Israel and European countries banned flights from the UK on Sunday as the UK warns that a new coronavirus mutation is “out of control.” Israel, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Italy have banned flights from the UK and Germany is considering the same move for flights from the UK and South Africa, where another virus mutation has been discovered. UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock told Sky News that the new coronavirus variant is “deadly serious.” The Netherlands banned flights from the U.K. for at least the rest of the year while Belgium issued a flight ban for 24 hours starting at midnight and also halted train links to Britain, including the Eurostar. German officials were considering “serious options” regarding incoming flights from the U.K., but have not yet taken action.

Texas on Saturday surpassed 25,000 deaths from the coronavirus pandemic, the second-highest total in the country. State health officials reported 272 new deaths due to COVID-19, bringing Texas’ death toll to 25,226. Cases of COVID-19 and virus-related hospitalizations continue to rise in the state. On Saturday, the state reported 9,796 people hospitalized with the virus, an increase of nearly 23% over the last month. Officials reported 12,914 new cases on Saturday. That comes two days after the state set its one-day record of new cases — 16,864 — on Thursday. The increase in cases and hospitalizations comes as state health officials announced Friday that Texas will receive 620,000 more doses of COVID-19 vaccines over the next week.

Two owners of the company that makes OxyContin acknowledged to Congress on Thursday that the powerful prescription painkiller played a role in the opioid epidemic but they stopped short of apologizing or admitting wrongdoing. “I want to express my family’s deep sadness about the opioid crisis,” David Sackler, whose family owns Purdue Pharma, said at a rare appearance in a public forum. “OxyContin is a medicine that Purdue intended to help people, and it has helped, and continues to help, millions of Americans.” The company’s marketing efforts have been blamed for contributing to an addiction and overdose crisis that has been linked to 470,000 deaths in the United States over the past two decades.

Sweden’s government failed to sufficiently protect the elderly in care homes from COVID-19 and is ultimately responsible for the pandemic’s effects in the country, according to a stinging official report released Tuesday. The Scandinavian country has stood out among European and other nations for the way it has handled the pandemic, for long not mandating lockdowns like others but relying instead on citizens’ sense of civic duty. But an independent commission that looked into Sweden’s handling of the pandemic said Tuesday that Swedish elderly care has major structural shortcomings and authorities proved unprepared and ill-equipped to meet the pandemic. Nearly half the country’s COVID-19 deaths have been in care homes.

New Zealand this year pulled off a moonshot that remains the envy of most other nations: It eliminated the coronavirus. But the goal was driven as much by fear as it was ambition, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern revealed Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press. She said the target grew from an early realization the nation’s health system simply couldn’t cope with a big outbreak. And there have been plenty of bumps along the way. When a handful of unexplained cases began cropping up in August, Ardern found herself defending wildly exaggerated claims from President Donald Trump, who told crowds at rallies there was a massive resurgence and “It’s over for New Zealand. Everything’s gone.” “Was angry the word?” Ardern said, reflecting on Trump’s comments.

Economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic has set back decades of progress against the most severe forms of malnutrition and is likely to kill 168,000 children before any global recovery takes hold, according to a study released Monday by 30 international organizations. The study from the Standing Together for Nutrition Consortium draws on economic and nutrition data gathered this year as well as targeted phone surveys. Saskia Osendarp, who led the research, estimates an additional 11.9 million children — most in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa — will suffer from stunting and wasting, the most severe forms of malnutrition.

Can I stop wearing a mask after getting a COVID-19 vaccine? No. For a couple reasons, masks and social distancing will still be recommended for some time after people are vaccinated. To start, the first coronavirus vaccines require two shots; Pfizer’s second dose comes three weeks after the first and Moderna’s comes after four weeks. And the effect of vaccinations generally aren’t immediate. People are expected to get some level of protection within a couple of weeks after the first shot. But full protection may not happen until a couple weeks after the second shot. It’s also not yet known whether the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines protect people from infection entirely, or just from symptoms.

Bahrain said Sunday it approved the use of a Chinese coronavirus vaccine, following its earlier approval of a vaccine made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech. Separately, Kuwait has granted emergency use for the Pfizer vaccine. Bahrain’s state-run news agency said the Sinopharm vaccine would be available in the island kingdom off the coast of Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf. It offered few details though on study results of the vaccine, in line with the United Arab Emirates, which last week announced the vaccine was 86% effective. The Emirati statement provided few details but marked the first public release of information on the efficacy of the shot. Bahrain said over 7,700 signed up to take part in a trial of the Sinopharm vaccine in the kingdom.

Eager for a live music show after months of social distancing, more than 1,000 Barcelona residents gathered Saturday to participate in a medical study to evaluate the effectiveness of same-day coronavirus screening to safely hold cultural events. After passing an antigen screening, 500 of the volunteers were randomly selected to enjoy a free concert inside Barcelona’s Apolo Theater. The other 500 who didn’t get selected were sent home. They will form a control group that will allow the organizers to analyze if there was any contagion inside the concert hall despite the screening with antigen tests, which while not as accurate as other types of tests, do produce results in 15 minutes as compared to several hours, or days, later.

Senior U.S. government officials, including some White House officials who work in close proximity to President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, will be offered coronavirus vaccines as soon as this week, while its public distribution is limited to front-line health workers and people in nursing homes and long-term care facilities. Doses of the newly approved vaccine from Pfizer will be made available to those who work in close quarters with the nation’s top leaders, two people familiar with the matter confirmed. They said the move was meant to prevent more COVID-19 spread in the White House, which has already suffered from several outbreaks of the virus that infected Trump and other top officials, and other critical facilities.