(Reuters) – Shanghai officials said on Wednesday half the city had achieved “zero-COVID” status, but uncompromising restrictions had to remain in place under a national policy which the head of the World Health Organization described as “unsustainable”.
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
* NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has been diagnosed with COVID-19, a spokesperson for the alliance said.
AMERICAS
* A contingent of six U.S. senators led by Democrats chastised U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai about her handling of negotiations on COVID-19 vaccine intellectual property rights, saying she had failed to consult them.
* General Electric’s healthcare unit said it had increased output of dye used for medical scans and tests at its factory in Ireland and shipped products by air to help combat shortages caused by the suspension of its Shanghai factory. ASIA-PACIFIC
* A United Nations Weibo post on the World Health Organization chief’s comments that China’s zero-tolerance COVID-19 policy is not sustainable was removed from the Chinese social media platform on Wednesday morning shortly after being published.
* China risks just over 1.5 million COVID deaths if it drops its tough zero-COVID policy without any safeguards such as ramping up vaccination and access to treatments, according to new modelling by scientists in China and the United States.
AFRICA AND MIDDLE EAST
* Dubai’s flagship airline Emirates hopes that it will this fiscal year start paying back the 15 billion dirhams ($4.1 billion) in state assistance it receive from the government during the pandemic, its chairman said on Monday.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* Vaccine developer BioNTech completed a Phase II clinical trial of its COVID-19 vaccine in China in January but has yet to release its results, a registry of such trials showed on Tuesday.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* China’s factory-gate inflation eased to a one-year low in April as state-driven production efforts supported supply and COVID-19 lockdowns in key industries cooled demand, giving policymakers headroom for more stimulus to shore up a flagging economy.
* House prices in New Zealand, which were already elevated before the COVID-19 pandemic, jumped 43% in the two years to December 2021, according to the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand said.
* Malaysia’s economic growth likely gathered pace in the last quarter, driven by stronger demand following a relaxation of COVID-19 measures, but a prolonged slowdown in China could have significant knock-on effects, a Reuters poll found.
* China’s COVID-19 outbreak is suppressing the country’s consumption of cobalt, nickel and lithium by disrupting transportation and cutting battery manufacturing, state-backed research house Antaike said.
* Rising fuel and food prices look set to stoke an “inevitable” rise in civil unrest, with developing middle-income countries such as Brazil or Egypt particularly at risk, a report by a risk consultancy said.
* France will eke out quarterly growth of 0.2% in the second quarter as parts of the service sector recover from a slump induced by the Omicron COVID variant earlier this year, the central bank said.
(Compiled by Sherry Jacob-Phillips; Editing by Arun Koyyur)
