Health News at Your Fingertips

India will make Covid molecular tests mandatory for people arriving directly or indirectly from the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil in a bid to contain the spread of more infectious virus variants found in those countries, Reuters reports.

India, which has reported the highest number of overall Covid cases after the United States, detected the South African variant in four people last month and the Brazilian one in one person this month.

The government has said the South African and Brazilian strains can more easily infect a person’s lungs than the UK mutation. India has so far reported 187 cases of infection with the UK variant.

The government late on Wednesday said airlines would be required from next week to segregate inbound travellers from those countries. India does not have direct flights with Brazil and South Africa, and most people travelling from these countries generally transit through Middle Eastern airports.

Hong Kong’s government on Thursday approved the Chinese-made Sinovac coronavirus vaccine for emergency use after a panel of experts fast-tracked its recommendation despite the drug’s comparatively low efficacy, AFP reports.

“The first batch of one million jabs of Sinovac vaccines will arrive in Hong Kong soon,” the government statement said.

Local media reported that the first vaccinations could arrive as soon as Friday, finally kicking off the financial hub’s delayed inoculation drive.

But officials may face an uphill task persuading residents to take Sinovac’s shots in a city where public distrust of Chinese authorities runs deep.

On Tuesday, a government advisory panel unanimously supported Sinovac saying the benefits of authorising its use outweighed the risks.

Unlike rival vaccines such as those from Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca, SinoVac has yet to submit its third phase clinical trial data to medical journals for peer review.

Sinovac has been exempted from that hurdle by Hong Kong officials and told they could instead give the information directly to the experts.

US federal agents have seized more than 10 million fake 3M brand N95 masks in recent weeks, the result of an ongoing investigation into counterfeits sold in at least five states to hospitals, medical facilities and government agencies, AP reports.

The most recent seizures occurred Wednesday when Homeland Security agents intercepted hundreds of thousands of counterfeit 3M masks in an East Coast warehouse that were set to be distributed, officials said.

Investigators also notified about 6,000 potential victims in at least 12 states including hospitals, medical facilities and others who may have unknowingly purchased knockoffs, urging them to stop using the medical-grade masks. Officials encouraged medical workers and companies to go to 3Ms website for tips on how to spot fakes.

“Not only do they give a false sense of security, how dangerous is the exposed individual without any protective gear? They have no utility whatsoever,” Homeland Security Secretary Ali Mayorkas said of the fake masks.

The masks do not come through 3M’s regular distributors, they come from outside the normal supply chain, officials said. But hospitals and medical groups have increasingly gone around normal purchasing routines during mask shortages in the global pandemic, officials said. They said the scams are taking advantage of the panic over masks.

Homeland Security officials would not say which states the phony masks were sent to, but said criminal charges would be forthcoming.

The phony masks are not tested to see whether they meet strict N95 standards and could put frontline medical workers at risk if they are used while treating patients.

A first shipment of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine against Covid could reach Mexico as soon as Saturday, Mexico’s Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez Gatell said on Wednesday.

The Mexican government has agreed to purchase 24 million doses of the vaccine, he added.

Germany’s BioNTech SE plans to provide Covid vaccine to Taiwan, the company said, after the island complained the firm in December pulled out of a deal to buy 5 million doses at the last minute, possibly due to Chinese pressure, Reuters reports.

Taiwan Health Minister Chen Shih-chung on Wednesday said officials were on the verge of announcing the deal in December when BioNTech pulled the plug, though added that the deal was still pending and had not been torn up.

While he did not directly say China was to blame, Chen implied there was a political dimension to the decision and that he had been worried about “outside forces intervening,” hence his caution in discussing the planned deal publicly at the time.

In an emailed statement late Wednesday, the company said it was planning on providing vaccine to Taiwan.

“BioNTech is committed to help bringing an end to the pandemic for people across the world and we intend to supply Taiwan with our vaccine as part of this global commitment. Discussions are ongoing and BioNTech will provide an update.”

China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, has repeatedly sparred with the island over the coronavirus pandemic.

Taiwan has been angered by China’s assertion only it can speak for the island on the international stage about the subject, while Taiwan has accused China of lack of transparency.

A new report suggests the pandemic could present an opportunity to make the New Zealand’s tourism sector less environmentally harmful, but some operators are not so sure – the Guardian’s Elle Hunt takes a look:

Devastating winter storms sweeping the US have injected confusion and frustration into the nation’s Covid-19 vaccination drive, snarling deliveries and forcing the cancellation of thousands of shots around the country.

Across a large swath of the US, including deep south states such as Georgia and Alabama, the snowy, slippery weather either led to the closing of vaccination sites outright or held up the necessary shipments, with delays expected to continue for days.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday that states would face serious delays in receiving doses, with dangerous road conditions and power outages hampering delivery. In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio said doses expected this week were delayed by weather elsewhere in the country, forcing the city to hold off making 30,000 to 35,000 vaccination appointments: