1 month ago
1 Here are the latest developments in the coronavirus crisis.
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The United States set a daily record for new coronavirus cases a day after the presidential election, while Italy locked down the financial capital of Milan and Indonesia fell into recession for the first time in over two decades.
EUROPE
* Denmark will cull its mink population of up to 17 million after a mutation of the coronavirus found in the animals spread to humans, the prime minister said on Wednesday.
* Poland will announce more restrictions on Wednesday, as daily infections and deaths reached new records, while Hungary will close entertainment venues and impose a night-time curfew.
* British employers cut their hiring for permanent positions for the first time in three months in October and relied increasingly on temporary staff in the face of a second wave of restrictions, a survey showed.
AMERICAS
* US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Congress needed to approve a new coronavirus aid bill by the end of 2020 as lawmakers return to work following Tuesday's elections.
* Coronavirus patients in US hospitals breached 50 000 on Tuesday, the highest level in nearly three months, as a surge in infections threatens to push the nation's health care system to the edge of capacity.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* Mainland China has barred entry to some travellers from Britain and Belgium and set strict testing requirements on visitors from the United States, France and Germany, as it reimposed border restrictions in response to rising global cases.
* Australia has agreed to purchase another 50 million doses of two more Covid-19 vaccines, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said, as Canberra aims to complete a mass inoculation programme within months.
MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
* Cyprus announced new restrictions on Wednesday to fight a resurgence of Covid-19 after a rise in cases in recent weeks.
* Bahrain has granted emergency approval for the use of a Chinese vaccine candidate currently in phase III trials on frontline workers, state news agency BNA said.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* Chilean President Sebastian Pinera said the country's health regulator had given the go-ahead for clinical trials of AstraZeneca PLC's Covid-19 vaccine.
* The Covid-19 vaccine developed by the University of Oxford could present late-stage trial results before year end, the chief trial investigator for the vaccine said.
- Reuters
Swedish PM self-isolating after a contact met with Covid-19 case
Sweden's prime minister, Stefan Lofven, said on Thursday he was self-isolating after he found out that a person close to him had met someone who was later confirmed to have Covid-19.
Lofven said the person close to him, who was not identified, had tested negative but that on medical advice, he and his wife would self-isolate.
"I am distance-working. We feel fine and do not have any symptoms," he said in a statement on Facebook.
He said he and his wife would take a coronavirus test as quickly as possible.
- Reuters
Australia orders more Covid-19 vaccines for total of 135 million doses
The Australian government has agreed to purchase two more Covid-19 vaccines in development, beefing up the country's prospective arsenal against the pandemic to 135 million doses as it aims to complete a mass inoculation programme within months.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Thursday the government will buy 40 million vaccine doses from Novavax, and 10 million from Pfizer and BioNTech.
That adds to the 85 million doses Australia has already committed to buy from AstraZeneca and CSL Ltd should trials prove successful, taking the country's total anticipated outlay to A$3.2 billion ($2.3 billion).
"We aren't putting all our eggs in one basket," Morrison told reporters in Sydney.
Health Minister Greg Hunt said the Novavax and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, which will be manufactured in the United States and Europe, would complement the AstraZeneca and CSL products, which would be manufactured in Australia.
"That means we are now in a very strong position with the portfolio of four different vaccines, two protein, one viral vector and one MRMA, which is the Pfizer vaccine, and that's innovative - the world hasn't had an MRMA vaccine before," Hunt told TV broadcaster Nine Network.
The Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca and Novavax vaccines are considered to be among the leading candidates in the global race to receive regulatory approval.
- Reuters
Bank of England to unveil more stimulus as lockdown resumes
The Bank of England is set Thursday to boost its cash stimulus to fight financial fallout from the coronavirus, as England enters a second lockdown.
Concluding a regular meeting, the BoE is also likely to revise down central bank forecasts for UK economic growth amid deadlock over Britain's post-Brexit trade agreement with the European Union.
The BoE is widely predicted to pump out an extra £100 billion ($130 billion) under its long-running quantitative easing programme, bringing the total to £845 billion.
Analysts expect its key interest rate to stay at a record low 0.1% as the bank refrains for now from taking borrowing costs into negative territory for the first time.
Thursday's decisions come as England begins a minimum four weeks of stay-at-home restrictions, as the UK government seeks to stem a second wave of Covid-19 after similar actions elsewhere in Europe.
"Overall, weaker demand and rising uncertainty around a second (UK) wave will warrant further stimulus," said Deutsche Bank economist Sanjay Raja.
He added: "With uncertainty picking up both at home and abroad, downward revisions to the growth outlook appear inevitable."
UK economic recovery hopes have been shattered after UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's decision at the weekend to put England into a second lockdown - prompting the government to extend a significant jobs support scheme until the end of November.
Britain has been among the worst-affected countries by the virus outbreak, with 47 000 deaths from more than one million positive cases, but Johnson's decision to put England in a fresh lockdown came as a surprise.
- AFP
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