Health News Roundup: UK ministers in push to boost COVID-19 vaccine uptake; Busiest U.S. seaport in California starts giving COVID-19 vaccinations and more

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said at a briefing on Friday that "reports that there is an intention to put in place new requirements, such as testing, are not accurate." Melbourne starts snap virus lockdown, no crowds at Australian Open Australia's second most populous state Victoria entered a five-day lockdown on Saturday as authorities raced to prevent a third wave of COVID-19 cases sparked by the highly infections UK variant.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

UK ministers in push to boost COVID-19 vaccine uptake

British ministers, health workers and volunteers will join a weekend drive to encourage those in the most vulnerable groups to receive a COVID-19 vaccination, as the government nears its target of reaching 15 million people in top priority tiers. Britain says it is on track to have offered an injection by Monday to everyone who is aged 70 and over, as well as those who are clinically vulnerable, frontline health and social care workers and older adults in care homes.

Busiest U.S. seaport in California starts giving COVID-19 vaccinations

About 800 longshoremen from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach on Friday got the first COVID-19 vaccinations for dockworkers at the United States' busiest seaport complex, which has been hard hit by pandemic-related workforce disruptions and surging imports. The shots were a welcome relief for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) members who snapped up the appointments in about 20 minutes.

Two white tiger cubs in Pakistan likely died of COVID, zoo officials say

Two 11-week-old white tiger cubs that died in a Pakistani zoo last month appear to have died of COVID-19, officials said. The cubs died in the Lahore Zoo on Jan. 30, four days after beginning treatment for what officials thought was feline panleukopenia virus, a disease that zoo officials said is common in Pakistan and targets cats' immune system.

China refuses to give WHO raw data on early COVID-19 cases: WSJ

Chinese authorities refused to provide World Health Organization investigators with raw, personalized data on early COVID-19 cases that could help them determine how and when the coronavirus first began to spread in China, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing WHO investigators.

U.S. CDC recommends schools reopen with masks and rigid health protocols

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday issued new guidance for U.S. schools to reopen, recommending universal mask-wearing and physical distancing as key COVID-19 mitigation strategies to get children back in the classroom quickly. The guidelines https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/index.html, which also emphasize the need for facility-cleaning, personal hygiene and contact tracing, are intended to give school districts a road map to bring the nation's 55 million public school students back to classrooms without sparking COVID-19 outbreaks.

White House says no intention to require COVID-19 testing on domestic flights

The White House said on Friday it was not planning to require people to take COVID-19 tests before domestic airline flights after the prospect of new rules raised serious concerns among U.S. airlines, unions and some lawmakers. White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said at a briefing on Friday that "reports that there is an intention to put in place new requirements, such as testing, are not accurate."

Melbourne starts snap virus lockdown, no crowds at Australian Open

Australia's second most populous state Victoria entered a five-day lockdown on Saturday as authorities raced to prevent a third wave of COVID-19 cases sparked by the highly infections UK variant. One new locally acquired case was confirmed in the past 24 hours, health authorities said on Saturday, taking the number of cases tied to a quarantine hotel at Melbourne airport to 14 and total active cases in the state to 20.

Oxford University to test COVID-19 vaccine response among children for first time

The University of Oxford has launched a study to assess the safety and immune response of the COVID-19 vaccine it has developed with AstraZeneca Plc in children for the first time, it said on Saturday. The new mid-stage trial will determine whether the vaccine is effective on people between the ages of 6 and 17, according to an emailed statement from the university.

China refused to provide WHO team with raw data on early COVID cases, team member says

China refused to give raw data on early COVID-19 cases to a World Health Organization-led team probing the origins of the pandemic, one of the team's investigators said, potentially complicating efforts to understand how the outbreak began. The team had requested raw patient data on the 174 cases of COVID-19 that China had identified from the early phase of the outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, as well as other cases, but were only provided with a summary, said Dominic Dwyer, an Australian infectious diseases expert who is a member of the team.

Exclusive: EU drugs regulator plans to fast track variant-modified COVID vaccines

Europe's medicines regulator is planning to speed up assessments of any COVID-19 vaccines that are modified to protect against variants of the virus, the head of the agency's COVID-19 task-force told Reuters on Friday. Marco Cavaleri, chair of the vaccine evaluation team at the European Medicines Agency (EMA), said there should be no need for lengthy large-scale trials like those needed to evaluate the first COVID-19 vaccines, since tweaks for new variants can be tested on smaller groups.

(With inputs from agencies.)