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EU to bring forward decision on Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to 21 December – as it happened

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Tue 15 Dec 2020 18.23 ESTFirst published on Mon 14 Dec 2020 18.29 EST
Pharmacy student prepares Pfizer vaccine to be given.
Pharmacy student prepares Pfizer vaccine to be given. Photograph: Jay Janner/AP
Pharmacy student prepares Pfizer vaccine to be given. Photograph: Jay Janner/AP

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One in four people globally may not get Covid-19 vaccines until 2022

Nearly one in four people may not get Covid-19 vaccines until at least 2022 because rich countries with less than 15% of the global population have reserved 51% of the doses of the most promising vaccines, researchers said.

Low- and middle-income countries - home to more than 85% of the world’s population - would have to share the remainder, said researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the US.

An effective response to the pandemic requires high-income countries “to share in an equitable distribution of Covid-19 vaccines across the world”, they wrote.

“The uncertainty over global access to Covid-19 vaccines traces not only to ongoing clinical testing, but also from the failure of governments and vaccine manufacturers to be more transparent and accountable over these arrangements,” they added.

As of 15 November, high-income nations had pre-ordered nearly 7.5bn doses of vaccines from 13 manufacturers, the paper said.

This included Japan, Australia and Canada who collectively have more than 1bn doses but accounted for less than 1% of current Covid-19 cases, it said.

Even if leading manufacturers’ vaccines reach their projected maximum production capacity, nearly 25% of the world’s population may not get the vaccines for another year or more, according to the paper.

The People’s Vaccine Alliance coalition last week said pharmaceutical companies should openly share their technology and intellectual property through the World Health Organization so that more doses can be manufactured.

The John Hopkins researchers said WHO’s COVAX Facility could play a key role in ensuring fairer access to approved vaccines but it has only secured 500m doses, far below its target of delivering at least 2bn doses by the end of 2021.

Launched in April, the global pact aims to pool funds from wealthier countries and nonprofits to accelerate the development and manufacture of Covid-19 vaccines and distribute them equitably around the world.

It has so far secured half of the funding it needs and the US and Russia - key players in vaccine development and manufacture - have not joined, the Johns Hopkins study said.

Boutiques in the centre of the French capital shut early and shoppers hurried home to meet a new 8pm curfew that took effect on Tuesday to try to prevent a new spike in Covid-19 infections.

Around the usually bustling shopping district, shop fronts were dark and, of the few people on the streets, most were heading towards the metro station.

A woman walks on a deserted street in Montmartre before the 8pm curfew throughout Paris. Photograph: Chesnot/Getty Images

Tuesday brought new freedoms for people in France because it was the end of a stay-at-home order. This had meant that, around the clock, people could only venture out for a limited time and for essential trips, to shop, or to exercise.

But that was replaced instead with a nightly curfew. From 8pm until 6am people can only go out for work, on official business, or for medical reasons. Anyone breaking curfew is liable for a €135 ($165) fine.

Officials have warned they will be strictly enforcing the new rules. Interior minister Gérald Darmanin on Tuesday evening joined a police patrol in Yvelines, west of Paris, to check people were complying.

“The government has decided to be particularly tough on unlawful parties,” the minister said.

Infection rates in France have declined sharply since the peak of the second wave last month. But scientists warn of the risk of a third wave of infection if people let down their guard during the Christmas and New Year holidays.

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Canada has announced an agreement to receive early deliveries of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine after a surge of new cases is forcing additional health restrictions across the country.

“Canada is now contracted to receive up to 168,000 doses of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine before the end of December, pending Health Canada approval,” the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said in a news conference.

Earlier this month, Canada brought forward some deliveries of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, which received regulatory approval last week. Before these agreements, the first deliveries had been expected early next year.

“We have now confirmed that next week we will receive about 200,000 of our total early order of doses from Pfizer,” he added.

Moderna’s vaccine is under review by Canada’s drug regulator, and Trudeau said its approval could come as early as next week.

The provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia were poised to make their first vaccinations on Tuesday, and some 100 frontline healthcare workers were due to get shots in Ottawa, the capital, by the end of the day.

Several provinces have clamped down again on businesses and social gatherings during the second wave, and Quebec – the hardest hit province – is expected to announce new business restrictions later on Tuesday.

