Evening roundupTuesday's key coronavirus developments from Luxembourg and abroad

Starting with Luxembourg:

• The latest figures from the Ministry of Health show that 425 new cases of coronavirus were discovered yesterday from 8,806 tests.

• The Minister of Health Paulette Lenert and Prime Minister Xavier Bettel announced that new strategies and measures to curb the spread of the virus could come into effect next week, despite numbers plateauing for several weeks now. Here’s a summary of our press briefing. You can read back our live ticker translations here.

• Scientists of the Covid Task Force have issued a new report in which they express doubts over the impact of the measures currently in place.

• 270 people were caught violating the night curfew, with 36 being identified in the Ettelbruck-Diekirch-region on Friday during a large-scale police check. The police has also announced that they will continue with routine checks to monitor the curfew.

• The new Covid-19 Consultation Centre is to open its doors on Wednesday. The facility will allow people showing symptoms of Covid-19 to get tested without the need for an appointment, similar to the centre in Kirchberg.

And abroad

• On Monday, 7,810 new deaths and 529,892 new cases were recorded worldwide. Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were United States with 1,008, followed by France with 506 and Italy with 504.

• The United States’ top infectious disease scientist Anthony Fauci on Monday hailed early trial results from Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine as “stunningly impressive,” and said the findings were an emphatic validation of experimental mRNA technology that some had doubted.

• France said Tuesday it was preparing to kick off a nationwide Covid vaccination campaign in January when it hopes virus shots will be approved and available.

• EasyJet on Tuesday posted the first annual pre-tax loss in its 25-year history, prompting it to seek more government help as the coronavirus pandemic hammers air travel. The British no-frills carrier suffered a pre-tax loss of £1.27 billion ($1.7 billion, 1.4 billion euros) in its reporting year to September. That contrasted with a year-earlier profit of £430 million.

• Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday failed to push through additional curbs to combat the coronavirus, as she said ongoing restrictions have helped to halt a runaway rise in infection numbers.

• While Austria was held up as a model to follow during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, its return to lockdown Tuesday has sparked a backlash against the government.

• French police on Tuesday cleared a migrant street camp outside the Stade de France stadium north of Paris where around 2,000 people, mainly Afghan and African, had been living in cramped tents. The migrants were taken by bus to Covid-19 testing centres.

• Ten coronavirus patients died in a fire at a Romanian hospital on Saturday, sparking wider safety warnings in a country marked by crumbling infrastructure and a culture of makeshift repairs.

• Athletes won’t be required to take a coronavirus vaccine to compete at the Tokyo Olympics, IOC chief Thomas Bach said Tuesday, adding that mandatory shots would be “going too far”.

• Airbnb said in its stock market filing Monday that its home-sharing model proved resilient during the global pandemic, as it posted a profit for the just-ended quarter.