Blogroll

A keenly-watched COVID-19 vaccine will be priced to allow as wide as possible access to it, if it proves successful, and will be made at huge scale to keep costs down and supply up, said the Oxford University professor co-leading its development.

The following is a brief roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

Spain imposed a quarantine on incoming overseas passengers on Friday and added new travel restrictions to prevent the spread of the coronavirus as the country's daily death toll falls.

Scientists and researchers are working at "breakneck" speed to find solutions for COVID-19 but the pandemic can only be beaten with equitable distribution of medicines and vaccines, the head of the World Health Organization said on Friday.

Authorities in Wuhan have tested over 3 million residents for the coronavirus in April and May and aim to test all of the rest, state media said, as the city at the epicentre of the original outbreak faces the threat of a second wave of infections.

The reproduction rate of the coronavirus in the United Kingdom is now somewhere between 0.7 and 1.0, government scientific advisers said on Friday, a slight rise on figures given last week.

Indonesia will require big internet companies to pay value-added tax on sales of digital products and services from July, a move that other countries may also adopt as they seek to boost revenues following the coronavirus pandemic.

(This May 14 story has been refiled with tweaked wording in paragraph 2 to make clear not all Palestinians marking Nakba were uprooted in 1948)

China is ready to put U.S. companies in an "unreliable entity list," as part of countermeasures against Washington's move to block shipments of semiconductors to Huawei Technologies, the Global Times reported on Friday.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd , the biggest contract chipmaker, said it plans to build a $12 billion factory in Arizona in an apparent win for the Trump administration's efforts to wrestle global tech supply chains back from China.

Chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co's $12 billion investment in the United States will increase U.S. economic independence from China, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement early on Friday.

The U.S. Department of Commerce on Friday announced that it was extending the Temporary General License that allows certain transactions with Huawei Technologies Co Ltd for another 90 days.

The Trump administration on Friday moved to block shipments of semiconductors to Huawei Technologies from global chipmakers, in an action that could ramp up tensions with China.

Foxconn's first-quarter profit plunged to its lowest in two decades, all but wiped out, after the coronavirus pandemic forced the Taiwanese firm to suspend manufacturing operations in China and knocked demand from customers including Apple Inc .

Wuhan, the original epicentre of the new coronavirus outbreak in China, has tested over 3 million residents for the pathogen since April, and will now focus its testing efforts on the rest of its 11 million population, according to state media.

Spain's death toll from coronavirus registered its lowest increase since Monday as health authorities registered 138 new fatalities on Friday, the health ministry reported.

India has lost two weeks in its bid to get a picture of the spread of the coronavirus in its population because of poor Chinese testing kits, a member of a national task force said, complicating a decision on opening up from a lockdown.

Large parts of Japan marked the first day out of a state of emergency on Friday while Tokyo's governor asked residents to prepare for the "new normal" as restrictions stay in place in the capital and major cities.

Japan should boost coronavirus testing and offer more generous cash payouts to households as the epidemic could last for several years, an economist appointed to a government panel on the virus response said on Friday.

Thailand will begin allowing department stores, shopping malls and other businesses to reopen from Sunday as new coronavirus cases dwindle, the government said.