Tag Archives: COVID-19

U.S. extends travel curbs at Canada and Mexico land borders

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States on Friday extended the closure of its land borders with Canada and Mexico to non-essential travel such as tourism through Sept. 21 despite Ottawa’s decision to open its border to vaccinated Americans.

The latest 30-day extension by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), came after Canada said in July it would start allowing in fully vaccinated U.S. visitors starting Aug. 9 for non-essential travel after the COVID-19 pandemic prompted a lengthy ban that many businesses have called crippling.

“In coordination with public health and medical experts, DHS continues working closely with its partners across the United States and internationally to determine how to safely and sustainably resume normal travel,” DHS said on Twitter.

The United States has continued to extend the extraordinary restrictions on Canada and Mexico on a monthly basis since March 2020, when they were imposed to address the spread of COVID-19. Reuters reported this week the extension was expected.

The latest restrictions extend the prohibitions beyond the end of the busy U.S. summer tourism season. Airline officials say it will be at least weeks and potentially months before any U.S. travel restrictions are lifted, citing the rising number of COVID-19 cases.

The U.S. land border restrictions do not bar U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents from returning to the United States.

Separate from the Canada and Mexico land border restrictions, the United States bars most non-U.S. citizens who within the last 14 days have been in the United Kingdom, the 26 Schengen countries in Europe without border controls, Ireland, China, India, South Africa, Iran and Brazil.

The White House confirmed on Aug. 5 it may require visitors from abroad to be vaccinated as part of its plans to eventually reopen international travel but it had yet to decide and would not immediately lift restrictions.

The White House in June launched interagency working groups with the European Union, Britain, Canada and Mexico to look at how eventually to lift travel and border restrictions.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Gareth Jones and Timothy Heritage)

NYPD orders police officers to get a jab or mask up while on duty

By Tyler Clifford and Barbara Goldberg

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York City’s 36,000 police officers now have a simple choice: either get vaccinated against coronavirus or wear masks at all times while on duty.

The department issued the bulletin spelling out the order earlier this week, said Sergeant Edward Riley, an NYPD spokesman. The order came in response to a lagging vaccination rate among NYPD officers at a time when the Delta variant has fueled a surge of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations across the country.

Among New York police officers, the current vaccination rate is about 47%, Riley said in an emailed response to questions from Reuters. That falls well short of the 68% rate for all adult New Yorkers who are fully vaccinated, according to city data.

“Since vaccinations became available we have encouraged our employees, especially those who have contact with the public, to get vaccinated,” Riley said, adding that the order also applies to civilian employees of the department.

All members of the force are required to wear a face covering when interacting with the public, regardless of vaccination status, the order said.

Several officers, all unmasked, were seen patrolling outside an NYPD precinct in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan just before noon on Thursday. They declined to comment to Reuters when asked for their thoughts on the order.

Two of the officers stood about a dozen feet away from a masked civilian who was airing grievances about property that was allegedly confiscated.

The NYPD bulletin said “appropriate disciplinary action will be taken for unvaccinated members found not wearing a face covering when required.” But it did not specify possible punishments.

Police unions that represent NYPD members, including the Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The United States recorded more than 1,000 coronavirus deaths on Wednesday, the second time in as many days the daily tally has crossed that threshold, according to data compiled by Reuters. The country last reported that many daily deaths in March.

With Wednesday’s count, the United States has averaged more than 800 deaths daily in the past seven days, a stretch not seen since April. Hospitalizations are at the highest since February.

The NYPD, which has had 59 police officers die of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, is not the only police department that is requiring vaccinations for its officers.

In Denver, Mayor Michael Hancock set a deadline of Sept. 30 for full vaccination for all city employees, including police officers. Masks are optional only for those granted a medical or religious exemption, Kelli Christensen, Denver Department of Public Safety spokeswoman, said in an email.

In the small Midwest town of Venice, Illinois, population 1,890, the entire police force has been infected with the virus and all six full-time officers are quarantining, KMOV4 reported.

