(Bloomberg) -- New Zealand set a vaccination target of 90% for Auckland to exit lockdown and for more freedoms to be restored around the rest of the country. Melbourne is set to reopen after more than 260 cumulative days under stay-home orders. 

An advisory panel of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention followed regulators in recommending booster shots of the Moderna Inc. and Johnson & Johnson vaccines. Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE said an additional dose of their inoculation restored full protection in a large study. 

A booster will be available for Malaysians over 60 who have received Sinovac’s vaccine. Cases dropped in Singapore, which has extended restrictions amid rising infections. Meanwhile, Thailand is allowing more foreigners to visit and Tokyo is easing curbs on restaurants. 

Key Developments:

• Virus Tracker: Cases top 242.3 million; deaths surpass 4.92 million
• Vaccine Tracker: More than 6.78 billion shots given
• Europe confronts another winter of hard choices
• Lockdowns are back as Eastern Europe pays for low vaccination rates
• As U.K. cases surge, Israel offers a lesson in boosters
• How Delta Is Bolstering the Case for Covid Boosters

N.Z. Sets Target for Curbs to Ease (5:44 a.m. HK)

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern set a vaccination target of 90% for Auckland to exit lockdown and for more freedoms to be restored around the rest of the country.

Once 90% of the eligible population aged 12 and over is fully vaccinated, the government will begin to ease restrictions and introduce a new traffic-light system to gauge the level of risk in each region, Ardern told a news conference Friday in Wellington. The government will measure vaccination rates for each District Health Board around the country, she said. 

“A target of 90% fully vaccinated across each DHB region has been set as the milestone to trigger moving the country into the new system,” Ardern said. “This target ensures good regional spread across the country and will also help address equity issues within each region.”

Auckland, the nation’s largest city, has been in lockdown for more than two months while mask-wearing and social distancing is required throughout New Zealand. The country had pursued a strict elimination strategy but has been unable to beat an outbreak of the delta variant in Auckland, with daily new case numbers climbing in recent weeks.

Wyoming Inmate Infections Rise (5:30 a.m. HK)

An estimated 1-in-10 inmates in Wyoming prisons are infected with Covid-19, the Casper Star-Tribune reported Thursday. Testing this week revealed a record 222 new infections, including some prison staff, the newspaper said.

Moderna, J&J Boosters Backed by CDC Panel (5:30 a.m. HK)

U.S. public-health advisers voted unanimously to recommended Covid-19 booster shots from Moderna Inc. and Johnson & Johnson, clearing the way for a widespread campaign hoped to stave off a resurgence of the virus.

In two votes, the 15-member Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee Thursday supported the additional shots in certain populations, following the outlines of U.S. regulators who cleared the shots Wednesday.

Colorado to Review Rationing Plan (5:10 a.m. HK)

Colorado will review plans for rationing hospital care as Covid-19 admissions rise and intensive care unit capacity reaches dangerous levels Governor Jared Polis said Thursday. 

Health care facilities report just 120 ICU beds available statewide. Crisis standards of care are “ready to be implemented if needed, potentially tweaked or improved, if necessary,” Polis said at a news conference in Denver. 

Health department data show 1,130 patients hospitalized with Covid-19 across the state, the highest since last December, and 893 of these are unvaccinated, Polis said

De Santis to Recall Florida Legislature (2:30 p.m. NY)

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he’ll be calling back the Republican-dominated state legislature to take action against employer Covid-19 vaccine mandates. The goal is to block employers from firing workers over vaccination status, he said Thursday.

“We want to make sure that individuals in Florida have their livelihoods and their jobs protected,” DeSantis said in Clearwater, Florida. 

DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott are the most prominent Republican state leaders seeking to buck President Joe Biden and blunt employer vaccine mandates in the U.S.  

U.K. Reports Most Cases Since July (12:30 p.m. NY)

The U.K., already under pressure to reimpose restrictions, reported 52,000 positive Covid cases on Thursday -- the most since July 17. 

Hospitalizations crossed 8,000, an increase of more than a thousand from a week earlier. A strong vaccine rollout means daily deaths still remain relatively low compared to more than 1,800 recorded at the beginning of this year.

