COVID

Before Covid-19, mainland Chinese tourists accounted for about one-third of total retail sales, a testament to the open economy that Hong Kong once was. That ...

What is our path forward? But pessimism is not in our nature. With its border to mainland China — and everywhere else — still partly shut, this island city can feel suffocating.

More than 2000 tourists have become stranded in a resort town in southern China after authorities imposed a snap lockdown to curb a coronavirus flare-up, ...

China's tourism industry has been hammered by the seemingly unending travel restrictions and snap lockdowns, especially this year. The sweeping Covid restrictions also reached Weizhou island, an outlying islet over an hour's boat ride away that is popular for its scenic coastline and beaches. Last week, the Chinese economy recorded its worst quarterly performance

The numbers come as Shanghai emerges from China's biggest citywide lockdown since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Service industries – including catering, entertainment and tourism – were the worst affected. China’s travel code, used for checking the travel history of people in the country, now only checks the travel history of users over a 7-day period, as opposed to the previous 14-days: Of the 14 new local asymptomatic cases reported, 14 tested positive during central quarantine, while 0 tested positive during regular screening. Of the 3 new local cases reported, 3 tested positive during central quarantine, while 0 tested positive during regular screening. The country saw 0.4% year-on-year growth at the national level in the second quarter, well short of the government's growth target of around 5.5% for 2022. Shanghai's economic output decreased 13.7% from a year earlier in the second quarter, the biggest contraction among all province-level regions, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Around 500 people were found infected with COVID-19 over five days at a tourist resort in China's Guangxi region, according to local media.

Recently, China enforced a lockdown in Xian, home to 13 million people after the city reported the first cases of a new Omicron subvariant. The lockdown was implemented after Xian reported 18 COVID-19 infections from Saturday to Monday, all of which are of the Omicron BA.5.2 subvariant, according to local disease control officials. Apart from the nine confirmed cases and 444 silent carriers reported in Beihai, a total of 30 asymptomatic infections have been reported in other cities in the autonomous region.

China's Covid-19 cases remain elevated, with Shanghai rolling out mass testing in nine districts as the financial hub seeks to stamp out infections, ...

New Covid cases in China continued to climb as outbreaks in some regions widened, with authorities in Shanghai saying the situation in the city remains ...

SHANGHAI: Several large Chinese cities including Shanghai are rolling out new mass testing or extending lockdowns on millions of residents to counter new ...

"It's too horrifying, too ridiculous," wrote a Weibo user. Advertisement "I'm speechless," said a Shanghai resident surnamed Wang, already subject to testing every weekend at her residential compound. Advertisement Previously when a flare-up became a major outbreak, local officials had been compelled to take tougher measures such as month-long lockdowns, even at the cost of economic growth. Advertisement

China saw the highest jump in new Covid-19 cases since May 23. Read more at straitstimes.com.

New cases in eastern Anhui province and southern Guangdong dropped from the day before, according to the data. New infections in the southern Guangxi autonomous region surged to 244 from 40 the day before and the number in north-western Gansu rose to 158 from 113, according to the data. SHANGHAI (BLOOMBERG) - New Covid-19 cases in China continued to climb as outbreaks in some regions widened, with the authorities in Shanghai saying the situation in the city remains severe.

SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) -- Several large Chinese cities including Shanghai are on their toes due to new COVID-19 outbreaks, rolling out repeated ma.

"It's too horrifying, too ridiculous," wrote a Weibo user. "I'm speechless," said a Shanghai resident surnamed Wang, already subject to testing every weekend at her residential compound. The northern city of Tianjin, which launched multiple rounds of mass testing in recent months to curb earlier outbreaks, said on Monday it is again testing its more than 12 million residents, after two local infections were found.

Researchers investigated the effects of different recovery paths of COVID-19 on human health and environmental and food sustainability.

