(Reuters) – More than 202.73 million people have been reported to be infected with the novel coronavirus globally and 4,454,172 have died, according to a Reuters tally.
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
* France’s health minister on Sunday appealed for volunteer doctors and nurses to travel to the overseas territories of Guadalupe and Martinique as a wave of infections overwhelms hospitals on the Caribbean islands.
* Britain on Sunday reported 27,429 new cases and 39 deaths within 28 days of a positive test.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* China reported more infections in its latest outbreak while some cities added rounds of mass testing in the bid to stamp out infections.
* Australia expanded a lockdown to a rural town and the coastal region of Byron Bay, as fears grew that the virus has spread from Sydney to the northern tip of the country’s most populous state.
* The country’s pharmaceutical regulator has granted provisional approval to Moderna’s vaccine, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said.
* South Korea begins opening vaccine reservations for all adults over 18 for the first time on Monday as it scrambles to stave off a rise in sporadic outbreaks, many of them among young, unvaccinated residents.
* Nearly a fifth of hospitals in the Philippines are nearly full as a surge in infections, driven by the highly contagious Delta variant of the virus, spreads, the health ministry said.
* Under pressure from businesses and public sectors facing a worker shortage that policymakers fear will fuel inflation, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is due to unveil plans this week to reopen borders.
AMERICAS
* COVID-19 vaccinations should be required for U.S. teachers to protect students who are too young to be inoculated, the head of the second-largest teachers’ union said on Sunday, shifting course to back mandated shots as more children fall ill.
MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
* More than half a million Tunisians received vaccinations on Sunday as part of a campaign to control the outbreak of COVID-19 after the country received more than 6 million vaccine doses from Western and Arab countries.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* COVID-19 increases patients’ risks of heart attack and stroke, suggests a study from Sweden that compared 86,742 individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2 in 2020 and 348,481 people without the virus.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* Global shares treaded water on Monday as sharp falls in gold and oil prices briefly spooked sentiment, while the dollar reached four-month highs on the euro after an upbeat U.S. jobs report lifted bond yields.
* Investor morale in the euro zone fell in August to a three-month low on a sharp drop in expectations due to concerns that new lockdown restrictions could loom in the autumn and beyond, a survey showed.
* Saudi Arabia’s economy grew for the first time since the pandemic in the second quarter fuelled by a 10.1% growth in the non-oil sector, according to flash government estimates.
* Turkey’s industrial production is expected to have surged 21.1% annually in June as coronavirus measures were lifted, maintaining its year-long growth, a Reuters poll showed.
(Compiled by Federico Maccioni and Amy Caren Daniel; Editing by Rashmi Aich, Robert Birsel)