WHO Urges G-20 to Hasten Vaccine Donations (11:23 a.m. NY)

High- and upper-middle-income countries have now distributed almost half as many booster shots as the total number of vaccines administered in low-income countries, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a media briefing on Thursday. G-20 countries have pledged to donate 1.2 billion vaccine doses to Covax, the global program set up to equitably distribute vaccines, and 150 million have been delivered. 

“For most donations, there’s no timeline -- we don’t know what’s coming and when,” Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “We can’t have equity without transparency.”

Roughly 500 million vaccine doses will be produced between now and the G-20 meeting at the end of the month, he said. That’s the amount of additional doses needed to achieve the WHO’s target of inoculating 40% of the population of every country by the end of the year.

Some 82 countries are at risk of missing that target: Three out of four don’t have enough supply, while the others have limitations in their ability to absorb vaccines.

Morocco Suspends More Flights (11:23 a.m. NY)

Morocco has suspended flights with Germany, Britain and the Netherlands, the country’s national carrier Royal Air Maroc announced. 

Royal Air said in a statement that it was doing so “upon decisions of national authorities and following the pandemic situation.” It also suspended flights to Russia earlier this month. 

Thailand, Israel Open to More Tourists (8:49 a.m. NY) 

Thailand plans to to allow fully-vaccinated tourists from 46 low-risk countries to enter without mandatory quarantine from Nov. 1 to attract more arrivals, according to Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha.

That’s more than a previous plan to allow arrivals from an initial 10 nations as many countries including Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia have announced the same strategy, Prayuth said.

Israel also announced that foreign nationals who have gotten full dosing regimens of the Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines will be allowed to enter from Nov. 1.

CDC Panel Evaluates Moderna Booster (8:30 a.m. NY)

A panel of experts who advise the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is meeting Thursday to discuss booster shots for Covid-19 vaccines made by Moderna Inc. and Johnson & Johnson.

The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday that Moderna vaccine recipients 65 and older can get a third shot, as can other adults at high risk of severe Covid, at least six months after their initial inoculation. The agency also cleared J&J boosters for people 18 and older who got the single-shot vaccine at least two months ago.

India Closer to Restarting Exports to Covax (7:35 a.m. NY)

India will likely restart Covid-19 vaccine exports to the Covax global sharing body by the end of this month or early November, the head of the world’s largest vaccine maker said, citing boosted production and built up stockpiles after the country crossed a key milestone in its immunization campaign on Thursday.

Initially only “very small volumes” of about 20 million doses a month would probably be shipped out until the end of the year, Adar Poonawalla, the chief executive officer of the Serum Institute of India Ltd., said in an interview, adding that number could then be raised “significantly” from January if India hits vaccination targets and other local manufacturers manage to scale up.

Pfizer Booster Restores Protection (6:45 a.m. NY)

Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE said a booster shot of their Covid-19 vaccine restored full protection in a large study.

A booster was 95.6% effective against symptomatic Covid in the study, which tracked 10,000 people age 16 and older, the companies said on Thursday. The data may help guide regulators trying to decide how widely to use boosters, as the fast-spreading delta variant drives infection rates up.

Separate research by Israel’s Clalit Research Institute and Harvard University showed adolescents who receive two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine have a much lower risk of contracting symptomatic Covid-19, with the risk of infection dropping by 90%. 

Moscow Goes Into Tighter Lockdown (5:29 p.m. HK)

Moscow will implement its harshest lockdown since the early days of the pandemic, last year, as Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that the virus situation was developing according to the “worst-case scenario.”

Most shops and businesses except for essential services will shut down from Oct. 28 to Nov. 7, while schools and kindergartens will be placed on vacation, according to Sobyanin. 

The restrictions are more severe than the nationwide non-working days ordered by President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. Russia posted record numbers of new infections and deaths on Thursday amid a surge in cases unimpeded by low vaccination levels. 

Tokyo to Loosen Restaurant Curbs (5:20 a.m. NY) 

Tokyo is set to roll back restrictions that limited the operating hours and alcohol service of bars and eateries from Monday, as coronavirus cases drop nationwide and authorities look to open more parts of the economy.

Daily recorded Covid-19 cases in Tokyo have dropped to double digits from Oct. 9 after hitting over 5,000 several days in August during a wave powered by the delta variant.

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