Israel and Greece agreed a tourism deal Monday that will allow coronavirus-vaccinated citizens of the two countries to travel between them without limitations, once flights resume.

The WHO mission to China to uncover the origins of the coronavirus has failed to identify the source of the pandemic but the team yesterday ruled out the Wuhan lab-leak theory propagated by Donald Trump.

Facebook on Monday said it is ramping up efforts to stem the spread of misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines, spread facts, and figure out who might be wary of getting the jab.

Western governments rushed to offer support for the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccination after South Africa halted its roll-out when research showed it offered minimal protection against mild infection from a variant spreading there.

The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine fails to prevent mild and moderate cases of the South African coronavirus strain, according to research reported in the Financial Times.

The World Health Organization has called on vaccine makers to dramatically boost production, as US president Joe Biden warned the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic was pushing the United States towards “breaking point”.

A Bangladeshi recently deported from France for his involvement in militant activities had plans of going to Syria to join Islamic State.

The rate of daily positive coronavirus cases dropped to 2.92 percent yesterday, the lowest in more than nine months.

Covid-19 treatments and improved hospital care have reduced death rates in intensive care by more than a third since the early months of the pandemic, but this progress might be stalling, according to research published yesterday.

The World Health Organization blasted critics of its investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic and challenged those claiming to know better to come forward with the smoking gun.

The government has allocated four lakh shots of Covid-19 vaccine for Dhaka district, Prof Meerjady Sabrina Flora, additional director general of the health directorate, said yesterday.

It is time to start solving the mystery of Long Covid, an aspect of the pandemic blighting millions of lives, the World Health Organization’s leader on post-Covid conditions told AFP.

WHO experts yesterday visited the market in central China linked to the first known Covid-19 cluster, seeking clues about the beginning of the pandemic as a number of nations further tightened restrictions to stop the coronavirus.

A front-line Swedish nurse is getting some Covid downtime with a week of private screenings of the Gothenburg film festival, in a former lighthouse off the country’s west coast.

Rich countries squabbling over Covid-19 vaccine supplies must consider the situation in poorer parts of the world, WHO said, as the EU backtracked on a threat to restrict exports of shots to Northern Ireland in its growing row with Britain.

The health authorities confirmed 17 more new coronavirus-related deaths and 363 new cases in 24 hours till 8:00am yesterday.

Bangladesh yesterday recorded seven coronavirus deaths, the lowest daily count since early May.

Europe’s medicines regulator yesterday approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine for people over the age of 18, as concerns grow around the world over the effectiveness of different jabs against new strains of Covid-19.

In the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, four expatriates returned from Saudi Arabia by air on November 29 last year.

The Covid-19 infection rate in the country fell to 3.36 percent yesterday, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said in a handout.