(Reuters) – China’s financial hub of Shanghai continued to report a spike in COVID-19 cases, while India slashed prices of vaccines as it rolled out booster shots for all adults.
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.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* China’s financial centre of Shanghai started easing its lockdown in some areas despite reporting a record of more than 25,000 new COVID-19 infections, as authorities sought to get the city moving again after more than two weeks.
* The European Union Chamber of Commerce in China said it had sent a letter to the country’s cabinet detailing how its COVID control measures had disrupted European companies and urged it to revise its policies, such as by allowing home quarantine for some COVID patients.
* Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech have cut the prices of their COVID-19 vaccines. The country began booster doses for all adults over the weekend.
AMERICAS
* The U.S. Justice Department has asked a federal appeals court to allow the Biden administration to resume enforcing a federal employee vaccine mandate that had been blocked by a lower-court judge in January.
* The Biden administration faces an April 18 deadline on whether to extend or end a mandate requiring travelers to wear masks on airplanes, trains and in transit hubs.
* Ontario is in the sixth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, driven by the highly transmissible BA.2 sub-variant of the Omicron coronavirus, and hospitalizations are likely to rise over the coming weeks, the most populous Canadian province’s top doctor said on Monday.
EUROPE
* German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he was disappointed the lower house of parliament voted against a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for people over 60, but would not launch a second attempt to push for a mandate.
AFRICA AND MIDDLE EAST
* Saudi Arabia will let up to 1 million people join the Haj pilgrimage this year, greatly expanding the key event to participants from outside the kingdom after two years of tight COVID-19 restrictions, state media said.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* An experimental drug being developed by RedHill Biopharma Ltd that improved outcomes in a randomized trial involving severely ill COVID-19 patients infected with earlier versions of the coronavirus is showing promise against the Omicron variant in test tube experiments, researchers said.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* A gauge of global stocks skidded, pulled lower by technology shares, as U.S. Treasury yields marched higher ahead of inflation data that could prompt the Federal Reserve to tighten policy enough to slow a rebounding economy. [MKTS/GLOB]
* Oil prices fell about 4% on Monday, with Brent crude tumbling below $100 a barrel on worries that the COVID-19 pandemic will cut demand in China and as International Energy Agency (IEA) countries plan to release record volumes of oil from strategic stocks.
* Chinese shares posted their biggest drop in nearly a month on Monday, hit by COVID-19 curbs and worries over an inversion in the 10-year spread between domestic and U.S. yields, high domestic factory-gate and consumer inflation.
* Britain’s economy slowed more sharply than expected in February, reflecting a hit to car production from component shortages, storm disruption and reduced health spending as households braced for a tighter cost-of-living squeeze.
(Compiled by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Vinay Dwivedi; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Maju Samuel)
