Athens over pay and conditions as hospitals struggled with a new surge in cases and authorities considered further restrictions.
AMERICAS
* Brazilian health minister Marcelo Queiroga said the government will offer booster shots to everyone older than 18.
* Mexico will start vaccinating minors between the ages of 15 and 17 against the COVID-19 virus, Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell said.
* Amazon.com Inc has reached a settlement with California to resolve claims it concealed from warehouse workers and local health agencies the numbers of workers being infected with COVID-19, the state’s attorney general said.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* Myanmar will reopen its land borders with China and Thailand from next month due to improvements in its vaccination rate, its information ministry said.
* China reported 22 new confirmed cases for Nov. 15 compared with 52 a day earlier, its health authority said.
MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
* The head of the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority told Al Arabiya TV that the kingdom had restored 45% of pre-COVID passenger traffic estimated in 2019 at around 100 million passengers.
* Israel’s economy continued to recover from the pandemic in the third quarter on the heels of steep gains in exports and investment but the growth was slower than expected due to only a slight rise in consumer spending.
* Nigeria will start a mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign later this week, aiming to inoculate half of its targeted population by the end of January, government officials said.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* Pfizer said it will allow generic manufacturers to supply its experimental antiviral COVID-19 pill to 95 low- and middle-income countries through a licensing agreement with international public health group Medicines Patent Pool (MPP).
* Two billion doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford University vaccine have been supplied worldwide, the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker and its partner said, in just under a year since its first approval.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* Wall Street opened higher on Tuesday as the dollar extended gains and strong U.S. retail sales data tempered concerns about the global economy.
* U.S. retail sales surged in October, likely as Americans started their holiday shopping early to avoid empty shelves amid shortages of some goods because of the ongoing pandemic, giving the economy a lift at the start of the fourth quarter.
* Britain’s job market withstood the end of the government’s furlough scheme last month, according to data which could ease lingering concerns at the Bank of England about the risks of raising interest rates from their pandemic low.
* German government bond yields edged higher as investors balanced concerns about surging inflation and potential monetary policy tightening against fears of an economic slowdown due to surging infections.
(Compiled by Federico Maccioni and Sherry Jacob-Phillips; Edited by Shounak Dasgupta and Angus MacSwan)