Canada has so far reported 468,862 cases, with 6,731 new ones on Monday, and 13,553 deaths. Health officials warned last week the country could see 12,000 new cases per day by January without new restrictions.

The country’s economic recovery from the pandemic is at a very difficult stage and a second wave of coronavirus infections “could even deepen the economic hole”, Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem said on Tuesday.

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Brazil has registered 964 additional Covid-19 deaths over the last 24 hours and 42,889 new cases, the nation’s health ministry said.

The South American country has now registered 182,799 total coronavirus deaths and 6,970,034 total confirmed cases.

Greek lawmakers have approved a 2021 budget built around weaker forecasts for a rebound from the coronavirus pandemic.

Latest projections see the Greek economy slumping 10.5% this year, worse than the 8.2% predicted in October.

Meanwhile the 2021 rebound should see 4.8% expansion, down from a previous forecast of 7.5%.

After weathering the first wave of the pandemic better than most European countries, Greece in early November resorted to a nationwide lockdown that has weighed on activity and is now expected to last until 7 January.

The economy had returned to growth in the third quarter, following a 14% quarter-on-quarter slump in April-June that was the worst in at least 25 years.

Greece faces “unprecedented circumstances, with uncertain facts and the end of the crisis unknown,” prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told lawmakers before the vote.

But as inoculations get under way around the world, and with the EU expected to soon follow suit, he added “the vaccine is the boundary between the end of the pandemic and the preface of the post-covid era, and the budget is adapted to these conditions”.

Planning to spend €24bn in 2020 and €7.5bn next year to cushion the economy from the impact of the virus, Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio should climb to around 209% before falling back below 200%.

Patients were being treated in the back of ambulances in a Northern Ireland hospital car park on Tuesday, a health official said, a day after a warning that Covid-19 was putting healthcare under “unbearable pressures”.

Northern Ireland has been in and out of some form of lockdown since mid-October when it was one of Europe’s worst Covid-19 hot spots. The most recent curbs were lifted last week, when all shops, restaurants and pubs serving food reopened.

While those measures slowed the spread of Covid-19, cases have risen in the last week and are at their highest in Mid and East Antrim, near Antrim Area hospital where Irish broadcaster RTÉ showed footage of ambulances lined up with their engines on to keep patients warm inside.

“We are providing care in the car park,” Wendy Magowan, medical director of the Northern Health and Social Care Trust, which runs hospitals in the area, told BBC Radio Ulster.

They have varying degrees of ill patients. While I’ve been standing here I can see doctors and nurses going in and out of the back of ambulances. They are providing care and treatment in the back of ambulances.

Locals requiring urgent care at Antrim Area hospital and the northerly Causeway hospital were told earlier on Tuesday not to attend their emergency departments but to instead phone for advice on where to go.

The medical director of Northern Ireland’s ambulance service was quoted by the BBC as saying ambulances were queued to some degree outside all of the region’s emergency departments.

Ambulances at the entrance to the emergency department with patients awaiting to be admitted at Antrim Area hospital in Northern Ireland. Photograph: Liam McBurney/PA

The heads of Northern Ireland’s six healthcare trusts warned on Monday of the very real risk of hospitals being overwhelmed in the event of a further Covid-19 spike in January.

Hospital capacity across the province stood at 104% on Tuesday, with non-Covid care restricted.

Northern Ireland health minister Robin Swann said he would propose new measures to the devolved government on Thursday.

The power-sharing administration’s two main parties, rivals Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist party, have disagreed sharply on previous Covid-19 curbs, slowing the region’s response. Sinn Féin said on Tuesday that action was needed.

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One in 10 Spaniards have had coronavirus, antibody study shows

The share of the Spanish population to have contracted coronavirus has nearly doubled to almost 10%, or about 4.7 million people, in the second wave of contagion since late summer, results from the latest stage of a nationwide antibody study showed.

More than 51,400 people were tested and surveyed across Spain in the second half of November for the prevalence study, which suggests the infections by far exceed the number of confirmed cases in Spain, of just over 1.75 million.