“My chief even has COVID-19 and he’s sounding terrible,” Mayor Tyrone Echols told the news station.

The Venice Police Department declined to comment to Reuters and the Madison County Sheriff’s Department, which is reportedly covering the area while the local officers are in quarantine, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Tyler Clifford and Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Dan Grebler)

New studies on vaccine efficacy against Delta, kids’ noses have more immunity

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – Here is a summary of some recent studies on COVID-19. They include research that warrants further study to corroborate the findings and that have yet to be certified by peer review.

Vaccines’ efficacy against infection weakens

The COVID-19 vaccines available in the United States are still highly effective at preventing hospitalization but their effectiveness against new infections has decreased as the Delta variant spread, according to new studies published on Wednesday in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. None of the studies could tell whether the breakthrough infections were due to waning immunity, reduced protection against the Delta variant, or a combination of factors. Still, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on Wednesday that COVID-19 booster shots would be made available to all Americans beginning in September. The new studies found:

– Vaccine effectiveness against any SARS-CoV-2 infection – mild or severe – dropped to 53.1% in late June to early August, from 74.7% before Delta became predominant, according to a study of U.S. long-term care facilities.

– Vaccine efficacy for preventing new infections dropped from 91.7% to 79.8% between early May and late July, though efficacy at preventing hospitalization remained above 90%, according to a study by New York State health officials.

– Protection from hospitalization lasts at least six months, according to a study in 18 U.S. states. It found that 24 weeks after full vaccination with an mRNA vaccine, efficacy was 84%, and it was 90% among adults without immunocompromising conditions.

Children’s noses are “pre-activated” to fight the virus

Children’s noses may be better than adults’ at defending against infection because of “pre-activated” immunity against the coronavirus, a new study suggests. Researchers analyzed nasal swabs from 45 infected patients, including 24 children, and from 42 healthy individuals, including 18 children. In nasal-lining cells and immune cells from the children’s swab samples, they saw higher levels of genetic material that can sense the presence of the virus and trigger the immune system to defend against it. Higher amounts of these sensors result in stronger early immune responses in children than in adults, according to a report published on Wednesday in Nature Biotechnology. The nasal samples from the children were also more likely than adult samples to contain immune cells known as T cells that play roles in fighting infection and in developing long-lasting immunity, the researchers found. Ultimately, the authors concluded, the effects may lead to a reduction in the ability of the virus to reproduce and help children to clear it from the body faster. “In fact,” they added, “several studies already showed that children are much quicker in eliminating SARS-CoV-2 compared to adults, consistent with the concept that they shut down viral replication earlier.”

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Tiffany Wu)

U.S. to begin offering COVID-19 vaccine booster shots in September

By Carl O’Donnell and Ahmed Aboulenein

(Reuters) -The U.S. government said on Wednesday it plans to make COVID-19 vaccine booster shots widely available starting on Sept. 20 as infections rise from the coronavirus Delta variant, citing data indicating diminishing protection from the vaccines over time.

U.S. officials are prepared to offer a third shot to Americans who completed their initial inoculation in two-dose COVID-19 vaccines made by Moderna Inc and by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech AG at least eight months ago, the Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement.

Initial booster doses will be given to Americans who received the two-dose vaccines, but U.S. health officials said they anticipate that people who received the single-dose Johnson & Johnson shot, the other COVID-19 vaccine approved in the United States, will also need boosters. The United States did not begin administering J&J shots until March.

The booster shots initially will focus upon healthcare workers, nursing home residents and older people, among the first groups to be vaccinated in late 2020 and early 2021, top U.S. health officials said in a joint statement.

There is mounting evidence that protection from the vaccines wanes after six or more months, particularly in older people with underlying health conditions. The officials cited this in their decision on boosters, but stressed that the U.S.-approved shots have proven “remarkably effective” in reducing the risk of severe disease, hospitalizations and deaths.

The officials included President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci as well as the heads of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health.

“The available data make very clear that protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection begins to decrease over time … and in association with the dominance of the Delta variant, we are starting to see evidence of reduced protection against mild and moderate disease,” the officials said.

“We conclude that a booster shot will be needed to maximize vaccine-induced protection and prolong its durability,” they added.

U.S. officials previously authorized a third dose of the vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna for people with weak immune systems.

In recent weeks, several other countries also have decided to offer booster shots to older adults as well as people with weak immune systems, including Israel, France and Germany.

DELTA VARIANT CONCERNS

Vaccinations have been widely available in the United States, unlike many other countries, but the highly infectious Delta variant has caused what experts describe as a pandemic of the unvaccinated as a significant number of people choose not to get inoculated.

The United States leads the world in reported COVID-19 cases and deaths. Daily U.S. cases soared from fewer than 10,000 in early July to more than 150,000 in August as the Delta variant took hold. The new cases include some vaccinated people, though they are far less likely to experience severe disease or death than the unvaccinated.

According to CDC data, more than 72% of Americans 18 and older have received at least one vaccine dose and nearly 62% are fully vaccinated. Of the total population, the CDC said 59.9% have received at least one dose and 50.9% are fully vaccinated.

More than a million Americans independently sought an extra vaccine dose before the official decision on boosters was announced, according to federal data.

A study by an Israeli healthcare provider released on Wednesday found that a third dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech shot is 86% effective in people over age 60.

It followed another Israeli study released this week that showed evidence of waning immunity from COVID-19 vaccines in the months after inoculation, raising the risk of serious infection among the elderly and people with compromised immune systems.

“The surprise factor is the vaccine vulnerability – people who are vaccinated became vulnerable much earlier than expected,” Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in California, said about the study.

“The whole dynamic of boosters is being rewritten,” Topol added.

The U.S. announcement goes against guidance from the World Health Organization, whose chief scientist said on Wednesday current data does not indicate the need for booster shots. A WHO adviser said vaccine doses should first go to people in poorer countries who have not yet received an initial inoculation.

The decision represented a shift from the optimism of U.S. health authorities in May in curbing the pandemic when Biden set a goal to vaccinate 70% of American adults with at least one dose by July 4. That goal was achieved about a month late.

The U.S. booster plan is dependent on the FDA determining that a third dose of the two-dose vaccines is safe and effective, and a favorable recommendation from CDC advisers.

(Reporting by Carl O’Donnell in New York and Ahmed Aboulenein in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham and Grant McCool)

Japan extends COVID-19 emergency lockdown as cases surge

By Daniel Leussink, Leika Kihara and Sakura Murakami

TOKYO/FUKUOKA, Japan (Reuters) – Japan on Tuesday extended its state of emergency in Tokyo and other regions and announced new measures covering seven more prefectures to counter a spike in COVID-19 infections that is threatening the medical system.

The current state of emergency, the fifth of the pandemic so far, was due to expire on Aug. 31 but will now last until Sept. 12. Tokyo announced 4,377 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, after a record 5,773 on Friday.

“The Delta variant raging across the world is causing unprecedented cases in our country,” Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said. “Serious cases are increasing rapidly and severely burdening the medical system, particularly in the capital region.”

The emergency will now cover nearly 60% of Japan’s population with the prefectures of Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Shizuoka, Kyoto, Hyogo and Fukuoka included. Less strict “quasi-emergency” measures will be applied to a further 10 prefectures.

Restaurants are being asked to close early and stop serving alcohol in exchange for a subsidy. Suga announced a fresh subsidy of 300 billion yen ($2.7 billion) to help businesses cope with the fall-out.

Suga said the government would also request occupancy limits at department stores and ask people to reduce by half the times they go to crowded areas.

Speaking at a news conference explaining the steps, the government’s top health advisor, Shigeru Omi, said Japan needed to come up with steps to “prod individuals to avoid taking action that could potentially spread infections”.

