Pakistan to spend $1.1B on shots for adults

Pakistan will spend $1.1 billion in the next fiscal year to import COVID-19 vaccines to inoculate most of the 100 million adult population.

This announcement was made by finance minister Shaukat Tareen on Friday while presenting the annual budget for fiscal 2021-22 in the parliament. Pakistan’s fiscal year begins on July 1.

Pakistan, a nation of 220 million, has so far mainly relied on vaccines import from neighboring China. The latest development comes two days after Pakistan said it has administered 10 million vaccine doses amid a decline in COVID-19 cases and deaths from coronavirus.

Tareen also set a target of achieving 4.8 percent GDP growth in the next fiscal year. Pakistan’s economy has been under pressure since last year when it imposed weeks-long nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of coronavirus.

Pakistan has registered a total of 938,737 confirmed cases and 21,576 confirmed deaths.

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MORE ON THE PANDEMIC:

— China’s children may be next in line for COVID-19 vaccines

— Leaders of G-7 nations gather to pledge 1B vaccine doses for world

— New federal COVID-19 safety rules exempt most U.S. employers

— EU agency approves Moderna vaccine site in France

— Reports of rising coronavirus cases in Russia

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— Follow more of AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine

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HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

TAIPEI, Taiwan — If China is to meet its tentative goal of vaccinating 80% of its population against the coronavirus by the end of the year, tens of millions of children are going to have to start rolling up their sleeves.

Regulators have taken the first steps by approving two domestically produced vaccines for use in children aged 3 to 17, though no date has been set for the shots to start.

Children have been largely spared the worst of the pandemic, becoming infected less easily than adults and generally showing less severe symptoms when they do contract the virus. But some experts say if countries are going to achieve herd immunity, inoculating children should be part of the plan.

Few regulators around the world have evaluated the safety of COVID-19 shots in kids. The United States, Canada, Singapore and Hong Kong are allowing the use of the Pfizer vaccine in children as young as 12.

China has a population of 1.4 billion, meaning it needs to inoculate 560 million people to reach its goal of 40% vaccination by June and 1.12 billion people to get to the 80% goal. It will be hard to do the latter without vaccinating many of its 254 million children who are younger than 14.

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LONDON — The European Medicines Agency has approved a new manufacturing site for the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, in a move that could substantially boost production for the European Union.

In a statement on Friday, the EU drug regulator says it had approved a site in Monts, France, operated by Recipharm. In addition to the new site approval, the EMA authorized several other sites to conduct batch control and testing.

This month, two locations in the U.S. were approved for production of vaccines destined for the 27-nation EU bloc. Any medicines or vaccines authorized for the EU market must first have their production facilities approved by the EMA.

The EMA says these new approved sites are expected to result in an additional 1 to 2 million vials of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine every month.

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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysia’s government says a two-week nationwide lockdown due to end Monday will be extended for another two weeks as new daily infections remain high at more than 6,000.

Senior Minister Ismail Sabri said the National Security Council made the decision at its meeting Friday. Although daily cases have dropped from its peak of above 9,000 just before the lockdown, he said average daily cases since the lockdown was still high.

The health ministry on Friday reported 6,849 new infections, bringing the country’s confirmed total tally to 646,411. Another 84 deaths raised the confirmed death toll to 3,768.

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BERLIN — Germany is lifting a blanket travel warning for countries with high coronavirus infection rates starting July 1.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas says “after many months of lockdown, we can look forward to greater normalcy, that includes travel.”

The general travel warning will be lifted next month for all countries that have fewer than 200 newly confirmed coronavirus cases per 100,000 inhabitants in a week.

But Maas cautioned that the pandemic isn’t over yet and the rise of new variants means risks remain.

Countries with infection rates above 200 or a large share of concerning variants among new cases, like Britain, will remain on the government’s list of risk areas. Germans are discouraged from traveling to such countries and people arriving in Germany from there will need to go into quarantine.

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LONDON — The European Medicines Agency says it’s recommending that people who have had a rare blood vessel syndrome not be immunized with AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine.

In a statement on Friday, the EU drug regulator said it reviewed cases of six people who had capillary leak syndrome after they had received a shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine. The vaccine has previously been linked to rare blood clots, but health officials say its benefits still outweigh the small risks.

EMA experts also concluded that the capillary leak condition should be added to the product information as a new side effect of the vaccine.

The agency said it is continuing its review of heart inflammation in a small number of people who developed conditions after getting immunized with the vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna Inc.

The EMA said it is studying cases of myocarditis, inflammation of the heart, and pericarditis, inflammation of the membrane surrounding the heart. Symptoms include shortness of breath and chest pain; the problems are usually temporary.

“Further analysis is needed to determine whether there is a causal link with the vaccines,” the EU agency said.

The EMA said it expects to finalize its review of such cases next month.

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MOSCOW -- Confirmed coronavirus cases are continuing to rise in Russia, where authorities on Friday reported 12,505 new infections -- a 25% increase from the number registered on Monday.

Moscow accounted for nearly half of the newly confirmed cases with 5,853, almost twice the number reported in Russia’s capital at the beginning of the week Despite the surge of infections, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin vowed earlier this week not to impose a lockdown.

