Daily roundupTuesday's key coronavirus developments from Luxembourg and abroad

Starting with Luxembourg

• The latest figures from Luxembourg show that 129 new cases of coronavirus were discovered over the last 24 hours.

• 54% of Luxembourg’s population supports mandatory vaccination, the latest Politmonitor survey shows.

• The contact tracing task force is once again reaching its limits as the number of new infections soars. This was confirmed by Minister of Health Paulette Lenert in her reply to a parliamentary question by MP Claude Wiseler from the Christian Social People’s Party (CSV).

• After 20 months of life in a pandemic, how is the morale amongst Luxembourgers? Do they agree with anti-Covid measures? What are their biggest concerns? The answers are here in the first part of a new Politmonitor poll carried out by TNS-Ilres on behalf of RTL and Wort.

And abroad

• Munich on Tuesday became the first major German city to cancel its upcoming Christmas market, which usually draws some three million visitors, blaming the “dramatic” coronavirus resurgence.

• US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer on Tuesday announced a deal to make its prospective antiviral Covid-19 pill available more cheaply in the world’s least wealthy countries.

• Meanwhile, Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna are making combined profits of €57,000 a minute from their vaccines while the world’s poorest countries remain largely unvaccinated, a study by the People’s Vaccine Alliance says.

• Video of Chinese health workers killing a pet dog with a crowbar after its owners were sent into Covid quarantine has sparked outrage, with social media users voicing concern about the extremes local authorities will go to enforce Beijing’s zero-case strategy.

• Hong Kong’s leader on Tuesday defended allowing the head of JP Morgan Chase to skip a three-week Covid quarantine imposed on most other visitors, saying he worked for “a very big bank”.

• Amazon has agreed to pay a fine of $500,000 after California’s state attorney general said the company failed to properly inform its staff and health authorities about Covid-19 infections.

• Ukrainians are to be offered around 35 euros to get double-vaccinated as deaths spiral there.