Health News Roundup: Australia's Victoria state reports 5 COVID-19 cases on day 3 of lockdown; COVID-19 deaths in Brazil surpass 460,000 and more

The approval to extend the shelf life of the vaccines to July 1 from May 31 was supported by scientific evidence, Health Canada said in a statement. COVID-19 deaths in Brazil surpass 460,000 Brazil registered 2,012 new COVID-19 deaths on Saturday, and the total number of deaths in the country reached 461,057, according to the Health Ministry.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Health workers sue Texas hospital over compulsory vaccinations - Washington Post

A group of 117 healthcare workers at a Texas hospital filed a lawsuit in state court against their employer's mandate requiring all staff to get COVID-19 vaccinations, Washington Post reported on Saturday. Employees of Houston Methodist Hospital said in the lawsuit that their employer's compulsory immunization requirement violated the Nuremberg Code, a set of standards designed after World War Two to prevent experimentation on human subjects without their consent, the Post reported.

Australia's Victoria state reports 5 COVID-19 cases on day 3 of lockdown

Australia's Victoria state-reported five new local COVID-19 cases on Sunday, including in a worker at a Melbourne aged care facility where not all of the residents have been vaccinated. The infections on the third day of a week-long lockdown raise the total to 40 in the latest cluster, which started with a returning overseas traveler who tested positive after leaving a quarantined hotel.

Myanmar COVID-19 outbreak hits health system shattered after the coup

Breathless, fevered, and without the extra oxygen that could help keep them alive, the new coronavirus patients at a hospital near Myanmar's border with India highlight the threat to a health system near collapse since February's coup. To help her tend the seven COVID-19 patients at Cikha hospital, day and night, chief nurse Lun Za En has a lab technician and a pharmacist's assistant.

Health Canada extends shelf life of some AstraZeneca COVID-19 shots

Canada's health regulator said Saturday it has extended the expiry dates of two lots of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine by 30 days to ensure that provinces and territories are able to use up their existing inventory. The approval to extend the shelf life of the vaccines to July 1 from May 31 was supported by scientific evidence, Health Canada said in a statement.

COVID-19 deaths in Brazil surpass 460,000

Brazil registered 2,012 new COVID-19 deaths on Saturday, and the total number of deaths in the country reached 461,057, according to the Health Ministry. The country has the second largest number of COVID deaths in the world. Over the last 24 hours, 79,670 new COVID cases were recorded, with the total number of infections in the country reaching 16.47 million.

Vietnam detects hybrid of Indian and UK COVID-19 variants

Authorities in Vietnam have detected a new coronavirus variant that is a combination of the Indian and UK COVID-19 variants and spreads quickly by air, the health minister said on Saturday. After successfully containing the virus for most of last year, Vietnam is grappling with a rise in infections since late April that accounts for more than half of the total 6,856 registered cases. So far, there have been 47 deaths.

U.S. administers 293.7 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines - CDC

The United States had administered 293,705,050 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Saturday morning and distributed 366,314,625 doses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Those figures are up from the 292,099,778 vaccine doses the CDC said had been administered by May 28, out of 362,375,765 doses delivered.

India reports 3,460 more COVID-19 deaths, over 165,000 new infections

India on Sunday reported its lowest daily rise in new coronavirus infections in 46 days at 165,553 cases during the previous 24 hours, while deaths rose by 3,460. The South Asian nation's tally of infections now stands at 27.9 million, with the death toll has reached 325,972, health ministry data showed.

Foxconn founder says hopes to import BioNTech COVID shots for Taiwan

Terry Gou, the billionaire founder of major Apple Inc supplier Foxconn, said on Saturday his charity plans to apply to import 5 million doses of BioNTech SE's COVID-19 vaccine into Taiwan, which is tackling a spike in infections. After recording just a handful of daily infections for months, Taiwan is currently dealing with relatively large numbers of community transmissions. It has only vaccinated around 1% of its more than 23 million people, though it has almost 30 million shots on order, from AstraZeneca Plc, Moderna Inc, and two domestic firms.

Paris venue hosts indoor rock concert - with masks and virus tests

French rock band Indochine performed at a concert venue in central Paris on Saturday before a crowd of 5,000 fans in a welcomed return to pre-pandemic life, with the exception of masks and mandatory tests. The show at the Bercy arena was part of an experiment launched by the Paris hospital authority aimed at assessing how concerts will be able to resume as France gradually ends restrictions imposed by the coronavirus crisis.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)