(Reuters) – Australia’s COVID-19 winter outbreak fuelled by the new Omicron sub-variants BA.4/5 may have peaked early, Health Minister Mark Butler said on Thursday, as hospitals reported a steady fall in admissions over the past week.
DEATHS AND INFECTIONS
* Eikon users, click on COVID-19: MacroVitals for a case tracker and summary of news. cpurl://apps.cp./cms/?navid=1592404098
ASIA-PACIFIC
* The southern Chinese city of Sanya, a tourism hotspot, imposed lockdown measures from Thursday in most parts of the city, ordering residents to reduce their trips outside to shop for daily necessities to once every two days and confining some strictly to their homes.
* New Zealand’s health ministry sees strong signs that the country’s latest COVID-19 wave has peaked, as new cases continue to trend lower. The number of people in hospitals with COVID is also down on late July.
* Mainland China reported 446 new coronavirus cases for Aug. 3, of which 111 were symptomatic and 335 were asymptomatic, the National Health Commission said on Thursday.
EUROPE
* The European Medicines Agency is recommending Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine carry a warning of the possibility of two types of heart inflammation, an added burden for a shot that has so far failed to win wide uptake.
AMERICAS
* The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to ease its guidelines to control the spread of COVID-19, including in schools as soon as this week, CNN reported on Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the plan.
* U.S. President Joe Biden tested positive again for COVID-19, his physician Kevin O’Connor said in a memo released by the White House, adding that the test was taken after Biden finished a light workout.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* The Omicron variant may be more efficient at infecting children through the nose than previous versions of the coronavirus, a small study suggests.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* The pace of job creation is slowing in Canada, hammered by the sharp rise in interest rates, but that is yet to hold back companies from hiring as they face a tight labour market that has pushed the unemployment rate to a record low.
* Growth in Ireland’s services sector accelerated for the first time in four months in July, a survey showed on Thursday, bucking the deteriorating trend seen across the euro zone as a whole and in neighbouring Britain.
* Asian stocks rose on Thursday, taking cues from a strong rally on Wall Street after robust economic data and upbeat corporate guidance boosted investor appetite. [MKTS/GLOB]
(Compiled by Rashmi Aich and Olivier Sorgho; Edited by Bill Berkrot and Shounak Dasgupta)
