Daily roundupThursday's key coronavirus developments from Luxembourg and abroad

Starting with Luxembourg

• The Ministry of Health has reported 63 new cases of coronavirus over the last 24 hours, while the death toll has increased by one.

• PM Xavier Bettel received his second dose of the vaccine on Thursday.

• Bicycle subsidy waiting times have increased to over a year, in the wake of 6,000 applications per month filed since the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak.

And abroad

• The World Health Organization condemned Wednesday the rush by wealthy countries to provide Covid vaccine booster shots, while millions around the world have yet to receive a single dose.

• New Zealand reported a breakthrough Thursday in tracing the source of a Covid-19 outbreak that plunged the nation into lockdown, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern saying it should help “stamp out” the virus.

• A British man was sentenced to six weeks’ jail in Singapore for not wearing a mask and harassing police, officials confirmed Thursday.

• A first coronavirus case has been detected in the Paralympic Village, days before the Games open, organisers said Thursday as Japan battles a record wave of infections.

• Three photos have been shared hundreds of times on Facebook in South Africa and Australia alongside a claim that they show Covid-19 related demonstrations, when one actually dates back to a “gilets jaunes” protest in France, in 2018.

• A photo of the mayor of the Philippine capital Manila has been shared in social media posts that criticised him for apparently wearing limited PPE, when the photo was taken during an official visit, four days before authorities announced he had been hospitalised with Covid-19.

• Britain’s legal cannabis market has boomed during the coronavirus pandemic to become the second biggest after the United States, as consumers rushed to alleviate Covid-linked symptoms, industry experts say.

• Hong Kong’s decision to grant Hollywood star Nicole Kidman a quarantine exemption as she films an Amazon-funded series about the lives of wealthy expats has sparked public anger.