(Reuters) – Germany, France, Spain and Italy said they would suspend AstraZeneca COVID-19 shots after several countries reported possible serious side-effects, but the World Health Organization said there was no proven link and people should not panic.
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
* Prosecutors in the northern Italian region of Piedmont said they had seized a batch of 393,600 shots of the AstraZeneca vaccine following the death of a man hours after he had received a jab.
* Poland’s health minister said the benefits of using AstraZeneca’s vaccine outweigh the risks.
* Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas tested positive for the coronavirus but is feeling well, the country’s government said.
AMERICAS
* Vaccination of about 88% of Americans who received the first dose of Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines was complete, a study of over 12 million people by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed.
* The Biden administration is looking for ways to reach Republicans who are hesitant to get the coronavirus vaccine, the White House said.
* Canadian health experts are sure all COVID-19 vaccines being administered in the country are safe, including those made by AstraZeneca, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.
* Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is weighing candidates to replace Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello, according to people familiar with the matter, preparing to appoint the fourth person in a year in that role as COVID-19 cases rage out of control.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* Thailand will start using the AstraZeneca vaccine on Tuesday after a brief delay due to safety concerns.
* Singapore and Australia are discussing an air travel bubble with each other to eliminate the need for quarantine as they look to reopen borders.
* Papua New Guinea is facing a fresh wave of infections around the capital Port Moresby, which neighbouring Australia and aid groups fear could overwhelm the country’s small and overstretched health system.
MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
* Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan said no new restrictions against the pandemic would be imposed for now even as the country recorded its highest daily rise in coronavirus infections this year.
* Jordan reported 9,417 new coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours, its highest one-day tally since the pandemic began about a year ago.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* Results of AstraZeneca’s U.S. COVID-19 vaccine trial are being reviewed by independent monitors, and emergency authorization could come in about a month, a top U.S. official said.
* Moderna Inc said it had dosed the first participant in an early-stage study of a new COVID-19 vaccine candidate that could potentially be stored and shipped in refrigerators instead of freezers.
* Regular booster vaccines will be needed because of mutations that make COVID-19 more transmissible and better able to evade human immunity, the head of Britain’s effort to sequence the virus’s genomes told Reuters.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* The pandemic has significantly strengthened market power among dominant firms, which could put a drag on medium-term growth and stifle innovation and investment, the International Monetary Fund said in a new research paper.
* U.S. airlines pointed to concrete signs of an industry recovery as a slowing pandemic drives spring and summer leisure bookings.
($1 = 0.8384 euros)
(Compiled by Aditya Soni, Veronica Snoj and Milla Nissi; Editing by Nick Macfie and Sriraj Kalluvila)
