Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, and one of the leaders of the Democratic Party, tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday.

The announcement of Pelosi's test result came one day after she appeared at a White House event with US President Joe Biden while not wearing a mask.

The 82-year-old Pelosi showed no symptoms after testing positive. She will go into quarantine in line with official guidance. She also postponed a planned congressional trip to Asia, which she had been set to lead.

"The Speaker is fully vaccinated and boosted, and is thankful for the robust protection the vaccine has provided," Pelosi's spokesperson Drew Hammill said.

The White House said that the president had only briefly been in contact with Pelosi over the previous two days and was not considered a close contact and thus will not quarantine.

Coronavirus cases have increased across Washington D.C. recently amid an easing of restrictions. The mayor of the city, Muriel Bowser, also announced on Thursday that she was going into quarantine after testing positive.

Here are the latest major developments on coronavirus from around the world:

Europe

German lawmakers voted against imposing a vaccine mandate for everyone aged 60 or over on Thursday.

The proposal had been a compromise after a mandate for all adults was shot down. The government lost the vote by a wide margin thanks to the opposition from the right-wing parties in the Bundestag as well as one of the smaller parties making up the governing coalition.

At the same time, the Robert Koch Institute said that the most recent — and largest — wave of COVID-19 infections in Germany has already peaked. Germany has recently eased measures aimed at curbing infections.

The institute pointed to the falling cases. The seven-day incidence of infections was almost 20% lower than in the previous week.

On Thursday the incidence stood at 1,251 new infections per 100,000 people in the past week. Another 328 coronavirus-related deaths were recorded, bringing the total to over 131,000 since the pandemic began.

Africa

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday that new estimates showed that up to 65% of people on the African continent have been infected with COVID-19 — perhaps even 100 times more cases than reported.

An analysis of some 151 studies showed that 65% of people had had some trace of the virus by last September. That would equate to 800 million cases, far higher than the officially reported 8 million.

The WHO's Africa Director Matshidiso Moeti said that the analysis also showed around 67% of those infected showed no symptoms. This was a higher rate than seen in other parts of the world.

ab/msh (AFP, AP, Reuters, dpa)