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 Borders open in Australia, Thailand
Australia eased its international border restrictions on Monday for
the first time during the coronavirus pandemic, allowing some of its
vaccinated public to travel freely and many families to reunite,
sparking emotional embraces at Sydney's airport. While travel is
initially limited to Australian citizens, permanent residents and
their immediate families, it sets in motion a plan to reopen the
country to international tourists and workers, both much needed to
reinvigorate a fatigued nation.
Hundreds of vaccinated foreign tourists are scheduled to arrive in
Bangkok on Monday, the first wave of visitors to Thailand in 18
months who will not have to undergo quarantine for the coronavirus.
Seeking to resurrect its pandemic-ravaged tourism economy,
Thailand's government has given the green light to vaccinated
tourists from more than 60 countries, including the United States
and China.
FDA needs more time to complete review of Moderna teen shot
Moderna Inc said on Sunday it has been told that the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration will require additional time to complete its
assessment of the company's COVID-19 vaccine for use in adolescents
aged 12 to 17 years.
The FDA informed Moderna that the review may not be completed before
January 2022, the company said in a statement, dealing a potential
setback to the timing of an emergency use authorization (EUA) for
that age group.
China outbreak developing rapidly, health official says
China's latest COVID-19 outbreak is developing rapidly, a health
official said, as the authorities demanded high vigilance at ports
of entry amid growing infections in northeastern Heihe border city
caused by the virus arriving from abroad.
Some 377 domestically transmitted cases with confirmed symptoms were
reported from Oct. 17-29, National Health Commission (NHC) data
showed. China has tackled a series of outbreaks this year since it
largely contained a national spread in early 2020.
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 China says U.S. COVID origins
report is without credibility
A declassified U.S. intelligence report saying
it was plausible that the COVID-19 pandemic
originated in a laboratory is unscientific and
has no credibility, Chinese foreign ministry
spokesman Wang Wenbin said in a statement on
Sunday. The updated U.S.
intelligence briefing, published on Saturday, said that a natural
origin and a lab leak were both plausible hypotheses to explain how
SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, first infected
humans, but that the truth may never be known.
A joint study by China and the World Health Organization published
this year all but ruled out the theory that COVID-19 originated in a
laboratory, saying that the most likely hypothesis was that it
infected humans naturally, probably via the wildlife trade.
Cheap antidepressant shows promise against COVID-19
Fluvoxamine, an inexpensive antidepressant, might help keep patients
with COVID-19 from developing severe disease, according to a new
study published in The Lancet Global Health on Wednesday.
The researchers suspect the drug is helping by limiting the ability
of the virus to cause inflammation. However, more research is needed
to determine the impact of fluvoxamine because "composite outcomes"
- where a variety of results are lumped together for analysis - are
unreliable, according to an editorial by Otavio Berwanger of
Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein in Sao Paulo.
(Compiled by Karishma Singh; Editing by Himani Sarkar)
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