Moderna Inc said on Monday it believes its COVID-19 vaccine protects against new variants found in Britain and South Africa, although it will test a new booster shot aimed at the South African variant after concluding the antibody response could be diminished.

Moderna says it believes vaccine will work against new variants

The delivery of the Pfizer vaccine has fallen by 15% this week. It is expected to drop by 30% in February. Countries are now bracing for a shortage. Palki Sharma Upadhyay tells you why the deliveries of the shots are delayed.

Gravitas: Pfizer vaccine: Governments feel the pinch of shortages

#BoycottCannoli is trending in Pakistan after two cafe owners shamed their manager for his English-speaking skills. Palki Sharma Upadhyay tells you more about the colonial hangover of Pakistan's elite.

Gravitas: Pak cafe owners laugh at manager's English

Pakistan is facing a new dilemma: How to source millions of doses for its citizens. Meanwhile, Anti-vaxxers in Pak are making absurd claims that vaccines contain the DNA of pigs & monkeys.

Gravitas: Pak struggling to get a vaccine

As the coronavirus tears across much of Texas, Dr. Esmaeil Porsa is grappling with one of the most formidable challenges he has faced: The Houston hospital system he operates is running out of vaccines.

Porsa, the CEO of Harris Health System, which treats thousands of mostly uninsured patients, warned Friday that its entire vaccine supply could be depleted by midday Saturday. The problem is not one of capability — the vaccination centers he oversees have easily been administering as many as 2,000 vaccines a day — but of availability.

“All of a sudden the distribution of vaccines stopped,” Porsa said. “It’s perplexing and frustrating because I keep hearing that there are high percentages of vaccines that have been distributed but not administered.”

In the midst of one of the deadliest phases of the pandemic in the United States, health officials in Texas and around the country are growing desperate, unable to get clear answers as to why the long-anticipated vaccines are suddenly in short supply. Inoculation sites are canceling thousands of appointments in one state after another as the nation’s vaccines roll out through a bewildering patchwork of distribution networks, with local officials uncertain about what supplies they will have in hand.

In South Carolina, one hospital in the city of Beaufort had to cancel 6,000 vaccine appointments after it received only 450 of the doses it expected. In Hawaii, a Maui hospital canceled 5,000 first-dose appointments and put 15,000 additional requests for appointments on hold.

In San Francisco, the public health department had at one point expected to run out of vaccines this past week because the city’s allocation dropped sharply from a week ago and California officials temporarily had to put thousands of doses on hold after a higher than usual number of possible allergic reactions were reported. In New York state, officials in Erie County have canceled thousands of vaccine appointments in recent days after a sharp decline in allocations from the state.

The situation is especially dire in Texas, which is averaging about 20,000 new coronavirus cases a day, fueling concerns over whether officials will be able to curb the spread when they cannot get their hands on the vaccines they desperately need to do so.

Health officials trying to piece together why this is happening are puzzled by reports that millions of available doses are going unused. As of Friday morning, nearly 39.9 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines had been distributed to state and local governments, but only about 19.1 million doses had been administered to patients, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Pfizer and Moderna have each agreed to provide the United States with 100 million vaccine doses, and the companies are racing to manufacture the vaccines, together releasing between 12 million and 18 million doses a week.

At that rate, it is feasible for the new administration to meet President Joe Biden’s pledge to inject 100 million vaccines by his 100th day in office. Public health officials could even potentially ramp up the pace of vaccinations with existing supply.

It appears that problems with distributing the already available doses are responsible for many of the acute vaccine shortages now being seen in parts of the country. Factor in the ever-increasing demand as more states make the vaccine widely available to those 65 and older, and officials warn that distribution headaches could persist in the weeks ahead.

The Biden administration has pledged to overhaul distribution to the states and even use the Defense Production Act to increase supply, but vaccine experts warn that shortages of the doses will persist in the short term with manufacturing sites already facing capacity constraints.

State and local governments, as well as hospital administrators, are fending for themselves. In Houston, Porsa said his staff was scrambling as the supply of vaccines dwindled this past week, squeezing six doses out of vials intended to provide five.

In one sign of the confusion around vaccine distribution in Texas, officials in Dallas County scrapped a plan that would have prioritized shots for people living in heavily Black and Latino communities hit hardest by the virus. Texas state officials threatened to slash allocations of the vaccine if the county went ahead with the plan even though data showed that most of the shots administered in Dallas County had been in wealthier neighborhoods.

Houston, the fourth-largest city in the country, is now struggling with a similar problem as the hospitals serving some of its poorest residents run out of the vaccine, prompting some public health experts to question why doses are not being made more available to vulnerable communities.

“These are our front-line workers who are at the greatest risk of contracting the virus and at the greatest risk of spreading it to others,” said Vivian Ho, a health economist at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine. “We would be able to resolve the pandemic in Harris County quicker if we could get a sufficient number of vaccines,” she added, referring to the county encompassing much of Houston.

Adding to the turmoil, just days after Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, a Republican, praised the state’s vaccine rollout at a meeting in Houston where Democratic city and county officials were excluded from participating, the lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, also a Republican, sent a letter Thursday to the state’s Expert Vaccination Allocation Panel urging its members to fix the problems.

“Right now, in many cities and counties when an announcement of available vaccinations is made, website sign-up pages crash and phone calls go unanswered,” Patrick said in the letter. “Texans need to have a better understanding of the time it will take for everyone to be vaccinated in order to reduce lines, confusion and frustration.”

The sense of chaos afflicting the distribution efforts, not just in Texas but in an array of states, is laying bare how local officials are struggling to fill the void left by the lack, until this week, of a comprehensive response at the federal level.

Dr. George Rutherford, a public health researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, said the most obvious problem with vaccine administration in the San Francisco area was clear.

“There’s not enough doses, period,” he said. “That’s it. Everything would work fine if you had enough doses.”

The public health department in San Francisco and hospitals in the city were “caught by surprise” by the lack of doses, Rutherford said, and by the eligibility expansion to those 65 and older, which likely strained the system. Varying vaccine distribution channels — such as Kaiser Permanente and UC San Francisco — receive the doses on their own, he said, further complicating an already convoluted distribution system.

“So it’s a little hard for the city to understand exactly what’s left over, what they need to do, where the holes are to fill,” Rutherford said.

Still, new vaccination sites are opening in San Francisco, which Rutherford said would help speed the process along once more doses become available.

“There’s this tension between efficiency and equity,” he said. “It’s never easy.”

Dr. Grant Colfax, head of the San Francisco Department of Health, said the city was “very close to doses running out” and said a lack of overall coordination has led to distribution problems.

“I think what this really is, is a continuation of the fallout of the lack of a coordinated federal response,” he said. “Basically cities and counties were left on our own to deal with this pandemic.”

He said local jurisdictions “simply did not have the resources and the capacity” to handle the complicated effort without help. “It has manifested in a very tragic way.”

In Austin, Texas, Curt Fisher, a 76-year-old who has served on the boards of several high-tech startups, experienced firsthand the confounding roadblocks to securing a vaccine. He was playing golf with friends several weeks ago when they learned that Austin Public Health had vaccines available.

They quickly registered with their cellphones from the golf course and landed appointments in a matter of minutes. The system was deluged, and Fisher, who had waited about 30 minutes to call, missed out.

He doggedly checked the website from his home about four or five times a day for more than three weeks. Each attempt bore the same result: no vaccines available within the maximum 100-mile search radius.

Then after days of pinning his hopes on his hometown health service, good fortune finally came from more than 150 miles away. He received a text from a Memorial Hermann hospital in Houston, where he was automatically registered because he had seen a doctor about three months earlier, inviting him to come to the hospital for his first dose of the vaccine.

He made the roughly three-hour drive Monday, spending about an hour at the hospital with little waiting for his first shot of the vaccine. He is supposed to go back Feb. 8 for the second and final injection. Looking back, Fisher said the success he found in Houston and the hassles he went through in Austin illustrated that some vaccine distribution centers “really have their act together” and others do not.

“I don’t think the system that Austin Health had could handle the stress of the high volume, obviously,” he said.

But some people have struggled to get vaccine appointments, only to see them canceled because of supply problems.

Jeanelle Fernandes, 33, who has sickle cell anemia and lives in Miami, initially felt relieved after setting up a vaccine appointment for Jan. 28.

Having it confirmed “was kind of like a light at the end of the tunnel,” she said. “This has been a really hard journey for me.”

But then Baptist Health South Florida tweeted this week that all first-dose vaccine appointments scheduled for Jan. 20 or later would be canceled.

“I’m definitely frustrated,” she said.

It was not the hospital’s fault, she said; she blamed a government that seemed unprepared to roll out millions of vaccine doses when people urgently needed them.

“Now I have to wait,” Fernandes said. “I’m up in the air. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

As the coronavirus tears across much of Texas, Dr. Esmaeil Porsa is grappling with one of the most formidable challenges he has faced: The Houston hospital system he operates is running out of vaccines.

