CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

A new wave in France of Covid-19 infections fuelled by emerging variants of the disease should peak towards end-July, the French government's top scientific adviser Jean-Francois Delfraissy said.

“The peak is not yet here, this peak of infections will probably be for end-July,” Delfraissy told RTL radio.

“Then the BA.5 variant will reappear, if it is not overtaken by another variant ...in autumn,” he added.

South Korea has authorised AstraZeneca PLC's antibody-based therapy for preventing Covid-19 infection in people with a poor immune response, increasing its options as it works to ease the pandemic burden on the healthcare system.

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety granted emergency use authorisation for 20,000 doses of Evusheld for individuals aged 12 years and older who have not been exposed to the coronavirus, Reuters reports.

Nearly 87 per cent of South Korea's 52 million people are fully vaccinated against Covid-19, while 65pc have also had a booster, government data showed.

However, individuals with compromised immune systems or those with a history of severe adverse reaction to vaccines may need alternative prevention options.

Pakistan has reported 641 coronavirus cases during the last 24 hours — the highest number of daily cases in over three months since March 10, when the daily tally was 723 cases.

According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), 18,813 Covid tests were conducted across the country yesterday, while two people died from the deadly virus. The national positivity rate now stands at 3.41 per cent.

Data from the health department shows that Karachi has been the most affected city in the recent wave with a positivity rate of 19.09pc. In the last 24 hours, 2,043 tests were conducted in the city of which 390 came out positive.

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Pakistan has reported 40 coronavirus cases and one death over the past 24 hours.

The country's infection tally has risen to 1,528,518 and death toll from the virus has climbed to 30,372.

Greece lifted Covid-19 restrictions on Sunday for foreign and domestic flights, its civil aviation authority said, ahead of the summer tourism season that officials hope will see revenues bouncing back from the pandemic slump.

To fly in or out of the country, travellers were previously required to show either a vaccination certificate, a certificate saying they had recovered from coronavirus or a negative test, according to Reuters.

From May 1, passengers and crew will need only to wear a face mask, the civil aviation authority said.

The summer tourism season typically begins after the Greek Orthodox Easter, which was on April 24. Greece is expecting high numbers of visitors this year, with officials predicting revenues reaching 80 per cent of 2019 levels. That was a record year before the pandemic brought travel to a halt.

China's capital Beijing tightened Covid restrictions on as it battled an outbreak, while Shanghai let some of its 25 million residents venture out for light and air after reporting a second day of zero infections outside of quarantine areas.

Shanghai's outbreak, which began in March, has been China's worst since the early months of the pandemic in 2020. Hundreds of thousands have been infected and the city has forbidden residents from leaving their homes, to great public anger, Reuters reports.

The outbreak in China's most populous city and the risk of a spread in Beijing are testing the government's zero-Covid approach in a year when Xi Jinping is expected to secure an unprecedented third term as president.

China's lockdowns to control the spread of Covid-19 are “cruel” and Taiwan will not follow suit, Premier Su Tseng-chang said.

Having controlled the pandemic with tough border controls and quarantines, Taiwan has been dealing with a surge in domestic infections since the start of this year, with some 75,000 infections driven by the Omicron variant.

But with more than 99 per cent of those having mild or no symptoms, a handful of deaths so far and high vaccination levels, the government has moved to ease restrictions as it seeks normalcy and to gradually reopen the island of 23 million people to the outside world.

Speaking during a visit to Taiwan's Centres for Disease Control, Su said their pandemic-containment measures had been “praised by the world”. “We will not lock down the country and cities as cruelly as China,” he said, adding Taiwan's methods were “gradual”.

China's Suzhou Abogen Biosciences Co has said its Covid-19 vaccine candidate using the messenger RNA (mRNA) technology and targeting the Omicron variant has obtained clinical trial approval in the United Arab Emirates.

With the announcement, Abogen joins Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna in trialling candidates modified specifically against Omicron, a highly transmissible variant with increased resistance to antibodies elicited by existing shots, Reuters reported.

Besides the UAE, Abogen was communicating with regulators in China and other countries on potential clinical trials for the Omicron-specific candidate, it said in a statement.

Pakistan has reported 65 coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, following which the country's infection tally has risen to 1,528,412.

Meanwhile, no coronavirus-related fatalities have been reported and the death toll stands at 30,371.

South Africa may be entering a fifth Covid wave earlier than expected after a sustained rise in infections over the past 14 days that seems to be driven by the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron sub-variants, health officials and scientists have said.

The country that has recorded the most coronavirus cases and deaths on the African continent only exited a fourth wave around January and had predicted a fifth wave could start in May or June, early in the southern hemisphere winter, Reuters reported.

Health Minister Joe Phaahla told a briefing that although hospitalisations were picking up there was so far no dramatic change in admissions to intensive care units or deaths.

Infectious disease specialist Richard Lessells told the same briefing that waning immunity from previous waves could be contributing to the earlier-than-expected resurgence in cases.

Pakistan has reported 75 coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, following which the country's infection tally has risen to 1,528,347.

Meanwhile, no coronavirus-related fatalities have been reported and the death toll stands at 30,371.

Ecuador will immediately lift mask mandates for both indoor and outdoor spaces thanks to significant gains made against coronavirus, President Guillermo Lasso said on Thursday, Reuters reported.

The decision is based on vaccination figures of 87 per cent for those aged 3 and over and Covid-19 test positivity rates of just 5 per cent, he said, as well as an effort to give second booster shots to adults.

"From today in Ecuador it will cease to be obligatory to use a face mask in open and closed spaces in all national territory," said Lasso. "It is a clear indicator that we have practically beaten Covid-19."

The number of Covid-19 patients in hospitals has fallen drastically, he added, as has the number of deaths from the virus.

Taiwan, which had been living mostly free of Covid-19, is now facing its worst outbreak since the beginning of the pandemic with over 11,000 new cases reported Thursday, according to AP.

Cases have been on the upswing since late March. In April, the island’s central authorities announced that they would no longer maintain a “zero-Covid” policy like the Chinese government’s in which they would centrally quarantine positive cases.

Instead, the government is asking people to quarantine at home if they test positive, unless they show moderate to severe symptoms.

Chen Shih-chung, the island’s health minister, announced Thursday they had found 11,353 new cases, along with two deaths. During the daily press briefing held by the Central Epidemic Command Center, he said 99.7 per cent of the cases in the current outbreak either had no symptoms or had mild symptoms.

South Korean president-elect Yoon Suk-yeol's government will compensate 5.5 million owners of small businesses for losses suffered from Covid-19 curbs, the head of his transition team said.

Yoon is expected to take office on May 10, and the team said in a statement that losses in operating income suffered by such businesses were estimated at 54 trillion won ($42 billion) because of curbs during the 2020-2021 period.

It did not say exactly how much would be paid, however, or state the size of a supplementary budget that is expected, Reuters reports.

Pakistan has reported 94 coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, according to the National Institute of Health. The country's total caseload has risen to 1,528,272.

Meanwhile, no coronavirus-related fatalities have been reported and the death toll stands at 30,371.

The Chinese capital of Beijing closed some public spaces and stepped up checks at others today, as most of the city's 22 million residents embarked on more Covid-19 mass testing aimed at averting a Shanghai-like lockdown, Reuters reports.

As Beijing rolled out three rounds of mass testing this week across a number of districts, it locked down a number of residential compounds, office blocks and a university after infections were found. Some schools, entertainment venues and tourist sites were also shut.

Across Beijing, positive cases were found among the nearly 20 million samples acquired in the first round of mass testing, but numbers remained small. The city on Thursday reported 50 new infections for April 27, up from 34 a day earlier.

European Union governments should ramp up Covid-19 immunisations of children, Reuters quotes the European Commission as saying, as it seeks a strategy to move away from the emergency phase of the pandemic, which includes plans to develop antivirals.

