Tag Archives: Coronavirus

Factbox – Latest on the worldwide spread of the coronavirus

(Reuters) – The Americas is facing an impending crisis in routine vaccinations because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pan American Health Organization said, and vaccinations against the coronavirus are behind where they should be.

DEATHS AND INFECTIONS

EUROPE

* France is at the beginning of a fifth wave of the epidemic, Health Minister Olivier Veran said.

* Russia’s deaths hit a record in the previous 24 hours, two days after most of its regions emerged from a week-long workplace shutdown.

* People aged under 30 in Germany should only receive the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine as it causes fewer heart inflammations in younger people than the Moderna shot, an advisory committee said.

AMERICAS

* Over 900,000 U.S. children aged 5 to 11 are expected to have received their first COVID-19 shot by the end of Wednesday, the White House said, as the government ramped up vaccinations of younger children.

* The United States has brokered a deal between Johnson & Johnson and the COVAX vaccine-sharing program for the delivery of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine to people living in conflict zones.

* U.S. National Institutes of Health scientists played “a major role” in developing Moderna’s vaccine and the agency intends to defend its claim as co-owner of patents on the shot, NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins told Reuters.

ASIA-PACIFIC

* South Korea encouraged citizens to take booster shots as more of the elderly fell ill and reported vaccine breakthrough infections, driving serious and critical cases to a record.

* Thailand said it will set aside up to 500,000 doses of vaccines for foreign workers.

* Vietnam will by the end of this month have sufficient vaccines to cover its population, a deputy prime minister said, as the country approved India’s Covaxin vaccine for emergency use.

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

* Israel’s pandemic advisory board backed administering Pfizer’s and BioNTech’s vaccine to children age 5-11, as a fourth wave of infections subsides nationwide.

* Bahrain will cancel working with its coronavirus travel red list from Nov. 14.

MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS

* French vaccines company Valneva won European Commission approval for a deal to supply up to 60 million doses of its vaccine candidate over two years.

* Merck and partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics said Japan will pay about $1.2 billion for 1.6 million courses of their COVID-19 antiviral pill molnupiravir.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

* Wall Street lost ground on Wednesday as surging consumer prices fueled fears of a longer-than-expected wave of heightened inflation dampened investor risk appetite.

* San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Mary Daly said she expects high inflation to moderate once COVID-19 recedes, and repeated that it would be “quite premature” to raise rates now or even to speed up the Fed’s bond-buying taper.

(Compiled by Devika Syamnath and Sarah Morland; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Sriraj Kalluvila)

German coronavirus infection rate hits highest since pandemic began

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Germany’s coronavirus infection rate has risen to its highest level since the start of the pandemic, public health figures showed on Monday, and doctors warned they will need to postpone scheduled operations in coming weeks to cope.

The seven-day incidence rate – the number of people per 100,000 to be infected over the last week – rose to 201.1, higher than a previous record of 197.6 in December last year, the figures from the Robert Koch Institute showed on Monday.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases rose to 4,782,546 from 4,767,033 a day earlier. The number of deaths increased by 33 to a total of 96,558.

Christian Karagiannidis, scientific director at the DIVI association for intensive and emergency medicine, said an expected rise in coronavirus cases in coming weeks meant some scheduled operations would have to be postponed.

“We will only be able to cope with the burden of all emergencies if savings are made somewhere else, though definitely not with surgical cancer treatments,” he told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper.

Germany has already had to relocate some patients from regions with overburdened hospitals.

The three German parties in talks to form a coalition government by early December have agreed not to extend a nationwide state of emergency.

Instead, they presented a draft law late on Monday that would amend existing legislation to allow for measures such as compulsory face masks and social distancing in public spaces to continue to be enforced until March next year.

The draft law is due to be presented to the Bundestag lower house of parliament on Thursday and voted on in a special session a week later.

Bavaria state premier Markus Soeder earlier called for more decisive action in view of the new peak in the incidence rate. More needs to be done “than a little compulsory testing in old people’s homes,” he told Deutschlandfunk radio.

He called for tests to be offered free of charge again, vaccination centers to be reactivated and for states and the federal government to coordinate their strategies. Germany has abolished free testing to incentivize people to get vaccinated.

(Writing by Vera Eckert, Paul Carrel and Sarah Marsh, Additional Reporting by Alexander Ratz; editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Mark Heinrich and Alex Richardson)

Israel to rule on child COVID vaccines out of public eye amid anti-vax threats

ERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli health officials will decide behind closed doors on whether to allow child COVID-19 vaccinations, citing concerns that decision makers would otherwise not speak freely due to aggressive anti-vax rhetoric by members of the public.

