This file illustration photo taken on Nov 17, 2020 shows vials with COVID-19 Vaccine stickers attached and syringes, with the logo of the University of Oxford and its partner British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. (PHOTO / AFP)
GENEVA / LONDON / PARIS / BERLIN / NAIROBI / SAO PAULO / LISBON / MEXICO CITY / MADRID / ROME / BOGOTA / BUENOS AIRES / KAMPALA – AstraZeneca Plc’s coronavirus vaccine is finally arriving in European Union countries as the bloc tries to speed up its inoculation campaign and put a crisis-ridden period behind it.
France will use it beginning Saturday, with a priority for healthcare workers, after its first batch arrived Friday evening. Germany, Ireland, Spain and Austria will also start offering the shot, while Portugal will receive deliveries early next week.
The doses are transported mostly by truck via hubs across the continent, and their arrival is a welcome development for the EU, which has spent the past few weeks in a public row with Astra over vaccine targets. That ultimately spilled over into a back-and-forth blame game, threats of protectionism and huge political errors that threatened the Brexit deal between the UK and the EU.
Even with the rollout improving, governments remain worried about delays given thousands are still dying daily. They’re also sticking with lockdowns to control the spread of the virus, particularly as new variants emerge.
WHO
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on more pharmaceutical companies on Friday to share manufacturing facilities to help ramp up the production of COVID-19 vaccines.
The WHO also said its technical advisers would meet next week to assess versions of the AstraZeneca vaccine from the Serum Institute of India (SII), the largest vaccine maker, and from South Korea’s SK Bioscience ahead of a possible WHO emergency listing.
The WHO chief called on COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers to scale up production significantly and urged countries to share vaccine doses once they finish vaccinating their priority populations.
Tedros repeated his plea for rich nations to share doses with poorer countries once they have vaccinated health workers and older people.
Reiterating the negative impact of inequitable access to COVID-19 vaccines worldwide at a press briefing, Tedros said that although globally the number of vaccine doses administered already exceeds the number of reported infections, more than three-quarters of those vaccines have been administered in just ten countries that account for almost 60 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP). Meanwhile, 2.5 billion people in almost 130 countries have yet to receive a single dose.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is following up with researchers worldwide upon any studies on the origin of SARS-CoV-2 virus, the culprit behind the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, said a senior WHO official on Friday.
At a WHO press briefing, Maria van Kerkhove, technical lead on COVID-19 response at the WHO Health Emergencies Program, said that there are a number of different pieces of work that WHO is working on concerning the origin of COVID-19.
Global tally
Coronavirus cases worldwide exceed 105.3 million while the global death toll neared 2.3 million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
READ MORE: WHO Europe warns of impact of virus variants on health systems
AstraZeneca
AstraZeneca Plc’s vaccine is about as effective against the new strain of the virus that emerged in the UK as against the initial version, according to a study by the shot’s co-developer, the University of Oxford.
Protection against symptomatic infection was comparable for the new variants well as the earlier strain, according to the study, which analyzed swabs taken from volunteers from October through mid-January. The findings are disclosed in a preprint version of the study that wasn’t peer-reviewed.
US
More than 1,000 US troops will be deployed to assist with a nationwide vaccination rollout amid fears of a new surge in infections and deaths caused by multiple new COVID-19 strains.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has approved a request for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to boost vaccination efforts, said Andy Slavitt, senior adviser to the White House's coronavirus response team, at a news conference on Friday.
Part of the first contingent of more than 1,000 troops will arrive in vaccination centers opening in California over the next 10 days and begin operations around Feb. 15, Slavitt said.
President Joe Biden has called for setting up 100 mass vaccination centers around the country within a month. His national vaccination campaign aims to administer 100 million doses of two-stage coronavirus vaccines in his first 100 days.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will release guidance on school reopening in the coming week, said CDC Director Rochelle Walensky on Friday.
"Our goal is to get children back to school. School should be the last places closed and the first places open," Walensky said at a White House briefing.
German
Germany is likely to extend its lockdown for another two weeks when Chancellor Angela Merkel and state government leaders meet next week, people familiar with the discussions said.
Chancellery officials in Berlin have concluded it’s too early to lift the restrictions even though new infections are declining, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions aren’t public.
Netherlands
The AstraZeneca vaccine will initially be used for people age 60 to 64 as well as for long-term care workers, Dutch Health Care Minister Hugo de Jonge said in a letter to parliament. The Health Council advised on Thursday that the vaccine shouldn’t be used for people over 65.
Norway
The Norwegian Medicines Agency said four serious allergic reactions have been reported in the country following inoculations with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Norwegian and European medicines regulatory authorities are “monitoring this situation closely” as “no serious allergic reactions were detected in the major vaccine studies” that served as the basis for authorization of the shot, it added. The agency has assessed 282 suspected adverse reactions, or 0.25 percent of the first dose recipients totaling 112,080.
