(Reuters) – Russians may soon be able to receive vaccines not registered in the country from clinics set up in a special economic zone, Russian Kommersant daily reported.
DEATHS AND INFECTIONS
EUROPE
* Pupils will from Oct. 4 no longer have to wear protective face masks in French primary schools in areas with a low COVID-19 infection rate, according to a government decree.
* The European Union will extend a mechanism to monitor and potentially limit the export of COVID-19 vaccines from the bloc, an EU official said on Wednesday.
* The number of daily new infections in Ukraine rose to almost 12,000 over the past 24 hours for the first time since April, health ministry data showed.
AMERICAS
* Six Argentina players and two staff have been kicked out of the Rugby Championship for breaching its health rules after taking an unauthorised day trip to the New South Wales resort of Byron Bay, competition organisers said.
* United Airlines trimmed the number of employees who are facing termination for defying the company’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The Chicago-based carrier said 320 U.S.-based staff are now not in compliance.
* Los Angeles officials on Wednesday signalled they would vote next week to prohibit unvaccinated people from entering most businesses in the United States’ second-largest city.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* Singapore’s health ministry reported 2,478 new cases on Thursday, the highest since the beginning of the pandemic.
* Melbourne’s cases surged to record levels with officials blaming illegal home gatherings to watch a key sporting event for the spike.
* The Philippines opens a week-long window on Friday for filing of candidacy for thousands of political posts, from the presidency down to town councillors, with restrictions in place to fight one of Asia’s deadliest COVID-19 outbreaks.
MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
* South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has eased restrictions aimed at combating the pandemic to the country’s lowest alert level, the second such loosening this month as the country looks to open up its economy ahead of the summer holiday season.
* Only 15 of Africa’s 54 nations have fully vaccinated 10% of their populations against COVID-19 and many frontline health workers remain at risk, the World Health Organization and the International Council of Nurses said.
* Somalia’s first public oxygen plant opened on Thursday, a ray of hope for a country where a lifesaving treatment for the coronavirus has been largely unavailable to patients during the pandemic.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* When the coronavirus infects cells, it not only impairs their activity but can also change their function, new findings suggest. Laboratory studies also show Merck & Co’s experimental oral antiviral drug is likely to be effective in patients infected with any of the known variants, researchers said on Wednesday.
* AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine demonstrated 74% efficacy at preventing symptomatic disease, according to results of its U.S. clinical trial published on Wednesday.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* Global stock markets continued to fall as inflation fears persisted and expectations grew that the U.S. Federal Reserve will tighten policy in the coming months. [MKTS/GLOB]
* The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose further last week as California moved more people to another program following the expiration of government-funded aid early this month to maximise their access to assistance.
* The European Commission proposed extending looser state aid rules for virus-hit companies for six months to June 2022 in a bid to slowly wean them off the billions of euros provided by governments across the European Union.
(Compiled by Anita Kobylinska, Juliette Portala and Vinay Dwivedi; Edited by Matthew Lewis and Shounak Dasgupta)