With a drop of cases and deaths linked to Covid-19, the EU has entered a new stage of the pandemic in which mass testing and mass reporting of cases are no longer required, EU health commissioner Stella Kyriakides said, confirming what Reuters reported on Tuesday.

But new Covid-19 surges are likely as the virus is expected to continue mutating, and therefore countries should have in place plans to shift back to emergency mode, and should ramp up vaccinations, the commission said.

Millions in Beijing's largest district have taken their second Covid-19 tests this week as the Chinese capital tried to keep an outbreak of dozens from spiralling into a crisis that could force it into a distressing Shanghai-type lockdown.

In Beijing, supermarkets have kept food and other supplies well-stocked under orders from authorities, Reuters reported.

Local officials also hoped early mass testing would spare them the drama in Shanghai, where officials waited for about a month as cases spiralled before ordering a city-wide screening campaign.

Beijing was testing the more than 3.5 million residents of its Chaoyang district on Wednesday, all of whom were screened on Monday as well. On Tuesday, 16 million from other districts were also tested and are due for another round on Thursday.

By February of this year, 58 per cent of the US population — or more than 190 million people — had been infected with Covid, according to an antibody survey carried out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published Tuesday.

The figure is far higher than the 80 million officially recorded cases, with the majority of infections undiagnosed, asymptomatic or unreported, reports AFP.

Roughly 75 per cent of people under 18 had been infected, according to a paper based on a nationally representative study of antibody levels.

There was a huge surge during last winter's Omicron wave, particularly among children. Each month from September 2021 to January 2022, the study examined some 75,000 blood specimens across 18 states, as well as 45,000 samples in February.

President Tayyip Erdogan has said that Turkey is ready to lift all measures against the coronavirus, adding that mask wearing will no longer be obligatory indoors, Reuters reports.

Speaking after the final meeting of the advisory science council, Erdogan said masks will still be mandated on public transport and in medical institutions until daily new cases drop below 1,000.

Turkey had previously lifted the requirement to wear masks outdoors and in indoor areas with good ventilation.

Three-quarters of Beijing's 22 million people lined up for Covid-19 tests as authorities in the Chinese capital raced to stamp out a nascent outbreak and avert the debilitating city-wide lockdown that has shrouded Shanghai for a month.

Having seen the struggles of China's commercial hub to meet the basic needs of its increasingly frustrated 25 million residents, people in Beijing were stocking up on food and supplies, Reuters reports.

Videos on social media showed people leaning out of Shanghai windows to beat pots and pans in anger, or play “Do you hear the people sing?”, a protest anthem from the musical “Les Miserables”, on flutes and trumpets.

A federal judge in Louisiana said on Monday that he intends to rule that US authorities cannot immediately proceed with plans to lift pandemic restrictions that empowered US agents at the Mexico border to turn back migrants without giving them a chance to seek asylum.

Reuters reported that the US District Judge Robert Summerhays stated his intention after a hearing in a case brought by 21 states against the administration of President Joe Biden. The judge said both sides would confer regarding the specific terms of a temporary restraining order and would attempt to reach agreement.

The ruling would upend a decision by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to terminate the so-called Title 42 border order by May 23. Title 42 allows US authorities to rapidly expel migrants, including asylum seekers, to Mexico and other countries to avoid overcrowding in border stations that could exacerbate the spread of Covid-19.

Pakistan has reported 91 Covid-19 recoveries during the last 24 hours, according to the government portal for tracking the spread of the disease.

The country has reported a total of 1,494,141 recoveries so far. The recovery rate is 97.8 per cent.

Pakistan has reported 100 coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, following which the country's infection tally has risen to 1,527,956.

Meanwhile, no new coronavirus-related fatalities have been reported and the death toll remains 30,369.

A breakdown of the new cases is as follows:

• Punjab: 55 cases
• Sindh: 30 cases
• Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: 12 cases
• Islamabad: 3 cases