The risk of Covid-19 community transmission in Shanghai has been effectively controlled, said Gu Honghui, deputy secretary general of the Shanghai Municipal Government at a press briefing today.
"Thanks to the joint support from various cities across the country and the effort of all Shanghai residents, we've made initial progress in curbing this round of Covid-19 resurgence. Currently the situation is stable and showing a good trend. The effect of our dynamic zero-Covid policy has becoming more visible," said Mr Gu.
The number of domestic positive infected cases started to drop after reaching its peak of 27,605 on 13 April. From 27 April on, the daily new infections had been under 10,000 for four days.
The effective reproduction number, or Rt, had dropped from 2.27 to 0.67, below 1 for 15 consecutive days, according Mr Gu.
"The positive rate of nucleic acid tests and antigen tests keeps gliding. After our experts' comprehensive analysis, the risk of community transmission in Shanghai has been effectively controlled," said Mr Gu.
Shanghai reported 788 confirmed cases yesterday, according to the National Health Commission in its daily report today
Amazon ends Covid paid leave for US workers
Giant online retailer Amazon will end its paid time-off policy for employees with Covid-19 from tomorrow the company told US-based staff today.
The change follows the availability of Covid-19 vaccines and revised guidance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it said.
The US-based staff will now get five days of excused, unpaid leave following a confirmed Covid-19 diagnosis, Amazon told workers in a message it provided to Reuters.
"We can continue to safely adjust to our pre-Covid policies," the company said, citing the sustained easing of the pandemic, the availability of vaccines and treatments, and updated public health guidance.
The changes come amid a stream of challenges for Amazon after a recent effort to unionise some warehouses. In April, workers at its warehouse in New York City voted to form the first union.
Yesterday, Amazon said it is halting site-wide notifications of positive cases in facilities, unless required by law, as well as efforts to encourage vaccination.
In January, Amazon trimmed paid leave for workers with the virus to one week, or up to 40 hours. Before that, they got two weeks of paid time off for Covid-19.
US reports over 81.34 million Covid cases
The United States had reported over 81.34 million confirmed Covid-19 cases with the death toll topping 993,700 as of yesterday, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.
Specifically, the country's case count had risen to 81,349,060 and the death toll had gone up to 993,712 as of yesterday.
To give a shot in the arm in taming the resurgence, more than 573.73 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines had been administered across America by yesterday, showed the CSSE tally.
As Covid-19 infections are rising again in the United States, health experts and officials urge people to increase their precautions, The New York Times reported.
The orange spot first appeared on the US national risk map of Covid-19 in early April, marking three counties in central New York State as having "high" community levels of the coronavirus, the only such cluster in the country, the report said on Wednesday.
And now, it is up to two dozen orange counties, stretching across upstate New York and spilling into Pennsylvania and Vermont, while central New York is the biggest blotch on the map.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend people in the hot spot wear masks in public indoor settings due to an increasing level of severe disease.
"What we have done is to distribute tens of thousands of KN95 masks and Covid tests, and mail them to people's homes," he said.
Public health official Mary McFadden warned that people still need to be diligent and vigilant in how they protect themselves and those who are more vulnerable."
Vaccines prove effective against Omicron sub-variants
Scientists in South Africa have examined Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 of Covid-19 and found that antibodies from earlier infection are far less able to thrive in the blood of people who are vaccinated.
Scientists from multiple institutions were involved in taking blood samples from 39 participants previously infected by Omicron when it first appeared at the end of last year.
Fifteen were vaccinated, eight with the Pfizer vaccine and seven with Johnson & Johnson, while the other 24 were unvaccinated.
"The vaccinated group showed about a five-fold higher neutralisation capacity and should be better protected, " scientists involved in the study said.
They added that based on the neutralisation escape, BA.4 and BA.5 have potential to result in a new infection wave in South Africia, after the subvariants were added to the World Health Organization monitoring list.
In the unvaccinated samples, there was an almost eightfold decrease in antibody production when exposed to BA.4 and BA.5,compared with the original BA.1 Omicron lineage.
Blood from the vaccinated people showed a threefold decrease, but only about 30% of South Africa's population of 60 million is fully vaccinated.
South Africa may be entering a fifth Covid-19 wave earlier than expected, officials and scientists said on Friday, blaming a sustained rise in infections that seems to be driven by the BA.4and BA.5 Omicron sub-variants.
