China reported the fewest number of new COVID-19 cases for a single day in more than a month, official data showed on Wednesday, the latest indication that the current wave of the disease is subsiding ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday break.
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
* EU lawmakers questioned chief executive Ursula von der Leyen for hours on Tuesday over the slow rollout and shortage of COVID-19 vaccines as she took responsibility for an export control plan that angered Britain and Ireland.
* The number of French coronavirus patients were at their highest level since end November.
* The UK variant of the coronavirus has developed a new, concerning mutation in a small number of cases, which scientists said makes it similar to the South African and Brazilian variants and could reduce the efficacy of vaccines.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* New Zealand medicines regulator Medsafe has provisionally approved the use of a COVID-19 vaccine jointly developed by U.S. drugmaker Pfizer Inc and Germany’s BioNTech.
* Smoke haze covered Australia’s fourth largest city of Perth from a fast-moving bushfire that razed dozens of homes, complicating a tight lockdown after Western Australia state’s first COVID-19 case in more than 10 months.
* South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in called for seamless preparations for coronavirus vaccinations, as a refrigerated van drove in convoy with several military and police escort cars in a drill at the capital’s airport.
* India is expected to grant emergency use authorization for Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine this month or next, the Russian Direct Investment Fund said.
AMERICAS
* Venezuela will send further shipments of oxygen to help neighbouring Brazil treat COVID-19 patients, President Nicolas Maduro said, after sending a convoy of oxygen-filled trucks to the Amazonian city of Manaus last month.
* The Biden administration will launch a new program shipping coronavirus vaccines directly to retail pharmacies starting next week in an effort to increase Americans’ access to shots.
MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
* South Africa will get 2 million doses of vaccines from the COVAX vaccine distribution scheme co-led by the World Health Organization by March.
* Uganda has ordered 18 million doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* Two COVID-19 vaccines from Chinese companies including Sinopharm triggered immunity against a highly transmissible coronavirus variant first found in South Africa, but their effect appeared weaker, a small-sample lab study showed.
* A team of investigators working on behalf of the World Health Organization visited on Wednesday a major virus research laboratory in China’s central city of Wuhan, seeking clues to the origins of the pandemic.
* Almost all people previously infected with COVID-19 have high levels of antibodies for at least six months that are likely to protect them from reinfection with the disease, results of a major UK study showed.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* Asian shares and U.S. stock futures rose on Wednesday as governments around the world looked poised to boost spending to help economies recover from the pandemic and vaccine roll-out programmes accelerated.
* Democrats in the U.S. Congress took the first steps toward advancing President Joe Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion coronavirus aid plan without Republican support.
* Japan’s services sector shrank at the fastest pace in five months in January, as a heavy blow to demand from a resurgence in coronavirus infections and a state of emergency in parts of the country greatly hurt new business orders.
(Compiled by Aditya Soni and Amy Caren Daniel; Edited by Shounak Dasgupta)
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