He said that could be done under the current laws, which are mostly based on voluntary cooperation, but added that there’s also room for a nationwide debate on how to do this under a new legal framework”. He did not go into details.

Speaking beside Omi, Suga said the government would consider crafting legislation to swiftly prepare enough hospital beds for critically ill COVID-19 patients, and speed up vaccinations.

Suga dismissed the idea of imposing a blanket, nationwide state of emergency, saying that would pose “excessive restrictions for some prefectures” that were succeeding in containing new infections.

FALLING SHARES

Japanese shares fell for a fourth day on Tuesday as concerns about the Delta variant overshadowed optimism about upbeat earnings.

Japan’s case fatality rate stands at about 1.3%, compared with 1.7% in the United States and 2.1% in Britain.

But health experts fear the number of deaths could soar in Japan as the Delta variant tears through the younger population and hospitals become too crowded to treat serious cases.

“Many experts expressed an extremely strong sense of crisis about the medical care situation and the status of infections,” Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said after consulting with health advisers.

More than 80% of Tokyo’s critical care beds are occupied, and the rate is already 100% in neighboring Kanagawa prefecture. Serious cases climbed to records of 276 in Tokyo and 1,646 nationwide on Tuesday.

Dai-ichi Life Research Institute estimated that the government’s extended and expanded state of emergency would lead to a total economic loss of about 1.2 trillion yen ($11 billion) and could cost 66,000 jobs.

That was about 60% higher than an expected loss of about 750 billion yen if the emergency remained at its current scope and schedule.

Repeated states of emergency have had a limited effect in slowing the spread of the virus.

Takuto Honda, 20, a university student in the southwestern city of Fukuoka who works part-time at a karaoke shop, said a harder lockdown with government pay-outs would be more effective. “If there is money to host the Olympics, there should be money to compensate us,” he said.

Pandemic fatigue and summer vacations have also been blamed for contributing to the latest COVID-19 surge in a nation where only around 37% of people have been fully vaccinated.

(Reporting by Sakura Murakami in FUKUOKA, Daniel Leussink, Leika Kihara and Rocky Swift in TOKYO; Additional reporting by Antoni Slodkowski; Editing by Susan Fenton, Giles Elgood and Mark Heinrich)

Mail-in voting set to soar in Canada election, could undermine Trudeau, New Democratic Party

By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Mail-in voting in Canada is set to soar ahead of the Sept. 20 election amid fears of COVID-19, and the complex registration process could deter voters, possibly undermining Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s bid for a majority government.

Pollsters say mainly Liberal and left-leaning voters would like to use mail-in balloting, while Conservatives prefer to vote in person. But Liberal strategists are concerned the sign-up process for casting ballots by mail could discourage their supporters from using it and lead them to not vote at all.

Trudeau, 49, launched the campaign on Sunday, hoping that high vaccination rates and a post-pandemic economic rebound would help him rebuff a challenge from the opposition Conservatives and regain the parliamentary majority he lost two years ago.

Part of the problem is there is no substantive history of voting by mail during Canadian federal elections, where electors overwhelmingly go in person to polling stations. Of the 18.4 million people who cast their ballots in the 2019 election, just under 50,000 chose mail, and most of them were abroad.

But concern over COVID-19 means anywhere from 4 million to 5 million people out of 27 million potential voters could choose the mail this time, says Elections Canada, the independent body running the vote.

Some 71% of the country’s eligible population is fully vaccinated, but cases are creeping higher – mostly among the unvaccinated – in a fourth wave being driven by the Delta variant.

People who want to vote by mail must ask Elections Canada for a special ballot and provide proof of identity, either by applying online and sending a digital scan of documents, or by mail by with photocopies of identification.

“It is true that voting by mail demands an effort on the part of the elector,” Deputy Chief Electoral Officer Michel Roussel said in a phone interview. “We will insist, the moment the election is called, that if you plan to vote by mail, start now, because it is complicated.”

