China’s commercial capital of Shanghai was dealt a blow on May 2 as authorities reported 58 new COVID-19 cases outside areas under strict lockdown, while Beijing pressed on with testing millions of people on a May Day holiday few were celebrating.

Following the record surge in COVID-19 cases during the Omicron-driven wave, some 58 percent of the U.S. population overall and more than 75 percent of younger children have been infected with the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic, according to a U.S. nationwide blood survey released on April 26.

COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in the United States for the second year in a row in 2021, with death rates rising for most age groups, a government study showed on April 22.

COVID-19 cases and deaths are declining in the Americas, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said on April 20, with infections last week having dropped 2.3 percent and deaths falling 15.2 percent from the prior week. The broad trend comes even as cases have scaled up in North America with an 11.2 percent increase last week, the organization said.

Unvaccinated people infected with the Omicron variant are unlikely to develop immune responses that will protect them against other variants of the coronavirus, a new study suggests. Additionally, the average number of global deaths from COVID-19 were 6 percent higher on weekends compared to weekdays throughout the pandemic, according to statistics reported to the World Health Organization between March 2020 and March 2022.

India’s tally of daily COVID-19 cases nearly doubled on April 18 from the previous day to more than 2,000 for the first time in a month, government data showed, and the southern state of Kerala reported a big jump in deaths.

Shares of Veru Inc. soared nearly 200 percent after the Florida-based company announced its Phase III COVID-19 antiviral treatment was halted early based on positive efficacy following an Independent Data Monitoring Committee’s recommendation.

Coronavirus infections in Asia passed 100 million on March 30, according to a Reuters tally, as the region records a resurgence in cases dominated by the BA.2 Omicron sub-variant.

Mainland China reported its first COVID-19 deaths in more than a year on March 19, according to a post on the National Health Commission’s website that said two people died in the northeastern region of Jilin.

COVID-19 infections and deaths are declining in most of the Americas, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said on March 16, with the exception of the Caribbean and Atlantic Ocean Islands where cases increased by 56.6 percent in the past week.