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WHO wants surveillance, US VP Kamala Harris infected: Top global Covid updates
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said the country is ready to lift all measures against the coronavirus, adding that mask wearing will no longer be obligatory indoors.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) urged countries to maintain surveillance of coronavirus infections, in the wake of the latest surge in cases. The global health body said on Tuesday the world was "blind" to how the virus was spreading because of falling testing rates.
His statement came as China resorted to mass testing and lockdown-like measures in capital Beijing to combat a major outbreak of the Covid-19 like the one that has all but shut down the city of Shanghai.
Meanwhile, United States Vice President Kamala Harris tested positive for the virus. President Joe Biden is not one of the close contacts.
Here the top global updates of the pandemic that is on a fresh resurgence:
- Three-quarters of Beijing's 22 million people lined up for Covid tests as authorities in the Chinese capital raced to stamp out a nascent outbreak and avert the debilitating city-wide lockdown that has been in place in Shanghai for a month.
- Finance sector professionals in Shanghai are preparing to move back to Hong Kong and other offshore centres after spending only a few years in the Chinese city as the lockdown has hurt their business prospects and upended daily lives.
- President Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey is ready to lift all measures against the coronavirus, adding that mask wearing will no longer be obligatory indoors.
- WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said as many countries reduce testing, WHO is receiving less and less information about transmission and sequencing, while urging authorities to maintain surveillance of coronavirus infections. He said the world was "blind" to how the virus is spreading because of falling testing rates.
- US Vice President Kamala Harris tested positive for the virus but is not exhibiting symptoms, a spokesperson said, at a time when there has been an increase in cases among White House staffers.
- Harris, 57, will take Pfizer Inc.’s Paxlovid Covid-19 therapy pill, a decision taken “after consultation with her physicians,” spokeswoman Kirsten Allen said in a tweet.
- Following the record surge in Covid-19 cases during the Omicron-driven wave, some 58% of the US population overall and more than 75% of younger children have been infected with the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic, according to a U.S. nationwide blood survey.
- US President Joe Biden's administration is aiming to expand access to Covid-19 oral antiviral treatments like Pfizer Inc's Paxlovid by doubling the number of locations at which they are available.
- The European Commission is set to say the EU has entered a new post-emergency phase of the pandemic in which testing should be targeted and monitoring of Covid-19 cases should be similar to sample-based flu surveillance, according to a draft document seen by news agency Reuters.
- Mexico will let all children aged over 12 be registered for COVID-19 vaccination from Thursday
* Pfizer Inc and its partner BioNTech SE said that they had submitted an application to the US health regulator for the authorisation of a booster dose of their Co-19 vaccine for children aged 5 to 11 years.
- China recorded the first human infection with the H3N8 strain of bird flu, the country's health authority said, adding the risk of it spreading among people was low. A four-year-old boy from central Henan province was found to have been infected with the variant after developing a fever and other symptoms on April 5.
(With inputs from agencies)