To better inform voters how to vote by mail, Elections Canada plans an advertising blitz once the campaign starts, using the Web, radio and television as well as social media channels.

But two Liberal sources who said they could not speak on the record said they feared that elderly voters – who tend to vote more than other age cohorts – would be put off by the application process while the fear of COVID-19 might keep them from voting in person.

“Support for mail-in is higher among New Democrats and Liberals and least popular among Conservatives,” said EKOS Research pollster Frank Graves, who said some 20% of mostly left-leaning voters want to vote by mail.

“If mail-in is more difficult than people would like, it would be least damaging to the Conservatives, because it’s not something they’re planning on using much anyway.”

Liberal and Conservative party spokespeople did not comment officially on the possible effects of mail-in balloting.

Opinion polls show the Liberals still might not have enough votes to win an outright majority in parliament.

Nationally, Liberals would win 35% of the vote, compared with 30% for the main opposition Conservative Party and 19% for the left-leaning New Democrats, a Leger Marketing poll showed on Aug. 12.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren, edited by Steve Scherer and Jonathan Oatis)

Overwhelmed Philippines hospitals hit by staff resignations

By Neil Jerome Morales and Karen Lema

MANILA (Reuters) -Exhausted by the COVID-19 workload, Loui quit her job as an intensive care unit nurse at a private hospital in the Philippines earlier this year.

The 30-year-old, who declined to give her last name for fear of reprisals, is among thousands of medical workers who have resigned during the pandemic, complaining of low pay and poor working conditions. Others have sought better jobs abroad.

“We can’t even take a proper day off because we are often called back to cover for other staff who were in quarantine or resigned,” said Loui, who was earning 20,000 pesos ($394) a month, including overtime, before she quit in March.

Hospitals fear the desertions have reached a critical point just as the Delta variant sends the number of cases soaring, as it has done elsewhere in Southeast Asia and worldwide.

The Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines (PHAPi)estimated that 40% of private hospital nurses resigned last year, but more followed new waves of infections this year. Public hospitals are facing similar challenges.

“If we want to increase bed capacity, that is easy, but the problem is the nursing component,” PHAPi’s president, Jose Rene de Grano, told Reuters.

More than a year and a half into the pandemic, reported coronavirus infections in the Philippines have soared to more than 1.75 million, the second highest in Southeast Asia, while deaths have exceeded 30,000.

‘DEMORALIZED’

Philippine Nurses Association President Melbert Reyes said he feared that hospitals could see even more nurses quit if their demands for better benefits and conditions went unmet.

“A lot of our nurses are demoralized,” Reyes told Reuters.

Union leaders in several hospitals in virus hot spots last week threatened to strike, while a nursing group warned that dozens could resign over unpaid allowance and benefits.

The state auditor last week flagged “deficiencies” involving 67.3 billion pesos, casting doubts on the regularity of related transactions in the health ministry’s pandemic response.

“But to the issue of whether the money has been stolen, that is pure bullshit,” Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte said in a weekly national address late on Monday.

The lure of better paying jobs abroad is also making it harder to fill nursing vacancies, said Donnel John Siason, president of the union at the University of Santo Tomas hospital.

This year nearly 7,000 nurses have moved abroad, including to the United States and Britain, joining hundreds of thousands of other Filipino nurses already working abroad.

Dave Santos, a 39-year old nurse at the Quezon City General Hospital, said he hoped to leave the Philippines too.

“We are giving our best,” said Santos, a father of three. “But we are just people who get tired and we have needs.”

($1 = 50.7150 Philippine pesos)

(Reporting by Karen Lema; Editing by Matthew Tostevin, Gareth Jones and Jonathan Oatis)

Children hospitalized with COVID-19 in U.S. hits record number

By Gabriella Borter

(Reuters) -The number of children hospitalized with COVID-19 in the United States hit a record high of just over 1,900 on Saturday, as hospitals across the South were stretched to capacity fighting outbreaks caused by the highly transmissible Delta variant.

