LIVE UPDATE TODAY/// WHO says immune barrier from vaccines ‘still far off’: Live news…

10 min readDec 8, 2020

UK starts rolling out COVID-19 vaccine as drug-maker Pfizer moves closer to approval in the hardest-hit United States.

A nurse holds a vial of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on the first day of the largest immunisation programme in British history [Jacob King via Reuters]

Umut Uras

8 Dec 2020

A World Health Organization official warned only public health measures — not vaccines — can prevent a new surge of COVID-19 cases as the first vaccines are administered in the United Kingdom.

The UK started rolling out the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, the first Western country to begin vaccinating its population against infection from the new coronavirus.

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Here are the latest updates:

7 mins ago (15:05 GMT)

‘End in sight’: UK health minister says fight against COVID begins

British Health Secretary Matt Hancock says the launch of a vaccination campaign against COVID-19 marked “the start of the fight back against our common enemy, coronavirus”.

Hancock told MPs “help is on its way and the end is in sight”. But he added while there was now a route out, “there’s still a long march ahead. Let’s not blow it now”.

The British minister pointed to increasing virus cases in parts of the country such as London, Kent and Essex to stress restrictions needed to be followed over the coming weeks and months, “to keep people safe and make sure we can get through this safely together”.

The UK is the first Western country to start a mass vaccination programme.

16 mins ago (14:57 GMT)

Dutch health authority reports ‘worrying rise’ in infections

The Netherlands reported a “worrying rise” in the number of coronavirus infections as the government prepared to announce whether it will allow any relaxation over the Christmas holidays of its partial lockdown.

The health institute said the number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases rose by more than 9,000 to 43,103 in a week. The total death toll is approaching 10,000.

The Netherlands has been in a partial lockdown since mid-October, when the country was recording some of Europe’s highest infections rates. The closures of all bars and restaurants along with restrictions on the number of people who could gather at home and outdoors brought the infection rate down, but the decline has stagnated in recent weeks.

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25 mins ago (14:47 GMT)

Quantities of COVID-19 tests insufficient for mass testing: Roche

Quantities of COVID-19 tests are insufficient to cope with current global demand and ensure mass testing successfully, Roche’s Chief Executive Severin Schwan said.

“For the time being demand for tests is higher than the industry can provide for,” Schwan said at a briefing.

“It very important that testing is prioritized. I can see in the mid-term an opportunity to open up the economy by testing much more broadly. But for the time being the quantities [of diagnostic tests] are simply not available for that.”

He added: “We still have little information about duration and efficacy of vaccines … so diagnostics will remain very important, not only for the months to come but the years to come.”

33 mins ago (14:39 GMT)

Mexico aims to begin vaccinating 125,000 health workers by year end

Mexico aims to begin the COVID-19 vaccination process for 125,000 people in December, apparently scaling back its earlier plan to apply the first vaccine doses for 250,000 people by end of the year.

Mexico’s Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez Gatell said Mexico will prioritise health workers and elderly people to receive the first doses of the two-shot Pfizer vaccine.

The second phase of Mexico’s vaccination programme is slated to begin in February.

Mexico aims to begin the COVID-19 vaccination process for 125,000 people in December [File: Victoria Razo/Al Jazeera]

44 mins ago (14:28 GMT)

US gov’t passed up chance to lock in more vaccine doses

President Donald Trump’s administration faces new scrutiny after failing to lock in a chance to buy millions of additional doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine. That decision could delay the delivery of a second batch of doses until Pfizer fulfills other international contracts.

Under its contract with Pfizer, the Trump administration committed to buy an initial 100 million doses, with an option to purchase as many as five times more.

But this summer, the White House opted not to lock in an additional 100 million doses for delivery in the second quarter of 2021, according to people who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

Dr Moncef Slaoui, who is leading the government’s vaccine effort, noted the Trump administration was looking at a number of different vaccines during the summer. He told ABC’s Good Morning America “no one reasonably would buy more from any one of those vaccines because we didn’t know which one would work and which one would be better than the other”.