ALSO READ: World faces 4,000 variants as UK explores mixed vaccine shots
Spain
Spain is limiting use of the COVID-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca Plc to people age 55 and younger, based on “scientific evidence,” the Health Ministry said in a statement.
Spain is the latest European Union country to set an upper age limit for recommended use of the shot. Countries including Germany, France and Italy have also set limits.
France
France’s COVID-19 measures are failing to control the virus, and the country faces a new wave of infections at a time when pandemic activity is already at a high level, Bruno Riou, medical crisis director at Paris hospital operator AP-HP, said in a press briefing on Friday.
“It’s clear that we’re going to live very difficult times in the coming weeks,” Riou said.
The number of new confirmed coronavirus infections in France slowed for the second day in a row but stood well above the 5,000-case threshold to unwind restrictions, while deaths caused by the epidemic rose to 78,603, the health authorities said on Friday.
A total of 22,139 people tested positive for COVID-19 in France in the past 24 hours, down from 23,448 on Thursday and 26,362 on Wednesday.
The accumulative total of France's confirmed coronavirus cases was nearly 3.3 million, ranking sixth globally after the United States, India, Brazil, Russia and Britain.
Portugal
The number of people treated in intensive care units (ICU) for COVID-19 rose Friday to a record high of 904 in Portugal, after 41 critically ill patients were admitted over the last 24 hours.
Portugal's Directorate-General for Health also reported 258 coronavirus-related deaths in the last 24 hours, bring the country's total deaths to 13,740.
Meanwhile, the country recorded 6,916 new cases of coronavirus, bringing the total number of people infected with the disease to 755,774, according to data released on Friday.
The data also showed that some 11,342 people were reported to have recovered, bringing the number of recoveries to 585,276 since the beginning of the pandemic in Portugal. Friday was the fifth consecutive day that the number of recovered in Portugal exceeded that of new infections.
Portugal’s devastating surge in coronavirus infections has finally slowed, to the relief of its overwhelmed health service – but for nurse Marcio Vidal the fight is far from over.
“The problem goes beyond the virus. It is people’s behaviour. In the first wave there was fear but now that’s gone,” said Vidal, 26, who works at a hospital in the southern Algarve and has been on the frontline since March last year.
Slovenia
More services will be available to Slovenians as the government announced on Friday relaxation of restrictive measures imposed to contain the coronavirus.
According to a decree issued by the government, stores under 400 square meters could reopen on Saturday, but the employees must provide a coronavirus negative test result.
Minister of Economic Development and Technology Zdravko Pocivalsek said he would like to see a gradual return to normal to continue, however, he warned that the situation could quickly turn for the worse if people were not being responsible.
The cost of rapid tests that will be used in mass testing among staff will be covered by the state, he said at a press conference.
People wait in vehicles at a Covid-19 mass vaccination site at the Dodger Stadium parking lot in Los Angeles, California, US, on Feb 4, 2021. (PHOTO / BLOOMBERG)
Hungary
Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban stressed the utmost importance of acquiring COVID-19 vaccines as quickly as possible after his talks with visiting Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis here on Friday.
The Hungarian government is considering introducing easing measures to cautiously reopen the country's economy in two steps, Gergely Gulyas, head of the Prime Minister's Office, said here on Friday.
"The second wave of the epidemic in Hungary is currently in a phase of stagnation, so a cautious and gradual opening is reasonable," Gulyas said at a press conference. "If the current trends continue, the restrictions may be eased in two steps, on March 1 and then a month later," he said.
Concerning vaccinations, Gulyas noted that Hungary had effective agreements with Russia and China, giving the country a good chance of inoculating "significantly more" people in February and March than other European Union (EU) countries.
Earlier on Friday, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that by March 15, all Hungarian citizens older than 60 would be vaccinated.
Greece
Greek authorities announced on Friday that the COVID-19 nationwide lockdown which started on Nov. 7 is further extended to Feb. 15, while an earlier night curfew and closure of retail stores on weekends is imposed in red zones, like Attica and Thessaloniki in northern Greece, in order to avert the third wave of the pandemic.
"The image of the epidemiological load nationwide has deteriorated. We need to climb a hill. It would be a pity to give up now that we have started vaccinating vulnerable groups. We can avert a new wave," Vana Papaevangelou, an associate professor of pediatrics who participates in the committee of experts advising the Greek Health Ministry on the management of the COVID-19 crisis, said during a regular press briefing broadcast on national broadcaster ERT.
Latvia
In a bid to prevent new COVID-19 variants from reaching Latvia, the government on Friday imposed a temporary ban on passenger traffic with the UK, Ireland and Portugal and suspended all non-essential travel to Latvia from Feb. 11 to 25.
Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins said in a news video conference after Friday's cabinet meeting that by suspending international travel, Latvia wants to slow the spread of the new, more transmissible coronavirus strains to the country.
