Texas is lifting its mask mandate, Gov. Greg Abbott said Tuesday, making it the largest state to no longer require one of the most effective ways to slow the spread of the coronavirus.The announcement in Texas, where the virus has killed more than 42,000 people, rattled doctors and big city leaders who said they are now bracing for another deadly resurgence. One hospital executive in Houston said he told his staff they would need more personnel and ventilators.Texas Governor Greg Abbott delivers an announcement in Montelongo’s Mexican Restaurant on March …

U.S. pharmaceutical giant Merck has agreed to help manufacture rival Johnson & Johnson’s new coronavirus vaccine to help speed production of millions of new doses of the single shots to inoculate more Americans in the coming months, White House officials said Tuesday.Johnson & Johnson has encountered unexpected production problems, even as it won emergency use approval last weekend for the vaccine. The company has manufactured 3.9 million doses so far, but says it is on pace to produce 100 million doses by the end of June.President Joe Biden is set …

The global COVAX vaccine distribution plan aims to deliver tens of millions of vaccine doses to low-income countries — many of them in Africa – in the coming months, top global health officials say, describing this as a turning point in the quest to quash the coronavirus pandemic.The world’s largest, fastest, and most ambitious vaccine drive delivered 11 million vaccine doses Tuesday to Angola, Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria. Between now and the end of May, said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the COVAX facility will …

France will now vaccinate people aged 65 years and older with the COVID-19 vaccine jointly developed by Oxford University and British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca.   The decision was announced Tuesday by Health Minister Olivier Veran during a televised interview.  Veran said anyone older than the age of 50 with pre-existing conditions can receive the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, “including those between 65 and 74.” France was among many European nations that refused to approve the Oxford-AstraZeneca for its elderly citizens.  The developers did not enroll many people in those age groups for their large-scale clinical …

One in four of the world’s population will suffer from hearing problems by 2050, the World Health Organization warned Tuesday, calling for extra investment in prevention and treatment. The first-ever global report on hearing said that the causes of many of the problems — such as infections, diseases, birth defects, noise exposure and lifestyle choices — could be prevented.  The report proposed a package of measures, which it calculated would cost $1.33 per person per year. Against that, it set the figure of nearly $1 trillion lost every year because the issue was not …