Rising COVID-19 cases are driving up the use of therapeutics, with Pfizer Inc's oral antiviral treatment Paxlovid seeing a 315% jump over the past four weeks, U.S. health officials said on Tuesday. The increase in U.S. cases and hospitalizations is starting to affect recommendations on behavior, with New York City, the nation's most populous city, advising stricter mask usage but stopping short of new mandates. Apple has scrapped return to office plans. "Increasingly, we'll see this virus hit people who are substantially older, frail, have underlying illnesses, or are distinctly immunocompromised," said Dr. William Schaffner, infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. "But we now have better treatments and many of those people will leave the hospital vertically rather than horizontally." The United States is averaging nearly 97,000 new cases a day, up from about 73,000 a week ago, according to a Reuters tally. Cases have been gradually … [Read more...] about As U.S. COVID-19 cases rise, so does demand for antivirals
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Additional 1,831 Covid-19 infections confirmed on Wednesday
An additional 1,831 new Covid-19 infections were confirmed on Wednesday, raising the national tally to over 10.70 million, according to the Ministry of Health. According to the ministry's report, most of the new patients are locally-transmitted cases confirmed in 48 out of 63 localities in the country with some localities seeing the highest numbers including Hanoi (403), Vinh Phuc (139), Phu Tho (125), Bac Ninh (80), and Nghe An (80). As of Wednesday evening, the number of Covid-19 patients in Vietnam has increased to over 10.70 million. The country now stands 12th among 227 countries and territories worldwide in the number of infections. On May 18, an additional 8,437 more patients recovered from the disease, raising the number of recoveries in the country to over 9.37 million. On Wednesday evening, one death related to Covid-19 was announced, total fatalities stayed at 43,072. By May 17, the country had injected more than 217 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines, including … [Read more...] about Additional 1,831 Covid-19 infections confirmed on Wednesday