Pandemic Latest News

COVID-19

Countries across Asia open borders post-COVID

After two-and-a-half years of tight pandemic controls, some of Asia’s last holdouts are opening their borders, as they move to bolster their economies and play catch-up with a world that has largely learned to live with COVID. Hong Kong said on Friday that it would abandon mandatory hotel quarantine for people coming to the city starting next week, …

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A new generation of inhaled COVID vaccines

A new generation of COVID-19 vaccines that can be inhaled or sprayed up the nose—instead of taken by injection—will begin rolling out in Asia, though just how effective they are remains to be seen. Regulators in China and India have greenlighted distribution of vaccines delivered through the mouth or nose, a delivery that scientists say …

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Two COVID-19 antibody therapies are no longer recommended by the WHO

Two COVID-19 antibody therapies are no longer recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), on the basis that Omicron and the variant’s latest offshoots have likely rendered them obsolete. www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/who-strongly-advises-against-use-two-covid-treatments-2022-09-15/? The two therapies – which are designed to work by binding to the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 to neutralise the virus’ ability to infect cells …

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COVID-19 deaths lowest recorded since March 2020

World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said: “Last week, the number of weekly reported deaths from COVID-19 was the lowest since March 2020. We have never been in a better position to end the pandemic.” But the WHO chief also warned that if the world does not seize the opportunity now, …

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China enforces more lockdowns as cases of COVID-19 rise

China has restricted domestic travel as COVID outbreaks grow. China is stepping up its COVID defences as a key Communist Party meeting looms, restricting internal travel further as swathes of the country remain under tight lockdowns. The National Health Commission on Thursday announced a raft of measures that will be in place until the end …

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New COVID-19 antibody shows promise

COVID-19 vaccines have been effective at keeping people from getting severely ill and dying from the virus, but they’ve required different boosters to keep on top of all of the coronavirus variants that have popped up. Now, researchers have discovered an antibody that neutralises all known COVID-19 variants. The antibody, called SP1-77, is the result …

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China locks down Chengdu following latest COVID-19 outbreak

China has locked down Chengdu, one of its biggest and most economically important cities, as it turns once again to its COVID strategy of restricting people’s movements to stop outbreaks. www.nytimes.com/2022/09/01/world/asia/china-covid-lockdown-chengdu.html Starting at 6 p.m. last Thursday, residents in the city of more than 21 million were no longer allowed to leave their homes without …

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Updated COVID-19 boosters get FDA emergency use authorisation; The latest health stories from around the world

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted an emergency use authorization for Moderna’s and Pfizer-BioNTech’s updated booster vaccines, which target the BA.4/BA.5 coronavirus subvariants. www.science.org/content/article/omicron-booster-shots-are-coming-lots-questions? For the first time since the start of the pandemic, COVID-19 vaccines look set to receive an update. Boosters reformulated to protect against the Omicron variant, which has …

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The UK becomes the first country to approve a dual-strain COVID-19 booster; The latest health stories from around the world

Last week the United Kingdom became the first country to approve an updated COVID-19 booster directed at two different strains of the coronavirus. The “bivalent” booster, made by Moderna, will have the same dose of messenger RNA as the company’s prior boosters but will target both the original version of the coronavirus and the first …

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