53 mins ago (14:19 GMT)

UK: Vaccine patient thought being 1st was ‘a joke’

Margaret Keenan, 90 — the first UK citizen jabbed in the initial phase of a mass vaccination programme — thought “it was a joke” when told she would the first recipient of the COVID vaccine.

The first shipments of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine were delivered to about 80,000 UK hospitals on Sunday. But the 800,000 doses are only a fraction of what is needed.

The vaccine cannot arrive soon enough for the United Kingdom, which has more than 61,000 COVID-19-related deaths — more than any other country in Europe. The UK has more than 1.7 million cases.

The government is targeting more than 25 million people, or about 40 percent of the population, with the vaccine.

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1 hour ago (14:02 GMT)

Trump seeks to secure vaccine supply as US death toll surges

The Trump administration will seek to shore up the US vaccine supply as the coronavirus pandemic killed 15,000 people in the United States last week alone and has overwhelmed hospitals.

Outgoing President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday to ensure priority access for COVID-19 vaccines procured by the US government is given to the American people before assisting other nations.

The signing follows a New York Times report that Pfizer may not be able to provide more of its vaccine to the United States until next June because of its commitments to other countries. The Washington Post also reported the Trump administration months ago passed on the chance to buy twice as many as the 100 million they agreed to.

1 hour ago (13:49 GMT)

US: FDA staff backs Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine data

Pfizer cleared the next hurdle in the race to get its COVID-19 vaccine approved for emergency use after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released documents that did not raise any new issues about its safety or efficacy.

Data on the vaccine submitted to the agency was in line with its guidance on emergency use authorisation, FDA staff said in documents released ahead of Thursday’s meeting of outside experts.

A two-dose vaccination was highly effective in preventing confirmed cases of COVID-19 at least seven days after the last dose, FDA staff said.

The FDA said there was currently insufficient data to make conclusions about the safety of the vaccine in those less than 16 years of age, pregnant women and those whose immune systems were compromised. The FDA is expected to decide on whether to authorise the vaccine within days or weeks.

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1 hour ago (13:45 GMT)

Morocco to kick off mass vaccination plan with Chinese drug

Morocco is gearing up for an ambitious COVID-19 vaccination programme aiming to vaccinate 80 percent of its adults in an operation starting this month that’s relying initially on a Chinese vaccine that has not yet completed advanced trials to prove it is safe and effective.

The first injections could come within days, a health ministry official said. Facing a public sceptical about the vaccines’ safety and effectiveness, medical experts and health officials have appeared on television in recent weeks to promote the COVID-19 vaccines and encourage Moroccans to get immunized.

The World Health Organization has said new vaccines should first be tested in tens of thousands of people to prove they work and do not cause worrisome side effects before being rolled out broadly.

2 hours ago (12:50 GMT)

UK’s initial AstraZeneca shots will come from Europe, task force says

The UK’s initial doses of the COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University will come from Europe rather than a domestic supply chain, the country’s Vaccine Taskforce said.

The “vast, vast, vast majority” — more than 80 percent — of the 100 million doses AstraZeneca will produce for the UK will be made there, Ian McCubbin, manufacturing lead for the Vaccine Taskforce, said, but this year’s first batches will not.

“The initial supply and it’s a little bit of a quirk of the programme actually comes from the Netherlands and Germany,” he told reporters, adding: “But once that’s supplied, which we expect will be all by the end of this year, then the remainder of the supply will be a UK supply chain.”

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3 hours ago (12:40 GMT)

Study links Japan’s domestic travel campaign to increased COVID-19 symptoms

Researchers in Japan have found a higher incidence of COVID-19 symptoms among people who have participated in a domestic travel campaign promoted by the government, suggesting it is contributing to a spread in the virus.

The findings will make dismal reading for Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who has defended the travel campaign, saying it was needed to stop many small businesses in the hospitality sector from going bust due to the lack of customers as a result of the virus scare.

High fever was reported by 4.8 percent of users of the Go To Travel campaign compared with 3.7 percent for non-users, according to a preprint of a study that examined data from an internet survey of more than 25,000 adults. Participants also had higher rates of throat pain, cough, headache, and a loss of the sense of taste or smell.