“One in 10 people living in Spain would have been infected ... half during the first wave and the other half during this second epidemic wave,” said Raquel Yotti, director of Spain’s Carlos III health institute, which co-led the study.

Prevalence in Madrid was the highest of all Spanish regions, with 18.6% of the population testing positive for Covid-19 antibodies.

Previous results of the study - published in July after testing nearly 70,000 people in April-June - showed a prevalence rate of just over 5%.

Spain has been one of Europe’s hardest-hit countries by the pandemic, both in terms of contagion and the economic impact. A total of 48,401 people have died from the coronavirus, with the toll climbing by 388 over the last 24 hours.

Data from the health ministry also showed 10,328 new coronavirus cases were reported on Tuesday, bringing the total since the onset of the pandemic to 1,762,212 infections.

The infection rate measured over the previous 14 days is up for a second day in a row at nearly 199 cases per 100,000 people.

The government decided a second state of emergency in October with new restrictions such as night-time curfews to stem resurgent infections, which helped to reduce new cases to less than 200 per 100,000 people this month.

Jessica Murray
Jessica Murray

Hi everyone, this is Jessica Murray taking over the blog for the next few hours – please do get in touch with any story ideas or personal experiences you would like to share.

Email: jessica.murray@theguardian.com
Twitter: @journojess_

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Kevin Rawlinson

Here are the key developments from the last few hours:

  • EU countries could begin inoculations as soon as this year, the head of the European commission said. This followed the decision by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to bring forward its possible approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine by eight days to 21 December.
  • The US Food and Drug Administration raised no new concerns over data on Moderna vaccine in documents made public on Tuesday. It prepared the way for US authorisation of a second, easier-to-handle vaccine.
  • Germany, France, Italy and five other European states will coordinate the start of their Covid-19 vaccination campaigns, the countries’ health ministers said. The countries will promote “the coordination of the launch of the vaccination campaigns” and will rapidly share information on how it is proceeding, the statement said, along with other commitments on areas such as transparency.
  • Turkey has recorded 235 more deaths – its highest one-day tally since the pandemic began – bringing its total death toll to 16,881. According to the health ministry, Turkey also recorded 32,102 new cases, including asymptomatic ones, in the last 24 hours. For four months, Ankara only reported daily symptomatic cases but has reported all cases since 25 November.
  • The US president, Donald Trump, will “absolutely” encourage Americans to take Covid-19 vaccines and will receive a vaccine himself as soon as his medical team determines it’s best. The White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the Republican president also wanted to show that vulnerable Americans are the top priority to receive the vaccines.
  • Germany had reportedly been pressuring EU authorities to speed up the approval of a vaccine. The chancellor Angela Merkel’s office and Germany’s health ministry want the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to bring forward the approval date for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to 23 December from 29 December, the German newspaper Bild said, citing unnamed sources.

The US has recorded 204,748 new cases and 1,766 more deaths, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said, taking the respective cumulative totals to 16,317,892 and 300,032.

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Donald Trump will 'absolutely' encourage Americans to take vaccine, says press secretary

The US president, Donald Trump, will “absolutely” encourage Americans to take Covid-19 vaccines and will receive a vaccine himself as soon as his medical team determines it’s best, the White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has said.

But the Republican president also wanted to show that vulnerable Americans are the top priority to receive the vaccines, she told reporters at a White House briefing.

McEnany said some career national security staff would have access to vaccines to ensure a continuity of government, along with a “very small group” of senior administration officials for the purpose of instilling public confidence.

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French health authorities have reported 11,532 new infections over the past 24 hours – up from Monday’s 3,063 but largely stable from Sunday’s 11,533 – while the number of people hospitalised for the disease resumed its decline.

The number of people in France who have died rose by 790 to 59,072 from 371 on Monday. The cumulative number of cases in France now totals 2,391,447, the fifth-highest in the world.

British TV presenter Prue Leith, 80, received a coronavirus jab on Tuesday as the next phase of the UK’s vaccination campaign is rolled out.

The Great British Bake Off judge got vaccinated at a centre in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, a week after the NHS began a mass immunisation campaign. Leith said she was “thrilled to get it”, adding that she thought it was important for everyone to get vaccinated.

'Everybody needs to have it': Prue Leith receives Covid-19 vaccine – video
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