The Delta variant, which is rapidly spreading among mostly the unvaccinated portion of the U.S. population, has caused hospitalizations to spike in recent weeks, driving up the number of confirmed and suspected pediatric COVID-19 hospitalizations to 1,902 on Saturday, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Reuters includes confirmed and suspected COVID-19 cases for hospitalization, case and death data.

Children currently make up about 2.4% of the nation’s COVID-19 hospitalizations. Kids under 12 are not eligible to receive the vaccine, leaving them more vulnerable to infection from the new, highly transmissible variant.

“This is not last year’s COVID. This one is worse and our children are the ones that are going to be affected by it the most,” Sally Goza, former president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, told CNN on Saturday.

The numbers of newly hospitalized COVID-19 patients aged 18-29, 30-39 and 40-49 also hit record highs this week, according to data from the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The spike in new cases has ramped up tension between conservative state leaders and local districts over whether school children should be required to wear masks as they head back to the classroom this month.

School districts in Florida, Texas and Arizona have mandated that masks be worn in schools, defying orders from their Republican state governors that ban districts from imposing such rules. The administration of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has threatened to withhold funding from districts that impose mask requirements, and Texas Governor Greg Abbott is appealing to the state Supreme Court to overturn Dallas County’s mask mandate, the Dallas Morning News reported on Friday.

A fifth of the nation’s COVID-19 hospitalizations are in Florida, where the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients hit a record 16,100 on Saturday, according to a Reuters tally. More than 90% of the state’s intensive care beds are filled, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services.

INCREASED HOSPITALIZATIONS

The nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, came out in support of mandatory vaccination for its members this week. NEA President Becky Pringle said on Saturday that schools should employ every mitigation strategy, from vaccines to masks, to ensure that students can come back to their classrooms safely this school year.

“Our students under 12 can’t get vaccinated. It’s our responsibility to keep them safe. Keeping them safe means that everyone who can be vaccinated should be vaccinated,” Pringle told CNN.

The U.S. now has an average of about 129,000 new COVID-19 cases per day, a rate that has doubled in a little over two weeks, according to a Reuters tally. The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients is at a six-month high, and an average of 600 people are dying each day of COVID-19, double the death rate seen in late July.

Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oregon have reported record numbers of COVID-19 hospitalizations this month, according to a Reuters tally, pushing healthcare systems to operate beyond their capacity.

“Our hospitals are working to maximize their available staff and beds, including the use of conference rooms and cafeterias,” Florida Hospital Association President Mary Mayhew said in a statement on Friday.

In Oregon, Governor Kate Brown said on Friday that she was sending 500 National Guard members to assist overwhelmed hospitals, with 1,500 members in total available to help.

In Jackson, Mississippi, federal medical workers are assisting understaffed local teams at a 20-bed triage center in the parking garage of the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) to accommodate the overflow of COVID-19 patients.

Fifteen children and 99 adults were hospitalized with COVID-19 at UMMC as of Saturday morning, the hospital said. More than 77% of those patients were unvaccinated.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter and Lisa Shumaker; editing by Diane Craft and Aurora Ellis)

Factbox-Latest on the worldwide spread of the coronavirus

(Reuters) – The Tokyo Paralympics will take place generally without spectators, organizers said, as the government was set to prolong COVID-19 emergency measures in the capital and other regions that will run through the Games.

EUROPE

* The European Guarantee Fund, which is managed by the Investment Bank Group, secured European Union approval to provide guarantees on synthetic securitization tranches to help companies in 22 EU countries affected by the pandemic.

* Poland will send 650,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Ukraine, the minister in charge of the Polish vaccination drive told state news agency PAP.

* North Macedonia has reimposed restrictions on access to cafes, restaurants and public events in a bid to subdue a fresh spike in infections and nudge citizens to get vaccinated, prompting public anger and protests.