3 hours ago (12:17 GMT)

South Korea to buy millions of coronavirus vaccine doses

South Korea says it has signed deals to provide coronavirus vaccines for 44 million people next year but it will not hurry inoculation to allow more time to observe potential side effects.

Its cautious approach comes as the country of almost 52 million people battles surging COVID-19 infections that health authorities say threaten to overwhelm the medical system.

Other countries are moving ahead to grant emergency use approval for the vaccines in a bid to contain virus transmission.

A medical worker takes samples from a woman during the COVID-19 testing at a makeshift clinic in Seoul [File: AP]

3 hours ago (11:47 GMT)

Israel to get initial Pfizer coronavirus vaccine shipment on Thursday: Minister

Israel will receive one of the first shipments of Pfizer Inc coronavirus vaccines and will administer them to the elderly and other high-risk groups, a cabinet minister said.

Pfizer and its partner BioNTech last month agreed to provide Israel with eight million doses of the vaccine, which the UK became the first country to administer.

Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen confirmed media reports that a first batch would be flown to Tel Aviv from Chicago on Thursday.

4 hours ago (11:21 GMT)

India may authorise some COVID-19 vaccines in weeks: Health secretary

India’s government regulator could grant a license to some developers of COVID-19 vaccines in the next few weeks, the country’s top health official has said.

Six vaccines, including Astra Zeneca’s Covidshield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, are in trial stages, Federal health secretary Rajesh Bhushan told a news conference.

Bhushan said Bharat Biotech had sought emergency-use authorisation from India’s drug regulator for its COVID-19 vaccine. Pfizer and Astra Zeneca have already applied for emergency-use authorisation in India.

5 hours ago (10:40 GMT)

WHO says immune barrier from vaccines ‘still far off’

A WHO official says only public health measures, not vaccines, can prevent a new surge of COVID-19 cases.

“Vaccines are a great tool, they will be very helpful, but the effect of the vaccine in providing some kind of immune barrier is still far off,” said Dr Margaret Harris in response to a question at a Geneva briefing about whether the vaccines would come in time to prevent a third wave of cases in Europe.

“The things that must be done to prevent an increase, an uptick, a surge or whatever you want to call it are the public health measures,” she added.

A nurse administers the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at Guy’s Hospital in London [Reuters]

5 hours ago (10:28 GMT)

Japan sends military nurses to Hokkaido to cope with coronavirus: Media

Japanese Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi ordered the country’s Self Defense Forces to send nurses to a city in northern Hokkaido prefecture that was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, media said.

Kishi ordered the dispatch of two teams of five Self Defense Force nurses to hospitals in the city of Asahikawa, public broadcaster NHK said.

LIVE UPDATE TODAY/// WHO says immune barrier from vaccines ‘still far off’: Live news…

7 mins ago (15:05 GMT)

‘End in sight’: UK health minister says fight against COVID begins

Dutch health authority reports ‘worrying rise’ in infections

Quantities of COVID-19 tests insufficient for mass testing: Roche

33 mins ago (14:39 GMT)

Mexico aims to begin vaccinating 125,000 health workers by year end

44 mins ago (14:28 GMT)

US gov’t passed up chance to lock in more vaccine doses

53 mins ago (14:19 GMT)

UK: Vaccine patient thought being 1st was ‘a joke’

Trump seeks to secure vaccine supply as US death toll surges

US: FDA staff backs Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine data

1 hour ago (13:45 GMT)

Morocco to kick off mass vaccination plan with Chinese drug

2 hours ago (12:50 GMT)

UK’s initial AstraZeneca shots will come from Europe, task force says

3 hours ago (12:40 GMT)

Study links Japan’s domestic travel campaign to increased COVID-19 symptoms

3 hours ago (12:17 GMT)

South Korea to buy millions of coronavirus vaccine doses

3 hours ago (11:47 GMT)

Israel to get initial Pfizer coronavirus vaccine shipment on Thursday: Minister

4 hours ago (11:21 GMT)

India may authorise some COVID-19 vaccines in weeks: Health secretary

5 hours ago (10:40 GMT)

WHO says immune barrier from vaccines ‘still far off’

5 hours ago (10:28 GMT)

Japan sends military nurses to Hokkaido to cope with coronavirus: Media

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