Korea Eases Rules; Israel’s Vaccine Campaign: Virus Update

(Bloomberg) -- AstraZeneca Plc’s Covid-19 jab is effective against the new strain that emerged in the U.K., said co-developer the University of Oxford. The World Health Organization called on countries to share their vaccine doses.

South Korea is relaxing its social distancing rules and allowing longer opening hours for some businesses as new cases decline. Israel, whose inoculation rollout leads the world, found it took three weeks for the vaccinations to start curbing infections and hospitalizations.

U.S. President Joe Biden said his proposed minimum-wage increase is unlikely to be included in the coronavirus-relief bill.

Key Developments:

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U.S. Wage Hike Unlikely in Relief Bill (10:59 a.m.)

U.S. President Joe Biden said he didn’t think his proposed increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour will survive negotiations to pass his broader coronavirus-relief bill -- comments that could doom prospects for the measure in the final legislative package.

Biden said the increase “apparently” would not occur after the Senate on Friday passed a budget amendment offered by Senator Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican, that opposed raising the wage “during a global pandemic.”

South Korea Eases Rules (10:40 a.m. HK)

South Korea is relaxing its social distancing rules, including allowing longer opening hours for some retail businesses.

Restaurants, coffee shops and gyms outside the capital Seoul and surrounding Gyeonggi province will now be permitted to stay open until 10 p.m., Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said Saturday. Karaoke bars, theaters for standing concerts and door-to-door sales will be also allowed.

Daily cases in Korea dropped to about 300 in the past week from more than 1,000 in late December.

Israel Vaccine Campaign Worked Within Weeks (9:20 a.m. HK)

Israel, with the highest proportion of citizens vaccinated against Covid-19 in the world, found it took three weeks for the Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE shot to start curbing new cases and hospitalizations.

Researchers reported preliminary observations Wednesday from a national immunization program that began Dec. 20.

L.A. Schools Chief Resists Reopening (5:25 p.m. NY)

Los Angeles Unified School District has pushed back on pressure to reopen, citing case counts that remain too high. While San Francisco has successfully lowered virus levels, L.A. has fumbled the handling of the pandemic by allowing businesses to reopen and closing testing locations, Superintendent Austin Beutner said.

“Los Angeles is a national example of how governmental dysfunction has allowed the virus to rampage out of control,” Beutner said.

Reopening schools in America’s second-largest city is turning into a battle, pitting teachers and administrators against politicians, doctors and even some health officials. Most of the 1.5 million children in the Los Angeles area have been out of classrooms for nearly a year.

New Orleans Mayor Imposes Strict Mardi Gras Rules (5 p.m. NY)

Sweeping restrictions will be imposed on Mardi Gras celebrations, including the closure of bars in all of New Orleans and a ban on pedestrians and vehicles in areas of the French Quarter. “To those that are upset about these restrictions, know that when it comes to the health of our people, I’d rather be accused of doing too much than not enough,” Mayor LaToya Cantrell tweeted.

Lots of NYC Vaccines Go to White Out-of-Towners (3:38 p.m. NY)

More than a quarter of those getting the Covid-19 vaccine in New York City are nonresidents, and they tend to be younger and are more likely to be White than those living in the city.

About 59% of the out-of-town recipients are White, according to data released Friday by the city’s health department. By comparison, 48% of the New Yorkers who received vaccines are White, the data show. Roughly half of the vaccinated nonresidents are younger than 65, compared with 44% of the New Yorkers getting the shots. New York City has been prioritizing health-care workers, the elderly and essential workers for immunization.

California’s Positive Test Rate Declines (2:25 p.m. NY)

California’s 14-day positive test rate dropped to 6.6%, down from 12.7% a month ago and the lowest since Nov. 30. The state has administered 43.4 million coronavirus tests in total.

There were 14,021 new Covid-19 cases in California yesterday, below the 14-day rolling average of 17,600, according to the health department’s website. Still, the number of deaths at 558 was higher than the 518 average. The total number of Covid-19 cases has topped 3.3 million, with 43,024 deaths.

Spain Limits Astra Vaccine’s Use (2:20 p.m. New York)

Spain is limiting use of the Covid-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca Plc to people age 55 and younger, based on “scientific evidence,” the Health Ministry said in a statement.

Spain is the latest European Union country to set an upper age limit for recommended use of the shot. Countries including Germany, France and Italy have also set limits.

Paris Hospitals Warn of Coming New Wave (2 p.m. New York)

France’s Covid measures are failing to control the virus, and the country faces a new wave of infections at a time when pandemic activity is already at a high level, Bruno Riou, medical crisis director at Paris hospital operator AP-HP, said in a press briefing on Friday.

“It’s clear that we’re going to live very difficult times in the coming weeks,” Riou said.

Health authorities reported 22,139 new infections on Friday, with the seven-day rolling average little changed at 20,466 cases. Deaths increased by 651 to 78,603, with the numbers including several days of data from nursing homes.

Greece Tightens Curbs (1:21 p.m. NY)

The Greek government tightened restrictions on movement by citizens as the number of new cases and people hospitalized increased in the last days.

An existing national nighttime curfew will now begin at 6 p.m. during the weekend instead of 9 p.m. in so-called red areas that are considered higher risk, including the two largest cities of Athens and Thessaloniki and their greater regions.

Astra Vaccine Effective Against Variant, Study Shows (1:13 p.m. NY)

AstraZeneca Plc’s vaccine is about as effective against the new strain of the virus that emerged in the U.K. as against the initial version, according to a study by the shot’s co-developer, the University of Oxford.

Protection against symptomatic infection was comparable for the new variants well as the earlier strain, according to the study, which analyzed swabs taken from volunteers from October through mid-January. The findings are disclosed in a preprint version of the study that wasn’t peer-reviewed.

German Lockdown Likely to Be Extended (12:39 p.m. NY)

Germany is likely to extend its lockdown for another two weeks when Chancellor Angela Merkel and state government leaders meet next week, people familiar with the discussions said.

Chancellery officials in Berlin have concluded it’s too early to lift the restrictions even though new infections are declining, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions aren’t public.

WHO Calls on Countries to Share Vaccines (12:31 p.m. NY)

Countries should share their vaccine doses once they’ve inoculated their health staff and elderly, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a briefing. He also called on companies to partner up to boost manufacturing and to share full dossiers with the WHO for emergency use listings.

More than three-quarter of administered vaccinations are in just 10 countries that account for almost 60% of global GDP, he said. Around 130 countries, with 2.5 billion people, are yet to administer a single dose.

Dutch Limit Vaccine to People Under 65 (10:50 a.m. NY)

The AstraZeneca vaccine will initially be used for people age 60 to 64 as well as for long-term care workers, Dutch Health Care Minister Hugo de Jonge said in a letter to parliament. The Health Council advised on Thursday that the vaccine shouldn’t be used for people over 65.

Norway Reports Four Serious Allergic Reactions (9:31 a.m. NY)

The Norwegian Medicines Agency said four serious allergic reactions have been reported in the country following inoculations with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Norwegian and European medicines regulatory authorities are “monitoring this situation closely” as “no serious allergic reactions were detected in the major vaccine studies” that served as the basis for authorization of the shot, it added. The agency has assessed 282 suspected adverse reactions, or 0.25% of the first dose recipients totaling 112,080.

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