Health News Roundup: Austrian chancellor expects tighter COVID rules to remain past Christmas -newspaper; Sydney to further ease COVID-19 curbs on Monday as vaccinations pick up and more

Pfizer on Friday said trial results showed that its Paxlovid pill reduced by 89% the risk of hospitalization or death in patients at high risk of severe illness within three days of the onset of coronavirus symptoms. China has given 75.96% of population complete COVID-19 vaccine doses China had given 1.072 billion people complete COVID-19 vaccine doses by Nov. 5, Mi Feng, spokesman at the National Health Commission, told a briefing on Saturday.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Austrian chancellor expects tighter COVID rules to remain past Christmas -newspaper

Austria's latest measures to tackle the spread of coronavirus will likely stay in force over Christmas and New Year, Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg was quoted as saying on Sunday, as the country posted a record number of infections. The country reported 9,943 new infections within a 24 hour period on Saturday, surpassing the previous worst day of Nov. 13 2020 when 9,586 cases were recorded.

Sydney to further ease COVID-19 curbs on Monday as vaccinations pick up

Australia's largest city of Sydney will further ease social distancing curbs on Monday, a month after emerging from a coronavirus lockdown that lasted nearly 100 days, as close to 90% of people have got both doses of vaccine, officials said. Although limited to people who are fully inoculated, the relaxation in the state of New South Wales, home to Sydney, lifts limits on house guests or outdoor gatherings, among other measures.

Roche chairman sees greater flexibility after Novartis deal - paper

Roche's $20.7 billion move to buy back nearly a third of its voting stock from fellow Swiss drugmaker Novartis will give it more strategic flexibility, Chairman Christoph Franz said in an interview published on Saturday. The deal, announced on Thursday, extricates Roche from ownership ties to a major competitor with strategic vetoing power, though it has kept a passive role in the face of powerful Roche family shareholders.

Costa Rica issues COVID-19 vaccine requirement for children

Costa Rican children aged five and up must get COVID-19 vaccinations, according to a new health ministry mandate, making the Central American country one of the first to adopt such a requirement for kids. The move would add COVID-19 to a list of other infectious diseases in which vaccines for children have for years been required, including for polio and smallpox.

UK to roll out COVID-19 antiviral drug trial this month -Health Security Agency

Britain will start to roll out Merck's molnupiravir COVID-19 antiviral pill through a drug trial later this month, Susan Hopkins, Chief Medical Adviser at the UK Health Security Agency said on Sunday. Last week Britain became the first country in the world to approve the potentially game-changing COVID-19 antiviral pill, jointly developed by U.S.-based Merck & Co Inc and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics.

S.Korea to purchase 70,000 courses of new Pfizer COVID-19 pill

South Korea has agreed to buy 70,000 courses of Pfizer Inc's experimental antiviral COVID-19 pill, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said on Saturday. Pfizer on Friday said trial results showed that its Paxlovid pill reduced by 89% the risk of hospitalization or death in patients at high risk of severe illness within three days of the onset of coronavirus symptoms.

China has given 75.96% of population complete COVID-19 vaccine doses

China had given 1.072 billion people complete COVID-19 vaccine doses by Nov. 5, Mi Feng, spokesman at the National Health Commission, told a briefing on Saturday. That accounts for 75.96% of the nation's 1.41 billion people, Reuters calculation showed.

Unvaccinated in Greece face new restrictions as COVID cases soar

Queues formed outside shops in Athens on Saturday on the first day of new restrictions to curb soaring coronavirus infections which require the unvaccinated to have negative COVID-19 tests. COVID-19 infections in Greece hit a new daily high almost every day in November, prompting authorities to announce new measures on Tuesday, which also restrict access to cafes and restaurants, state services and banks to those who are either vaccinated or have a negative test.

U.S. administers 429.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines –CDC

The United States has administered 429,442,508 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Saturday morning and distributed 533,019,545 doses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Those figures are up from the 428,006,540 vaccine doses administered by Nov. 4, out of 531,287,645 doses delivered, the CDC said.

New Zealand's daily coronavirus cases cross 200 for first time in pandemic

New Zealand's 206 new daily community infections on Saturday carried it past the double-hundred mark for the first time during the coronavirus pandemic, as the nation scrambles to vaccinate its population of 5 million. The most populous city of Auckland, which reported 200 of the new cases, has lived under COVID-19 curbs for nearly three months as it battles an outbreak of the infectious Delta variant, although restrictions are expected to ease on Monday.

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