As the coronavirus tears across much of Texas, Dr. Esmaeil Porsa is grappling with one of the most formidable challenges he has faced: The Houston hospital system he operates is running out of vaccines. Porsa, the CEO of Harris Health System, which treats thousands of mostly uninsured patients, warned Friday that its entire vaccine supply could be depleted by midday Saturday. The problem is not one of capability — the vaccination centers he oversees have easily been administering as many as 2,000 vaccines a day — but of availability. “All of a sudden the distribution of vaccines stopped,” Porsa said. “It’s perplexing and frustrating because I keep hearing that there are high percentages of vaccines that have been distributed but not administered.” In the midst of one of the deadliest phases of the pandemic in the United States, health officials in Texas and around the country are growing desperate, unable to get clear answers as to why the long-anticipated vaccines are suddenly in short supply. Inoculation sites are canceling thousands of appointments in one state after another as the nation’s vaccines roll out through a bewildering patchwork of distribution networks, with local officials uncertain about what supplies they will have in hand. In South Carolina, one hospital in the city of Beaufort had to cancel 6,000 vaccine appointments after it received only 450 of the doses it expected. In Hawaii, a Maui hospital canceled 5,000 first-dose appointments and put 15,000 additional requests for appointments on hold. In San Francisco, the public health department had at one point expected to run out of vaccines this past week because the city’s allocation dropped sharply from a week ago and California officials temporarily had to put thousands of doses on hold after a higher than usual number of possible allergic reactions were reported. In New York state, officials in Erie County have canceled thousands of vaccine appointments in recent days after a sharp decline in allocations from the state. The situation is especially dire in Texas, which is averaging about 20,000 new coronavirus cases a day, fueling concerns over whether officials will be able to curb the spread when they cannot get their hands on the vaccines they desperately need to do so. Health officials trying to piece together why this is happening are puzzled by reports that millions of available doses are going unused. As of Friday morning, nearly 39.9 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines had been distributed to state and local governments, but only about 19.1 million doses had been administered to patients, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Pfizer and Moderna have each agreed to provide the United States with 100 million vaccine doses, and the companies are racing to manufacture the vaccines, together releasing between 12 million and 18 million doses a week. At that rate, it is feasible for the new administration to meet President Joe Biden’s pledge to inject 100 million vaccines by his 100th day in office. Public health officials could even potentially ramp up the pace of vaccinations with existing supply. It appears that problems with distributing the already available doses are responsible for many of the acute vaccine shortages now being seen in parts of the country. Factor in the ever-increasing demand as more states make the vaccine widely available to those 65 and older, and officials warn that distribution headaches could persist in the weeks ahead. The Biden administration has pledged to overhaul distribution to the states and even use the Defense Production Act to increase supply, but vaccine experts warn that shortages of the doses will persist in the short term with manufacturing sites already facing capacity constraints. State and local governments, as well as hospital administrators, are fending for themselves. In Houston, Porsa said his staff was scrambling as the supply of vaccines dwindled this past week, squeezing six doses out of vials intended to provide five. In one sign of the confusion around vaccine distribution in Texas, officials in Dallas County scrapped a plan that would have prioritized shots for people living in heavily Black and Latino communities hit hardest by the virus. Texas state officials threatened to slash allocations of the vaccine if the county went ahead with the plan even though data showed that most of the shots administered in Dallas County had been in wealthier neighborhoods. Houston, the fourth-largest city in the country, is now struggling with a similar problem as the hospitals serving some of its poorest residents run out of the vaccine, prompting some public health experts to question why doses are not being made more available to vulnerable communities. “These are our front-line workers who are at the greatest risk of contracting the virus and at the greatest risk of spreading it to others,” said Vivian Ho, a health economist at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine. “We would be able to resolve the pandemic in Harris County quicker if we could get a sufficient number of vaccines,” she added, referring to the county encompassing much of Houston. Adding to the turmoil, just days after Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, a Republican, praised the state’s vaccine rollout at a meeting in Houston where Democratic city and county officials were excluded from participating, the lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, also a Republican, sent a letter Thursday to the state’s Expert Vaccination Allocation Panel urging its members to fix the problems. “Right now, in many cities and counties when an announcement of available vaccinations is made, website sign-up pages crash and phone calls go unanswered,” Patrick said in the letter. “Texans need to have a better understanding of the time it will take for everyone to be vaccinated in order to reduce lines, confusion and frustration.” The sense of chaos afflicting the distribution efforts, not just in Texas but in an array of states, is laying bare how local officials are struggling to fill the void left by the lack, until this week, of a comprehensive response at the federal level. Dr. George Rutherford, a public health researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, said the most obvious problem with vaccine administration in the San Francisco area was clear. “There’s not enough doses, period,” he said. “That’s it. Everything would work fine if you had enough doses.” The public health department in San Francisco and hospitals in the city were “caught by surprise” by the lack of doses, Rutherford said, and by the eligibility expansion to those 65 and older, which likely strained the system. Varying vaccine distribution channels — such as Kaiser Permanente and UC San Francisco — receive the doses on their own, he said, further complicating an already convoluted distribution system. “So it’s a little hard for the city to understand exactly what’s left over, what they need to do, where the holes are to fill,” Rutherford said. Still, new vaccination sites are opening in San Francisco, which Rutherford said would help speed the process along once more doses become available. “There’s this tension between efficiency and equity,” he said. “It’s never easy.” Dr. Grant Colfax, head of the San Francisco Department of Health, said the city was “very close to doses running out” and said a lack of overall coordination has led to distribution problems. “I think what this really is, is a continuation of the fallout of the lack of a coordinated federal response,” he said. “Basically cities and counties were left on our own to deal with this pandemic.” He said local jurisdictions “simply did not have the resources and the capacity” to handle the complicated effort without help. “It has manifested in a very tragic way.” In Austin, Texas, Curt Fisher, a 76-year-old who has served on the boards of several high-tech startups, experienced firsthand the confounding roadblocks to securing a vaccine. He was playing golf with friends several weeks ago when they learned that Austin Public Health had vaccines available. They quickly registered with their cellphones from the golf course and landed appointments in a matter of minutes. The system was deluged, and Fisher, who had waited about 30 minutes to call, missed out. He doggedly checked the website from his home about four or five times a day for more than three weeks. Each attempt bore the same result: no vaccines available within the maximum 100-mile search radius. Then after days of pinning his hopes on his hometown health service, good fortune finally came from more than 150 miles away. He received a text from a Memorial Hermann hospital in Houston, where he was automatically registered because he had seen a doctor about three months earlier, inviting him to come to the hospital for his first dose of the vaccine. He made the roughly three-hour drive Monday, spending about an hour at the hospital with little waiting for his first shot of the vaccine. He is supposed to go back Feb. 8 for the second and final injection. Looking back, Fisher said the success he found in Houston and the hassles he went through in Austin illustrated that some vaccine distribution centers “really have their act together” and others do not. “I don’t think the system that Austin Health had could handle the stress of the high volume, obviously,” he said. But some people have struggled to get vaccine appointments, only to see them canceled because of supply problems. Jeanelle Fernandes, 33, who has sickle cell anemia and lives in Miami, initially felt relieved after setting up a vaccine appointment for Jan. 28. Having it confirmed “was kind of like a light at the end of the tunnel,” she said. “This has been a really hard journey for me.” But then Baptist Health South Florida tweeted this week that all first-dose vaccine appointments scheduled for Jan. 20 or later would be canceled. “I’m definitely frustrated,” she said. It was not the hospital’s fault, she said; she blamed a government that seemed unprepared to roll out millions of vaccine doses when people urgently needed them. “Now I have to wait,” Fernandes said. “I’m up in the air. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

New pandemic plight: Hospitals are running out of vaccines

In order to be able to vaccinate more people, France's top health advisory body has recommended doubling the time gap between the first and second dose.

As of now, a gap of three weeks is being scheduled between the first and second dose of the <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/coronavirus-vaccine">coronavirus vaccine</a>. However, the health body has recommended doubling this gap to six weeks.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/doctors-in-britain-want-review-of-pfizer-shots-timetable-358814" hreflang="en">Doctors in Britain want review of Pfizer shots' timetable</a>

The Haute Autorite de Sante (HAS) believes increasing this gap will allow the country to vaccinate at least 700,000 more people than originally planned.

"The growing number of infections and the worrying arrival of new variants call for an acceleration of the vaccination campaign in order to prevent the epidemic from spiking in coming weeks," the advisory body said in a statement.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/extra-dose-of-vaccine-can-be-squeezed-out-from-pfizers-vial-reports-358784" hreflang="en">Extra dose of vaccine can be squeezed out from Pfizer's vial: Reports</a>

It also believes that since there is no pre-decided time gap between the doses by all countries, delaying the second dose will not pose any threat for locals as the first dose will already provide protection against the deadly coronavirus from the 12th or 14th day after people are administered the first dose.

However, the advisory body also added that while they are recommending a delay between the two doses, it is important that people remember getting the second dose as it is essential for protection against the deadly virus.

This has come after the UK recommended a gap of 12 weeks between the two doses, which was refuted by a group of British doctors who believe the gap should not exceed six weeks.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/videos/after-pfizer-astrazeneca-cuts-down-the-supply-to-eu-by-60-358828">WATCH|</a>

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/after-pfizer-astrazeneca-cuts-down-the-supply-to-eu-by-60-358828/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

Earlier this month, the World Health Organization (WHO) had recommended a gap of 21 to 28 days between the two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.

Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical company, Pfizer-BioNTech has warned that it has no evidence suggesting their vaccine will continue to be protective against the virus if the second dose is administered after 21 days.

The HAS is an independent advisory body whose recommendations can inspire government policy but don't automatically translate into action.

In order to be able to vaccinate more people, France's top health advisory body has recommended doubling the time gap between the first and second dose. As of now, a gap of three weeks is being scheduled between the first and second dose of the coronavirus vaccine.

In order to be able to vaccinate more people, France's top health advisory body has recommended doubling the time gap between the first and second dose. As of now, a gap of three weeks is being scheduled between the first and second dose of the coronavirus vaccine. However, the health body has recommended doubling this gap to six weeks. Also read| Doctors in Britain want review of Pfizer shots' timetable The Haute Autorite de Sante (HAS) believes increasing this gap will allow the country to vaccinate at least 700,000 more people than originally planned. "The growing number of infections and the worrying arrival of new variants call for an acceleration of the vaccination campaign in order to prevent the epidemic from spiking in coming weeks," the advisory body said in a statement. Also read| Extra dose of vaccine can be squeezed out from Pfizer's vial: Reports It also believes that since there is no pre-decided time gap between the doses by all countries, delaying the second dose will not pose any threat for locals as the first dose will already provide protection against the deadly coronavirus from the 12th or 14th day after people are administered the first dose. However, the advisory body also added that while they are recommending a delay between the two doses, it is important that people remember getting the second dose as it is essential for protection against the deadly virus. This has come after the UK recommended a gap of 12 weeks between the two doses, which was refuted by a group of British doctors who believe the gap should not exceed six weeks. WATCH| Earlier this month, the World Health Organization (WHO) had recommended a gap of 21 to 28 days between the two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical company, Pfizer-BioNTech has warned that it has no evidence suggesting their vaccine will continue to be protective against the virus if the second dose is administered after 21 days. The HAS is an independent advisory body whose recommendations can inspire government policy but don't automatically translate into action.

France health body recommends delaying second dose of coronavirus vaccine

Imams across Britain are helping to dispel notions of danger surrounding COVID-19 vaccine. The religious leaders are reaching out to people through their Friday sermons and influentials standing within the community.

Qari Asim, chairman of the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board (MINAB) which is leading a campaign to reassure its faithful, is among those publically advocating that the inoculations are compatible with Islamic practices.

"We are confident that the two vaccines that have been used in the UK, Oxford AstraZeneca and Pfizer, are permissible from an Islamic perspective," he told AFP.

"The hesitancy, the anxiety (and) concern is driven by misinformation, conspiracy theories, fake news and rumours." he added.

Britain is the hardest-hit country in Europe with 95,000 deaths due to the pandemic. A biggest-ever vaccination effort is underway to end cycles of lockdowns and restrictions.

However, a report from the scientific committee advising the government showed stronger mistrust of vaccines among ethnic minorities than the rest of the UK population.&nbsp;

It highlighted that 72 percent of Black survey respondents were unlikely or very unlikely to get the vaccine.&nbsp;

Among those from Pakistani or Bangladeshi backgrounds, the figure was 42 per cent.

Imams are particularly trying to dispel notion that the vaccines contain pork gelatin or alcohol. Pork and alcohol are banned in Islam. Falsehoods like vaccines being able to modify DNA are doing rounds.

Britain has an estimated 2.8 million Muslims

Asim said it was "legitimate" to question whether things were permissible under Islam but without paying attention to unfounded claims.

Misinformation around the coronavirus is all the more dangerous given several studies have shown that it can impact minorities disproportionately.&nbsp;

"These are precisely the communities we should be trying to target," said Nighat Arif, a general practitioner based in Chesham, near London.&nbsp;

When she received her vaccination, she posted a video in Urdu on social media aimed at the language's speakers living in Britain.

"I'm hoping that because they see someone who looks like them, who is a practising Muslim, wears a hijab, someone who is Asian who speaks their language, that's more relatable than something that's coming through from the government," she added.

Arif is still surprised by the refusal of certain patients to be inoculated, noting they will often get vaccinated to undertake the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia or to visit Pakistan or India.

She blames conspiracy theories spread online, which contribute to the science behind the process "being lost".

Imams across Britain are helping to dispel notions of danger surrounding COVID-19 vaccine. The religious leaders are reaching out to people through their Friday sermons and influentials standing within the community.

Imams across Britain are helping to dispel notions of danger surrounding COVID-19 vaccine. The religious leaders are reaching out to people through their Friday sermons and influentials standing within the community. Qari Asim, chairman of the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board (MINAB) which is leading a campaign to reassure its faithful, is among those publically advocating that the inoculations are compatible with Islamic practices. "We are confident that the two vaccines that have been used in the UK, Oxford AstraZeneca and Pfizer, are permissible from an Islamic perspective," he told AFP. "The hesitancy, the anxiety (and) concern is driven by misinformation, conspiracy theories, fake news and rumours." he added. Britain is the hardest-hit country in Europe with 95,000 deaths due to the pandemic. A biggest-ever vaccination effort is underway to end cycles of lockdowns and restrictions. However, a report from the scientific committee advising the government showed stronger mistrust of vaccines among ethnic minorities than the rest of the UK population. It highlighted that 72 percent of Black survey respondents were unlikely or very unlikely to get the vaccine. Among those from Pakistani or Bangladeshi backgrounds, the figure was 42 per cent. Imams are particularly trying to dispel notion that the vaccines contain pork gelatin or alcohol. Pork and alcohol are banned in Islam. Falsehoods like vaccines being able to modify DNA are doing rounds. Britain has an estimated 2.8 million Muslims Asim said it was "legitimate" to question whether things were permissible under Islam but without paying attention to unfounded claims. Misinformation around the coronavirus is all the more dangerous given several studies have shown that it can impact minorities disproportionately. "These are precisely the communities we should be trying to target," said Nighat Arif, a general practitioner based in Chesham, near London. When she received her vaccination, she posted a video in Urdu on social media aimed at the language's speakers living in Britain. "I'm hoping that because they see someone who looks like them, who is a practising Muslim, wears a hijab, someone who is Asian who speaks their language, that's more relatable than something that's coming through from the government," she added. Arif is still surprised by the refusal of certain patients to be inoculated, noting they will often get vaccinated to undertake the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia or to visit Pakistan or India. She blames conspiracy theories spread online, which contribute to the science behind the process "being lost".

UK Imams work to combat coronavirus vaccine disinformation

As the <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/joe-biden">Biden</a> administration takes power with a pledge to tame the most dire public health crisis in a century, one pillar of its strategy is to significantly increase the supply of COVID-19 vaccines.

But federal health officials and corporate executives agree that it will be impossible to increase the immediate supply of vaccines before April because of lack of manufacturing capacity. The administration should first focus, experts say, on fixing the hodgepodge of state and local vaccination centers that has proved incapable of managing even the current flow of vaccines.

President Joe Biden’s goal of 1 million shots a day for the next 100 days, they say, is too low and will arguably leave tens of millions of doses unused. Data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that the nation has already reached that milestone pace. About 1.1 million people received shots last Friday, after an average of 911,000 people a day received them on the previous two days.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/biden-suggests-removing-aliens-suggests-noncitizens-for-immigrants-358475" hreflang="en">Biden suggests removing 'aliens'; suggests 'noncitizens' for immigrants</a>

That was true even though CDC data indicates that states and localities are administering as few as 46% of the doses that the federal government is shipping to them. An efficient vaccination regimen could deliver millions more shots.

“I love that he set a goal, but a million doses a day?” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of a federal vaccine advisory board.

“I think we can do better,” he said. “We are going to have to if we really want to get on top of this virus by, say, summer.”

The pace of vaccination is critical not just to curbing disease and death but also to heading off the impact of more infectious forms of the virus. The CDC has warned that one variant, which is thought to be 50% more contagious, might become the dominant source of infection in the United States by March. Although public health experts are optimistic that the existing vaccines will be effective against that variant, known as B.1.1.7, it may drive up the infection rate if enough people remain unvaccinated.

The current vaccination effort, which has little central direction, has sown confusion and frustration. Some localities are complaining they are running out of doses, while others have unused vials.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/anthony-fauci-describes-joe-bidens-leadership-as-liberating-compared-to-trump-358426" hreflang="en">Anthony Fauci describes Joe Biden's leadership as 'liberating', compared to Trump</a>

Biden is asking Congress for $20 billion to vastly expand vaccination centers to include stadiums, pharmacies, doctors’ offices and mobile clinics. He also wants to hire 100,000 health care workers and to use federal disaster relief funds to reimburse states and local governments for vaccination costs.

Dr. Mark McClellan, director of Duke University’s health policy center, said those moves should help clear the bottlenecks and “push the number beyond 1 million doses a day and probably significantly beyond.”

The nation’s vaccine supply in the first three months of the year is expected to substantially exceed what is needed to meet the administration’s goal. According to a senior administration official, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have been ramping up and are now on track to deliver up to 18 million doses a week. Together, they have pledged to deliver 200 million doses by the end of March. A third vaccine maker, Johnson &amp; Johnson, might also come through with more doses. If all of that supply were used, the nation could average well over 2 million shots a day.

Asked Thursday afternoon by a reporter if 1 million shots a day was enough, Biden said, “When I announced it, you all said it’s not possible. Come on, give me a break, man. It’s a good start.”

The administration is promising to purchase even more vaccine doses as they become available from the vaccine makers, and to use the Defense Production Act to spur production. But federal health officials and corporate executives said those were longer-term goals because the supply for the first three months of the year was essentially fixed.

The Trump administration invoked the Defense Production Act to force suppliers to prioritize orders from Pfizer, Moderna and other vaccine makers whose products are still in development. Health officials said it was unclear how the new administration could use the law beyond that to boost production.

A senior federal health official involved in the government’s vaccine efforts said that Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s crash development program, had looked at all available manufacturing capacity domestically and globally and that there was little space left to negotiate at this point. The official said that if there had been more doses available to the government in the first quarter, they would have been purchased.

Experts generally agree that the federal government should be locking in purchases of as many doses as possible because no one knows yet how long the vaccines will protect against the coronavirus, whether booster shots will be required and what threats mutations of the virus could pose.

From April and thereafter, the supply outlook brightens. Pfizer and Moderna have each committed to supply another 100 million doses by the end of July, and the companies might be able to provide even more. A week ago, Pfizer and BioNTech, its German partner, increased their global production target for the year to 2 billion doses from 1.3 billion doses.

Pfizer has delayed deliveries to European countries while it retools its Belgium factory to expand production. But at the firm’s factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan, which supplies doses for Americans, production has quickened since the federal government ordered suppliers to prioritize Pfizer’s needs. The unexpected discovery that efficient syringes could extract a sixth dose from its vials also upped Pfizer’s estimates.

Moderna has also raised its production targets for the year to 600 million doses from 500 million.

Johnson &amp; Johnson is expected to announce results from its vaccine trial within days. If that vaccine proves effective, it could drastically speed up the pace of vaccinations because, unlike Moderna’s and Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccines, it requires only one dose. The company could apply for emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration as soon as the end of the month. While its manufacturing has lagged, Johnson &amp; Johnson is trying to catch up to the goals detailed in the federal contract it signed last year.

The firm is now expected to deliver anywhere from several million to 12 million doses by the end of February, and 10 million to 20 million more doses at the end of March or the first week in April, according to several people familiar with the firm’s manufacturing output. The first batch would be produced at its Dutch factory, and later batches at a factory in Baltimore operated by its manufacturing partner, Emergent BioSolutions.

But to deliver the second batch that quickly, federal regulators may have to agree to delay certain manufacturing reviews of the vaccine from the Baltimore plant, according to people familiar with the situation. Those discussions are underway.

Johnson &amp; Johnson is also in preliminary talks with Merck, a major U.S. pharmaceutical company, about using its production lines, one of several ideas that federal health officials discussed with the Biden transition team. Federal officials are interested in boosting the nation’s vaccine-making power long-term, and Merck’s facilities may be among the few with remaining manufacturing capability.

But McClellan, who sits on Johnson &amp; Johnson’s board of directors, said it would take months to adapt Merck’s factory to produce Johnson &amp; Johnson’s vaccine. A senior administration official predicted that it could take until the end of the year.

Other vaccine makers may also come through by midyear. Novavax has worked to iron out what were recently dire manufacturing problems that delayed its clinical trials. Moncef Slaoui, the chief scientific adviser for the Trump administration's vaccine development program, said in a recent interview that Novavax could apply for emergency use authorization in late April. The government has already ordered 110 million doses of the Novavax vaccine, to be delivered by the end of June, and Novavax has said it believes it can meet that target.

Biden has surrounded himself with new health officials assigned to getting vaccines from factories to recipients, including Dr. Bechara Choucair, a former Chicago health commissioner who is the White House’s vaccinations coordinator, and Tim Manning, a former top official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency who is now the supply coordinator. Dr. David Kessler, former FDA commissioner, will help lead the federal government’s vaccine development program at the Department of Health and Human Services, with special attention to manufacturing.

After both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines proved to be highly effective in clinical trials late last year, the Trump administration considered whether to rethink its strategy of backing six different vaccine makers and instead throw all of its weight behind the proven producers. A senior administration official described “countless hours of debate” over the issue.

In the end, officials decided it was critical to keep aiming for a broad portfolio of vaccines, in part because no one has figured out which vaccines might work best for children or be most effective against emerging variants. They recommended that the Biden administration do the same.

As the Biden administration takes power with a pledge to tame the most dire public health crisis in a century, one pillar of its strategy is to significantly increase the supply of COVID-19 vaccines.

As the Biden administration takes power with a pledge to tame the most dire public health crisis in a century, one pillar of its strategy is to significantly increase the supply of COVID-19 vaccines. But federal health officials and corporate executives agree that it will be impossible to increase the immediate supply of vaccines before April because of lack of manufacturing capacity. The administration should first focus, experts say, on fixing the hodgepodge of state and local vaccination centers that has proved incapable of managing even the current flow of vaccines. President Joe Biden’s goal of 1 million shots a day for the next 100 days, they say, is too low and will arguably leave tens of millions of doses unused. Data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that the nation has already reached that milestone pace. About 1.1 million people received shots last Friday, after an average of 911,000 people a day received them on the previous two days. Also read| Biden suggests removing 'aliens'; suggests 'noncitizens' for immigrants That was true even though CDC data indicates that states and localities are administering as few as 46% of the doses that the federal government is shipping to them. An efficient vaccination regimen could deliver millions more shots. “I love that he set a goal, but a million doses a day?” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of a federal vaccine advisory board. “I think we can do better,” he said. “We are going to have to if we really want to get on top of this virus by, say, summer.” The pace of vaccination is critical not just to curbing disease and death but also to heading off the impact of more infectious forms of the virus. The CDC has warned that one variant, which is thought to be 50% more contagious, might become the dominant source of infection in the United States by March. Although public health experts are optimistic that the existing vaccines will be effective against that variant, known as B.1.1.7, it may drive up the infection rate if enough people remain unvaccinated. The current vaccination effort, which has little central direction, has sown confusion and frustration. Some localities are complaining they are running out of doses, while others have unused vials. Also read| Anthony Fauci describes Joe Biden's leadership as 'liberating', compared to Trump Biden is asking Congress for $20 billion to vastly expand vaccination centers to include stadiums, pharmacies, doctors’ offices and mobile clinics. He also wants to hire 100,000 health care workers and to use federal disaster relief funds to reimburse states and local governments for vaccination costs. Dr. Mark McClellan, director of Duke University’s health policy center, said those moves should help clear the bottlenecks and “push the number beyond 1 million doses a day and probably significantly beyond.” The nation’s vaccine supply in the first three months of the year is expected to substantially exceed what is needed to meet the administration’s goal. According to a senior administration official, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have been ramping up and are now on track to deliver up to 18 million doses a week. Together, they have pledged to deliver 200 million doses by the end of March. A third vaccine maker, Johnson & Johnson, might also come through with more doses. If all of that supply were used, the nation could average well over 2 million shots a day. Asked Thursday afternoon by a reporter if 1 million shots a day was enough, Biden said, “When I announced it, you all said it’s not possible. Come on, give me a break, man. It’s a good start.” The administration is promising to purchase even more vaccine doses as they become available from the vaccine makers, and to use the Defense Production Act to spur production. But federal health officials and corporate executives said those were longer-term goals because the supply for the first three months of the year was essentially fixed. The Trump administration invoked the Defense Production Act to force suppliers to prioritize orders from Pfizer, Moderna and other vaccine makers whose products are still in development. Health officials said it was unclear how the new administration could use the law beyond that to boost production. A senior federal health official involved in the government’s vaccine efforts said that Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s crash development program, had looked at all available manufacturing capacity domestically and globally and that there was little space left to negotiate at this point. The official said that if there had been more doses available to the government in the first quarter, they would have been purchased. Experts generally agree that the federal government should be locking in purchases of as many doses as possible because no one knows yet how long the vaccines will protect against the coronavirus, whether booster shots will be required and what threats mutations of the virus could pose. From April and thereafter, the supply outlook brightens. Pfizer and Moderna have each committed to supply another 100 million doses by the end of July, and the companies might be able to provide even more. A week ago, Pfizer and BioNTech, its German partner, increased their global production target for the year to 2 billion doses from 1.3 billion doses. Pfizer has delayed deliveries to European countries while it retools its Belgium factory to expand production. But at the firm’s factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan, which supplies doses for Americans, production has quickened since the federal government ordered suppliers to prioritize Pfizer’s needs. The unexpected discovery that efficient syringes could extract a sixth dose from its vials also upped Pfizer’s estimates. Moderna has also raised its production targets for the year to 600 million doses from 500 million. Johnson & Johnson is expected to announce results from its vaccine trial within days. If that vaccine proves effective, it could drastically speed up the pace of vaccinations because, unlike Moderna’s and Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccines, it requires only one dose. The company could apply for emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration as soon as the end of the month. While its manufacturing has lagged, Johnson & Johnson is trying to catch up to the goals detailed in the federal contract it signed last year. The firm is now expected to deliver anywhere from several million to 12 million doses by the end of February, and 10 million to 20 million more doses at the end of March or the first week in April, according to several people familiar with the firm’s manufacturing output. The first batch would be produced at its Dutch factory, and later batches at a factory in Baltimore operated by its manufacturing partner, Emergent BioSolutions. But to deliver the second batch that quickly, federal regulators may have to agree to delay certain manufacturing reviews of the vaccine from the Baltimore plant, according to people familiar with the situation. Those discussions are underway. Johnson & Johnson is also in preliminary talks with Merck, a major U.S. pharmaceutical company, about using its production lines, one of several ideas that federal health officials discussed with the Biden transition team. Federal officials are interested in boosting the nation’s vaccine-making power long-term, and Merck’s facilities may be among the few with remaining manufacturing capability. But McClellan, who sits on Johnson & Johnson’s board of directors, said it would take months to adapt Merck’s factory to produce Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine. A senior administration official predicted that it could take until the end of the year. Other vaccine makers may also come through by midyear. Novavax has worked to iron out what were recently dire manufacturing problems that delayed its clinical trials. Moncef Slaoui, the chief scientific adviser for the Trump administration's vaccine development program, said in a recent interview that Novavax could apply for emergency use authorization in late April. The government has already ordered 110 million doses of the Novavax vaccine, to be delivered by the end of June, and Novavax has said it believes it can meet that target. Biden has surrounded himself with new health officials assigned to getting vaccines from factories to recipients, including Dr. Bechara Choucair, a former Chicago health commissioner who is the White House’s vaccinations coordinator, and Tim Manning, a former top official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency who is now the supply coordinator. Dr. David Kessler, former FDA commissioner, will help lead the federal government’s vaccine development program at the Department of Health and Human Services, with special attention to manufacturing. After both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines proved to be highly effective in clinical trials late last year, the Trump administration considered whether to rethink its strategy of backing six different vaccine makers and instead throw all of its weight behind the proven producers. A senior administration official described “countless hours of debate” over the issue. In the end, officials decided it was critical to keep aiming for a broad portfolio of vaccines, in part because no one has figured out which vaccines might work best for children or be most effective against emerging variants. They recommended that the Biden administration do the same.

