(Reuters) – Shanghai said on Thursday it was trying its best to improve the distribution of food and essential goods to locked-in residents, responding to growing discontent over such difficulties as COVID curbs stretched into an 11th day.
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
* EU health agencies said on Wednesday there was no evidence to support the use of a fourth dose of COVID-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna in the general population, but they recommend a second booster for people aged 80 and above. ASIA-PACIFIC
* China’s top European business group warned that its “zero-COVID” strategy was harming the attractiveness of Shanghai as a financial hub, echoing analysts voicing caution over the mounting economic toll of the country’s coronavirus curbs.
* China will establish a financial stability protection fund to beef up its ability to cope with major financial risks, and set up a comprehensive cross-agency mechanism for risk detection and disposal, the central bank said.
AMERICAS
Top U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials said the agency is aiming to decide by June whether to change the design of COVID-19 vaccines in order to combat future variants, even if it does not have all the necessary information to measure their effectiveness.
* As Washington emerges from its COVID cocoon, with tourists returning to the U.S. Capitol and officials attending a white-tie party that had been scotched for the past two years, the coronavirus is again stalking the halls of power.
* One person was shot on the road in the United States every 17 hours in 2021, according to a new tally of road rage violence. That represents a significant jump from 73 dead and 166 wounded in 2016, a spike that the report’s authors suspect was linked to stresses caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
* Toronto-Dominion Bank said its employees will return to offices on a voluntary basis this month, with an official return set for June.
* Chile’s Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda’s museum houses are at risk of shutting down for good after forced closures and a sharp drop in tourism caused by the coronavirus pandemic dried up funds, the foundation in charge of managing them said. AFRICA
* COVAX, the global project to share COVID-19 vaccines, and the African Union have declined options to buy additional doses of Moderna’s shot, as developing nations struggle to allocate supplies.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* New research may help shed light on a rare but serious blood-clotting problem associated with the COVID-19 vaccines from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* Some Asian central banks are shaking off their long-held reluctance to follow their global peers in lifting benchmark interest rates off historic lows, as the Ukraine war blows consumer prices well out of policymakers’ comfort zones.
* The International Monetary Fund cut Japan’s economic growth forecast on Thursday and urged policymakers to consider preparing a contingency plan in case the Ukraine crisis derails a fragile recovery.
* The U.S. dollar will remain dominant for now so long as the Federal Reserve stays a hawkish course on interest rate hikes and its intentions to unload some of its pandemic-related bond purchases, according to a Reuters poll of forex strategists.
* The proportion of Japanese households expecting prices to rise a year from now has hit a 14-year high, a central bank survey showed, as inflationary pressures from rising raw material costs grew.
(Compiled by Sherry Jacob-Phillips; Editing by Arun Koyyur)
