Evening roundupFriday's key coronavirus developments in Luxembourg and abroad

Starting with Luxembourg

• The latest figures from the Ministry of Health show that 160 new cases of coronavirus were discovered yesterday from 8,879 tests. Three new deaths were reported.

• The Chamber of Deputies voted on the extension of current coronavirus restrictions on Friday afternoon. They will be in place until 21 February.

• An open letter addressed to Minister of Education Claude Meisch arguing that students should no longer have to wear a mask in class has come under criticism.

• A new form allowing self-employed people to request new government support went online on Friday.

• The Ministry of Finance announced on Friday that the process for obtaining tax reimbursement, or advance cancellations, would be simplified for those working in the Horesca sector.

And abroad

• In the last 24 hours 16,326 new deaths and 589,862 new cases were recorded worldwide.

• The EU’s medicines regulator on Friday recommended the authorisation of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine for adults of all ages, saying it believed it would be safe for older people too. Earlier the European Commission published a redacted version of its contract with drugs giant AstraZeneca on Friday, hoping to prove the company had breached a commitment on coronavirus vaccine deliveries.

• Experts from the World Health Organization met Chinese officials Friday ahead of their first site visits in Wuhan for a coronavirus origins probe which will take in a food market presumed to be “ground zero” of the pandemic. Meanwhile, the country exported more than 220 billion face masks last year, the commerce ministry said Friday, the equivalent of nearly 40 per person outside China.

• Fake vaccines, dubious coronavirus tests, non-existent oxygen tanks -- scammers are preying on desperate Mexican coronavirus patients and their relatives as the pandemic stretches the country’s health system to the limit.

• There was encouraging news from US biotech firm Novavax, which said its two-shot vaccine showed an overall efficacy of 89.3 percent in a major Phase 3 clinical trial in Britain, and remained highly effective against a variant first identified there. American pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson (J&J) announced that its single-dose Covid vaccine showed 72% efficacy against Covid-19 in US trials, but was less effective in other regions.

• In further jab news, Hungary on Friday became the first EU member to approve the Chinese-made Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine.

• A fire broke out early Friday in Romania’s main hospital for coronavirus patients, killing five of them in the second such incident in three months.

• A new outbreak of coronavirus began in northern Vietnam on Thursday, with 149 cases detected so far. 53 Covid infections were detected on Friday, including in the capital Hanoi, where the governing Communist Party is currently holding its five-yearly congress.