In St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, hours-long lines of ambulances have been spotted this week near hospitals treating COVID-19 patients. The city hosted a massive economic forum last week and is scheduled to host several matches of soccer’s European Championship next week.

The Russian state coronavirus task force has reported a total of nearly 5.2 million virus cases and over 125,000 deaths in the pandemic. Most virus-related restrictions in Russia were lifted last summer, and authorities have shunned tough measures ever since.

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CARBIS BAY, England — Leaders from the Group of Seven industrialized nations are set to commit at their summit to sharing at least 1 billion coronavirus shots with struggling countries around the world — half the doses coming from the U.S. and 100 million from the U.K.

Vaccine sharing commitments from U.S. President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson set the stage for the G-7 meeting in southwest England, where leaders will pivot Friday from opening greetings and a “family photo” directly into a session on “Building Back Better From COVID-19.”

“We’re going to help lead the world out of this pandemic working alongside our global partners,” Biden said. The G-7 also includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.

The leaders hope the meeting in the resort of Carbis Bay will also energize the global economy. On Friday, they are set to formally embrace a global minimum tax of at least 15% on corporations, following an agreement reached a week ago by their finance ministers. The minimum is meant to stop companies from using tax havens and other tools to avoid taxes.

It represents a potential win for the Biden administration, which has proposed a global minimum tax as a way to pay for infrastructure projects, in addition to creating an alternative that could remove some European countries’ digital services taxes that largely hit U.S. tech firms.

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COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Norway’s King Harald V says he believes the coronavirus pandemic “is nearing its end” and people “should rejoice.”

During the pandemic, several members of the Norwegian royal family were protectively put in quarantine and either canceled official duties or performed them digitally.

Harald formally heads the Council of State with the government and during its meetings he is briefed about current affairs and signs laws. In March, he took part in such a meeting by telephone.

The Norwegian monarch, whose duties are largely ceremonial, said Thursday the pandemic has meant that he and his wife, Queen Sonja, are “seeing far less of you than we normally do.”

Norway has had one of Europe's lowest infection rates throughout the pandemic, chiefly because of the Scandinavian country's low population density. The Norwegian public's overall trust in government authorities also has been credited with keeping virus cases down.

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CHICAGO — Illinois is lifting all capacity limits on bars, restaurants, businesses and other venues as of Friday, nearly 15 months after the state's first stay-at-home order of the coronavirus pandemic.

Businesses still can have their own rules for capacity, masks and social distancing. Masks are still required on public transportation and in airports, schools and hospitals.

More than 68% of Illinois residents who are 18 or older have received at least one dose of vaccine, and 51% of adults are fully vaccinated, the state health department said, citing federal data.

The health department said 209 people with COVID-19 were in intensive care units statewide Thursday and 103 were on ventilators — “some of the lowest counts we’ve seen since the pandemic began.”

There have been at least 23,014 deaths in Illinois from COVID-19.

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MANILA, Philippines — Philippine officials have allowed the reopening of gyms, skating rinks, racket courts and museums in metropolitan Manila and adjacent provinces as a coronavirus surge continues to ease.

Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez says Filipinos 65 years old and above who have been restricted to home can now travel within the densely populated capital region two weeks after having been fully vaccinated.

He says gyms and similar indoor businesses with safety certificates can reopen up to 30% of their capacity.

Lopez has called for the further reopening of the battered economy to address unemployment and hunger. Museums and historical sites also can reopen at 20% capacity but guided tours remain prohibited.

The Philippines has reported the second highest number of COVID-19 infections in Southeast Asia at nearly 1.3 million with 22,312 dead. The government reimposed a lockdown in the capital region and four nearby provinces after infections surged in March.

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NEW DELHI — The Indian state of Bihar has increased its COVID-19 death toll after the discovery of thousands of unreported cases, raising concerns that many more fatalities were not officially recorded.

The health department in Bihar, one of the poorest states, on Thursday revised its COVID-19 fatality count to more than 9,429 from 5,424 — a jump of more than 70%.

Officials said the 3,951 unreported fatalities had occurred in May and reflect “deaths reported at private hospitals, in transit to health facilities, under home isolation and those dying of post COVID-19 complications.”

Health experts say many COVID-19 fatalities remain unrecorded in India. India’s federal ministers from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have dismissed reports of undercounting as exaggerated and misleading.

Overall, India’s cases and deaths have fallen steadily in the past weeks.

The 91,702 cases added in the past 24 hours pushed India’s total to more than 29.3 million on Friday, second only to the United States. The Health Ministry also reported 3,403 fatalities in the past 24 hours, raising the overall death toll to 363,079.

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WASHINGTON — U.S. health officials are investigating what appear to be higher than expected reports of heart inflammation in male teens and young adults after they get a second dose of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

It’s not clear if the inflammation is caused by the shots and the reports still are rare, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. The CDC is urging everyone 12 and older in the United States to get vaccinated.

A CDC official said Thursday that as of May 31, the agency had 275 preliminary reports of such inflammation in 16- to 24-year-olds,.That’s out of more than 12 million second-dose injections of the vaccines.

The official says the cases seem to occur more often in men and in younger people, and most already have fully recovered.

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