The decrease in prices was due to the reduced consumption of expensive products (animal products). The BLP and FF scenarios were characterized by variable prices that could cause food insecurity. The production of fruits and vegetables was the highest in SC and lowest in FF. The loss of natural land was the highest in NN and lowest in SC. Nitrogen and irrigation use increased in all scenarios but was higher in NN than in other scenarios. The impact of all scenarios on the production of different commodities in 2060 was high. The proportion of income expenditure on food was reduced in all scenarios and income levels. The changes in the prevalence of weight categories and underlying diets increased premature mortality in the NN and FF scenarios. Additional deaths were higher in upper-middle-income countries (2130/million in NN and 2991/million in FF), with minor differences in high-income countries in FF (18 fewer deaths/million) and NN (48 additional deaths/million) scenarios. In the last scenario (BLP), countries adhere to the commitments of pooling resources to eliminate SARS-CoV-2. As a result, the vaccination program would be a global success with the economy returning to pre-COVID-19 trends in 2023. The elevated risks from COVID-19 to overweight and obesity would be forgotten, leading to no changes in dietary choices. In the present study, researchers estimated the effects of switching to healthier dietary choices. Commitments to low-income countries fade quickly, leading to slow vaccine roll-out in the Global South.

Shanghai will require residents across nine of the city's districts and some smaller areas to undergo testing for COVID-19 over July 19-21 in an effort to ...

THE overall incidence of employment claims and appeals fell in 2021, compared to the year before, alongside Singapore's economic recovery from Covid-19, ...

Local workers accounted for 64% of all employment claims and appeals, while foreign employees made up the remaining 36%.

The employers had fulfilled their contractual or statutory obligations of employment termination with notice. For salary claims, the improvement was largely due to a drop in the number of claims lodged in 2021. Claims fell for both local and foreign employees. TADM and the Employment Claims Tribunals helped 95 per cent of workers who lodged salary claims recover their salaries in full, compared with 92 per cent in 2020. Most of the 5,882 employment claims and appeals were salary claims (4,848) and dismissal claims (922). Official figures published on Monday (Jul 18) showed the overall number of employment claims and appeals lodged with the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management (TADM) “fell significantly” from 2.59 in 2020 to 1.73 per 1,000 employees in 2021.

Swift action in Shanghai and Tianjin are reminder of economic costs of Beijing's zero-tolerance policy.

- ASOS:Asos coupon 20% Off over $50 You may cancel your subscription at anytime by calling Customer Service. Authorities in Tianjin, a northeastern metropolis of more than 13 million people, ordered citywide tests on residents to screen for coronavirus infections starting Monday evening, after reporting two new cases earlier in the day.

Injected vaccines against the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 have been hugely successful, saving nearly 20 million lives globally in their first year of ...

The low dose of the injected vaccine was meant to simulate waning immunity. "Whether they'll be able to confer complete sterilizing immunity, that's a very tall order," Gommerman said. Others aim to deploy the mRNA technology that was so successful in the injectable vaccines in the form of a nasal spray. And that's obviously a plus," Gommerman said. Other groups of mice got only an injection or only a dose of vaccine in the nose. The next generation of inoculations will be something different, she says. Those who did seemed to create a broad spectrum of immunity to a number of types of coronaviruses, and they appeared to hold on to that protection for about a year. That may be a bit longer than injectable vaccines, though more research is needed to confirm those results. "I don't think of them as nasal vaccines. More than a dozen nasal spray vaccines against Covid-19 are being tested around the world. It is scheduled to be completed next summer. As the SARS-CoV-2 virus spreads, it changes.

Updating the shots to adapt to rapidly changing variants is easier said than done, even with new mRNA technology.

In June, all of these factors led VRBPAC to recommend that vaccine manufacturers update Covid booster shots for fall and winter 2022, tailoring them to the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants. If the virus mutated to evade current vaccines, scientists could simply swap in a new piece of mRNA to match the new version of the virus. But today, despite waves of variants including Delta, Omicron, and the latest threats—Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5—the Covid-19 vaccines and booster shots still target the original virus that was identified in late 2019. The mRNA is quickly broken down, but the memory of the spike protein lingers in the immune system, so it’s ready to launch an attack if it encounters it again. Instead of using the virus itself to spur an immune response, as older vaccines do, scientists instead spur it using a programmable piece of genetic code called mRNA. The mRNA tells the body to make a version of the coronavirus’s distinct spike protein, so it can make antibodies to neutralize that spike. But Moderna’s rival beat it to the marketplace: Pfizer’s Covid vaccine would be authorized for use in the United States less than a year later, a record-breaking achievement.

