(Reuters) – Many Beijing residents returned to work on Thursday after a five-day public holiday, but China’s capital was on high levels of COVID alert as it tried to eradicate an outbreak it has managed to keep at dozens of daily cases for about two weeks.
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
* The British government said it would not appeal a court decision that it had acted unlawfully early in the COVID-19 pandemic when it moved elderly patients from hospitals to care homes without considering that people without symptoms could spread the virus.
AMERICAS
* The Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV2 virus is intrinsically as severe as previous variants, unlike assumptions made in previous studies that it was more transmissible but less severe, a large study in the United States has found.
* U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday, the U.S. State Department said, adding that he was experiencing mild symptoms.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* Beijing will cut the time that people have to stay in quarantine facilities when they arrive in the city from overseas to 10 days, a city official said on Wednesday, according to state media.
AFRICA AND MIDDLE EAST
* Africa’s first COVID-19 vaccination plant, touted last year as a trailblazer for an under-vaccinated continent frustrated by sluggish Western handouts, risks shutting down after receiving not a single order, a company executive said.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* Novavax Inc said it had filed an application with Britain’s drugs regulator for the authorization of its COVID-19 vaccine among adolescents aged 12 and older.
* French drugmaker Valneva said it will conduct a trial about the use of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate VLA2001 as a booster jab following a mRNA vaccination or natural infection.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* Chinese travellers spent 43% less over the five-day Labour Day holiday that ended on Wednesday than a year earlier, government data showed, as tightening COVID-19 prevention measures being rolled out across the country hit consumption.
* China’s services sector activity contracted at the second-steepest rate on record in April, as tighter COVID curbs halted the industry, leading to sharper reductions in new business and employment, a private-sector survey showed.
* Indonesia’s annual economic growth likely remained steady in the first quarter as commodities exports partly offset weak consumer spending due to mobility curbs imposed to stop the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant, a Reuters poll found.
* The COVID-19 pandemic severed the tourism lifeline of Sri Lanka, already short of revenue in the wake of steep tax cuts by the government.
(Compiled by Sherry Jacob-Phillips; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)