Israel has been a world leader in vaccinations and more than 40% of the population has received a third shot.

Following the green light given by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for using the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine on children aged 5 to 11, Israel’s Health Ministry is set on Wednesday to hold a decisive discussion among experts on whether to follow suit.

A discussion last week was broadcast live, but the ministry on Monday said the next meeting would be closed to the public.

“All the considerations for and against this decision were discussed, including the ability to hold a free and open discourse on such a sensitive and crucial issue against the backdrop of a prevailing violent discourse, which may affect the course of the discussion,” the ministry said.

There have been an increasing number of threats against officials at the Health Ministry, police say, and at least one senior health official has been assigned a personal security detail.

(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch and Dan Williams; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

U.S. weekly jobless claims near 20-month low; labor costs surge

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell to the lowest level in nearly 20 months last week, suggesting the economy was regaining momentum amid a significant improvement in public health, though supply constraints remain.

The tightening labor market is driving up wages as companies scramble for workers, contributing to keeping inflation high. Labor costs surged in the third quarter, other data showed on Thursday, with productivity sinking at its steepest pace in 40 years. The Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday that it would this month start scaling back the amount of money it is pumping into the economy through monthly bond purchases.

“Firms are reluctant to lay off workers with strong demand and labor in short supply,” said Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Financial in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. “The big open question is what is happening to the millions of people who lost their benefits in September, or saw their benefits drop.”

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 14,000 to a seasonally adjusted 269,000 for the week ended Oct. 30, the Labor Department said. That was the lowest level since the middle of March in 2020, when mandatory business closures were being enforced to slow the first wave of COVID-19 infections. Claims have now declined for five straight weeks.

Unadjusted claims, which economists say offer a better read of the labor market, fell 7,114 to 240,216 last week. There were significant declines in filings in Missouri and Florida, which offset increases in California and Kentucky.

Claims in Kentucky were likely boosted by temporary layoffs in the automobile sector as motor vehicle manufacturers cut production because of scarce semiconductors.

The summer wave of infections driven by the Delta variant has subsided, encouraging more Americans to travel, dine out and frequent sporting venues among activities that were curtailed by the resurgence in cases. The Delta variant and shortages of goods contributed to restricting economic growth to its slowest pace in more than a year last quarter.

Claims, which have declined from a record high of 6.149 million in early April 2020, are now within a range that is generally viewed as consistent with a healthy labor market.

The number of people continuing to receive benefits after an initial week of aid dropped 134,000 to 2.105 million in the week ended Oct. 23. That was also the lowest level since the middle of March in 2020. The number of people receiving aid has declined by around 75% since early September when government-funded benefits expired.

Falling claims augur well for October’s employment report due on Friday. According to a Reuters survey of economists, nonfarm payrolls likely rose by 450,000 jobs. The economy created 194,000 jobs in September, the fewest in nine months.

U.S. stocks opened higher. The dollar rose against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury yields fell.

WORKER SHORTAGE

Expectations for an acceleration in job gains were bolstered by the ADP National Employment Report on Wednesday showing strong growth in private payrolls in October. The Conference Board’s labor market differential – derived from data on consumers’ views on whether jobs are plentiful or hard to get – hit a 21-year high.

But relentless worker shortages remain an obstacle. Caregiving needs during the pandemic, fears of contracting the coronavirus, early retirements and careers changes as well as an aging population have left businesses with 10.4 million unfilled jobs as of the end of August.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters on Wednesday that “these impediments to labor supply should diminish with further progress on containing the virus, supporting gains in employment and economic activity.”

There are concerns that the White House’s vaccine mandate, which applies to federal government contractors and businesses with 100 or more employees, could add to the worker shortages.

A report on Thursday from global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas showed job cuts announced by U.S.-based employers increased 27.5% in October to 22,822, the highest since May. It said 22% of the layoffs were people who refused to be vaccinated as per company requirements.

“The issue could push people out of the labor force or slow re-entry as people extend their searches for either employers not enforcing the mandate or workplaces where it doesn’t apply,” said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

With workers scarce, companies are raising wages. A second report from the Labor Department on Thursday showed unit labor costs, the price of labor per single unit of output, increased at an 8.3% annualized rate in the third quarter after rising at a 1.1% pace in the April-June quarter.

