Daily roundupSunday's key coronavirus developments from Luxembourg and abroad

Starting with Luxembourg

• [block type="summary”]The latest figures from the Ministry of Health show that 185 new cases of coronavirus were discovered yesterday.

  • The Moselle border region in France has ruled against a new lockdown, despite rising cases.
  • Staff at the Centre Hospitalier du Nord put together a fun video as part of the Valentina Challenge.

  And abroad

  • [block type="summary”]The novel coronavirus has killed at least 2,394,541 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019.

    • New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern ordered the country’s biggest city Auckland into a snap lockdown for the first time in nearly six months on Sunday after three coronavirus cases emerged in the community.
    • The European Union has agreed to fast-track approvals of vaccines updated to target coronavirus variants, the bloc’s health commissioner said Sunday, following criticism of the EU’s sluggish vaccine drive.
    • Japan on Sunday approved its first coronavirus vaccine, clearing the way for mass inoculations as the nation prepares to host the postponed 2020 Olympics.

    • As Europe’s top economy feels the strain from months of coronavirus restrictions, Germans in so-called mini-jobs -- part-time, easily terminated contracts that allow workers to earn a maximum of 450 euros ($545) a month - have been declared the “biggest losers of the crisis” by the German Institute for Economic Research.

    • Catalonia went to the polls Sunday for an election Madrid hopes will unseat the region’s ruling separatists more than three years after a failed bid to break away from Spain. But the vote could see a high level of abstentions as Spain battles a third wave of the pandemic.

    • At the initiative of Britain, which boasts of having an effective vaccination program, the UN Security Council on Wednesday will debate the problem of global access to Covid-19 vaccines, raising issues likely to underscore sharp differences between council members.