Health News Roundup: New York orders all healthcare workers to get COVID-19 vaccine; Turkey offering extra Pfizer shots for those wanting to travel and more

27, he said in a statement. Turkey offering extra Pfizer shots for those wanting to travel Turkey is allowing people who were inoculated with Sinovac's coronavirus vaccine to take an additional Pfizer dose as it looks to ease travel to countries that have not approved the Chinese shot, the health ministry said on Monday.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Vaccine hesitancy reaches Mexico's youth - along with Delta variant

As the Delta variant of the COVID virus sweeps through Mexico's cities, more adults in their 30s and 40s are ending up in the hospital with polls showing vaccine hesitancy is rising in younger age groups. At the height of the pandemic in January, 10% of people hospitalized for COVID-19 were aged between 18 and 39, according to the health ministry. Cases have now surged again to near-record levels https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/mexico and that percentage has tripled.

New York orders all healthcare workers to get COVID-19 vaccine

All healthcare workers in New York state must be vaccinated against COVID-19 unless they have a medical or religious exemption, Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a new mandate issued on Monday. They must have received at least one dose of a vaccine by Sept. 27, he said in a statement.

Turkey offering extra Pfizer shots for those wanting to travel

Turkey is allowing people who were inoculated with Sinovac's coronavirus vaccine to take an additional Pfizer dose as it looks to ease travel to countries that have not approved the Chinese shot, the health ministry said on Monday. Turkey has administered 83 million vaccines against COVID-19, mainly Sinovac's Coronavac and the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. In the first weeks, it was exclusively using the Chinese vaccine, which has not been approved in some Western countries.

Pfizer submits initial data for COVID-19 vaccine booster authorization

Pfizer Inc and its German partner BioNTech SE have submitted to U.S. regulators the initial data from an early-stage trial toward seeking authorization of a booster dose of their COVID-19 vaccine, the drugmakers said on Monday. They said the third dose showed significantly higher neutralizing antibodies against the initial SARS-CoV-2 virus compared to the two doses as well as against the Beta and the highly infectious Delta variants.

Overwhelmed Philippines hospitals hit by staff resignations

Exhausted by the COVID-19 workload, Loui quit her job as an intensive care unit nurse at a private hospital in the Philippines earlier this year. The 30-year-old, who declined to give her last name for fear of reprisals, is among thousands of medical workers who have resigned during the pandemic, complaining of low pay and poor working conditions. Others have sought better jobs abroad.

As Delta spreads, some travelers double up on COVID-19 vaccine in U.S.

Alison Toni felt lucky to get Sinovac's COVID-19 vaccine in Chile earlier this year. A month later, she was in Minnesota getting vaccinated again. Toni, an American living in Chile, was visiting her parents in Minneapolis in April when she got her first Pfizer shot at a CVS pharmacy. She traveled back for the second dose in June. She did not disclose being previously vaccinated.

GSK, CureVac's next-gen COVID-19 vaccine shows promise in monkey trial

GlaxoSmithKline and CureVac said a study https://www.curevac.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Optimization-of-Non-Coding-Regions-Improves-Protective-Efficacy-of-an-mRNA-SARS-CoV-2-Vaccine-in-NHP.pdf on macaque monkeys showed their jointly-developed mRNA COVID-19 vaccine candidate to be "strongly improved" in protecting against the virus compared with CureVac's first attempt. The encouraging news on its "second-generation" vaccine gave CureVac's German-listed shares an 8% lift, as the stock gradually recovers from a slump in June when the German biotech company's first vaccine candidate recorded a disappointing 48% efficacy in mass testing on humans.

New Yorkers largely back mayor's vaccine mandate to dine out

New Yorkers interviewed by Reuters on Monday were largely backing the push by the city's mayor, Bill de Blasio, to require proof of COVID-19 vaccination to enter restaurants, gyms and other businesses. The policy is set to launch Tuesday as the delta variant continues to make progress.

In Texas, local school officials stick with mask mandate, despite court setback

Local officials in Texas who have been battling their governor over mask mandates said they would continue to require face coverings in schools despite a setback in the state Supreme Court. The latest manifestation of the political divide over how to beat back the coronavirus comes as the Delta variant is leading a spike in new cases, including among children.

U.S. court revives nearly 6,000 lawsuits over 3M surgical warming device

A federal appeals court on Monday revived nearly 6,000 lawsuits alleging that a widely used device produced by 3M Co to keep surgical patients warm caused them to develop infections. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Minnesota judge overseeing the litigation over 3M's Bair Hugger device had wrongly excluded testimony from medical experts supporting the plaintiffs' claims.

(With inputs from agencies.)