A health worker prepares a dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine on March 8, 2021 at a COVID-19 vaccination centre located in Termini station in Rome. (TIZIANA FABI / AFP)
VIENNA / GENEVA / ADDIS ABABA / RIO DE JANEIRO / SANTIAGO / HAVANA / BRUSSELS / HELSINKI / PARIS / BERLIN / ACCRA / ROME / WARSAW / BUCHAREST / MOSCOW / MADRID / LONDON / NEW YORK – Johnson & Johnson has told the European Union it is facing supply issues that may complicate plans to deliver 55 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to the bloc in the second quarter of the year, an EU official told Reuters.
Any delay would be a further blow to EU’s vaccination plans, which have been hampered by bumpy supplies from other vaccine makers and a slow rollout of shots in many member states.
J&J told the EU last week that issues with the supply of vaccine ingredients and equipment meant it was “under stress” to meet the goal of delivering 55 million doses by the end of June, the EU official – who is directly involved in confidential talks with the US company – told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
The official added the company had said it was not impossible to meet the goal, but that it showed caution.
J&J’s vaccine, which requires only one dose for protection, is expected to be approved on March 11 for use in the EU by the bloc’s regulator. EU officials have said deliveries could start in April.
Austria
Austria was one of 17 European countries to receive doses from a batch of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine that Austrian authorities have stopped using while investigating a death and an illness following their use, a senior health official said on Tuesday.
A 49-year-old nurse in Zwettl, a town northwest of Vienna, died as a result of severe coagulation disorders after receiving the vaccine. Another nurse from Zwettl who is 35 and received a dose from the same batch, ABV 5300, developed a pulmonary embolism and is recovering.
“We informed all European colleagues in the European network as this batch, which amounted to roughly a million doses in total, was sent to 17 European countries,” Christa Wirthumer-Hoche, the head of Austrian public health agency AGES’ medicines market supervisory body, told a news conference.
The European Medicines Agency’s Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC), which monitors the safety of medicines, discussed the case on Monday, said Wirthumer-Hoche, who also heads EMA’s management board.
She did not identify the countries or say what steps, if any, they had taken. AstraZeneca has said it is in contact with Austrian authorities and will fully support the investigation.
The Anglo-Swedish company has said all batches are subject to strict and rigorous quality controls and that there have been “no confirmed serious adverse events associated with the vaccine”.
An autopsy of the nurse is being carried out and Wirthumer-Hoche said she expected the results next week.
European Union regulators at the end of January approved the product, saying it was effective and safe to use, while the World Health Organization in mid-February listed it for emergency use.
In this Dec 5, 2020 photo, a nurse shows the Sputnik V (Gam-COVID-Vac) vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at a clinic in Moscow amid the ongoing coronavirus disease pandemic. (KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP)
EU
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Monday the European Union (EU) will receive 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses per month from April, bringing the total to 300 million doses for the second quarter of this year.
Von der Leyen told German newspapers that about 20 million doses were delivered to the bloc in January and 30 million in February, and some 50 million doses are expected to be delivered in March. She based her prediction on the production plans of pharmaceutical companies and the possible approval of new vaccines by the EU's drugs regulator.
The EU has set a goal of inoculating 70 percent of its adult population by the end of summer, Sept 21. It had administered 29 million vaccine doses by the end of February, covering 6.4 percent of the whole population.
"We're looking at a doubling of doses per month in comparison to what we have in March. This is for the upcoming quarter," Eric Mamer, the European Commission's chief spokesperson, said at his daily press briefing on Monday.
However, the Commission stopped short of identifying the vaccine producers that may join the list of suppliers.
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WHO
Almost one year since the coronavirus outbreak was declared a global "pandemic", the World Health Organization (WHO) clarified on Monday that it did use the "highest level of alarm" to urge actions from all countries in early 2020.
Being asked on Monday's press conference whether the organization should have used the word "pandemic" sooner, Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead on COVID-19, said that the WHO announced a Public Health Emergency of International Concern as early as on Jan 30 last year.
She said that the announcement was indeed the highest level of alarm, or "the highest level that we can under international law."
On Jan 30, 2020, the WHO declared the outbreak, later named as COVID-19, as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, following a two-day discussion by a team of international experts.
Sputnik V vaccine
A Swiss biopharmaceutical company will produce the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine at its Italian facilities, marking the first European production agreement for the Russian shot.
Lugano, Switzerland-based Adienne Pharma & Biotech SA signed an agreement with Russian sovereign wealth fund RDIF to manufacture the vaccine at its production site in the Milan region, the company’s founder and President Antonio Francesco Di Naro told Bloomberg in an interview.
The start of production is subject to approval from Italian regulators. No production targets can be set as of now, Di Naro said.
