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The International Olympic Committee on Wednesday offered a first glimpse of the COVID-19 protocols that will be in place at the upcoming 2022 Winter Games in Beijing – including lengthy quarantines for unvaccinated participants, daily COVID-19 testing and the absence of international spectators. The countermeasures, which were proposed by local Beijing organizers and detailed in an IOC news release, mirror those at the recent Summer Games in some respects and appear more strict in others. (Schad, 9/29)

The International Olympic Committee on Wednesday released a preliminary set of health protocols for the upcoming Winter Games in Beijing that suggested that the next Olympics, set to start on Feb. 4, could be the most extraordinarily restricted large-scale sporting event since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. The Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games will take place in what organizers called a “closed-loop management system,” a bubblelike environment in which athletes, officials, broadcasters, journalists and a large Games work force will be forced to eat, sleep, work and compete, without leaving, from the day they arrive to the moment they depart. (Keh, 9/29)

Cases, as well as deaths, continue to drop globally, but infections continue at very high levels, with about 3.4 million cases recorded over the past week, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in its weekly pandemic update yesterday. Maria Van Kerkhove, PhD, the WHO's technical lead for COVID-19, said yesterday on Twitter that the trends show a mixed picture, with far too many cases continuing to be reported when the world has the tools to drastically cut the numbers of illnesses and deaths. (Schnirring, 9/29)

AstraZeneca Plc's COVID-19 vaccine demonstrated 74% efficacy at preventing symptomatic disease, a figure that increased to 83.5% in people aged 65 and older, according to long-awaited results of the company's U.S. clinical trial published on Wednesday. Overall efficacy of 74% was lower than the interim 79% figure reported by the British drugmaker in March, a result AstraZeneca revised days later to 76% after a rare public rebuke from health officials that the figure was based on "outdated information." (Steenhuysen, 9/29)

India is preparing to produce its own mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccine by the end of the year, in what would be a scientific breakthrough for the country’s growing pharmaceutical industry and help expand the range of global production hubs for the shots. A host of companies across the world are pushing to bring their own vaccines using the mRNA technology to market following the success of the Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc. shots. Indian firms, urged on in part by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, aim to be significant players in the new sector, with Gennova Pharmaceuticals Ltd. hoping to be the first. (Roy, 9/29)

The Pan American Health Organization has struck a deal with the Chinese manufacturer Sinovac to buy millions of Covid-19 vaccines for countries in Latin America and the Caribbean as part of an effort to make more shots available in a region where access has been highly unequal. The agency, part of the World Health Organization, is negotiating with two other manufacturers and expecting to announce new deals soon, Dr. Jarbas Barbosa, its assistant director, said at a news conference on Wednesday. (Politi, 9/30)

Fewer than 20% of people in most southeast Asian countries are fully vaccinated, which has led to COVID-19 outbreaks and forced apparel factories to shut down. U.S. companies can't change international vaccination rates on their own, and the problem illustrates another reason Americans have a self-interest in supporting the effort to vaccinate other countries. Besides preventing more virus mutations, better vaccination rates in southeast Asia would improve the flow of consumer goods like sneakers and apparel. (Herman, 9/30)

Australia’s Victoria state on Thursday reported a jump of more than 50% in daily COVID-19 cases, which authorities largely blame on Australian Rules Football parties last weekend that breached pandemic regulations. State capital Melbourne traditionally hosts the annual grand final which the football-obsessed city celebrates with a long weekend. (McGuirk, 9/30)

Vladimir Putin broke two weeks of self-isolation to meet Recep Tayyip Erdogan in person Wednesday, but the Turkish leader seemed unimpressed with the Russian president’s immunity to Covid-19, and his offer of a locally made booster shot.“ It’s very low,” was Erdogan’s response after Putin reported his antibody level (“around 15 or 16”), according to video broadcast on Russian state TV. Putin was describing the outbreak among dozens of his staff earlier this month that led him to shift from in-person meetings to videoconferences. (Reznik and Kozok, 9/29)

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to hamper efforts to diagnose and treat tuberculosis (TB), and international funding for the disease remains inadequate, according to new data from a TB research and advocacy group. The data, released in a report today from the Stop TB Partnership, show that 1.2 million fewer people have been diagnosed and treated for TB in 2021 than in 2019, suggesting the pandemic's impact on TB treatment and diagnosis has been nearly as bad as it was in 2020. And the money being provided for the global TB response is only half of what's needed. (Dall, 9/28)