Labor costs rose at a 4.8% rate compared to a year ago. The report followed on the heels of news last month that wage growth in the third quarter was the largest on record. Strong wage gains, together with rising rents, challenge the Fed’s narrative that high inflation is transitory.

“The rise will add to concerns about inflation becoming more entrenched and/or the growing risk to profits, as businesses are not able to offset higher wage costs via productivity gains,” said Sarah House, a senior economist at Wells Fargo in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Worker productivity fell at a 5.0% rate last quarter, the biggest drop since the second quarter of 1981. That followed a 2.4% growth pace in the April-June period.

A third report from the Commerce Department showed the trade deficit surged 11.2% to a record $80.9 billion in September.

(Reporting By Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Andrea Ricci)

COVID-19 still rages, but some U.S. states reject federal funds to help

By Andy Sullivan

(Reuters) – As the resurgent COVID-19 pandemic burns through the rural U.S. state of Idaho, health officials say they don’t have enough tests to track the disease’s spread or sufficient medical workers to help the sick.

It’s not for want of funding.

The state’s Republican-led legislature this year voted down $40 million in federal aid available for COVID-19 testing in schools. Another $1.8 billion in pandemic-related federal assistance is sitting idle in the state treasury, waiting for lawmakers to deploy it.

Some Idaho legislators have accused Washington of overreach and reckless spending. Others see testing as disruptive and unnecessary, particularly in schools, since relatively few children have died from the disease.

“If you want your kids in school, you can’t be testing,” said state Representative Ben Adams, a Republican who represents Nampa, a city of about 100,000 people in southwestern Idaho.

Meanwhile, the state is reporting the fifth-highest infection rate in the United States, at 369 confirmed cases per 100,000 people, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Schools in at least 14 of Idaho’s 115 districts, including Nampa, have had to close temporarily due to COVID-19 outbreaks since the start of the year, according to Burbio, a digital platform that tracks U.S. school activity.

Idaho’s experience illustrates how political ideology and polarization around the COVID-19 epidemic have played a role in the decision of mostly conservative states to reject some federal funding meant to help locals officials battle the virus and its economic fallout.

For example, Idaho was one of 26 Republican-led states that ended enhanced federally funded unemployment benefits before they were due to expire in September. Gov. Brad Little claimed that money was discouraging the jobless from returning to work. At least six studies have found that the extra benefits have had little to no impact on the U.S. labor market.

Idaho has also rebuffed $6 million for early-childhood education, as some Republicans in the state said mothers should be the primary caretakers of their children.

The state also did not apply for $6 million that would have bolstered two safety-net programs that aid mothers of young children and working families. Little’s administration said it had enough money already for those programs.

Idaho has accepted some federal COVID-19 help. In fact, the rejected funds are just a small portion of the nearly $2 billion in federal relief Idaho has spent since March 2020 to fight the virus and shore up businesses and families, state figures show.

But hundreds of millions more remain untouched. Idaho has deployed just $780 million, or 30%, of the $2.6 billion it received under the federal American Rescue Plan Act, signed into law in March.

Neighboring Washington state, by contrast, has parceled out nearly three-quarters of the $7.8 billion it received under that legislation. Washington has recorded roughly 60% as many cases per capita as Idaho since the start of the pandemic, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Some in Idaho are exasperated that a state of just 1.8 million people would turn down a dime of assistance when it’s struggling to tame the pandemic.

With no testing in place, nurses in Nampa schools rely mainly on parents to let them know when a child is infected, the district’s top nurse, Rebekah Burley, told the school board in September. She said she needed three or four more staffers to track existing cases and attempt to keep people quarantined.

“We’re tired, we are stressed, and something needs to change,” she said.

REJECTING FEDERAL MONEY

The refusal by red states to accept some types of federal aid that would benefit their constituents isn’t new.

For example, a dozen Republican-controlled states have rejected billions of dollars available through the landmark 2010 Affordable Health Care Act to cover more people under the Medicaid health program for the poor, which is jointly funded by the federal government and the states. Lawmakers from these places contended their states couldn’t afford to pay their share of an expansion. (Idaho initially was among them, but its voters opted in to the Medicaid expansion through a 2018 ballot referendum, bypassing state leaders.)

That same dynamic has played out during the coronavirus crisis. Since March 2020, Congress has approved six aid packages totaling $4.7 trillion under Republican and Democratic administrations, including the bipartisan CARES Act in March 2020 and the Democratic-backed American Rescue Plan Act this year.

Florida and Mississippi didn’t apply for benefits that would give more money to low-income mothers of young children. Four states, including Idaho, North Dakota and Oklahoma, opted not to extend a program that provided grocery money to low-income families with school-age kids in summer months.