The deal comes as Prime Minister Mario Draghi pledged to speed up Italy’s fledgling vaccination campaign amid a new rise in infections from the disease that’s already claimed 100,000 victims in the country.
Earlier this month, Draghi was the first European leader to use recently introduced powers to block the export of AstraZeneca Plc’s vaccine, after the company sharply reduced planned deliveries to the European Union.
Africa
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Africa has reached 3,975,045 as of Tuesday morning, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said.
The Africa CDC, the specialized healthcare agency of the 55-member African Union (AU), said the death toll related to the pandemic stood at 106,095, while 3,552,813 patients across the continent have recovered from the disease.
The most affected countries in terms of the number of confirmed positive cases are South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, and Ethiopia, the agency noted.
South Africa has lost 50,803 lives to the disease, the most among African countries, followed by Egypt, at 11,038, and Morocco, at 8,683, according to the Africa CDC.
In this Feb 14, 2021 photo, a health worker from the Ministry of Health Department for Indigenous Health administers a second doses of a COVID-19 vaccine to a woman in the village Esperanca do Rio Arapiun, in the Lower Amazon region of the state of Para, near Santarem in Brazil. (TARSO SARRAF / AFP)
Belarus
Belarus reported 1,073 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, taking its total to 297,514, according to the country's health ministry.
There were 852 new recoveries in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 288,049, the ministry added.
So far, 2,055 people have died from the disease in the country, including eight over the past 24 hours, it said.
As of Tuesday, 5,025,044 tests for the virus have been conducted across Belarus, including 8,018 over the past 24 hours, according to official figures.
Brazil
The COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE was able to neutralize a new variant of the coronavirus spreading rapidly in Brazil, according to a laboratory study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Monday.
Blood taken from people who had been given the vaccine neutralized an engineered version of the virus that contained the same mutations carried on the spike portion of the highly contagious P.1 variant first identified in Brazil, the study conducted by scientists from the companies and the University of Texas Medical Branch found.
The scientists said the neutralizing ability was roughly equivalent the vaccine’s effect on a previous less contagious version of the virus from last year.
The spike, used by the virus to enter human cells, is the primary target of many COVID-19 vaccines.
Brazil recorded 987 COVID-19 deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 266,398, the Health Ministry said on Monday.
Meanwhile, the country also reported 32,321 new COVID-19 cases, taking the nationwide tally to 11,051,665.
Bulgaria
Bulgaria reported 150 new deaths from coronavirus, the highest daily number in two months. The country reopened restaurants and pubs last week despite a rapid rise in infections that experts have attributed to the spread of the British strain. Emergency room doctors have called for tighter measures.
Bulgaria is preparing to hold a general election on April 4.
Chile
The Chilean government on Monday received a fifth shipment of CoronaVac vaccine from Chinese pharmaceutical firm Sinovac.
Chilean Minister of Health Enrique Paris and other officials were at the airport in Santiago to receive the shipment.
"The population can be sure of the supply and arrival of vaccines," Paris said, highlighting the progress the country has made in its vaccination process.
The Sinovac vaccine was approved for emergency use on Jan. 20 by the Public Health Institute of Chile.
On Monday, the country reported that 860,533 people have tested positive for COVID-19 and 21,163 people have died from the disease.
Cuba
Cuba reported on Monday 873 new COVID-19 infections in 24 hours, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 56,566, along with two more deaths for a total of 350, the Public Health Ministry said.
National director of hygiene and epidemiology at the ministry Francisco Duran detailed in his daily report that of the total number of infections reported in one day, 851 were from community transmission.
Havana reported another 362 infections for the day and is still the epicenter of the pandemic on the island, with an incidence rate of 274.3 per 100,000 inhabitants, the highest in the Caribbean nation.
Ethiopia
The Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health on Tuesday evening reported 995 new COVID-19 cases over the last 24 hours, taking the national count to 167,133.
Meanwhile, 13 new deaths were recorded, bringing the total death toll to 2,442, said the ministry.
Finland
Finnish researchers say a nasal spray COVID-19 vaccine based on gene transfer technology can be adapted flexibly to tackle new variants of coronavirus.
Its developers have teamed up with the Universities of Helsinki and Eastern Finland to announce the launch on Monday of Rokote Laboratories Finland Ltd for its marketing and development.
The gene transfer technology used was developed by the research group of Academy Professor Seppo Yla-Herttuala in Kuopio, Finland.
The same technology has been used in several clinical trials using gene therapy to treat cancer and cardiovascular diseases.
A woman looks through the window of the tram next to a sign reading "wearing a mask is mandatory" in Montpellier, southern France, on March 8, 2021, amid the crisis linked with the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus. (PASCAL GUYOT / AFP)
France
France is not planning to put the Paris region into lockdown even though the number of people with COVID-19 in intensive care is at its highest since November, public health director Jerome Salomon said on Tuesday.
