(Reuters) – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced renewed calls to resign on Monday after a report found that alcohol-fuelled events at his offices and residence when COVID-19 lockdown rules were in force should never have taken place.
DEATHS AND INFECTIONS
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for a case tracker and summary of news.
EUROPE
* Romania will from Tuesday drop a demand for travellers to quarantine if they are vaccinated, have proof of recovery from COVID-19 or can provide a negative test result, regardless of where they are coming from.
* The German government has failed to hit its goal of vaccinating 80% of the population against the coronavirus before the end of January, roughly a month before lawmakers are expected to vote on a draft law on mandatory vaccinations.
* Britain, which will this week begin offering vaccinations to children aged 5-11 who are most at risk from coronavirus, is also looking at possibly changing rules on mandatory vaccination for health service staff.
AMERICAS
* The U.S. CDC advised against travel to a dozen destinations, including Mexico, Brazil, Singapore, Ecuador, Kosovo, Philippines and Paraguay.
* The National Hockey League and its players association on Monday issued revisions to its COVID-19 protocols that included the removal of daily testing for fully vaccinated players in light of the declining rate of positive cases.
* Mexico registered 12,521 confirmed cases and 198 more deaths from COVID-19 on Monday, according to health ministry data, bringing the country’s overall number of confirmed cases to 4,942,590 and the death toll to 306,091.
* Brazil has had 77,947 new cases of the coronavirus reported in the past 24 hours, and 284 deaths from COVID-19, the health ministry said on Monday.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* Organisers of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics are hoping for stadium capacities of at least 30% despite China’s enforcement of tight regulations to contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus, the International Olympic Committee said on Tuesday.
* Mainland China reported 66 new COVID-19 cases on Jan. 31, up from 58 a day earlier, the national health authority said on Tuesday.
* Indonesia’s holiday island of Bali will start welcoming back travellers from all countries later this week, more than three months after announcing it was open to selected nationalities.
AFRICA AND MIDDLE EAST
* South Africa no longer requires those who test positive for COVID-19 without symptoms to isolate and has also reduced the isolation period for those with symptoms by three days.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* Pfizer Inc and Germany’s BioNTech SE are expected to submit an emergency use authorization request as early as Tuesday to the U.S. FDA for vaccines for children aged six months to 5 years, the Washington Post reported on Monday.
* China’s two most widely used COVID-19 vaccines, developed by Sinovac and Sinopharm, were shown to be effective against the Delta variant of the coronavirus, a study based on real-world data in the country showed on Tuesday.
* The U.S. FDA gave full approval to Moderna Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine for people age 18 and older, making it the second fully approved vaccine for the virus.
* Novavax Inc said it had filed for a U.S. approval for the emergency use of its COVID-19 vaccine in adults.
* Merck & Co’s new antiviral pill, once touted as a potential game changer for treating COVID-19, is the last choice among four available options for at-risk patients given its relatively low efficacy and potential safety issues, U.S. doctors, healthcare systems and pharmacies told Reuters.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* U.S. inflationary pressures should ease in 2022 due to weaker demand for goods, easing supply bottlenecks and a receding coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Treasury’s top economist said on Monday.
(Compiled by Shailesh Kuber, Marta Frackowiak and Krishna Chandra Eluri; Editing by Milla Nissi, Anil D’Silva and Arun Koyyur)