Biden inherits a vaccine supply unlikely to grow before April

A plane carrying the first shipment of Indian-manufactured COVID-19 vaccines arrived in Nepal's capital of Kathmandu on Thursday (January 21).

India gifts COVID-19 vaccine doses to its neighbours

The Paycheck Protection Program’s loose rules allowed virtually any small business or company in America to qualify for a government-backed relief loan. Frustrated citizens and activist groups have criticized thousands of recipients they deemed unworthy, including wealthy lawyers, politicians and political lobbyists, publicly traded companies and businesses under government investigation.

Now the federal loan program has drawn criticism for giving loans to organizations that have challenged the safety of vaccines.

Six organizations that have made claims scientists have called false received Paycheck Protection Program loans totaling more than $1.1 million, according to data from the Small Business Administration, which manages the program. The data was released last month under a court order, in response to a lawsuit filed by The New York Times and other news organizations.

The groups that received the loans are Children’s Health Defense, an organization founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.; the Informed Consent Action Network; the National Vaccine Information Center; Mercola.com Health Resources and Mercola Consulting Services, both affiliated with prominent vaccine skeptic Joseph Mercola; and the Tenpenny Integrative Medical Center, a medical practice run by Sherri Tenpenny, a physician and author.

The loans, which were made by banks and backed by the government in an effort to stave off the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic, ranged in size from $72,500 to Tenpenny’s medical center to $335,000 to Mercola.com.

The loans do not appear to violate Small Business Administration rules: Paycheck Protection Program loans were available to any small company or nonprofit organization (generally those with 500 or fewer workers) willing to certify that “current economic uncertainty makes this loan request necessary” to support their continuing operations. Small Business Administration representatives did not respond to questions about the loans.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate, a London-based advocacy group, uncovered the loans, and The Washington Post first reported on them.

“There’s an anomaly here,” said Imran Ahmed, the group’s chief executive. “The PPP was needed to deal with the economic shock of COVID, and the anti-vaxxers fundamentally inhibit our ability to defeat COVID and move past this.”

The Paycheck Protection Program’s loose rules allowed virtually any small business or company in America to qualify for a government-backed relief loan. Frustrated citizens and activist groups have criticized thousands of recipients they deemed unworthy, including wealthy lawyers, politicians and political lobbyists, publicly traded companies and businesses under government investigation.

The Paycheck Protection Program’s loose rules allowed virtually any small business or company in America to qualify for a government-backed relief loan. Frustrated citizens and activist groups have criticized thousands of recipients they deemed unworthy, including wealthy lawyers, politicians and political lobbyists, publicly traded companies and businesses under government investigation. Now the federal loan program has drawn criticism for giving loans to organizations that have challenged the safety of vaccines. Six organizations that have made claims scientists have called false received Paycheck Protection Program loans totaling more than $1.1 million, according to data from the Small Business Administration, which manages the program. The data was released last month under a court order, in response to a lawsuit filed by The New York Times and other news organizations. The groups that received the loans are Children’s Health Defense, an organization founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.; the Informed Consent Action Network; the National Vaccine Information Center; Mercola.com Health Resources and Mercola Consulting Services, both affiliated with prominent vaccine skeptic Joseph Mercola; and the Tenpenny Integrative Medical Center, a medical practice run by Sherri Tenpenny, a physician and author. The loans, which were made by banks and backed by the government in an effort to stave off the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic, ranged in size from $72,500 to Tenpenny’s medical center to $335,000 to Mercola.com. The loans do not appear to violate Small Business Administration rules: Paycheck Protection Program loans were available to any small company or nonprofit organization (generally those with 500 or fewer workers) willing to certify that “current economic uncertainty makes this loan request necessary” to support their continuing operations. Small Business Administration representatives did not respond to questions about the loans. The Center for Countering Digital Hate, a London-based advocacy group, uncovered the loans, and The Washington Post first reported on them. “There’s an anomaly here,” said Imran Ahmed, the group’s chief executive. “The PPP was needed to deal with the economic shock of COVID, and the anti-vaxxers fundamentally inhibit our ability to defeat COVID and move past this.”

Vaccine critics received more than $1 million in pandemic relief loans

President-elect Joe Biden on Saturday filled out his State Department team with a group of former career diplomats and veterans of the Obama administration, signalling his desire to return to a more traditional foreign policy after four years of uncertainty and unpredictability under President Donald Trump.

Biden will nominate Wendy Sherman as deputy secretary of state and Victoria Nuland as undersecretary of state for political affairs the second-and third-highest ranking posts, respectively.

They were among the officials chosen to serve under the incoming secretary of state, Antony Blinken.

The team embodies my core belief that America is strongest when it works with our allies, Biden said in a statement.

He said he was confident "they will use their diplomatic experience and skill to restore America’s global and moral leadership. America is back.

Among the others are longtime Biden Senate aide Brian McKeon, to be deputy secretary of state for management former senior diplomats Bonnie Jenkins and Uzra Zeya, to be undersecretary of state for arms control and undersecretary of state of democracy and human rights, respectively.

Derek Chollet, a familiar Democratic foreign policy hand, to be State Department counselor.

Former UN official Salman Ahmed, as director of policy planning.

Suzy George, who was a senior aide to former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, will be Blinken's chief of staff.

Ned Price, a former Obama administration National Security Council staffer and career CIA official who resigned in protest in the early days of the Trump administration, will serve as the public face of the department, taking on the role of spokesman.

Jalina Porter, communications director for Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., who is leaving Congress to work in the White House, will be Price's deputy.

Price and Porter intend to return to the practice of holding daily State Department press briefings, officials said.

Those briefings had been eliminated under the Trump administration.

Jeffrey Prescott, a former national security aide when Biden was vice president, is Biden's pick to be deputy ambassador to the United Nations, He would serve under U.N. envoy-designate Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

Five of the 11 are either people of colour or LGBTQ.

Although most are not household names, all are advocates of multilateralism and many are familiar in Washington and overseas foreign policy circles.

Their selections are a reflection of Biden's intent to turn away from Trump's transactional and often unilateral America First&nbsp;approach to international relations.

Sherman led the Obama administrations negotiations leading to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, from which Trump withdrew, and had engaged in talks over ballistic missiles with North Korea during President Bill Clinton's second term.

Nuland served as assistant secretary of state for European Affairs during the Ukraine crisis.

Sherman, McKeon, Nuland, Jenkins and Zeya will require Senate confirmation to their posts while the others will not.

President-elect Joe Biden on Saturday filled out his State Department team with a group of former career diplomats and veterans of the Obama administration, signalling his desire to return to a more traditional foreign policy after four years of uncertainty and unpredictability under President Donald Trump.

President-elect Joe Biden on Saturday filled out his State Department team with a group of former career diplomats and veterans of the Obama administration, signalling his desire to return to a more traditional foreign policy after four years of uncertainty and unpredictability under President Donald Trump. Biden will nominate Wendy Sherman as deputy secretary of state and Victoria Nuland as undersecretary of state for political affairs the second-and third-highest ranking posts, respectively. They were among the officials chosen to serve under the incoming secretary of state, Antony Blinken. The team embodies my core belief that America is strongest when it works with our allies, Biden said in a statement. He said he was confident "they will use their diplomatic experience and skill to restore America’s global and moral leadership. America is back. Among the others are longtime Biden Senate aide Brian McKeon, to be deputy secretary of state for management former senior diplomats Bonnie Jenkins and Uzra Zeya, to be undersecretary of state for arms control and undersecretary of state of democracy and human rights, respectively. Derek Chollet, a familiar Democratic foreign policy hand, to be State Department counselor. Former UN official Salman Ahmed, as director of policy planning. Suzy George, who was a senior aide to former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, will be Blinken's chief of staff. Ned Price, a former Obama administration National Security Council staffer and career CIA official who resigned in protest in the early days of the Trump administration, will serve as the public face of the department, taking on the role of spokesman. Jalina Porter, communications director for Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., who is leaving Congress to work in the White House, will be Price's deputy. Price and Porter intend to return to the practice of holding daily State Department press briefings, officials said. Those briefings had been eliminated under the Trump administration. Jeffrey Prescott, a former national security aide when Biden was vice president, is Biden's pick to be deputy ambassador to the United Nations, He would serve under U.N. envoy-designate Linda Thomas-Greenfield. Five of the 11 are either people of colour or LGBTQ. Although most are not household names, all are advocates of multilateralism and many are familiar in Washington and overseas foreign policy circles. Their selections are a reflection of Biden's intent to turn away from Trump's transactional and often unilateral America First approach to international relations. Sherman led the Obama administrations negotiations leading to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, from which Trump withdrew, and had engaged in talks over ballistic missiles with North Korea during President Bill Clinton's second term. Nuland served as assistant secretary of state for European Affairs during the Ukraine crisis. Sherman, McKeon, Nuland, Jenkins and Zeya will require Senate confirmation to their posts while the others will not.