He informed that holders of Latvia's temporary residence permits will also need a serious reason to be let into the country.
Belgium
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo on Friday announced easing measures for non-medical contact professions and other sectors, under several strict conditions, after a meeting of the Consultative Committee.
Hairdressers will be able to reopen as of Feb. 13. "They will be able to reopen under very strict measures and protocols," De Croo said.
Other non-medical contact professions, such as beauticians, nail salons and massage parlors, will be able to reopen from March 1. The strict barrier measures — both for the customer and for the people working in the profession — will apply.
Canada
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called on Canadians on Friday not to worry about the increasing concerns on COVID-19 vaccine rollout in the country.
"When the vaccines are going to come? That's why there's a lot of anxiety and there's a lot of noise going on right now," Trudeau said at a press conference. "I want to reassure Canadians: we are on track."
At a press conference in Ottawa, Trudeau said that he has spoken with Pfizer and Moderna. "I speak almost every week with CEOs of these vaccine companies, and they have assured me that they will meet their obligations."
"I want to reassure Canadians that we're on track," he said, adding that as many as 20 million more doses will start to arrive in the spring as his government keeps its sight on vaccinating all people who want a shot by the end of September this year.
Argentina
Argentina registered 8,374 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, bringing the national tally to 1,970,009, the health ministry said.
The ministry also reported 285 more deaths from the disease, bringing the nationwide death toll to 48,985.
The province of Buenos Aires has registered a total of 822,037 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic broke out in March last year, and remains as the hardest-hit region in the South American country.
Brazil
Brazil reported on Friday 1,239 deaths from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, taking its death toll to 230,034, the Health Ministry said.
Another 50,872 confirmed cases were detected, bringing its nationwide tally to 9,447,165.
The most populous state of Sao Paulo is also the hardest hit by the virus, with 1,833,163 cases and 54,324 deaths reported.
Strict lockdown restrictions on non-essential activities will be lifted as the hospitalization rates of COVID-19 patients have fallen, said the governor of Brazil's Sao Paulo state, Joao Doria, on Friday.
Chile
The Chilean Health Ministry reported on Friday 3,786 COVID-19 infections and 77 deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing the totals to 744,019 cases and 18,808 deaths.
Minister of Health Enrique Paris told the press that in the last week there has been a 12 percent drop in the number of cases.
Paris also explained that in the last two weeks, 14 Chilean regions have reported a drop in infections, amid a resurgence across the country in the middle of the summer season in the southern hemisphere.
Paris also reported on Friday that 454,155 people have been vaccinated against COVID-19 in the country so far, as part of the mass vaccination plan that kicked off on Wednesday.
"We hope this level of participation at vaccination centers continues in the next few days, which will achieve the immunization of critical groups," the official said in a statement.
Of the total number of people immunized, 91,843 are over 85 years old, since the Chilean vaccination plan began with this age group considered to be at risk.
Ecuador
Ecuador registered 2,073 COVID-19 infections in the last 24 hours, for a total of 255,412 cases, the Ministry of Public Health said on Friday.
In its daily report, the ministry also documented 14 deaths in the same period, bringing the death toll to 10,290, with another 4,692 "probable deaths."
At the national level, the capital Quito is the current epicenter of the pandemic, where there are no longer hospital beds available, according to the ministry.
Meanwhile, local authorities are appealing to citizens to redouble biosecurity measures during the country's general elections on Sunday.
Cuba
Cuba's Ministry of Public Health reported on Friday 845 COVID-19 infections in the last 24 hours, bringing to 31,190 total confirmed cases, as well as four deaths in the same period, for a total of 229.
In the first four days of February, the Caribbean nation recorded 3,598 infections, a figure close to December, confirming the sustained increase in the number of cases over the past few days.
"Life today depends on discipline and strict compliance with all measures," the ministry's national director of hygiene and epidemiology Francisco Duran said during the daily broadcast.
He also warned about the growing trend of community transmission of the virus in the country, while noting a decrease in cases with the source of infection from abroad.
Ethiopia
Ethiopia registered 726 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, taking the nationwide tally to 140,883, the country's Ministry of Health said Friday.
The death toll from COVID-19 in the country has reached 2,136 as of Friday evening, after ten new deaths were reported, the ministry said.
The ministry said 999 more recoveries were logged during the past 24 hours, taking the national count to 125,241.
Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous nation, is one of the countries hardest hit by COVID-19 in Africa, after South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt.
Morocco
Morocco's total number of COVID-19 cases rose to 474,379 on Friday after 712 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours.
According to a statement by the Ministry of Health, the death toll mounted to 8,368 as 17 COVID-19 patients died in the last 24 hours.
The total number of recoveries from COVID-19 in Morocco increased to 453,302 after 780 new ones were added, while 606 people are in intensive care units, the statement said.