Respiratory-virus season starts soon, and our autumn vaccine strategy is shaky at best.

A bad precedent, too, could be set, and make Americans’ trust in these shots, and the people who offer them, even tougher to recoup. Experts still can’t agree on how many shots people need, how often we’ll need to update them, even what the purpose of a COVID vaccination should be: stopping just severe disease and death? “You almost have to have a computer algorithm” to figure out what shots you need, Chen, of the University of Maryland, told me. “We don’t have the same sense of desperation that we did in December of 2020,” Maldonado, of Stanford, told me. The country could easily default back to many of the failures of equity it’s rehearsed before. “That has massive operational implications,” Maine CDC’s Shah said, and could “increase the risk of errors.” Nor have federal officials offered clarity on how long people getting shots now will have to wait before they’re eligible for yet another this autumn. With so many brands, doses, schedules, and eligibility requirements in the matrix, it’s “the most complex vaccine we have,” says Erik Hernandez, the system director of clinical-pharmacy services at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The fall will introduce even more snarls: Boosters are switching to an Omicron blend, but, contrary to what the FDA had initially planned, primary-series shots will be sticking with the original recipe. But the public’s interest and trust in the shots has fallen off as recommendations have shifted, often chaotically, and the number of necessary shots has ballooned. With a year and a half of experience under their belts, health workers know how to roll out COVID shots, says Chrissie Juliano, the executive director of the Big Cities Health Coalition. But distribution could still get tangled if “we’re back to a situation of scarcity,” she told me. And Pfizer and Moderna won’t have time to generate rock-solid efficacy data in humans before the shots are authorized, then roll out in the fall. Although the Biden administration has agreed to purchase more than 100 million doses of Pfizer’s revamped Omicron vaccine for the months ahead, federal officials remain worried that, as Ashish Jha, the nation’s top COVID-response coordinator, has said, “we’re not going to have enough vaccines for every adult who wants one” this fall. If the goal is preventing a spate of seasonal sickness, that’s “cutting it quite close,” says Wilbur Chen, an infectious-disease physician and vaccine expert at the University of Maryland.

Residents of nine districts will be required to take two Covid-19 tests over the three day period. Read more at straitstimes.com.

While small by global standards, it is the largest ever flareup for the city of 680,000 residents. The outbreak, which started on June 18, has swelled to a total of 1,755 infections. As of Sunday, over 2,000 tourists were stuck in the city. “It’s too horrifying, too ridiculous,” wrote a Weibo user. In the north-western city of Lanzhou, a lockdown in four major districts with around 3 million residents that started last week has been extended to July 24. The northern city of Tianjin, which launched multiple rounds of mass testing in recent months to curb earlier outbreaks, said on Monday it is again testing its more than 12 million residents, after two local infections were found.

Shanghai reported 19 new domestically transmitted asymptomatic coronavirus cases for July 18, up from 14 a day earlier, while local symptomatic cases were ...

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A child aged below 12 years old has died from Covid-19. This is one of the four deaths on Jul. 17 reported in Singapore. via MOH website ...

If you like what you read, follow us on Telegram to get the latest updates. A child aged below 12 years old has died from Covid-19. Follow us on Telegram for the latest updates: https://t.me/mothershipsg

New Covid-19 cases in China jumped to almost 700, with more infectious strains of the virus continuing to test the country's hardline approach as outbreaks ...

MOH said that the child died from pneumonia last Sunday, and that she had no past medical history and was previously well. Read more at straitstimes.com.

The boy had no other past medical history and was previously well. The Moderna vaccine is suitable for children aged six months to five years, while the Pfizer vaccine is for children aged six months to four years. Responding to media queries on Tuesday (July 19), MOH said the child died from pneumonia on Sunday, and that she had no past medical history and was previously well.

China is adamant about implementing its dynamic zero-COVID policy of eliminating outbreaks as soon as they emerge.

