Weeks after acknowledging a coronavirus outbreak in the country, North Korea has said its daily cases have dropped below the 100,000-mark for the first time in days, according to reports in local media. As of Friday evening, some 88,520 more people reportedly showed fever symptoms, compared with nearly 400,000 – in the same time period – about 10 days ago. Meanwhile, in China’s financial hub of Shanghai, gradual steps towards the lifting of its Covid lockdown are being taken. The city has been one of the major hotspots in China which saw a harsh two-month lockdown to arrest the spread of virus.
Here are top global Covid-19 updates:
>China’s capital city Beijing has reported 1,701 new Covid-19 infections since April 22 as of 3pm local time (on Friday), Liu Xiaofeng, deputy director at the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control, was quoted as telling a news briefing, news agency Reuters reported.
>Borders areas in Jilin, a Chinese province that shares a long frontier with North Korea, have reported domestically transmitted Covid infections of unknown origin, a Chinese health official said on Friday.
>As part of a phased easing of Covid restrictions, Japan Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has said his government will double the maximum number of people allowed every day to enter at border crossings to 20,000 from June 1.
>The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised patients experiencing a recurrence of Covid symptoms after completing treatment with Pfizer’s drug Paxlovid to isolate again for five days. Paxlovid is an oral antiviral that has proved successful at reducing the chances of hospitalisation among Covid-19 patients.
>Travelers to Cyprus will no longer be required to show either a valid Covid-19 vaccination or a recovery certificate and won’t need to produce a negative recent Covid-19 test of June 1, its government said Friday.
(With agency inputs)
