AstraZeneca on Friday defended its vaccine saying that there was "no evidence of an increased risk" of blood clots, and European and UK medicines regulators have each said the link between the vaccine and blood clots has not been confirmed and that rollouts should continue.

According to CNN, after a group of European countries -- including Denmark, Norway and Iceland -- suspended use of the vaccine on Thursday, Thailand's Prime Minister, Prayut Chan-o-cha, canceled plans to publicly get the AstraZeneca shot on Friday and the country also delayed its rollout.

The World Health Organization's Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) said on Wednesday that the benefits of the AstraZeneca/Oxford University COVID-19 vaccine outweigh the potential risks.

"The data reviewed by WHO support the conclusion that the known and potential benefits of AZD1222 outweigh the known and potential risk," SAGE said in a set of interim recommendations.

-- In the face of production shortfalls across the world, some rich countries are hoarding vaccines, leaving poorer ones defenseless in the face of the deadly pathogen. As of mid-January, high-income countries, which represent only 16 percent of the world's population, had taken 60 percent of available doses.

-- Experts said closing the immunity gap is not only about morality and conscience, but also the key to stopping the pandemic by cutting risk of more new variants.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Four years ago in Davos, President Xi Jinping quoted this famous line of Charles Dickens to describe a world fraught with contradictions. He observed, “On the one hand, with growing material wealth and advances in science and technology, human civilization has developed as never before. On the other hand, frequent regional conflicts, global challenges like terrorism and refugees, as well as poverty, unemployment and widening income gap have all added to the uncertainties of the world.”

The grave epidemic situation in India, the world's largest vaccine producer, the WHO's approval of Chinese vaccines for emergency use, lingering questions on whether the US can really deliver its promise to provide vaccines to the world, all these have led to a widely acknowledged situation that China could be a much more reliable global vaccine supplier, especially as domestic vaccine producers vowed to ramp up production to meet domestic immunity targets and overseas demand.

China announced earlier that it would provide 10 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to the global vaccine sharing initiative COVAX to meet the urgent needs of developing countries, showing a strong sense of responsibility at such a critical moment.

It is another major move of China to promote equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, push ahead international anti-pandemic cooperation and put into practice the vision of building a community of common health for mankind.

During the Special ASEAN-China Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Celebration of the 30th Anniversary of Dialogue Relations and the 6th Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, both held in southwest China’s Chongqing municipality from June 7 to 8, participants reached a general consensus on enhancing China-ASEAN cooperation and the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation, showing their wish to jointly create a brighter future through solidarity and deeper cooperation.

Researchers are conducting phase-1 and phase-2 clinical trials on a China-made inhaled COVID-19 vaccine, a Chinese health official said Friday.

After completing the collection of clinical-trial data, experts will study the safety and effectiveness of the inhaled vaccine, a modified version of an injectable adenovirus vector COVID-19 vaccine that has already hit the market, said Shao Yiming, a researcher at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, at a press conference.

In Jingyuan county, northwest China's Ningxia Hui autonomous region, vast wastelands and dilapidated houses have been transformed into ancient-style courtyards and dwellings, which buttress not only a local B&B business, but also beautify what has become an even more aesthetically pleasing rural landscape.

Chalky walls, grey tiles and flagstone lodgings at the site are luring visitors seeking a leisurely and more poetic lifestyle.

"At the end of the year when everything has settled down, I intend to make a short visit to China to just shake hands with President Xi Jinping and personally thank him for this donation," said Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.

China has donated or is donating COVID vaccines to 69 developing countries in urgent need, and is exporting vaccines to 43 countries.

At a naan-making industrial park in Horgos in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, workers are busy making a popular staple food.

Unlike most of the naan made elsewhere in Xinjiang, most of the round pancake-shaped bread is made for consumers in Central Asian countries.

The findings of a recent study suggested that antibodies that help in guarding against the COVID-19 virus are transferred from mothers to their babies while in the womb.

This discovery, published in the 'American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology', adds to growing evidence that suggests that pregnant women who generate protective antibodies after contracting the coronavirus often convey some of that natural immunity to their fetuses.

Michael Ryan, Executive Director of World Health Organisation (WHO) Health Emergencies Program, said on Monday that the "inequitable" COVID-19 vaccine distribution was a "catastrophic moral failure" and a "failed opportunity."

Speaking at a virtual press conference from Geneva on Monday about the recent rise of cases in Europe -- up by "12 percent" in the last week -- Ryan stressed that there was no "golden solution" to end the pandemic.

At least 17,000 health workers have died from COVID-19 over the last year, said Amnesty International, Public Services International (PSI) and UNI Global Union in a new analysis, as the organizations called for urgent action to speed up the vaccination of millions of frontline health workers around the world. 

Digitalization has become an important means for traditional enterprises in China to upgrade their business activities in recent years, thanks to the accelerated digital transformation of the Chinese economy and society.

China State Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. has designed and constructed intelligent ships with fully digitalized functions, including remote control and autonomous navigation capabilities. China's State Grid, the country’s main power supplier, has established a new energy cloud platform to promote greater collaboration between more than 3,000 upstream and downstream enterprises.

As the number of laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 infections peek in Finland, the country is going into another shutdown. Over 400k people have already received the first shot of a two-shot vaccine, but the rate of vaccination has altogether been disappointing. Finland, with 12.38 administered doses per 100 people is in 23rd place globally, after countries like Lithuania and Slovenia.

The leaders of the Group of Seven nations have pledged over 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses for the rest of the world - either directly or through funding to COVAX, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced.

In a statement to mark the end of the Summit hosted by the UK, Boris Johnson said: "A week ago, I asked my fellow leaders to help in preparing and providing the doses we need to vaccinate the whole world by the end of 2022."

Mongolia on Wednesday received supplies donated by the Chinese government to fight the COVID-19 pandemic at an online handover ceremony.

Officials from the two sides attended the online handover ceremony.

The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare gave a recommendation to delay the administration of second dose of all Covid-19 vaccinations to 12 weeks after the first administration. BioNTech, the German manufacturer of the vaccine to be procured in Finland, has warned that the efficacy of the vaccine is not guaranteed if the second dose is delayed by more than three weeks. Member of parliament Mari Rantanen made a parliamentary question to the Finnish government, asking the scientific basis for the recommendation.

Recently, there has been much news about the global shortage of semiconductor chips. Some pundits have called it a crisis because China is the world's largest consumer of semiconductors, taking up more than 50 percent of the global supply, and yet its production of high-end chips is limited.

United States sanctions on technology exports to China, as well as pandemic-related supply chain disruptions, have caused a severe chip shortage. Businesses and consumers around the world are now facing growing supply concerns.