"It's too horrifying, too ridiculous," wrote a Weibo user. Previously, when a flare-up became a major outbreak, local officials had been compelled to take tougher measures such as monthlong lockdowns, even at the cost of economic growth. "I'm speechless," said a Shanghai resident surnamed Wang, already subject to testing every weekend at her residential compound. In the central Chinese city of Zhumadian, lockdowns for several million people in a few towns under its jurisdiction have been extended for a few days until Monday or Tuesday. In the northwestern city of Lanzhou, a lockdown in four major districts with around 3 million residents that started last week has been extended to July 24. The northern city of Tianjin, which launched multiple rounds of mass testing in recent months to curb earlier outbreaks, said on Monday it is again testing its more than 12 million residents, after two local infections were found.

A four-year-old girl in Singapore who contracted the coronavirus died of pneumonia on Sunday, marking the city-state's second death caused by Covid-19 in a ...

President Xi Jinping has made Covid Zero a hallmark of his rule, saying the country won't pursue “herd immunity” like other countries because it would exact too ...

The latest hotspots include the Guangxi autonomous region in the south of China, which recorded 243 cases on Monday, taking its total since the outbreak flared six days ago to 829. The districts account for about 80% of the financial hub’s 25 million residents. President Xi Jinping has made Covid Zero a hallmark of his rule, saying the country won’t pursue “herd immunity” like other countries because it would exact too much of a toll, particularly on China’s elderly, which have low vaccination rates.

The four-year-old girl was previously well and had no past medical history before she died of COVID-19, said the Health Ministry.

At that time, about 50 per cent of infections were from the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, he said in Parliament. Advertisement Four deaths were recorded. Advertisement Advertisement She is the second patient under 12 to die of the coronavirus in Singapore. The Singaporean girl had no past medical history and was previously well, said MOH in response to CNA's queries.

Shanghai rolled out a testing blitz in 12 of the city's 16 districts home to around 20 million people. Read more at straitstimes.com.

Most of the cases are centred in the hotspots of the Guangxi region in the south, which recorded 243 cases on Monday - taking its total since the outbreak there flared six days ago to 829 - and the remote northwestern province of Gansu, which reported 231 new infections, taking the number of cases there in the past week to 953. Covid Zero has left the country increasingly isolated as travel barriers fall elsewhere, but Mr Xi remains undeterred, doubling down on the policy in recent public comments. China on Tuesday (July 19) reported 699 cases for Monday - the highest daily tally since May 22 - after recording more than 1,000 infections over the weekend.

SINGAPORE — A four-year-old girl who contracted Covid-19 has died, marking the second death caused by the virus in a patient aged below 12.

Advertisement The cause of death was later determined by the state coroner to be Covid-19 pneumonia, said the ministry. Advertisement

The state coroner has determined the cause of her death to be Covid-19 pneumonia.

MOH has since confirmed that a four-year-old girl died from Covid-19 pneumonia on Jul. 17, in a statement to The Straits Times (ST) issued today (Jul. 19). MOH also said it was studying the safety and effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines for children under the age of five, along with the Health Sciences Authority and the Expert Committee on Covid-19 Vaccination. The Ministry of Health (MOH) reported four deaths due to Covid-19 on Jul. 17, including a patient under 12 years of age.

The following is a summary of some recent studies on COVID-19. They include research that warrants further study to corroborate the findings and that has ...

However, we have demonstrated that for this study, most of the initial allergic reactions did not meet the criteria of anaphylaxis and our participants were able to tolerate a second dose of the vaccine." "The benefits and risks must be weighed carefully when it comes to a second dose. Study results involving a small number of children were published on Wednesday in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice. At a specialized vaccine clinic, nine children were evaluated after having an allergic reaction to the first dose of the vaccine, including three who experienced potentially life-threatening anaphylaxis. In the following week, reports by study participants of a "systemic" reaction such as fatigue, headache or body aches were 8% higher for those who simultaneously received the flu shot and the Pfizer-BioNTech booster and 11% higher for those who got the flu shot and a Moderna booster, compared to the risk in people who received only an mRNA vaccine booster. His team called for further studies to see whether measures to reduce blood viscosity, such as treatment with blood thinning drugs, would be helpful. Patients hospitalized with COVID-19 whose blood flows less freely than normal are at higher risk of death from complications, a U.S. study showed.

