Drugmakers will likely have tens of millions of doses of a coronavirus vaccine early next year, top U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci told Reuters, as the global death toll crossed 706,000.
EUROPE
* France’s daily COVID-19 infections reached the highest in more than two months on Wednesday.
* Greece‘s prime minister warned of new restrictions if a worrying rise in daily cases does not abate.
* Germany’s foreign ministry revised its travel guidance for Belgium, warning against all non-essential travel to the province of Antwerp.
AMERICAS
* Facebook and Twitter on Wednesday took down posts by U.S. President Donald Trump, citing violation of rules against sharing misinformation about the coronavirus.
* U.S. Representative Rodney Davis said he tested positive for COVID-19, making him at least the 15th U.S. lawmaker to be infected or presumed to have the disease.
* Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled that President Jair Bolsonaro’s government must adopt measures to stop the spread of novel coronavirus to the country’s vulnerable indigenous communities.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike is expected to urge residents of the Japanese capital to stay home as much as possible over an upcoming major holiday amid a surge in coronavirus cases, local media reported.
* A new outbreak in Vietnam has spread to two more provinces, the country’s health minister said, after the contagion was declared “under control” in the central city where the outbreak began.
* North Korea’s test results for its first suspected case were inconclusive, though authorities have quarantined over 3,635 primary and secondary contacts, a WHO official told Reuters.
MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
* Gambia imposed a three-week curfew after cases surged over 60% in the last seven days to nearly 800.
* Three South African provinces considered hotspots have seen new infections slow in recent weeks, the health minister said.
* Doctors in Turkey’s hotspots say hospitals are filling up with more cases than reflected in the official nationwide count.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* Novavax Inc said it has entered a supply and license agreement with Serum Institute of India for the development and commercialization of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate.
* Moderna Inc said smaller volume agreements for its experimental vaccine have been priced in the range of $32 to $37 per dose, higher than the price set by the U.S. deal for Pfizer’s vaccine candidate.
* The U.S. government will pay Johnson & Johnson over $1 billion for 100 million doses of its potential vaccine.
* Canada has signed separate deals with Pfizer and Moderna to supply millions of doses of their experimental vaccines.
ECONOMIC FALLOUT
* The dollar languished and just about everything else rose on Thursday, as markets took patchy U.S. economic data as a harbinger of ever more stimulus and brinkmanship on Capitol Hill as a sign that a deal on a new U.S. stimulus package is close.
* The Bank of England looks set to hold off from taking further action to help Britain’s economy through the coronavirus pandemic as it waits to see the scale of an expected surge in unemployment.
* Unemployment in Australia will peak at about 10% as a result of restrictions designed to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said.
(Reuters)
