(Reuters) – Here’s what you need to know about the pandemic right now:
Shanghai eases child separation under COVID policy
Shanghai on Wednesday made concessions on an unpopular COVID isolation policy that has separated children from their parents and sparked a public outcry, but extended a citywide lockdown that has left some residents struggling to buy food.
The lockdown of China’s most populous city, which started in parts of Shanghai 10 days ago and has now confined nearly all of its 26 million residents at home, has massively disrupted daily life and business.
Shanghai is distributing to residents millions of boxes of traditional Chinese medicine, such as herbal products and flu capsules, which it says can treat COVID.
Hong Kong funeral services overwhelmed
Traditional wooden coffins are running short in Hong Kong as authorities scramble to add mortuary space in the global financial hub’s battle on COVID, which is swamping funeral parlours.
Since the fifth wave of coronavirus hit the former British colony this year, it has reported more than a million infections and more than 8,000 deaths.
Taiwan aims for zero serious COVID cases as infections rise
Taiwan is aiming for zero serious COVID infections and an “effective” control of the virus, President Tsai Ing-wen said on Wednesday, responding to a gradual increase in the number of domestic cases as it pledges to keep its reopening on track.
Unlike large parts of the rest of the world, Taiwan has kept the pandemic well under control with strict and early control measures, including an efficient contact tracing system and largely closing its borders.
Germany U-turns on ending mandatory isolation
Germany will not end mandatory isolation for most people who catch COVID-19, the health minister said on Wednesday, reversing course after concerns were raised that lifting quarantine restrictions would suggest the pandemic was over.
“Coronavirus is not a cold. That is why there must continue to be isolation after an infection,” Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said on Twitter, adding he had made a mistake by suggesting an end to mandatory quarantine.
Record COVID rates in England still rising in over-55s – study
England recorded its highest ever COVID infection prevalence in March and cases were still increasing in the over-55s at the end of the month, an Imperial College London survey said on Wednesday, adding that Omicron subvariant BA.2 was now dominant.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has lifted all COVID restrictions in England, citing a wave of Omicron infections over the new year which saw record cases but did not produce an equivalent wave of deaths in Britain’s highly vaccinated population.
Second booster shields elderly from COVID but protection wanes quickly – study
A fourth dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine lowered rates of COVID among the elderly but the protection against infection appeared short-lived, a large study in Israel has found.
The second booster’s protection against infection dwindled after four weeks, Israeli researchers showed in their study published on Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
China Kintor’s COVID drug candidate cuts hospital, death risk in trial
China’s Kintor Pharmaceutical said its potential COVID treatment proxalutamide effectively reduced the risk of hospitalization and death in a clinical trial involving outpatients with mild to moderate symptoms.
(Compiled by Linda Noakes; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
