TOP HEADLINES
– The first cases of the variant identified in India have been detected in Belgium, in a group of 20 Indian nursing students who arrived from Paris in mid-April, the office of government commissioner Pedro Facon has said.
– Ukraine has passed 2 million infections since the start of the pandemic, Health Minister Maksym Stepanov has said on his Facebook page.
– France will lift its domestic travel restrictions on May 3, while secondary schools will also reopen following a slowdown of new infections, said the country’s Prime Minister Jean Castex.
– However, people arriving into France from Brazil, Chile, Argentina, South Africa and India will have to enter a 10-day quarantine period as it attempts to contain the virus.
– Hungary will vaccinate at least 40 percent of its population with one dose of a jab by the middle of next week, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said. When the milestone is reached more lockdown restrictions will be eased, Orban added.
– One in every four people in Germany will have received at least one dose of a jab by early May, Health Minister Jens Spahn has said.
– Meanwhile, the head of Germany’s vaccine regulator, Klaus Cichutek, has said the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is safe and effective and its side effects are very rare.
– The UK’s drug regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, had said there were 168 reported cases of blood clots in people who had AstraZeneca’s Vaxzevria jab in the country up to April 14.
– A UK study has found that one dose of either the AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech jab reduces infections by 65 percent. The research, which was carried out by Oxford University and the Office for National Statistics, analyzed test results from more than 350,000 people in the UK between December and April.
– Japan is to declare states of emergency in Tokyo and three other regions on Friday, raising new concerns over the commencement of the Tokyo Olympic Games, which is due to begin exactly three…