(Reuters) – Guardians of children with special needs who are infected with COVID can apply to escort them, a Shanghai city official said on Wednesday, pointing to a relaxation of a child-separation policy that has triggered widespread public anger.
DEATHS AND INFECTIONS
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EUROPE
* England recorded its highest ever COVID-19 infection prevalence in March and cases were still increasing in the over-55s at the end of the month, an Imperial College London survey said on Wednesday, adding that Omicron subvariant BA.2 was now dominant.
AMERICAS
* The prospects of a $10 billion U.S. COVID-19 relief package were complicated on Tuesday by Senate Republicans’ demand to link the bill to a vote on border restrictions and concerns by some House Democrats that the proposal did not provide international aid.
* U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen met with the head of the World Health Organization in Washington on Tuesday and the two agreed to work toward boosting global pandemic preparedness and financing, the Treasury Department said in a statement.
AFRICA
* COVAX, the global project to share COVID-19 vaccines, and the African Union have declined options to buy additional doses of Moderna’s shot, as developing nations struggle to allocate supplies.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* Residents in the major Chinese financial centre of Shanghai, with 26 million under lockdown, scrambled to secure food, with supermarkets shut and deliveries restricted amid another citywide COVID-19 testing programme.
* The number of journeys taken over China’s three-day Tomb Sweeping Festival holiday tumbled by nearly two-thirds from last year, state media said, citing data from the transport ministry, as authorities battle outbreaks of COVID-19 across the country.
* Traditional wooden coffins are running short in Hong Kong as authorities scramble to add mortuary space in the global financial hub’s battle on COVID-19, which is swamping funeral parlours.
* Shanghai will ask all 26 million residents to take another round of COVID-19 tests, a city official said, adding that lockdown curbs would continue until the exercise is complete.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* China’s Kintor Pharmaceutical said its potential COVID-19 treatment proxalutamide effectively reduced the risk of hospitalization and death in a clinical trial involving outpatients with mild to moderate symptoms.
* A fourth dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine lowered rates of COVID-19 among the elderly but the protection against infection appeared short-lived, a large study in Israel has found.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* Activity in China’s services sector contracted at the sharpest pace in two years in March as a surge in coronavirus cases restricted mobility and weighed on demand, a private sector survey showed on Wednesday.
* India’s services sector expanded at its fastest pace so far this year in March as an easing of COVID-19 restrictions boosted demand, but elevated inflationary pressures clouded business confidence, a private survey showed.
* Global dairy prices are coming off record highs as demand from China has fallen away, hit by a new wave of COVID-19 and lockdowns in several cities, including the financial capital of Shanghai.
* Growth in developing Asia will likely be slower this year than previously thought, the Asian Development Bank said on Wednesday, as the war in Ukraine is expected to derail economic recovery in the region still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic.
(Compiled by Sherry Jacob-Phillips; Editing by Arun Koyyur)
