(Reuters) – Shanghai achieved on Tuesday the long-awaited milestone of three consecutive days with no new COVID-19 cases outside quarantine zones but most residents will have to put up with confinement for a while longer before a return to more normal life.
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 has mobilised its military to distribute COVID medications and deployed more than 10,000 health workers to help trace potential patients as it fights a sweeping coronavirus wave, state media KCNA said.
* Japan said it would start conducting “test tourism” in the form of limited package tours in May as a way of gathering information prior to a full re-opening of the country to tourism.
EUROPE
* Russia’s invasion of Ukraine posed new challenges to the European Union’s recovery from the pandemic, while the resulting surge in energy and commodity prices will slash euro zone economic growth this year and next, the European Commission forecast.
* European businesses in China are awaiting the next wave of disruption from COVID-19 outbreaks and see little chance of improvement until the country increases vaccination rates, the European Chamber of Commerce in China said.
AMERICAS
* Some U.S. inmates released to home confinement under the terms of a law passed by Congress to slow the spread of COVID-19 have challenged orders to return to prison.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* U.S. health regulators are expected to authorize a booster shot of Pfizer/BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 5 to 11 as soon as Tuesday, the New York Times reported.
* The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has decided not to authorize the antidepressant fluvoxamine to treat COVID-19, saying that the data has not shown the drug to be an effective therapeutic for fighting the virus.
* A chain of events possibly triggered by unrecognized infection with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus could be causing the mysterious cases of severe hepatitis reported in hundreds of young children around the world, researchers suggest.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* China’s strict COVID-19 controls will hamper foreign investment into the country for years to come as limits on travel block the pipeline for projects, the President of the American Chamber of Commerce warned.
* Thailand’s economy grew faster than expected in the first quarter supported by a pickup in agriculture and an easing of COVID-19 curbs, but higher inflation remained a drag on a fragile recovery.
(Compiled by Aditya Soni and Devika Syamnath; Editing by Anil D’Silva and Subhranshu Sahu)
