Factbox-Latest on the worldwide spread of the coronavirus

Reuters
Updated ·2 min read
COVID-19 outbreak in Beijing

(Reuters) - Days after lifting its months-long lockdown, Shanghai will test most of its residents this weekend, while travellers to the United States will no longer need to present a pre-departure COVID-19 international air test from Sunday.

DEATHS AND INFECTIONS

ASIA-PACIFIC

* China's commercial hub Shanghai faces an unexpected round of mass COVID-19 testing for most residents this weekend — just 10 days after a city-wide lockdown was lifted.

* Mainland China reported 151 new coronavirus cases for June 9, of which 45 were symptomatic and 106 were asymptomatic, the National Health Commission said.

* Japan's business community issued a joint statement seeking further relaxation of border controls, as the country begins a gradual easing of COVID-19 travel restrictions.

EUROPE

* Spanish airport operator Aena said it expects the flow of tourists through its terminals in Spain, Britain and Latin America to recover from the pandemic-induced slump faster than it previously expected.

* Russia has registered a total of 812,127 COVID-related deaths since the start of the pandemic in April 2020, Reuters calculations based on new data from the Rosstat state statistics service showed.

* French sports minister Amelie Oudea-Castera has tested positive for COVID-19, the ministry said.

AMERICAS

* The Biden administration will drop pre-departure COVID-19 international air testing requirements effective Sunday at 12:01 a.m. after heavy lobbying from airlines and the travel industry.

AFRICA & MIDDLE EAST

* COVID-19 vaccine maker BioNTech said construction of an mRNA vaccine factory to enable African nations to jump-start their own manufacturing network would start on June 23 in Rwanda.

MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS

* Available data suggest that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines do not cause an absence of menstruation, the European Union's health regulator concluded on Friday.

* The COVAX facility, backed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), has delivered 1.53 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to 146 countries, GAVI data shows.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

* Asian stocks fell, spooked by a fresh COVID-19 alert in Shanghai and Beijing, while Indonesian stocks took a hit after the world's biggest palm oil exporter raised its maximum palm oil export tax.

* China's auto sales fell 12.6% in May from a year earlier, data showed on Friday, but the extent of the decline improved from April's falls as authorities rolled out stimulus to support a market depressed by the country's lockdowns.

(Compiled by Dina Kartit and Uttaresh.V; Edited by David Evans and Shounak Dasgupta)