Iowa, like Idaho, turned down federal money for COVID-19 testing in schools. New Hampshire rejected money for vaccinations.

Republican lawmakers in Idaho, like those elsewhere, cite concerns about local control, restrictive terms attached to some of the aid, and the skyrocketing national debt.

“We are chaining future generations to a lifetime of financial slavery,” said Adams, the Idaho legislator.

Yet even before the pandemic, Idaho long relied on Washington for much of its budget. Federal funds account for 36% of state spending in Idaho, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers, above the national average of 32%.

State officials say they have enough money to handle the COVID-19 crisis for now.

Critics say Idaho’s reluctance to use more federal aid is a symptom of its hands-off approach to COVID-19 safety. Few public schools require masks, and local leaders have refused to impose mask mandates, limits on indoor gatherings and other steps to contain the virus.

“There’s a lot of people in our legislature and some local officials who really have not taken this seriously,” said David Pate, the former head of St. Luke’s Health System, the state’s largest hospital network.

Idaho has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the nation, with only 55% of adults and teens fully immunized, compared to 67% nationally.

HOSPITALS FULL

COVID-19 is pummeling Idaho even as cases have plunged in much of the nation. Intensive-care units statewide are full, forcing hospitals to turn away non-COVID patients. At least 627 residents died of the disease in October, well above the previous monthly death toll of last winter, records show.

Idaho received $18 million through the American Rescue Plan to hire more public-health workers, but lawmakers did nothing with that money this year.

Some local public health departments say they do not have enough staff to track the virus. “We have a lot of people doing two or three jobs right now,” said Brianna Bodily, a spokesperson for the public-health agency serving Twin Falls, a southern Idaho city of 50,000. The department is working with a 12% smaller budget than last year.

Such staff shortages have contributed to a backlog of test results statewide, which the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare says is hurting its ability to provide an up-to-date picture of the disease’s prevalence.

With funding bottled up in the state capitol, Little, the governor, announced in August that he would steer $30 million from a previous round of COVID-19 aid to school testing.

The Nampa school district has requested some of that money but has yet to set up a testing program, spokeswoman Kathleen Tuck said. Roughly 20% of the district’s students were not attending class regularly in the first weeks of the school year due to outbreaks, according to superintendent Paula Kellerer.

Nampa resident Jaci Johnson, a mother of two children, ages 10 and 13, said she and other parents have been torn over whether to send their children to class, due to the potential risk.

“Do we feed our kids to the lions, or do we keep them home and make them miserable?” Johnson said.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone and Marla Dickerson)

U.S. administers 423.9 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines – CDC

(Reuters) – The United States has administered 423,942,794 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Tuesday morning and distributed 521,502,845 doses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Those figures are up from the 423,005,384 vaccine doses the CDC said had gone into arms by Nov. 1 out of 518,561,375 doses delivered.

The agency said 221,961,370 people had received at least one dose while 192,726,406 people were fully vaccinated as of 6:00 a.m. ET on Tuesday.

The CDC tally includes two-dose vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, as well as Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot vaccine.

About 19.8 million people have received a booster dose of either Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine. Booster doses from Moderna and Johnson & Johnson were authorized by the U.S. health regulator on Oct. 20.

(Reporting by Mrinalika Roy in Bengaluru)

Factbox – Latest on the worldwide spread of the coronavirus

(Reuters) – New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared his coronavirus vaccination order for emergency responders a success, with no disruption to city services, despite a sickout by some firefighters who officials said were protesting the mandate.

DEATHS AND INFECTIONS

EUROPE

* Leaders of the world’s 20 biggest economies endorsed in Rome a global minimum tax aimed at stopping big business from hiding profits in tax havens, and also agreed to get more COVID vaccines to poorer nations.

* Britain will send 20 million vaccine doses to developing countries by the end of this year in what Prime Minister Boris Johnson will tell other world leaders is a much needed step to speed up the post-pandemic economic recovery.

* President Vladimir Putin said Russia may need the army’s help to build field hospitals for COVID-19 patients as the country battles a surge in infections that has led to a nationwide workplace shutdown.

* The Netherlands will impose new coronavirus restrictions this week in a bid to curb a recent surge in infections.

* Latvia has received shipments of emergency medical equipment from the Netherlands, Finland, Hungary and Sweden as it fights the worst surge in new COVID-19 cases in the European Union amid a low take-up of vaccinations.

