Evening roundupMonday's key coronavirus developments in Luxembourg and abroad

Starting with Luxembourg:

• [block type="summary”]The latest figures from the Ministry of Health show that 182 new cases of coronavirus were discovered yesterday, while eight more deaths were reported.

  • [block type="summary”]Germany announced a hard lockdown as of Wednesday for a four-week period, but Luxembourg won’t be following suit, according to a close government source.

    • The Chamber of Deputies will vote on the prolonging of Covid laws on Tuesday morning.
    • Luxair and BioneXt have come up with a special arrangement to allow testing over the festive period for potential travellers.

    And around the world:

    • The Netherlands is set to announce strict anti-coronavirus measures ahead of Christmas including possibly closing all non-essential shops, theatres, museums and amusement parks, reports said Monday.

    • The northern French port city of Le Havre on Monday launched a mass drive to test its 270,000 inhabitants for Covid-19 before a nationwide lockdown is lifted.
    • The prime minister of Eswatini, Africa’s last absolute monarchy, died in a South African hospital on Sunday after contracting coronavirus, the government said in a statement.
    • New Zealand hopes to open a travel bubble with Australia by April next year and is working to finalise the necessary anti-coronavirus border measures, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Monday.
    • The United States kicked off a mass vaccination drive Monday hoping to turn the tide on the world’s biggest coronavirus outbreak, as the country’s death toll neared a staggering 300,000.
    • Singapore has approved the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, and expects to receive the first shipments of the shots by the end of December, the prime minister said Monday.
    • Canada will begin a roll-out of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine on Monday, just days after becoming one of the first countries to approve the treatment.
    • Japan’s prime minister on Monday urged citizens to reconsider their holiday travel plans and suspended a controversial domestic tourism campaign as the country battles record numbers of coronavirus infections.
    • The first Christmas in a coronavirus world will be a season like no other, with governments urging people to rein themselves in to stop another deadly wave of the pandemic.