North Korea’s admission that it is battling an “explosive” COVID-19 outbreak raised concerns that the virus could devastate a country with an under-resourced health system, limited testing capabilities, and no vaccine program.

At least one person confirmed to have COVID-19 has died in North Korea and hundreds of thousands have shown fever symptoms, state media said on May 13, offering hints at the potentially dire scale of the country’s first confirmed outbreak of the pandemic.

Shanghai is tightening an already strict COVID-19 lockdown in a fresh push to eliminate infections outside quarantined areas of China’s biggest city by late this month, people familiar with the matter said.

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.

The head of the World Health Organization on April 26 urged countries to maintain surveillance of coronavirus infections, saying the world was “blind” to how the virus is spreading because of falling testing rates.

Roche’s first-quarter 2022 sales rose 10 percent on strong U.S. demand for rapid COVID-19 antigen tests and specialty drugs but the Swiss drugmaker reaffirmed that a drop in pandemic-related demand would put the brakes on growth.

Life expectancy in the United States fell by nearly two years in 2020 to about 77 years amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the sharpest drop compared to 21 other high-income countries, according to a global study.

The Biden administration faces an April 18 deadline on whether to extend or end a mandate requiring travelers to wear masks on airplanes, trains and in transit hubs.

China’s financial hub of Shanghai said on March 27 it would lock down the city in two stages to carry out COVID-19 testing over a nine-day period, after reporting a new daily record for asymptomatic infections.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said on March 18 that countries should provide free COVID-19 testing for refugees from Ukraine to avoid outbreaks as more than three million people flee their war-stricken homeland.