(Reuters) – An upsurge in new coronavirus variants and poor access to vaccines in developing countries threaten the global economic recovery, finance ministers of the world’s 20 largest economies warned on Saturday.
DEATHS AND INFECTIONS
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EUROPE
* The European Union has delivered enough coronavirus vaccine doses to member states to reach a target to fully vaccinate at least 70% of adults in the bloc, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said on Saturday.
* Big businesses in Britain are rushing ahead with post-lockdown investment plans that could usher in a long-awaited improvement in the country’s weak productivity growth, a survey of chief finance officers showed.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* Taiwan’s Foxconn and TSMC said on Monday they had reached deals to buy 10 million doses of Germany’s BioNTech SE’s COVID-19 vaccine, putting the total cost of the highly politicised deal at around $350 million.
* South Korea reported 1,100 new coronavirus cases for July 11, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said on Monday, as the country’s toughest anti-COVID curbs take effect in Seoul in an attempt to quell its worst-ever outbreak.
* The Chinese sales agent for Germany’s BioNTech SE said on Sunday it had signed a deal to provide 10 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Taiwan, part of a drawn-out and highly politicised process for the island to access the shots.
* The prospect of an extended lockdown in Sydney loomed on Monday as Australian health officials reported yet another record daily rise in COVID-19 cases for the year, fuelled by the highly infectious Delta variant.
* Japan’s Fukushima prefecture will bar spectators from the Olympic events it hosts this summer due to rising COVID-19 infections, its governor said on Saturday, reversing a position announced two days earlier by organisers.
AMERICAS
* COVID-19 vaccine maker Pfizer Inc will meet with federal health officials as soon as Monday to discuss the need for a booster dose of the coronavirus vaccine as it prepares to seek authorization, the company said on Sunday.
* Thousands of Cubans joined street protests on Sunday in the biggest anti-government demonstrations on the Communist-run island in decades amid its worst economic crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union and a record surge in coronavirus cases.
* The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday updated its guidance for U.S. schools reopening in the fall, recommending masking indoors for everyone who is not fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and three feet of distance within classrooms.
MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
* Israel said on Sunday it will begin offering a third dose of Pfizer Inc’s vaccine to adults with weak immune systems, but it was still weighing whether to make the booster available to the general public.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* The benefits of mRNA vaccines outweigh the very small risk they might cause heart inflammation, an advisory panel of the World Health Organization said.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* Asian shares were enjoying a relief rally on Monday as record highs on Wall Street and policy easing in China helped calm some of the recent jitters on global growth, though plenty of potential pitfalls lay ahead this week.[MKTS/GLOB]
* The Australian dollar eased against the greenback on Monday as a spike in COVID-19 cases in Sydney raised the prospect of an extended lockdown, while the New Zealand dollar weakened ahead of data later in the week expected to show milder inflation.
(Compiled by Devika Syamnath, Federico Maccioni and Vinay Dwivedi; Edited by Alex Richardson, Maju Samuel and Arun Koyyur)