AMERICAS

* The Biden administration said a planned rule requiring private-sector employers with 100 or more employees to mandate COVID-19 vaccines or regular testing will be published in the coming days.

* The United States is rolling out Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines for children aged 5 to 11 this week, but most of the 15 million shots being shipped initially are unlikely to be available before next week.

* U.S. states with the highest adult vaccination rates against COVID-19 are planning a big push to get children inoculated compared to states where hesitancy remains strong, potentially widening the gaps in protection nationwide, public health officials and experts said.

ASIA-PACIFIC

* Thailand, Australia and Israel eased international border restrictions significantly Monday for the first time in 18 months, offering a broad test of demand for travel worldwide amid the pandemic.

* New Zealand will extend coronavirus curbs for another week in its largest city of Auckland but ease some after that, with the country logging another day of record new infections.

* A declassified U.S. intelligence report saying it was plausible that the COVID-19 pandemic originated in a laboratory is unscientific and has no credibility, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said.

* Indonesia has approved the Sinovac Biotech vaccine for children aged 6-11, its food and drug agency said, following the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for younger children.

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

* The United Arab Emirates has approved for emergency use the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine for children aged 5-11, the health ministry said in a statement carried by state media.

MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS

* Novavax Inc expects regulators in India, the Philippines and elsewhere to make a decision on its COVID-19 vaccine within “weeks,” its chief executive told Reuters, after the shot received its first emergency use authorization from Indonesia.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

* Global equity markets rose at the start of a big week for central bank meetings, helped by bets of fiscal stimulus in Japan and undeterred by concerns of future interest rate hikes that have tempered bonds.

(Compiled by Aditya Soni and Federico Maccioni; Edited by Angus MacSwan and Arun Koyyur)

Russia says at least 44,265 people died from COVID-19 in Sept

MOSCOW (Reuters) – At least 44,265 people died in Russia in September due to the coronavirus and related causes, taking the toll to around 462,000 since the pandemic began, state statistics service Rosstat said on Friday.

The figure was down from a peak of 51,044 in July, although infections and fatalities began to surge again in the second half of September and have repeatedly touched record levels this month, leading authorities to reintroduce stricter health restrictions.

The overall COVID-19 death toll reported by Rosstat is almost double the figure of 236,220 published by the Russian coronavirus task force earlier on Friday.

Authorities explain the discrepancy by the fact that the task force reports deaths from COVID-19 on a daily basis that do not need additional confirmation from medical examiners, whereas Rosstat publishes full data on a monthly basis.

Some epidemiologists say that measuring excess mortality is the best way to assess the death toll during a pandemic.

Based on the new data, Reuters calculated that the number of excess deaths in Russia between April 2020 and September 2021 was more than 632,000 in comparison with the average mortality rate in 2015-2019.

Authorities have blamed the latest surge on the more virulent Delta variant and on popular reluctance to take up the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine.

(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov and Andrey Ostroukh; Writing by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Cuba to welcome tourists as home-grown vaccine drive takes hold

By Marc Frank and Nelson Acosta

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba will open its borders and ease entry requirements next month after vaccinating most of its people with home-grown COVID-19 drugs, allowing it to welcome back overseas visitors and giving a shot in the arm to its ailing tourist industry.

Tough restrictions due to the pandemic, a drastic reduction in flights to Cuba, and a U.S. ban on most travel to the Communist-run island under former U.S. President Donald Trump have hobbled the business and left it trailing behind regional competitors such as the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas and Cancun.

But as Nov. 15, Cuba will only require visitors to carry proof of vaccination or a recent PCR to enter the country, replacing what were previously among the strictest protocols in the Caribbean, involving a quarantine period and multiple PCR tests.

A fully vaccinated population will prove a key selling point for an island already well-regarded for its safety, beaches and turquoise waters, said Francisco Camps, who supervises Spanish firm Sol Melia’s 32 hotels in Cuba.

“Cuba will be one of the safest sanitary destinations and we believe that we can reach visitations similar to 2019 by the end of next year,” he said.

Cuba’s home-grown vaccines are currently under review by the World Health Organization and most trial data has yet to be peer reviewed.

But among countries with more than 1 million people, Cuba is vaccinating faster than any other, according to a Reuters tally of official data.

The government says the pace is paying dividends, with COVID-19 cases and deaths falling off at least 80% since their peak mid-summer. At least 90% of the population has received at least one dose of one of the country’s three-dose homegrown vaccines.

“We are in a favorable moment as we begin to recover our customs, to be able to visit relatives and go on vacation, as well as improve economic activity,” Tourism Minister Juan Carlos Garcia said this month.

