 | | | | U.S. President Joe Biden said on Tuesday he is encouraged by data released by Pfizer Inc on its COVID-19 anti-viral medicine and his administration has ordered enough of the pills to treat 10 million Americans. | | | | | | The Omicron coronavirus variant has been detected in 77 countries since it was first identified three weeks ago, fueling concerns that its large number of mutations will help it spread faster and evade protection provided by COVID-19 vaccines or prior infection. | | | | | | Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will speak by phone to the premiers of the country's 10 provinces on Tuesday to discuss the rapidly spreading Omicron variant of COVID-19, a provincial source said. | | | | | | The state of Arizona on Tuesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow a Republican-backed law that bans abortions performed due to fetal genetic abnormalities such as Down syndrome to go into effect. | | | | | | Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine has been less effective in South Africa at keeping people infected with the virus out of hospital since the Omicron variant emerged last month, a real-world study published on Tuesday showed. | | | | | | A coroner on Tuesday said that an ex-NFL player who killed six people and himself earlier this year in South Carolina showed "unusually severe" chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). | | | | | | France on Tuesday reported 63,405 coronavirus infections, the second-highest number of new infections this year since April. | | | | | | President Joe Biden's administration is likely to request additional funds from Congress for COVID-19 testing, depending on the severity of the Omicron variant, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra said on Tuesday. | | | | | | Italy on Tuesday extended a COVID-19 state of emergency to March 31 and ruled that all visitors from EU countries must take a test before departure, amid concerns over the spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus. | | | | | | The Netherlands will extend restrictions aimed at slowing the coronavirus through Christmas and New Year's Eve holidays, including the early closure of elementary schools, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Tuesday. | | | | | |