Patients hospitalized with COVID-19 with high estimated blood viscosity are at higher risk of death from complications. High blood viscosity impairs flow to ...

Quotes: "This study demonstrates the importance of checking for blood viscosity in COVID-19 patients early in hospital admission, which is easily obtained through routine lab work. In this study the estimate of blood viscosity was more strongly associated with mortality in COVID-19 patients than other commonly used risk stratification measures. A simple calculation of blood viscosity was more robust in the identification of hospitalized patients at risk for dying from COVID-19 complications when compared to common measures of inflammation and the blood clotting biomarker D-dimer. What This Means for Physicians/Patients: Blood viscosity is elevated by acute phase reactants (fibrinogen, macroglobulins) that have been associated with acute COVID-19 infections. Bottom Line: Patients hospitalized with COVID-19 with high estimated blood viscosity are at higher risk of death from complications. High blood viscosity impairs flow to small vessels and increases the risk of blood clots.

More-viscous blood, which increases the propensity for clotting, is a sign that patients hospitalized for COVID-19 are more likely to do worse over the short ...

“In light of the translational potential associated with [it], further investigation is eagerly warranted to confirm and expand the present findings, in order to advance estimated blood viscosity into the clinical scenario.” A key question is around the mechanism that links more-viscous blood with mortality in the setting of COVID-19, Maier said. Commenting for TCTMD, Cheryl Maier, MD, PhD (Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA), said “this is definitely the first time that anyone has shown a prognostic role of estimated blood viscosity in COVID patients. Every one-centipoise increase in high-shear and low-shear estimated blood viscosity was associated with a 36.0% and 7.0% increase, respectively, in in-hospital mortality (P < 0.001 for both). Direct measurement of viscosity can be challenging, however, and a method for estimating it—the Walburn-Schneck model, which incorporates routinely measured lab values like blood count, hematocrit, and globulin levels—has been developed. Ongoing studies are exploring whether additional interventions can improve the prognosis of patients with COVID-19 and high blood viscosity.

Dr Ashley Bloomfield dramatically scales back planned event, including cancelling the karaoke, in face of Omicron surge.

“We’ve canceled karaoke,” the director general of health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield, said when questioned about his plans for farewelling the high-stress role. He announced his resignation from the role in April, and is due to hand over the reins this month. On Tuesday, New Zealand announced 10,424 cases and 21 deaths.

Moderna Inc said late on Monday Australia's drug regulator Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has provisionally approved its mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, ...

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Moderna said late on Monday (Jul 18) that Australia's drug regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), had provisionally approved its mRNA ...

The shot had earlier been provisionally approved in the country for individuals aged six years and older and as a booster dose for those aged 18 years and older, TGA said in a separate statement. Last week, Argentina and Canada also approved Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine for children aged six months to five years. Moderna said late on Monday (Jul 18) that Australia's drug regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), had provisionally approved its mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, Spikevax, for use in children between six months old and five years old.

Moderna's paediatric dose will become available only after Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation gives advice.

“Having been approved provisionally by the TGA, this vaccine now needs to go to the technical advisory group on immunisations … until that point, this is simply not a vaccine that would be available to those children. For children aged six months to six years, the vaccine is administered as two doses at least 28 days apart. Most adverse events seen in clinical trials in children aged six months up to six years were mild-moderate and generally reported after the second dose.” Until Atagi makes its recommendations and supply is secured, the vaccine will not yet be available to young children. This requires admission to hospital and possibly the intensive care unit. This is the same as for other available vaccines.

Member states, BioNTech/Pfizer edge closer to deal to delay jab deliveries amid oversupply and rising case numbers.

Moderna has received provisional registration from the Australian TGA for Covid-19 vaccine, Spikevax, for kids aged six months to five years.

Our services are intended for corporate subscribers and you warrant that the email address submitted is your corporate email address. The latest development comes after the vaccine received approvals in Canada, the US, Argentina, Israel and Taiwan for use in children of this age group. According to positive interim data from the Phase II/III KidCOVE clinical trial, the vaccine offered a strong neutralising antibody response in children of the age group of six months to five years following administration of the two-dose initial regimen of the mRNA-1273 vaccine.