Medical authorities in the Paris region, which accounts for about one-sixth of France’s population, ordered hospitals on Monday to cancel 40 percent of their regular activities to make space for critical COVID-19 patients.
The number of people treated in French intensive care units (ICUs) for COVID-19 reached a 14-1/2-week-high on Monday, at 3,849, while total hospitalisations for the disease increased for the second day running, to 25,195.
The number of people in ICUs is still almost two times lower than the 7,184 peak recorded in April 2020 but remains well above a government target level of 2,500-3,000 for easing coronavirus limits on the circulation of people.
Illustrating the stress on the French health system, medical authorities of the greater Paris region – which accounts for roughly one-sixth of the French population – have ordered hospitals to cancel 40 percent of their planned normal activity to make space for COVID-19 patients in critical condition.
French health authorities also reported 5,327 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours on Monday, a high for a Monday since Dec. 21, versus 21,825 on Sunday.
Georgia
Georgia on Tuesday reported 139 new COVID-19 cases, taking its total to 273,137.
Data from the National Center for Disease Control and Public Health showed that 129 more patients have recovered in the past 24 hours, taking the total number of recoveries to 267,015.
Meanwhile, ten people died in the last 24 hours, raising the death toll to 3,601.
Germany
Germany’s leading industry associations have resolved a spat with Chancellor Angela Merkel over CVOID-19 tests and issued an appeal to companies to help expand rapid- and self-testing of employees.
“Until a vaccination offer can be made to all citizens, we want to support the testing strategy of the federal and state governments with all our energy,” four of the biggest industry lobbies, which represent more than 90 percent of Germany’s workers, said in a joint statement coordinated with Merkel’s administration.
Merkel last week canceled a video call with business leaders because she wanted more substantial proposals on testing workers than those initially on the table.
After more than two months of lockdown, the German federal government allowed certain stores and retailers in Germany to reopen on Monday.
Bookstores, flower stores and garden centers are categorized as "daily needs retail" and could therefore reopen to a limited number of customers and with strict hygiene rules.
Only one customer per ten square meters is allowed for shops up to 800 square meters of retail space. Larger shops could welcome one additional customer for every additional 20 square meters of retail space.
The German government and the federal states agreed on this second reopening step after schools and hairdressers in the country were already allowed to reopen at the beginning of March. However, regulations could vary locally as details are left to the federal states to decide.
On Monday, the number of new COVID-19 infections in Germany remained slightly above the previous week's level as 5,011 infections were registered in one day, according to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI).
The number of deaths related to COVID-19 fell to the lowest level – 34 – since early November last year, bringing the total death toll in Germany to 71,934, the RKI said.
Ghana
Ghana is expecting 2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from the COVAX facility by the end of May for its mass vaccination program, Director General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) Patrick Kuma-Aboagye said here on Monday.
A total of 202,252 people have so far received one jab of the COVID-19 vaccine as of Sunday since the country began mass vaccination on March 2, he said.
A woman receives an injection of the COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination centre located in Termini station in Rome, on March 8 , 2021, on the its official presentation day. (TIZIANA FABI / AFP)
Italy
Italy raised the age limit for use of the coronavirus vaccine from British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca on Monday, following similar moves from France and Germany in recent days.
When it was first released, research showed that the AstraZeneca vaccine – unlike the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine or the vaccine from Moderna, the other two vaccines approved for use in Italy and other European Union states – was recommended only for those under the age of 65.
The World Health Organization has said in early February that the vaccine appeared to be safe even when given to older people. But countries were slow to follow the WHO's advice.
With distribution problems with the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, countries have, however, started to reconsider their stance, with national health authorities testing the safety of the vaccine on the elderly.
Both France and Germany have given the greenlight last week for using the AstraZeneca vaccine on those aged 65 or older, followed by Italy's decision on Monday. According to news reports, the Public Health Agency of Sweden recommended the same move though the change has not yet been adopted.
Italy's coronavirus death toll topped 100,000, the country's Ministry of Health said Monday. This is the latest tragic milestone for the first western nation hit hard by the pandemic.
With 100,103 total coronavirus-related deaths as of Monday, Italy became the second European country to surpass the 100,000 deaths figure after Britain, and the first in the European Union.
Latvia
Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins on Tuesday offered to take in some of neighboring Estonia’s Covid patients after its prime minister announced a lockdown and tighter restrictions to control the spread of the British strain and rising cases.
Norway
Norway is the latest country to add AstraZeneca’s vaccine to its immunization program for people over the age of 65. The decision comes not long after Germany, France and Sweden said they were clearing shots by Astra for the elderly, after judging that recent data now support such a step.
