April 29 (Reuters) – Beijing closed more businesses and residential compounds on Friday, with authorities ramping up contact tracing to contain a COVID-19 outbreak, while resentment at the month-long lockdown in Shanghai grew.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* Mainland China reported 15,688 new coronavirus cases for April 28, of which 5,659 were symptomatic and 10,029 were asymptomatic, the National Health Commission said on Friday.
* Cross-border freight train services between North Korea and China have been suspended after a series of COVID-19 infections in the Chinese border city of Dandong, the Yonhap news agency said.
* Shanghai’s heavy-handed COVID-19 lockdown is driving scores of foreign residents to flee the commercial centre, denting the appeal of mainland China’s most cosmopolitan city and prompting others to rethink their futures in the metropolis.
* Companies reopening factories in locked-down Shanghai are booking hotel rooms to house workers and turning vacant workshops into on-site isolation facilities as authorities urge them to resume work while complying with tough COVID-19 curbs.
* A Hong Kong government rule that all school students and staff take daily COVID-19 tests will add massively to the city’s plastic waste problem, environmental activists say, with some 20 million kits a month set to be dumped at bursting landfills.
* South Korea said on Friday it will lift an outdoor face mask mandate next week in the country’s latest step to ease COVID-19 restrictions, despite opposition from the incoming government which labelled the decision “premature”.
EUROPE
* Face masks will remain compulsory in Italy on public transport and in some indoor venues until June 15, the health minister said.
AMERICAS
* Ecuador will immediately lift mask mandates for both indoor and outdoor spaces thanks to significant gains made against coronavirus, President Guillermo Lasso said on Thursday.
* International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva has tested positive for COVID-19, the IMF said, following marathon meetings last week with global finance leaders in Washington.
* Formula One race directors Eduardo Freitas and Niels Wittich have both tested positive for COVID-19, raising questions about who will take charge of next week’s inaugural Miami Grand Prix, British media reported.
AFRICA
* South Africa may be entering a fifth COVID infection wave after a sustained rise in infections over the past 14 days, Health Minister Joe Phaahla said on Friday.
* Africa is seeing an uptick in COVID-19 infections, largely driven by a doubling in cases reported in South Africa, the World Health Organization said, urging people across the continent to continue to get vaccinated.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* A shareholder proposal calling on Moderna to study transferring production of COVID-19 vaccines to less-developed countries won 24% support from investors on Thursday after it received a rare endorsement from the World Health Organization.
* Moderna said it asked U.S. regulators to authorise its COVID-19 vaccine for children under the age of 6, which would make it the first shot against the coronavirus available for those under 5 years old.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* Asian shares clung on to small gains on Friday thanks to a solid Wall Street session, but were still set for their worst month in two years, as China growth fears and looming U.S. rate hikes dragged on sentiment and sent the safe-haven dollar soaring.
* China will step up policy support to stabilise the economy as domestic COVID outbreaks and the Ukraine war raise risks, state media quoted the Politburo, a top decision-making body of the ruling Communist Party, as saying on Friday.
(Compiled by Subhranshu Sahu; Edited by Shounak Dasgupta)
