Daily roundupTuesday's key coronavirus developments from Luxembourg and abroad

Starting with Luxembourg

• The latest figures from the Ministry of Health show that 190 new cases of coronavirus were discovered yesterday from 10,979 tests. There were 2 new deaths.

• Luxembourg’s weekly overview: From 25 to 31 January, 999 people tested positive for Covid-19, compared to 843 the week before. The full details here.

• 14 of 52 retirement and nursing homes currently have at least one Covid-19 case, Minister for Family Affairs Corinne Cahen revealed.

• The National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (Statec) has revisited the way in which it presents an overview of pandemic-related data across the Grand Duchy. They also published a new report on consumer tendencies throughout the pandemic.

• The care of patients with mental illnesses needs to be greatly improved in Luxembourg, according to an external analysis of the National Suicide Prevention Plan presented on Tuesday.

• Over the last week, Grand Duchy police carried out more than 330 checks in connection with compliance with Covid-19 measures. 170 people were fined.

And abroad

• Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine is 91.6 percent effective against symptomatic Covid-19, according to results published in The Lancet on Tuesday that independent experts said allayed transparency concerns over the jab, which Moscow is already rolling out.

• The World Health Organization mission probing the origins of Covid-19 in China was going “very well”, one of its members said Tuesday, as the team visited an animal disease control centre in the city where the first cases were reported.

• Japan’s government approved a month-long extension of its coronavirus state of emergency on Tuesday, less than six months before the pandemic-postponed Olympic Games open in Tokyo. The Olympics will go ahead this summer “however the coronavirus evolves”, Tokyo 2020 president Yoshiro Mori said Tuesday.

• Sales of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech could reach up to $15 billion in 2021 and go higher if Pfizer signs additional supply contracts, Pfizer said Tuesday.

• The Montreux Jazz Festival, which was forced to cancel last year’s edition due to the pandemic, said Tuesday it was moving towards a hybrid model, including livestreaming concerts.

• US President Joe Biden met Monday with a group of Republican senators who are pushing an alternative to his massive Covid-19 relief plan, but no agreement was reached.

• Sports stadiums, cathedrals and theme parks the world over have been rapidly repurposed as temporary vaccination centres in a global drive to administer the life-saving jabs.

• The second wave of Covid-19 has seen oxygen supplies run low in several South American countries, and many Peruvian families say their loved ones died because they could not access any.