Biden fills out State Department team with Obama veterans

Norway has issued a tale of caution for the old and terminally ill people who are being administered the<a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/coronavirus"> coronavirus </a>vaccine after 23 people died in the countries shortly after receiving a jab of the <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/coronavirus-vaccine">vaccine</a>.

"For those with the most severe frailty, even relatively mild vaccine side effects can have serious consequences,"&nbsp;Norwegian Institute of Public Health cautioned. "For those who have a very short remaining life span anyway, the benefit of the vaccine may be marginal or irrelevant."

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/norway-investigating-death-of-two-people-who-received-pfizers-coronavirus-vaccine-354716">Norway investigating death of two people who received Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine</a>

Out of the 23 deaths,&nbsp;13 have been autopsied in which it was revealed that common side effects may have contributed to reactions in&nbsp;vulnerable and elderly people,&nbsp;Norwegian Medicines Agency reported.

The warning, the&nbsp;Norwegian officials said, does not mean that the elderly or the younger generation should avoid getting vaccinated. It is just to voice concern and issue a sound of warning for the ill and vulnerable people to exercise caution while getting vaccinated against the deadly virus.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/pfizer-ceo-not-certain-if-coronavirus-vaccine-will-prevent-transmission-347495">Pfizer CEO 'not certain' if coronavirus vaccine will prevent transmission</a>

In the initial investigations it was revealed that almost&nbsp;three-quarters of the affected people were above the age of 80, the regulator claimed in its report.

Vaccine manufacturers, FPfizer-BioNtech, are working with the&nbsp;Norwegian regulator to investigate the deaths and has claimed that "the number of incidents so far is not alarming, and in line with expectations".

As of now, Norway has administered the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine to nearly&nbsp;33,000 people, with priority given to vulnerable, elderly and healthcare workers. Till now, majority people have been administered with the Pfizer vaccine, and a few others with Moderna's similar dose.

Norway has issued a tale of caution for the old and terminally ill people who are being administered the coronavirus vaccine after 23 people died in the countries shortly after receiving a jab of the vaccine.

Norway has issued a tale of caution for the old and terminally ill people who are being administered the coronavirus vaccine after 23 people died in the countries shortly after receiving a jab of the vaccine. "For those with the most severe frailty, even relatively mild vaccine side effects can have serious consequences," Norwegian Institute of Public Health cautioned. "For those who have a very short remaining life span anyway, the benefit of the vaccine may be marginal or irrelevant." Also read| Norway investigating death of two people who received Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine Out of the 23 deaths, 13 have been autopsied in which it was revealed that common side effects may have contributed to reactions in vulnerable and elderly people, Norwegian Medicines Agency reported. The warning, the Norwegian officials said, does not mean that the elderly or the younger generation should avoid getting vaccinated. It is just to voice concern and issue a sound of warning for the ill and vulnerable people to exercise caution while getting vaccinated against the deadly virus. Also read: Pfizer CEO 'not certain' if coronavirus vaccine will prevent transmission In the initial investigations it was revealed that almost three-quarters of the affected people were above the age of 80, the regulator claimed in its report. Vaccine manufacturers, FPfizer-BioNtech, are working with the Norwegian regulator to investigate the deaths and has claimed that "the number of incidents so far is not alarming, and in line with expectations". As of now, Norway has administered the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine to nearly 33,000 people, with priority given to vulnerable, elderly and healthcare workers. Till now, majority people have been administered with the Pfizer vaccine, and a few others with Moderna's similar dose.

Norway: 23 people die after taking coronavirus vaccine; caution raised

Nepal's Foreign Minister Pradeep Kumar Gyawali is in New Delhi for talks. Nepal is choosing Indian vaccines over Chinese shots. This comes after a trial in Brazil found that a Chinese vaccine was just 50.4% effective.

Gravitas: Nepal chooses India over China for vaccines

President-elect <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/joe-biden">Joe Biden</a> has chosen Dr. David Kessler to help lead Operation Warp Speed, the program to accelerate development of <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/coronavirus-vaccine">COVID-19 vaccines</a> and treatments, according to transition officials.

Kessler, a pediatrician and lawyer who headed the Food and Drug Administration during the presidencies of George Bush and Bill Clinton, has been a key adviser to Biden on<a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/coronavirus"> COVID-19</a> policy and is co-chair of the transition team’s COVID-19 task force.

He will replace Dr. Moncef Slaoui, a researcher and former drug company executive, who will become a consultant to Operation Warp Speed. Kessler will share top responsibilities for the initiative with Gen. Gustave F. Perna, who will continue as chief operating officer, according to a Biden transition spokesman. Kessler’s responsibilities will cover manufacturing, distribution and the safety and efficacy of vaccines and therapeutics.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/amid-security-concerns-joe-bidens-inauguration-rehearsal-postponed-356952" hreflang="en">Amid security concerns, Joe Biden's inauguration rehearsal postponed</a>

Kessler will join Operation Warp Speed at a critical time. Although the program is widely credited with making possible the development of two highly effective coronavirus vaccines in record time, it has been much less successful at actually delivering the shots to the public — a complex task it shares with numerous federal, state and local authorities.

The Trump administration had vowed to vaccinate 20 million people by the end of 2020, but as of Thursday, just over 11 million inoculations had been given, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the late fall, Kessler warned Biden that Operation Warp Speed was not prepared for getting the shots into people’s arms. The transition team said last week that the president-elect intended to create vaccination sites in high school gyms, convention centers and mobile units to reach high-risk populations.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/ahead-of-bidens-inauguration-trump-approves-emergency-declaration-for-washington-356146" hreflang="en">Biden inauguration: Trump approves emergency declaration for Washington</a>

In addition to working to speed delivery of vaccines throughout the country, Kessler is expected to increase the emphasis on development of treatments, and he plans to begin a major antiviral development program for treatment of COVID-19, according to transition officials.

Kessler is close to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease doctor who became the leading governmental voice on the coronavirus pandemic. The two worked closely to speed the development and approval of drugs that changed the course of the AIDS epidemic in the 1990s.

President-elect Joe Biden has chosen Dr. David Kessler to help lead Operation Warp Speed, the program to accelerate development of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, according to transition officials.

President-elect Joe Biden has chosen Dr. David Kessler to help lead Operation Warp Speed, the program to accelerate development of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, according to transition officials. Kessler, a pediatrician and lawyer who headed the Food and Drug Administration during the presidencies of George Bush and Bill Clinton, has been a key adviser to Biden on COVID-19 policy and is co-chair of the transition team’s COVID-19 task force. He will replace Dr. Moncef Slaoui, a researcher and former drug company executive, who will become a consultant to Operation Warp Speed. Kessler will share top responsibilities for the initiative with Gen. Gustave F. Perna, who will continue as chief operating officer, according to a Biden transition spokesman. Kessler’s responsibilities will cover manufacturing, distribution and the safety and efficacy of vaccines and therapeutics. Also read| Amid security concerns, Joe Biden's inauguration rehearsal postponed Kessler will join Operation Warp Speed at a critical time. Although the program is widely credited with making possible the development of two highly effective coronavirus vaccines in record time, it has been much less successful at actually delivering the shots to the public — a complex task it shares with numerous federal, state and local authorities. The Trump administration had vowed to vaccinate 20 million people by the end of 2020, but as of Thursday, just over 11 million inoculations had been given, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the late fall, Kessler warned Biden that Operation Warp Speed was not prepared for getting the shots into people’s arms. The transition team said last week that the president-elect intended to create vaccination sites in high school gyms, convention centers and mobile units to reach high-risk populations. Also read| Biden inauguration: Trump approves emergency declaration for Washington In addition to working to speed delivery of vaccines throughout the country, Kessler is expected to increase the emphasis on development of treatments, and he plans to begin a major antiviral development program for treatment of COVID-19, according to transition officials. Kessler is close to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease doctor who became the leading governmental voice on the coronavirus pandemic. The two worked closely to speed the development and approval of drugs that changed the course of the AIDS epidemic in the 1990s.

Joe Biden picks former FDA Chief to lead federal vaccine efforts

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Monday that the central government will bear the expenses of vaccinating nearly three crore healthcare and frontline workers in the first round and suggested that public representatives, a reference to politicians, should not be part of this initial exercise.

Interacting with chief ministers, PM Modi underscored the enormity of what he described as the world's biggest vaccination exercise, which begins from January 16, saying over 30 crore citizens will get the jabs in the next few months in India against only 2.5 crore people who have received them in over 50 countries in around a month so far.

The two already approved made-in-India COVID-19 vaccines are more cost-effective than any other in the world and have been developed as per the country's needs, he said in his remarks in the meeting called to discuss the COVID-19 situation and the vaccination rollout.

