Covid Uptick Continues In These European Nations; Shanghai On Edge

The authorities in China’s financial hub of 25 million residents – Shanghai – said that the city will continue to see mass-testing and Covid-19 curbs until every single case of the deadly virus is eradicated as the hotspot continues to be in headlines for the spread of virus and strict curbs.

Shanghai logged around 23,000 cases of Covid-19 on Friday. Meanwhile voters in France, after witnessing over 88,000 new cases, will cast their votes for the presidential elections on Sunday. The Covid surge in Europe and China has been the highest since March.

Here are the top 10 global updates on Covid:

1. France on Friday logged 88,389 new cases of coronavirus – a downward trend in daily cases after cases topped 1-lakh mark in the previous weeks. The poll-bound nation also reported 130 Covid-linked deaths, taking the total toll to 1,16,253. France will vote for the second round of presidential elections on Sunday.

2. Italy reported 73,212 Covid-19 related cases on Friday, against 75,020 the day before, the health ministry said. The daily number of deaths in the country rose from 166 to 202, news agency Reuters reported.

3. Germany, weeks after discarding the vaccine mandate, reported 1.61 lakh new cases, taking the total number of cases since the beginning of the pandemic to 24,006,254. Germany also reported 289 deaths on Friday.

4. China’s financial hub, Shanghai, reported 20,634 asymptomatic cases of the virus, while 2,736 symptomatic cases were also reported in the last 24 hours. The country records its symptomatic and asymptomatic cases separately.

5. After three weeks of lockdown, Shanghai’s authorities warned residents the curbs, isolation and mass-testing would not go on until the coronavirus was completely eradicated. This as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Thailand have already announced a loosening of restrictions.

6. Canada attracted more than one million travellers in a week for the first time since the pandemic, government data showed on Friday, as easing of Covid-19 border restrictions encouraged visitors back into the country.

7. South Africa is witnessing a “worrying” spike in coronavirus cases after a relative dip in new infections, the country’s health minister said on Friday. 4,631 new infections were detected on Friday as against an average of 1,300 cases in the previous week, AFP reported. South Africa recorded zero Covid-19 deaths in the month of March – first time since May 2020.

8. A UK Covid patient was positive for the deadly infection for a record 505 days, British researchers believe. This might be the longest-known Covid-19 infection. The patient tested positive about 45 times before succumbing to the deadly virus, researchers said as per news agency AFP.

9. President Joe Biden informed Friday that the country has an ample supply of the life-saving Covid19 antiviral treatment Paxlovid and that it no longer needs to be rationed. First approved in December, supply of the Pfizer regimen was initially very limited, but as the cases across US fell and manufacturing increased – the drug is now far more abundant. The White House is now moving to raise awareness of the pill and taking steps to make it easier to access, AP reported.

10. Coronavirus was the third leading cause of death in the United States for the second year in a row in 2021, with death rates rising for most age groups, a government study showed.