(Reuters) – The major Chinese financial centre of Shanghai extended restrictions on transportation on Tuesday after a day of intensive city-wide testing saw new COVID-19 cases surge to more than 13,000, with no end to the lockdown in sight.
DEATHS AND INFECTIONS
* Eikon users, see COVID-19: MacroVitals https://apac1.apps.cp.thomsonreuters.com/cms/?navid=1592404098 for a case tracker and summary of news.
EUROPE
* A renewed surge of COVID-19 in Britain has forced airlines including EasyJet to cancel hundreds of flights in recent days as staff sickness levels soar.
AMERICAS
* Negotiators in Congress have agreed to an additional $10 billion in COVID-19 funding to address U.S. needs but have dropped international aid from the package, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Monday.
* Americans living in poorer counties died during the pandemic at almost twice the rate of those in rich counties, a study released Monday by the Poor People’s Campaign showed.
* An agreement to provide $10 billion in U.S. funding for COVID-19 aid has been reached in the Senate, lawmakers said on Monday.
* Any World Trade Organization agreement on COVID-19 vaccines should include more than just a waiver on intellectual property, Mexico’s representative to the trade body said, in a sign that consensus is proving tough to forge.
AFRICA
* South Africa’s national state of disaster, in place for more than two years in response to COVID-19, will end from midnight local time on Monday, President Cyril Ramaphosa said.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* China’s latest response to the Omicron variant is causing a chill that will lay a frost over the country’s budding economic spring. It suggests politicians pushing hardline COVID measures have the upper hand and that more anti-Omicron shock-and-awe may follow.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* Pfizer Inc said on Monday it made 6 million courses of its antiviral COVID-19 pill Paxlovid in the first quarter, hitting a target set by Chief Executive Albert Bourla.
* Two drugs that looked like promising treatments for COVID-19 in preliminary studies – remdesivir for hospitalized patients and camostat for patients who are not seriously ill – failed to show a benefit in those groups in randomized controlled trials, researchers reported in two separate papers.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* Asian stocks ticked up to their highest in more than a month supported by broad gains on Wall Street on Tuesday, while the euro was stuck near a one-week low against the dollar amid talk of more sanctions against Moscow.
* Japan’s services sector activity shrank for a third consecutive month in March as the coronavirus pandemic weighed on demand, while the Russia-Ukraine war cast doubts over the outlook.
* South Korea’s consumer prices rose at their fastest pace in more than a decade in March, fuelled by rising energy and commodity costs due to the Ukraine crisis and adding pressure on the central bank ahead of its rate decision meeting next week.
* Growth in Ireland’s services sector accelerated in March at the strongest rate for five months despite inflationary pressures and increasing uncertainty linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a survey showed on Tuesday.
* Japan’s household spending rose for a second consecutive month year-on-year in February, helped by a flattering comparison with last year’s sharp pandemic-induced slump but the consumer sector is now facing growing headwinds from soaring prices.
(Compiled by Sherry Jacob-Phillips; Editing by Arun Koyyur)