Besides the two vaccines -- Covishield developed by Oxford and British-Swedish company AstraZeneca and manufactured by Serum Institute of India, and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin, four others are being developed, PM Modi said, asserting that India's fight against the pandemic will enter a decisive stage with the vaccination roll-out.

More vaccines may be available when the exercise moves into the second round, he added.

The Prime Minister also sought to dispel concerns expressed by some opposition leaders and experts over the approval given to Covaxin without the availability of efficacy data, asserting that scientists have taken all precautions to provide citizens with effective vaccines.

The Prime Minister said he has been maintaining from the beginning that the scientific community will have the final word on the issue.

India's drug regulator has given approval to Covishield and Covaxin for the emergency use authorisation. It is a matter of pride that both the vaccines are ''made in India'', he said, adding that it can be imagined how much hardship India would have faced if it had to depend on foreign vaccines.

Noting that the first round of vaccination is meant for healthcare and frontline workers, he said, "This is my personal suggestion and no one should take it otherwise. We public representatives are not part of it."

In some countries, including the US and Israel, leading public figures have taken the jabs while top functionaries in a few others have chosen to follow the standard protocol and wait for their turn.

Talking about the COVID-19 situation in India, PM Modi said the country is in a much better place than many others in terms of the pandemic's spread, and added that this is a matter of happiness but should not induce carelessness.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Monday that the central government will bear the expenses of vaccinating nearly three crore healthcare and frontline workers in the first round and suggested that public representatives, a reference to politicians, should not be part of this initial exercise.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Monday that the central government will bear the expenses of vaccinating nearly three crore healthcare and frontline workers in the first round and suggested that public representatives, a reference to politicians, should not be part of this initial exercise. Interacting with chief ministers, PM Modi underscored the enormity of what he described as the world's biggest vaccination exercise, which begins from January 16, saying over 30 crore citizens will get the jabs in the next few months in India against only 2.5 crore people who have received them in over 50 countries in around a month so far. The two already approved made-in-India COVID-19 vaccines are more cost-effective than any other in the world and have been developed as per the country's needs, he said in his remarks in the meeting called to discuss the COVID-19 situation and the vaccination rollout. Besides the two vaccines -- Covishield developed by Oxford and British-Swedish company AstraZeneca and manufactured by Serum Institute of India, and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin, four others are being developed, PM Modi said, asserting that India's fight against the pandemic will enter a decisive stage with the vaccination roll-out. More vaccines may be available when the exercise moves into the second round, he added. The Prime Minister also sought to dispel concerns expressed by some opposition leaders and experts over the approval given to Covaxin without the availability of efficacy data, asserting that scientists have taken all precautions to provide citizens with effective vaccines. The Prime Minister said he has been maintaining from the beginning that the scientific community will have the final word on the issue. India's drug regulator has given approval to Covishield and Covaxin for the emergency use authorisation. It is a matter of pride that both the vaccines are ''made in India'', he said, adding that it can be imagined how much hardship India would have faced if it had to depend on foreign vaccines. Noting that the first round of vaccination is meant for healthcare and frontline workers, he said, "This is my personal suggestion and no one should take it otherwise. We public representatives are not part of it." In some countries, including the US and Israel, leading public figures have taken the jabs while top functionaries in a few others have chosen to follow the standard protocol and wait for their turn. Talking about the COVID-19 situation in India, PM Modi said the country is in a much better place than many others in terms of the pandemic's spread, and added that this is a matter of happiness but should not induce carelessness.

Centre to bear vaccination cost of 3 crore health, frontline workers: PM Modi

As India is setting up to launch one of the biggest vaccination drives of the world from January 16, it has been revealed that the vaccine will be available&nbsp;for&nbsp;₹200 a vial in India.

It has also been reported that the Centre has sent a&nbsp;&nbsp;purchase order with the Serum Institute of India (SII)&nbsp;on Monday, January 11, as reported by Reuters citing CNBC-TV 18 sources.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/india-news/myanmar-orders-30-million-coronavirus-vaccines-from-india-355773" hreflang="en">Myanmar orders 30 million coronavirus vaccines from India</a>

The news has come days after the Prime Minister's Office announced the vaccination drive will begin in India from January 16. "On 16th January, India takes a landmark step forward in fighting COVID-19. Starting that day, India’s nation-wide vaccination drive begins. Priority will be given to our brave doctors, healthcare workers, frontline workers including Safai Karamcharis," Prime Minister Narendra Modi had tweeted.

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Speaking at the interaction with CMs on vaccination rollout. <a href="https://t.co/gbWZ4LsQGB">https://t.co/gbWZ4LsQGB</a>
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As the news of the purchase order broke out, Modi held a virtual meeting with the Chief Ministers of the states of India to discuss the readiness for the upcoming&nbsp;on vaccination rollout.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/india-news/india-records-16311-new-coronavirus-cases-161-deaths-in-last-24-hours-355958" hreflang="en">India records 16,311 new coronavirus cases, 161 deaths in last 24 hours</a>

Till now, 89 hospitals in the national capital New Delhi have been chosen for vaccination drive's first phase. Of these 89, 40 are government-run and 49 are private.&nbsp;

The Centre has decided&nbsp;around 5,000 vaccination sites across India.&nbsp;"As per the instruction of the Central government, the Delhi government has prepared these 89 sites which are different hospitals of Delhi,"&nbsp;Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain told a press conference.

"At every centre, there will be 8-9 people who will handle the drive. With this preparation, the Delhi government will start the first phase of vaccination from January 16."

As India is setting up to launch one of the biggest vaccination drives of the world from January 16, it has been revealed that the vaccine will be available for ₹200 a vial in India.

As India is setting up to launch one of the biggest vaccination drives of the world from January 16, it has been revealed that the vaccine will be available for ₹200 a vial in India. It has also been reported that the Centre has sent a purchase order with the Serum Institute of India (SII) on Monday, January 11, as reported by Reuters citing CNBC-TV 18 sources. Also read| Myanmar orders 30 million coronavirus vaccines from India The news has come days after the Prime Minister's Office announced the vaccination drive will begin in India from January 16. "On 16th January, India takes a landmark step forward in fighting COVID-19. Starting that day, India’s nation-wide vaccination drive begins. Priority will be given to our brave doctors, healthcare workers, frontline workers including Safai Karamcharis," Prime Minister Narendra Modi had tweeted. Speaking at the interaction with CMs on vaccination rollout. https://t.co/gbWZ4LsQGB — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 11, 2021 × As the news of the purchase order broke out, Modi held a virtual meeting with the Chief Ministers of the states of India to discuss the readiness for the upcoming on vaccination rollout. Also read| India records 16,311 new coronavirus cases, 161 deaths in last 24 hours Till now, 89 hospitals in the national capital New Delhi have been chosen for vaccination drive's first phase. Of these 89, 40 are government-run and 49 are private. The Centre has decided around 5,000 vaccination sites across India. "As per the instruction of the Central government, the Delhi government has prepared these 89 sites which are different hospitals of Delhi," Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain told a press conference. "At every centre, there will be 8-9 people who will handle the drive. With this preparation, the Delhi government will start the first phase of vaccination from January 16."

Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to cost ₹200 a vial in India; purchase order placed with SII: Reports

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said that Indian coronavirus vaccines are the most cost effective in the world. 
 
<a href="https://www.wionews.com/india-news/oxford-astrazeneca-vaccine-to-cost-rs200-a-vial-in-india-purchase-order-placed-with-sii-reports-356029">Also read | Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to cost ₹200 a vial in India; purchase order placed with SII: Reports</a> 
 
Interacting with Chief Ministers of several states ahead of the massive COVID-19 vaccination drive, he said that "our vaccines are more affordable than any other vaccine on the globe. If India needed vaccine from other countries, it would've been a big challenge." 
 
Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/india-news/myanmar-orders-30-million-coronavirus-vaccines-from-india-355773" hreflang="en">Myanmar orders 30 million coronavirus vaccines from India</a>

"India's vaccination experience will help during COVID vaccination programme," he added.

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Speaking at the interaction with CMs on vaccination rollout. <a href="https://t.co/gbWZ4LsQGB">https://t.co/gbWZ4LsQGB</a>
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Around three crore healthcare workers and frontline workers will be vaccinated in the first phase of vaccination. In the second phase, those above 50 years and those under 50 years with co-morbid conditions will be vaccinated, confirmed PM Modi.

The government is planning to vaccinate over 30 crore people in the next few months.

PM Modi then announced, "If you look at the number of health and frontline workers across all states, it stands at around three crore. It has been decided that state governments will not have to bear the expenses of vaccination of these 3 crore people in the first phase. Govt of India will bear these expenses."

(With inputs from agencies)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said that Indian coronavirus vaccines are the most cost effective in the world. Also read | Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to cost ₹200 a vial in India; purchase order placed with SII: Reports Interacting with Chief Ministers of several states ahead of the massive COVID-19 vaccination drive, he said that "our vaccines are more affordable than any other vaccine on the globe.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said that Indian coronavirus vaccines are the most cost effective in the world. Also read | Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to cost ₹200 a vial in India; purchase order placed with SII: Reports Interacting with Chief Ministers of several states ahead of the massive COVID-19 vaccination drive, he said that "our vaccines are more affordable than any other vaccine on the globe. If India needed vaccine from other countries, it would've been a big challenge." Also read| Myanmar orders 30 million coronavirus vaccines from India "India's vaccination experience will help during COVID vaccination programme," he added. Speaking at the interaction with CMs on vaccination rollout. https://t.co/gbWZ4LsQGB — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 11, 2021 × Around three crore healthcare workers and frontline workers will be vaccinated in the first phase of vaccination. In the second phase, those above 50 years and those under 50 years with co-morbid conditions will be vaccinated, confirmed PM Modi. The government is planning to vaccinate over 30 crore people in the next few months. PM Modi then announced, "If you look at the number of health and frontline workers across all states, it stands at around three crore. It has been decided that state governments will not have to bear the expenses of vaccination of these 3 crore people in the first phase. Govt of India will bear these expenses." (With inputs from agencies)

Indian vaccines more affordable than any other on the globe: PM Modi

Scientists have demonstrated that a single-dose COVID-19 vaccine candidate, which could potentially be stored at room temperature, can produce immunity against the novel coronavirus in mice. The vaccine, described in the ACS Central Science journal, contains ultrasmall nanoparticles studded with the spike proteins of the coronavirus which enables it to enter host cells.

