(Reuters) – President Joe Biden will require all federal employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and the U.S. Department of Labor will issue a rule requiring businesses with more than 100 employees to have their workers vaccinated or tested weekly, officials said on Thursday.
DEATHS AND INFECTIONS
* Eikon users, see COVID-19: MacroVitals here for a case tracker and summary of news
EUROPE
* Italy’s medicines agency AIFA said it had approved the use of a third dose of COVID-19 vaccines for vulnerable groups of the population, while the country’s government ruled catering and cleaning staff in schools and nursing homes can only work if they have proof of COVID-19 immunity.
* Spain’s coronavirus incidence slipped below 150 cases per 100,000 people – a threshold the Health Ministry considers a “high risk” of contagion – for the first time in more than two months.
* Moldova will tighten lockdown restrictions on Friday due to a sharp rise in COVID-19 cases.
* Britain’s medical regulator gave the go-ahead for Pfizer and AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine to be used as booster shots, but said any decision to proceed with a booster programme was for others to make.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* Singapore’s health ministry reported 450 new locally-transmitted COVID-19 cases, the most since early August 2020.
* President Xi Jinping said China would donate 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to developing countries this year, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
* Japan extended emergency COVID-19 restrictions in Tokyo and other regions until the end of this month to curb infections and prevent hospitals being overwhelmed.
* One vaccine dose alone is 96.6% effective in preventing COVID-19 deaths in India, and two doses are 97.5% effective, the health ministry said after analysing data between April and August.
AMERICAS
* The Los Angeles Board of Education was to vote on Thursday on a COVID-19 vaccination mandate for all children age 12 and older in the second-largest school district in the United States.
* A senior U.S. lawmaker wants Congress to mandate requiring COVID-19 vaccines or recent negative tests for all domestic air and train travelers.
MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
* Kenya’s economic output contracted for the first time in nearly three decades last year, pummelled by the impact of the coronavirus crisis, official data showed.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* China’s Sinovac Biotech will trial its COVID-19 vaccine in children and adolescents in South Africa as part of a global Phase III study, Sinovac and local partner Numolux Group said.
* Moderna said it was developing a single-dose vaccine that combines a booster dose against COVID-19 and a booster against flu.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* European stocks pared losses and Wall Street reversed earlier gains on Thursday as investors weighed uncertainty over central bank tapering and economic recovery due to the coronavirus Delta variant against strong weekly jobless claims data. [MKTS/GLOB]
* The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits fell to the lowest level in nearly 18 months last week.
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