Poland
Poland wanted to have 60 to 70 percent of its population vaccinated against COVID-19 by summer, Deputy Health Minister Waldemar Kraska said on Monday.
"Whether it will succeed is hard to tell at the moment, but that is sadly not in our hands," he told Polish public radio.
Kraska added that he hoped vaccination of the group aged 30-40 — the most active cohort in the labour market — would commence before the end of the second quarter.
So far, 3.9 million Poles have received at least the first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, of whom 1.4 million have got two jabs.
The total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country topped 1.8 million on Monday after 6,170 tests came back positive. So far, 45,317 Poles have died as a result of the pandemic.
Rwanda
The Rwanda Biomedical Center (RBC) and Rwanda Correctional Services on Tuesday began inoculating elderly inmates and those with underlying diseases against COVID-19.
The vaccination started at Nyarugenge prison in the capital city of Kigali, where 2,077 inmates are set to be inoculated, and the authorities plans to extend the vaccination to all inmates aged 60 and above and those with underlying health conditions in prisons across the country, Commissioner General of Rwanda Correctional Services George Rwigamba told journalists at Nyarugenge prison.
Romania
The Romanian health authorities announced late Monday that two cases of the coronavirus variant first found in Brazil have been confirmed in the country.
They were from the capital city of Bucharest, both symptomatic, but with pre-existing medical conditions. The first case, a 38-year-old man, has no history of travel and no known contact with a confirmed case of COVID-19, while the second person, aged 57, was from a community outbreak with 3 cases, the possible source being one of his colleagues, according to the National Institute of Public Health.
With the entry of this new variant, the three most important coronavirus mutations in the world have all registered their presence in the eastern European country.
Russia
Russia reported 9,445 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, the first time since early October that the daily tally has dropped below 10,000.
That took the total number of coronavirus infections in Russia to 4,342,474.
Authorities said 336 people had died in the last 24 hours, pushing the official death toll to 89,809.
Spain
The number of new coronavirus cases continued to fall in Spain, according to the Ministry of Health on Monday.
The ministry reported 11,959 new coronavirus cases for the 72-hour period between 2 p.m. (1300 GMT) on Friday to 2 p.m. on Monday.
This is a fall from the 15,978 new cases the ministry reported on March 1, which means the number of new cases has now declined for six consecutive weekends.
The country's total number of confirmed coronavirus cases has so far risen to 3,160,970, with the total number of deaths standing at 71,436.
The Netherlands
The Netherlands will extend its lockdown until the end of March, but slowly ease some restrictions, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Monday. A curfew from 9 pm until 4.30 am will remain in place, but shopping on appointment will be expanded and adults are allowed to take part in outside sports with up to four people.
The extension means the country, which suffered riots in January over virus curbs, will hold next week’s general election during a lockdown. Rutte also looked ahead to the summer, estimating that four more months are needed to reach a critical amount of vaccinated people to allow for significant easing of restrictions.
UK
Britain is not “out of the woods” on COVID-19 and it won’t be possible to eliminate coronavirus infections and deaths, the government’s top medical and scientific advisers said on Tuesday, stressing the need for a gradual exit from lockdown.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced what he has called a cautious but irreversible roadmap out of England’s third national lockdown.
His Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance said that, while deaths were decreasing and the vaccine rollout was going well, the situation could quickly deteriorate.
Another 4,712 people in Britain have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 4,223,232, according to official figures released Monday.
The country also reported another 65 coronavirus-related deaths. The total number of coronavirus-related deaths in Britain now stands at 124,566. These figures only include the deaths of people who died within 28 days of their first positive test.
The latest figures were revealed as more than 22.3 million people in Britain have been given the first jab of the coronavirus vaccine.
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A family walks on the National Mall near the US Capitol in Washington, DC on March 8, 2021. (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP)
US
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued on Monday its first set of recommendations on activities that people who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 can safely resume.
Fully vaccinated people can visit other fully vaccinated people indoors without wearing masks or staying 6 feet apart, according to the guidelines.
Fully vaccinated people can visit unvaccinated people from one other household indoors without wearing masks or staying 6 feet apart if everyone in the other household is at low risk for severe disease, said the CDC.
Meanwhile, fully vaccinated people can refrain from quarantine and testing if they do not have symptoms of COVID-19 after contact with someone who has COVID-19.
The CDC defines people who are fully vaccinated as those who are two weeks after receiving the last required dose of vaccine.
The total number of COVID-19 cases in the United States topped 29 million on Monday, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.
US COVID-19 case count rose to 29,000,012, with a total of 525,046 deaths, as of 10:24 a.m. local time (1524 GMT), according to the CSSE tally.
