Health News Roundup: Several eastern Chinese areas in mass COVID testing to curb new waves of infections; Eastern China cities tighten COVID curbs as new clusters emerge and more

Dine-in services in restaurants were suspended, and the government advised people to work from home. Macau steps up COVID testing as infections surge Macau kicked off a new round of COVID-19 testing for its more than 600,000 residents on Monday, as officials in the world's biggest gambling hub raced to limit spiralling infections in the city's worst outbreak since the pandemic began.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Several eastern Chinese areas in mass COVID testing to curb new waves of infections

Parts of eastern China are running fresh rounds of mass COVID-19 testing, as the country faces new waves of infections while recovering from the impact of the spring outbreaks that hit Beijing and Shanghai. China continues to demand local authorities detect and contain new infections as soon as possible in its "dynamic COVID zero" strategy, although it has warned against expanding strict curbs unnecessarily as it struggles to revive the economy.

Eastern China cities tighten COVID curbs as new clusters emerge

Cities in eastern China tightened COVID-19 curbs on Sunday as coronavirus clusters emerge, posing a new threat to China's economic recovery under the government's strict zero-COVID policy. Wuxi, a manufacturing hub in the Yangtze Delta on the central coast, halted operations at many public venues located underground, including shops and supermarkets. Dine-in services in restaurants were suspended, and the government advised people to work from home.

Macau steps up COVID testing as infections surge

Macau kicked off a new round of COVID-19 testing for its more than 600,000 residents on Monday, as officials in the world's biggest gambling hub raced to limit spiraling infections in the city's worst outbreak since the pandemic began. All residents face three rounds of tests this week, in addition to rapid antigen tests, as Monday's 68 new infections took the tally in the former Portuguese colony to 852 since the middle of June. About 12,000 people are in quarantine.

The German health minister in a move to boost the use of COVID treatment Paxlovid

Germany's health minister said on Sunday he will push for more prescriptions of Pfizer's oral COVID-19 antiviral treatment Paxlovid by family doctors to reduce severe cases of the disease. "A system involving family doctors will be prepared to administer this far too rarely-used COVID life saver more routinely," he wrote https://twitter.com/Karl_Lauterbach/status/1543582226788634624 on Twitter on Sunday, adding that sufficient stockpiles were available.