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Tokyo's authorities estimated the number of daily COVID-19 cases in the Japanese capital hit a record high of 40,000 on Thursday, while Russia reported its highest figure since April 13, with 11,515 new daily cases.

Tokyo's authorities estimated the number of daily COVID-19 cases in the Japanese capital hit a record high of 40,000 on Thursday, while Russia reported its highest figure since April 13, with 11,515 new daily cases. DEATHS AND INFECTIONS

* Eikon users, click on COVID-19: MacroVitals https://apac1.apps.cp.thomsonreuters.com/cms/?navid=1592404098 for a case tracker and summary of news. ASIA-PACIFIC

* The daily number of COVID-19 cases in Tokyo is set to exceed 40,000 on Thursday, a record high, broadcaster FNN reported citing government sources. * Russia reported 11,515 new daily cases on Thursday, authorities said, the highest such figure since April 13.

* China reported 626 new cases for July 27, of which 119 were symptomatic and 507 were asymptomatic. * China needs to rethink its zero-COVID policy to avoid more harm to the economy, as well as come up with a long-term solution to the crisis in the real estate sector, a senior IMF official said.

EUROPE * British employers are their most pessimistic about hiring and investment since the depths of the coronavirus pandemic crisis due to surging inflation and an acute shortage of workers to fill jobs, a survey showed.

AMERICAS * Coffee shop sales in the United States have not fully recovered from a deep slump early in the COVID-19 pandemic, as most customers are still working from home for at least a third of their work time, a research publication showed.

* U.S. Senate Democrats aim to dodge "booby traps" including COVID and surprises from within their own ranks to pass a $430 billion drugs and climate change bill agreed to by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and maverick Democratic Senator Joe Manchin after months of talks. * U.S. President Joe Biden celebrated his recovery from COVID-19 on Wednesday with an appeal to Americans to get vaccinated and a comparison of his mild symptoms and work-from-home performance to the more serious case experienced by his predecessor.

AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST * The World Health Organization has confirmed two more cases of Marburg virus in Ghana, a senior WHO official said, two weeks after the country reported its first outbreak of the highly infectious Ebola-like disease.

MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS * Compared with the earlier Omicron BA.2 subvariant, currently dominant Omicron BA.5 is linked with higher odds of causing a second SARS-COV-2 infection regardless of vaccination status, a study from Portugal suggests.

ECONOMIC IMPACT * Wall Street stocks rallied on Thursday, while Treasury yields were in decline for the third straight day as investors digested data showing a U.S. economic decline for a second straight quarter, a day after the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates.

* Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said that Mexico will not enter an economic recession in 2023, after facing "the most difficult, the most painful, the damage caused by the pandemic." (Compiled by Uttaresh.V, Krishna Chandra Eluri and Dina Kartit; Edited by Shounak Dasgupta, Mark Heinrich, Anil D'Silva and Sandra Maler)