A coronavirus resurgence across Europe has ended a six-week decline in new cases on the continent, the World Health Organization said Thursday, reflecting a broader global trend that has seen infections on the rise again. New covid-19 cases in the European region rose by 9 percent over the past week, the WHO’s regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, said in a briefing. More than half of the region is seeing an increase in new infections, he said, including a particularly worrying surge in the east.

Here are some significant developments:
  • Britain and several other countries announced that existing vaccines modified to target the new variants will not be subject to lengthy clinical trials. The Food and Drug Administration issued similar guidelines to vaccine makers last month.
  • South Korea is investigating the deaths of five people from long-term-care facilities who died within days of receiving Oxford-AstraZeneca’s vaccine.
  • Anthony S. Fauci said he did not know in January that President Donald Trump was vaccinated and lamented the “lost opportunity” to sway more people to get inoculated. Trump’s vaccination was only publicly revealed on Monday.
  • President Biden criticized governors’ decision to lift mask mandates as “the last thing we need” and “Neanderthal thinking.”
  • The vast majority of global coronavirus deaths occurred in nations with high levels of obesity, according to a new report linking overweight populations with more severe covid-related illness and mortality.
  • Since it began, the pandemic has killed 517,000 people in the United States, and while 15.9 percent of the population has received at least one vaccine dose, the numbers of new infections have halted their steady decline.