schema:articleBody
| - Here are the latest developments in the coronavirus crisis: A top official in the European Medicines Agency says that there is a link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and blood clots. New Zealand has approved quarantine-free travel with Australia, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says, completing a two-way corridor for travel between the largely Covid-free neighbours. North Korea will not attend this year's Tokyo Olympics because of the pandemic, blowing the final whistle on Seoul's hopes of using the Games to restart talks with its nuclear-armed neighbour. And in another blow to the Games, a water polo test event is cancelled because sport officials cannot enter Japan due to restrictions, reports say. Eight million inhabitants of Bogota will be put under strict lockdown from Saturday, mayor Claudia Lopez announces as the Colombian city battles a third wave. The Texas Rangers baseball team play out their home opener to a packed house with a near-capacity crowd of around 40,000 fans -- the largest crowd at a US sporting event since the start of the pandemic. The EU approves a plan by the French government to inject up to four billion euros into pandemic-hit Air France. Germans in the tiny border state of Saarland return to cafes, cinemas and cultural venues even as the rest of the country faces tighter restrictions amid rising case numbers. Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili says he has tested positive amid a fresh spike in cases in the Caucasus nation. Lebanon's vaccine rollout risks marginalising refugees and migrant workers who make up a third of the crisis-hit country's population, warns Human Rights Watch. Swedish fashion giant H&M is to lay off more than 1,000 staff in Spain who are currently on furlough due to the pandemic, a union says. At least 2,862,002 people have died of Covid-19 around the world since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to an AFP tally from official sources. The US is the worst-affected country with 555,615 deaths, followed by Brazil with 332,752, Mexico with 204,399, India with 165,547 and Britain with 126,862. burs-eab/fg/rl
|