* All 16- and 17-year-olds in England will be offered their first vaccine dose by Aug. 23, according to a target set by British Health Secretary Sajid Javid.

ASIA-PACIFIC

* Thailand, a regional manufacturer of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus shots, is seeking to borrow 150,000 doses of the same vaccine from the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, an official said, amid a Thai supply shortage.

* Indonesia extended its curbs though relaxed some measures in eight unspecified areas on the most populous islands of Java and Bali, as fewer infections have been reported in cities.

* Hong Kong’s government said it would upgrade 15 overseas places including the United States, Spain and France to “high risk” from “medium risk” by Aug. 20, meaning international arrivals from those countries will face lengthened quarantine due to a resurgence of the coronavirus.

* Taiwan has rejected an application for the emergency use of UBI Pharma’s vaccine candidate, the government said.

AMERICAS

* As the Delta variant of the virus sweeps through Mexico’s cities, more adults in their 30s and 40s are ending up in the hospital with polls showing vaccine hesitancy is rising in younger age groups.

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

* Turkey is allowing people who were inoculated with Sinovac’s coronavirus vaccine to take an additional Pfizer dose as it looks to ease travel to countries that have not approved the Chinese shot, the health ministry said.

MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS

* Europe’s drugs regulator said it was evaluating the use of Roche’s arthritis drug, Actemra, in hospitalized adults with severe COVID-19, its latest review of a potential coronavirus treatment.

* The UK’s health regulator said coronavirus vaccines did not raise the risk of miscarriage, and that it had not found any link between the shots and changes to menstrual periods.

* GlaxoSmithKline and CureVac said a study on macaque monkeys showed their jointly-developed vaccine candidate to be “strongly improved” in protecting against the virus compared with CureVac’s first attempt.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

* A surprisingly sharp slowdown in Chinese economic activity and a rapid Taliban takeover in Afghanistan helped drive global shares lower Monday.

* The initial success of Israel’s COVID-19 vaccination rollout that enabled an opening of the economy bolstered growth in the second quarter, official figures showed.

* Thailand’s economy unexpectedly grew in the second quarter from the first helped by exports and government spending, but spiking cases continue to batter domestic activity and tourism, restraining its fragile recovery.

(Compiled by Veronica Snoj and Federico Maccioni; Edited by Shounak Dasgupta)

U.S. judge will not block CDC’s new COVID-19 residential eviction ban

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A U.S. judge on Friday rejected a bid to block a residential eviction moratorium put in place last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), despite raising questions about the new order’s legality.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich on procedural grounds is a win for the Biden administration. She said the realtor groups must go to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to challenge the new 60-day CDC moratorium set to expire on Oct. 3.

Under heavy political pressure, the CDC reversed course on Aug. 3 and issued a slightly narrower eviction moratorium just three days after the prior one expired. The current moratorium covers nearly 92% of U.S. counties, but that could change based on COVID-19 conditions.

More than 15 million people in 6.5 million U.S. households are currently behind on rental payments, according to a study, and collectively owe more than $20 billion to landlords.

Friedrich in May declared the CDC eviction moratorium, which was first issued in September 2020, unlawful but delayed her ruling from immediately taking effect.

In June, a divided Supreme Court agreed to let the CDC moratorium remain in effect after the agency announced it would allow the ban to expire on July 31.

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh issued a concurring opinion saying that in his view extending the CDC moratorium past July 31 would need “clear and specific congressional authorization (via new legislation).”

Before that, the appeals court had issued a ruling upholding a decision to put Friedrich’s ruling on hold.

Landlord groups argued Kavanaugh’s ruling meant Friedrich should immediately block the new moratorium.

Friedrich said she would have blocked the eviction order but for the appeals court ruling.

“The court’s hands are tied. The Supreme Court did not issue a controlling opinion in this case, and circuit precedent provides that the votes of dissenting justices may not be combined with that of a concurring justice to create binding law,” she wrote.

The CDC declined to comment on Friday and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis)