BEI­JING (AP) — Chi­na be­gan its most ex­ten­sive coro­n­avirus lock­down in two years Mon­day to con­duct mass test­ing and con­trol a grow­ing out­break in Shang­hai as ques­tions are raised about the eco­nom­ic toll of the na­tion’s “ze­ro-COVID” strat­e­gy.

Med­ical pro­fes­sion­als have all agreed that the Gov­ern­ment has made the best de­ci­sion by re­mov­ing most of the pan­dem­ic-re­lat­ed re­stric­tions.

NEW YORK (AP) — As coro­n­avirus in­fec­tions rise in some parts of the world, ex­perts are watch­ing for a po­ten­tial new COVID-19 surge in the U.S. — and won­der­ing how long it will take to de­tect.

NEW DEL­HI (AP) — The com­pa­ny be­hind a COVID-19 vac­cine tout­ed as a key tool for the de­vel­op­ing world has sent tens of mil­lions of dos­es to wealthy na­tions but pro­vid­ed none yet to the U.N.-backed ef­fort to sup­ply poor­er coun­tries, a sign that in­equity per­sists in the glob­al re­sponse to the pan­dem­ic.

Mod­er­na’s COVID-19 vac­cine works in ba­bies, tod­dlers and preschool­ers the com­pa­ny an­nounced Wednes­day -- and if reg­u­la­tors agree it could mean a chance to fi­nal­ly start vac­ci­nat­ing the lit­tlest kids by sum­mer.

So­ca artiste Dex­ter Blaxx Stew­art is cur­rent­ly ward­ed at the In­ten­sive Care Unit at the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal. Blaxx con­tract­ed COVID 19 and has been hos­pi­talised since March 4. When Guardian Me­dia reached out, his man­ag­er, Giselle Gellineau-Pen­rose con­firmed the singer's con­di­tion. She said at the mo­ment he is sta­ble and be­ing close­ly mon­i­tored by doc­tors. Since news of re­cent health is­sues be­came pub­lic, many peo­ple have been flock­ing to so­cial me­dia to with the De All Stars front­man a speedy re­cov­ery. 

GENE­VA (AP) — The num­ber of new coro­n­avirus cas­es glob­al­ly in­creased by 7% in the last week, dri­ven by ris­ing in­fec­tions in the West­ern Pa­cif­ic, even as re­port­ed deaths from COVID-19 fell, the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion said.

Two more peo­ple have died from COVID-19 in To­ba­go over the past 24 hours—one vic­tim was an un­vac­ci­nat­ed per­son, while the oth­er was ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed.  The death toll on the is­land now stands at 250.

With coro­n­avirus cas­es ris­ing in parts of Eu­rope and Asia, sci­en­tists wor­ry that an ex­tra-con­ta­gious ver­sion of the omi­cron vari­ant may soon push cas­es up in the Unit­ed States too.

On­ly one new COVID-19 pos­i­tive case has been record­ed in To­ba­go for Sun­day 20th March 2022, ac­cord­ing to the lat­est up­date from the Di­vi­sion of Health, Well­ness and So­cial Pro­tec­tion, in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), bring­ing the num­ber of cur­rent ac­tive in­fec­tions on the is­land to 435.

For the first time in sev­er­al months, ac­tive COVID-19 cas­es in this coun­try have dropped be­low the 10,000-per­son mark, and cur­rent­ly stand at 9,887.

There are 25 new COVID-19 pos­i­tive peo­ple in To­ba­go, ac­cord­ing to the lat­est up­date from Di­vi­sion of Health, Well­ness and So­cial Pro­tec­tion, in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) for Sat­ur­day 19th March 2022.  These new in­fec­tions bring the num­ber of cur­rent ac­tive in­fec­tions on the is­land to 446.