Covid-19 has infected more than 245M people and killed nearly 5M globally. Here are the coronavirus-related developments for October 28:
Thursday, October 28, 2021
Moscow shuts down as Russia reaches record virus cases, deaths
Russia has reported record numbers of daily coronavirus cases and deaths as Moscow shuts down non-essential services for 11 days to combat the surge in infections.
The country reported 1,159 new deaths in the past 24 hours, all-time high, amid a surge in new cases that has prompted authorities to reimpose partial lockdown measures.
The state Covid-19 task force also reported 40,096 new infections, compared with 36,582 a day earlier.
Authorities have shied away from the kind of severe lockdowns imposed in many countries, but have shut down all non-essential services in Moscow from Thursday until November 7.
Retail outlets, restaurants, and sporting and entertainment venues are all closed, along with schools and kindergartens. Only shops selling food, medicine and other essentials are allowed to remain open.
China places third city under lockdown
China has placed a third city under lockdown to tackle Covid-19 numbers, with around six million people now under orders to stay home.
The resurgence prompted officials this week to lock down Lanzhou city-with a population of over four million -and Ejin in the Inner Mongolia region.
After confirming one new case, authorities in Heihe in Heilongjiang province followed suit , ordering people to stay at home and forbidding residents from leaving the far northern city except in emergencies, according to a local government statement.
China reported 23 new domestic cases, less than half of the previous day's number, in a sign that the country's tough disease controls may be working.
Japan's booster shots to be free to fully vaccinated ones
Japan's health ministry said it has decided to offer Covid-19 booster shots to anyone who has already received two vaccine doses.
The country had initially considered giving booster shots to frontline health workers and others who required priority first.
Hungary to need vaccinations at state institutions
Hungary's government will require employees at state institutions to be vaccinated against Covid-19 after a jump in new coronavirus cases, Prime Minister Viktor Orban's chief of staff said.
The PM's chief of staff Gergely Gulyas said that private companies will also be empowered to require Covid-19 vaccinations for employees if they believe that is necessary and mask wearing will be mandatory on public transport from November 1.
Antidepressant decreases Covid-19 hospitalisation risk
Treating high-risk Covid-19 patients with the antidepressant fluvoxamine may reduce the risk of prolonged hospitalisation by up to a third, a large-scale study showed.
Writing in the journal The Lancet Public Health, researchers from North and South America, described results in nearly 1,500 Covid-19 outpatients in Brazil.
Of the 741 people that received fluvoxamine, 79 -just over 10 percent -had an extended stay in hospital.
Of the 756 who received a placebo, 119 (15.7 percent) were hospitalised.
Authors said that administering fluvoxamine resulted in a relative reduction in hospitalisations of 32 percent.
They said the research could help boost low-cost protection against severe sickness or death in countries that have yet to receive adequate vaccine doses during a grossly uneven rollout.
The authors stressed that further evaluation is needed as fluvoxamine isn't on the World Health Organization's list of essential medicines and can be addictive.
WHO: Europe had most cases, deaths over last week
Europe stood out as the only major region worldwide to report an increase in both coronavirus cases and deaths over the last week, with double-digit percentage increases in each, the UN health agency said Wednesday.
The World Health Organization said new Covid-19 cases in its 53-country European region, which stretches as far east as former Soviet republics in Central Asia, recorded an 18 percent increase in cases over the last week – a fourth straight weekly increase for the area.
In WHO's weekly epidemiological report on Covid-19, Europe also saw a 14 percent increase in virus-related deaths. That amounted to more than 1.6 million new cases and over 21,000 new deaths.
WHO officials have pointed to a number of factors for Europe's virus woes, including relatively low rates of vaccination in some countries in Eastern Europe. Countries including Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova and Georgia had some of the highest rates of infection per 100,000 people in the last week.
Singapore looking into unusual surge after record cases
Singapore's health ministry said it is looking into an "unusual surge" in infections after the city-state reported 5,324 new cases of Covid-19 on Wednesday, the most since the beginning of the pandemic.
Singapore also recorded 10 new deaths from the disease on Wednesday, taking the toll to 349.
"The infection numbers are unusually high today, mostly due to many Covid-positive cases detected by the testing laboratories within a few hours in the afternoon," the ministry of health said in a statement.
Germany records highest daily cases since April
Germany’s daily Covid-19 cases have reached a six-month high, ahead of a potential surge in infections this winter.
The Robert Koch Institute reported 28,037 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, and 126 coronavirus-related fatalities.
Until recently, the last time the institute recorded over 23,000 cases was on April 30.
Mexico's 5,000 new cases likely undercounted
Mexico has added 4,797 new confirmed coronavirus cases and 386 more fatalities, health ministry data showed, bringing the country's overall death toll from the pandemic to 287,274 and the total number of cases to 3,793,783.
Officials have said the ministry's official figures likely represent a significant undercount of both cases and deaths due to a lack of widespread testing.
Brazil sees rising cases, no slowdown
Brazil has registered 433 new deaths due to Covid-19 and 17,184 additional confirmed cases, according to data released by its Ministry of Health.
Brazil has now reported 606,679 deaths due to the coronavirus.
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(With input from news agency language)
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