Coronavirus Updates

Shanghai had no new COVID -19 infections for the first time since March when a new outbreak of the coronavirus led to targeted lockdowns, mass testing and long quarantines. “There were no new domestic COVID-19 confirmed cases and no new domestic asymptomatic infections in Shanghai,” the city said in a statement on Saturday. The lockdown on Shanghai’s 25 million residents was mostly lifted in early June, though individual neighborhoods have returned to lockdown and mass testing in due to new infection outbreaks. Beijing reimposed restrictions this month after an infection outbreak linked to a popular bar, Elementary and middle school students in Beijing returned to in-person classes on Monday, Shenzhen, in south China, on Saturday closed wholesale markets, cinemas and gyms in a central district bordering Hong Kong for three days after virus cases were discovered there.

Pakistan has issued an order making it mandatory for travelers to wear masks on domestic flights as cases of the coronavirus continue to rise across the country. Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority made the announcement, effective immediately, on Sunday night. Pakistan had ended almost every COVID safeguard after having few new cases in recent months. But the positivity rate rose dramatically over the weekend, Reuters reported. Pakistan disbanded the National Command and Operations Center overseeing the country’s response to the pandemic, on March 31 after infections fell to the lowest since the virus was identified in 2020.

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, the same day that he returned from a trip to the United Arab Emirates. The Somali president met two days prior with the president of the UAE, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Both men were wearing masks. Mohamud said in a tweet that he was asymptomatic and would continue to work from home where he was self-isolating.

The Palestinian Authority’s Health Ministry announced on Monday that the West Bank has been hit with a sixth wave of the coronavirus. There were more than 1,000 new COVID-19 cases in the West Bank in one day, the ministry reported, according to The New Arab. PA Health Minister Mai al-Kaila called on the public to get their booster vaccinations and take precautions against the spread of the virus. She said the ministry could call for new restriction to halt the spread of the virus. Restrictions had been eased in recent months due to fewer recorded cases.

Pfizer can make changes to its vaccine against COVID-19 to allow it to better target the omicron variant of the coronavirus, the company announced on Saturday. The changes work and the vaccine remains safe with the changes, according to the company, The current vaccine used in the US still protects against severe cases of the virus, but the formulation is not as effective against the latest variants of the dominant omicron variant. The announcement comes as the US Food and Drug Administration considers whether to provide Americans with a vaccine booster shot modified to protect against the latest iterations of the virus.

Children from age 6 months to 5 years in the United States became eligible to receive vaccinations against the coronavirus on Tuesday, beco9meing the first country in the world to offer the vaccine to the youngest children. The vaccines became available days after the Food and Drug Administration and teh Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cleared the Pfizer and Moderna shots for young children. Still, the response by parents to vaccinate their young children was muted, with polls showing that less than one-fifth of parents with young children planned to vaccinate their children right away.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top US medical adviser about the coronavirus pandemic, has for the first time tested positive for COVID-19. Fauci, 81, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, reportedly has mild symptoms and is taking the antiviral therapy Paxlovid to treat it. He will isolate and continue to work from home, according to a statement from the institute. Fauci, who first tested positive on a rapid antigen test, is fully vaccinated and has had two booster shots. Fauci “has not recently been in close contact with President Biden or other senior government officials,” according to the statement.

The World Bank will loan South Africa $474.4 million to fund the purchase of vaccines against the coronavirus. The loan will retroactively fund the purchase of 47 million vaccine doses by the government of South Africa, according to the World Bank and South Africa’s National Treasury. More than half of South Africa’s adult population of about 40 million people have received at least one dose of a vaccine against the coronavirus.

Research by Israel’s Sheba Medical Center has shown that people vaccinated against the coronavirus and who recovered from infection with the omicron variant of the coronavirus are best protected against the fast-spreading BA.5 subvariant of omicron. Those who were vaccinated against COVID-19 and did not contract omicron or were infected with the omicron variant but had not been vaccinated had significantly fewer antibodies than people who were both vaccinated and previously infected with the omicron variant.

The United States Food and Drug Administration said that three pediatric dose of Pfizer’s vaccine against the coronavirus appears to be safe and effective for children under the age of 5. According to the FDA, children who received the Pfizer shots during testing developed high levels of antibodies against the coronavirus. The shots are each one-tenth the dose given to adults; the first two doses will be given three weeks apart, and the third at least two months later.