President Joe Biden on Wednesday ordered US intelligence agencies to report to him in the next three months on whether the COVID-19 virus first emerged in China from an animal source or from a laboratory accident. (FILES) In this file photo US President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the COVID-19...
About 0.01 percent of people became infected with COVID-19 between January and April despite being fully vaccinated, a US government study confirming the shots' high efficacy showed Tuesday. (FILES) In this file photo a man is inoculated with the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine at La Colaborativa...
Long dismissed as a kooky conspiracy theory favored by the far right, the idea that COVID emerged from a lab leak in Wuhan has been gaining increasing momentum in the United States. AFP FILE/ MANILA BULLETIN The government's position has shifted to agnosticism in recent weeks, with top pandemic...
Brazil's COVID-19 death toll surpassed 450,000 on Tuesday, as delays plague the hard-hit country's vaccine rollout and epidemiologists warned a brutal new surge of the virus could be coming. (FILES) In this file photo taken on February 25, 2021 a worker wearing a protective suit and carrying an...
Hong Kong may soon have to throw away millions of coronavirus vaccine doses because they are approaching their expiry date and not enough people have signed up for the jabs, an official warned Tuesday. (FILES) This file photo taken on February 27, 2021 shows Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 coronavirus...
New Zealand suspended quarantine-free travel with Australia's Victoria state over a new coronavirus cluster Tuesday, the fourth time the trans-Tasman travel bubble has been disrupted since it opened last month. (Photo by Andrew LEESON / AFP) / TO GO WITH:...
China on Monday dismissed as "totally untrue" reports that three researchers in Wuhan went to hospital with an illness shortly before the coronavirus emerged in the city and spread around the globe. AFP/ MANILA BULLETIN Since infecting its first victims in the central Chinese city in late 2019, the...
Denmark plans to donate three million COVID-19 doses to developing countries this year through the Covax global sharing scheme, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Monday. Syringes with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine are placed on a tray at a pop-up COVID-19 vaccination clinic (AFP/...
The UN on Monday declared the world "at war" against COVID-19, as India's death toll passed 300,000 and Japan opened its first mass vaccination centres. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (AFP/ MANILA BULLETIN) But just two months ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, the United States on...
Cyprus confirmed its first cases Wednesday of the COVID-19 variant behind the acceleration of India's explosive outbreak, detected among four people quarantined upon arrival, the health ministry said. PIXABAY/ MANILA BULLETIN Four samples tested positive for the Indian variant, while two others...
The French returned to their beloved cafe terraces on Wednesday, while the EU said its borders will be opened to vaccinated travellers as life crept back to normal in Europe after months of punishing restrictions. People have drinks at the Scudo restaurant on a beach in Ajaccio, on the French...
The United States is seeing its fewest number of deaths from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, official data showed Tuesday. The seven-day moving average of deaths was 545 on May 16, and "the last time our seven-day-average was this low was in March 2020, essentially since the pandemic...