The pandemic closed schools, entertainment venues and restaurants as it reduced to near zero the all-important tourism industry – freezing foreign trips by Cubans and visits to the country from Cubans living overseas – exacerbating an economic crisis that has left residents short of food and medicine.

Cuba received more than four million tourists in 2019, contributing 10.6 percent to gross domestic product (GDP), and much more through supply chains and informal economic activity.

But this year just 200,000 guests have arrived and only another 100,000 are expected, Minister Garcia said.

Cuban economist Ricardo Torres said those numbers meant a “devastating” 92% drop in tourism this year, compared to 2019.

“So we are talking about next year for any real tourism recovery…which generates a knock-on effect and so is decisive to economic recovery,” said Torres, a visiting professor at American University in Washington.

The U.S. embargo sharply limits trade with Cuba, so the country depends heavily on flows of foreign currency and basic goods that travelers and the Cuban diaspora bring to the island.

Despite mounting optimism as tourism resumes, officials have cautioned economic recovery will be more gradual than initially thought following a sharp drop of 10.9% last year and another 2% through June.

The Varadero beach resort is already partially open, including for the domestic market, for which it is the favorite destination.

And life is slowly returning to the colonial district of Havana as it prepares to once more welcome visitors after a 19-month hiatus.

“Old Havana has been sad all this time because there have been no tourists,” said Ernesto Alejandro Labrada, owner of the Antojos restaurant, now packed with Cubans enjoying a meal before the visitors return.

(Reporting by Marc Frank; additional reporting by Nelson Acosta, editing by Dave Sherwood and Angus MacSwan)

Factbox – Latest on the worldwide spread of the coronavirus

(Reuters) – Moderna Inc said on Monday its COVID-19 vaccine generated a strong immune response in children aged six to 11 years and that it plans to submit the data to global regulators soon.

EUROPE

* The European Union’s drug regulator said it has concluded in its review that Moderna’s COVID-19 booster vaccine may be given to people aged 18 years and above, at least six months after the second dose.

** Russia reported a record high number of daily COVID-19 cases and some central European countries imposed fresh restrictions on Monday, as a new wave of the pandemic gathered pace.

* Spain reached the grim milestone of 5 million COVID-19 cases during the pandemic.

* The Dutch government may impose new coronavirus restrictions to reduce pressure on hospitals struggling to deal with a swelling number of COVID-19 patients.

AMERICAS

* U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday signed an order imposing new vaccine requirements for most foreign national air travelers and lifting severe travel restrictions on China, India and much of Europe effective Nov. 8.

* The Biden administration said it will invest $70 million to boost the availability and lower costs of rapid, over-the-counter COVID-19 tests in the United States.

* Venezuela reopened public schools and universities which serve more than 11 million students, though some schools remained closed for repairs or because of lack of staff.

ASIA-PACIFIC

* China’s latest COVID-19 outbreak is increasingly likely to spread further, a health official said on Sunday, as authorities urged all regions to step up monitoring and called for a reduction in travel across provinces.

* Competitors in the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics will be subject to daily tests for COVID-19 and will be required to remain in a closed loop that includes transport between the various games venues.

* Indonesia is “finalizing” a deal with Merck & Co to procure its experimental antiviral pills to treat COVID-19 ailments.

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

* South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare is aiming to ramp up its COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing capacity to 1.3 billion doses a year by February 2024, up from a current annual output of around 250 million doses, the company’s CEO told Reuters.

* Namibia will suspend its rollout of Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine, days after the drugs regulator in neighboring South Africa flagged concerns about its safety for people at risk of HIV.

MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS

* Scientists at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said the likely benefits of giving the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to 5 to 11 year old’s clearly outweigh the risks of rare cases of heart inflammation.

* COVID-19 patients who require surgery appear to face fewer complications if they have previously been vaccinated against the flu, new data suggest.

* U.S. drugmaker Merck & Co Inc said the European Union’s drug regulator has initiated a real-time review of its experimental COVID-19 antiviral drug for adults.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

* Global equity markets rose, while U.S. Treasury yields dipped as investors were buoyed by a better-than-expected U.S. corporate earnings season that kicks into gear this week.

* The European Union disbursed 600 million euros ($698 million) to Ukraine, the second tranche of an aid program to help its eastern European neighbor through the economic shock of the pandemic.

(Compiled by Aditya Soni and Uttaresh. V; Editing by Anil D’Silva and Arun Koyyur)