TOP HEADLINES 

· President Vladimir Putin said Russia may need the army's help to build field hospitals for COVID-19 patients as Russia battles a surge in infections, leading to a nationwide workplace shutdown.

"The situation in the country is very difficult," Putin said in remarks to Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and other top officials. "More than 40,000 cases [a day], this has never happened.

"I ask you to ... continue to provide support to the civil medical service if needed. Maybe use your construction abilities, because there is a need to keep building prefabricated medical facilities."

· The odds of surviving a heart attack are significantly lower when a person also has COVID-19, even though such patients tend to be generally younger than typical heart patients, a new study found. 

The researchers reviewed data on more than 80,000 people who had heart attacks in the U.S. in 2019 or 2020. Most of them – about 76,000 – had heart attacks at home or work or in some other community setting. In this group, 15.2 percent of those with COVID-19 later died in the hospital, compared with 11.2 percent of heart attack patients without the coronavirus.

Among the roughly 4,000 patients who were already hospitalized when the heart attack occurred, 78.5 percent of those with COVID-19 died, compared with 46.1 percent of those without the coronavirus, according to a report published in the JAMA medical journal. 

· Early data on the efficacy of a vaccine booster dose from Pfizer-BioNTech announced by the Israeli Health Ministry suggests a sharp reduction in risk of severe infections soon after administration. 

As reported by The Lancet, those who received the booster had a 93 percent lower risk of COVID-19-related hospitalization, a 92 percent lower risk of severe illness, and 81 percent lower risk of COVID-19-related death. 

· Daily new cases recorded in France on Monday jumped by 44 percent compared with a week ago – the biggest week-on-week percentage increase since late July. The health ministry reported 1,866 new cases, compared with 1,295 the previous Monday, taking the total to 7.17 million in a continuation of an upward trend that started around mid-October.

· Czechia recorded 7,591 new cases on November 1, the highest daily tally since the end of March, Czech Radio reported. On the same day last week, 4,277 cases were detected.

· Romania reported record numbers of daily coronavirus deaths, Tuesday data showed, and there were no available intensive care beds across the European Union's second-least vaccinated state.

The pandemic has killed 48,664 people in the country so far. Romania has fully vaccinated roughly 37 percent of its adult population. Although daily inoculation numbers have risen in recent weeks, skepticism remains elevated because of distrust in state institutions and misinformation campaigns.

· Greece recorded 5,449 new infections, authorities said on Monday, the highest single-day figure since the pandemic began.

Giannis Oikonomou, a spokesman for the Greek government, said it was "pressing" to increase the number of vaccinations, which have been moving slower than authorities anticipated.

· Two producers of COVID-19 tests in Britain said they had pulled some of their tests from the market after a new review system came into force, which has not yet granted approval for their previously accepted products.

Avacta said under the new system, suppliers of COVID-19 tests had to submit information regarding their products for desktop review if they wished to remain on sale in Britain. It said it had submitted its information ahead of the September 1 deadline and was still waiting for a response.

France-based Novacyt said it had submitted 11 products for review before the deadline. Two have appeared on a temporary UK list that can continue to be sold, but it is waiting for an update on the additional nine products.

FROM OUR GLOBAL COLLEAGUES

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