"Our goal is to make a single-shot vaccine that does not require a cold-chain for storage or transport. If we're successful at doing it well, it should be cheap too," said study co-author Peter Kim from Stanford University in the US.

"The target population for our vaccine is low- and middle-income countries," Kim added.

According to the researchers, viral-based vaccines which use viruses to deliver immunising proteins are often more effective than those which contain only isolated protein parts of a virus.

They said nanoparticle vaccines balance the effectiveness of viral-based vaccines with the safety and ease-of-production of protein vaccines.

To develop the vaccine, the scientists first removed a section near the bottom of the spike protein of the coronavirus, and combined it with nanoparticles of ferritin -- an iron-containing protein -- which has been previously tested in humans.

In the following tests in mice, the researchers compared their shortened spike nanoparticles to four other potential variations -- nanoparticles with full spikes, full spikes or partial spikes without nanoparticles, and a vaccine containing just the section of the spike that binds to cells during infection.

The scientists then tested the effectiveness of these vaccines against a safer pseudo-coronavirus that was modified to carry the spike proteins.

They determined the potential effectiveness of each vaccine by monitoring levels of virus neutralising antibodies generated in the mice immune system.

After a single dose, the study found that two nanoparticle vaccine candidates both resulted in neutralising antibody levels at least twice as high as those seen in people who have had COVID-19.

According to the scientists, the shortened spike nanoparticle vaccine produced a significantly higher neutralising response than the binding spike or the full spike vaccines.

After a second dose, they said mice that had received the shortened spike nanoparticle vaccine had the highest levels of neutralising antibodies.

Based on the results, the Stanford scientists said their nanoparticle vaccine could produce COVID-19 immunity after just one dose.

The scientists believe the vaccine could also be stored at room temperature and are assessing whether it could be shipped and stored in a freeze-dried, powder form.

"This is really early stage and there is still lots of work to be done," said Abigail Powell, lead author of the study.

The researchers hope to improve the nanoparticle vaccine candidate to move it closer to initial clinical trials in humans.

Scientists have demonstrated that a single-dose COVID-19 vaccine candidate, which could potentially be stored at room temperature, can produce immunity against the novel coronavirus in mice.

Scientists have demonstrated that a single-dose COVID-19 vaccine candidate, which could potentially be stored at room temperature, can produce immunity against the novel coronavirus in mice. The vaccine, described in the ACS Central Science journal, contains ultrasmall nanoparticles studded with the spike proteins of the coronavirus which enables it to enter host cells. "Our goal is to make a single-shot vaccine that does not require a cold-chain for storage or transport. If we're successful at doing it well, it should be cheap too," said study co-author Peter Kim from Stanford University in the US. "The target population for our vaccine is low- and middle-income countries," Kim added. According to the researchers, viral-based vaccines which use viruses to deliver immunising proteins are often more effective than those which contain only isolated protein parts of a virus. They said nanoparticle vaccines balance the effectiveness of viral-based vaccines with the safety and ease-of-production of protein vaccines. To develop the vaccine, the scientists first removed a section near the bottom of the spike protein of the coronavirus, and combined it with nanoparticles of ferritin -- an iron-containing protein -- which has been previously tested in humans. In the following tests in mice, the researchers compared their shortened spike nanoparticles to four other potential variations -- nanoparticles with full spikes, full spikes or partial spikes without nanoparticles, and a vaccine containing just the section of the spike that binds to cells during infection. The scientists then tested the effectiveness of these vaccines against a safer pseudo-coronavirus that was modified to carry the spike proteins. They determined the potential effectiveness of each vaccine by monitoring levels of virus neutralising antibodies generated in the mice immune system. After a single dose, the study found that two nanoparticle vaccine candidates both resulted in neutralising antibody levels at least twice as high as those seen in people who have had COVID-19. According to the scientists, the shortened spike nanoparticle vaccine produced a significantly higher neutralising response than the binding spike or the full spike vaccines. After a second dose, they said mice that had received the shortened spike nanoparticle vaccine had the highest levels of neutralising antibodies. Based on the results, the Stanford scientists said their nanoparticle vaccine could produce COVID-19 immunity after just one dose. The scientists believe the vaccine could also be stored at room temperature and are assessing whether it could be shipped and stored in a freeze-dried, powder form. "This is really early stage and there is still lots of work to be done," said Abigail Powell, lead author of the study. The researchers hope to improve the nanoparticle vaccine candidate to move it closer to initial clinical trials in humans.

Single dose COVID-19 vaccine candidate generates immunity in mice: Study

Almost a week after approving two coronavirus vaccines, the Indian government has decided to start the mass vaccination drive from January 16.

The decision was announced by the Prime Minister's Office on Saturday, January 09 through a press release.

This decision was taken after Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a high-level meeting to review the status of COVID-19 in the South Asian country — which was once declared as the second-worst affected country of the world. The meeting&nbsp;was attended by Cabinet Secretary, Principal Secretary to PM, Health Secretary, and other senior officials concerned.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/india-news/india-will-continue-export-of-medicines-including-vaccines-pm-modi-355562" hreflang="en">India will continue export of medicines, including vaccines: PM Modi</a>

It has been decided to start the vaccination drive after the festivities of the month — such as&nbsp;Lohri, Makar Sankranti, Pongal, Magh Bihu etc. — are wrapped up.

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On 16th January, India takes a landmark step forward in fighting COVID-19. Starting that day, India’s nation-wide vaccination drive begins. Priority will be given to our brave doctors, healthcare workers, frontline workers including Safai Karamcharis. <a href="https://t.co/P5Arw64wVt">https://t.co/P5Arw64wVt</a>
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) <a href="https://twitter.com/narendramodi/status/1347876066291896322?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 9, 2021</a></blockquote>
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"The vaccination exercise in underpinned by the principles of people’s participation (Jan Bhagidari); utilizing experience of elections (booth strategy) and Universal Immunization Program (UIP); no compromise of existing healthcare services, especially national programs and primary health care; no compromise on scientific and regulatory norms, other SOPs; and an orderly and smooth implementation driven by technology," the press release read.

Covishield and COVAXIN&nbsp;the two approved vaccines will first be administered to&nbsp;the healthcare workers and the frontline workers — who are estimated to be nearly three crores.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/videos/indian-pm-narendra-modi-speaks-at-pravasi-bharatiya-divas-convention-355557">WATCH|</a>

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The second group in priority line will be citizens aged above 50 years and people who are vulnerable to the deadly virus and then "the under-50 population groups with co-morbidities numbering around 27 crores," the government of India said.

India has already conducted dry runs to test the readiness of the authorities and healthcare workers.

Almost a week after approving two coronavirus vaccines, the Indian government has decided to start the mass vaccination drive from January 16. The decision was announced by the Prime Minister's Office on Saturday, January 09 through a press release.

Almost a week after approving two coronavirus vaccines, the Indian government has decided to start the mass vaccination drive from January 16. The decision was announced by the Prime Minister's Office on Saturday, January 09 through a press release. This decision was taken after Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a high-level meeting to review the status of COVID-19 in the South Asian country — which was once declared as the second-worst affected country of the world. The meeting was attended by Cabinet Secretary, Principal Secretary to PM, Health Secretary, and other senior officials concerned. Also read| India will continue export of medicines, including vaccines: PM Modi It has been decided to start the vaccination drive after the festivities of the month — such as Lohri, Makar Sankranti, Pongal, Magh Bihu etc. — are wrapped up. On 16th January, India takes a landmark step forward in fighting COVID-19. Starting that day, India’s nation-wide vaccination drive begins. Priority will be given to our brave doctors, healthcare workers, frontline workers including Safai Karamcharis. https://t.co/P5Arw64wVt — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 9, 2021 × "The vaccination exercise in underpinned by the principles of people’s participation (Jan Bhagidari); utilizing experience of elections (booth strategy) and Universal Immunization Program (UIP); no compromise of existing healthcare services, especially national programs and primary health care; no compromise on scientific and regulatory norms, other SOPs; and an orderly and smooth implementation driven by technology," the press release read. Covishield and COVAXIN the two approved vaccines will first be administered to the healthcare workers and the frontline workers — who are estimated to be nearly three crores. WATCH| × The second group in priority line will be citizens aged above 50 years and people who are vulnerable to the deadly virus and then "the under-50 population groups with co-morbidities numbering around 27 crores," the government of India said. India has already conducted dry runs to test the readiness of the authorities and healthcare workers.

India to begin coronavirus vaccination drive from January 16: PM Modi

With 20,346 new coronavirus infections and 222 deaths in the past 24 hours, India's overall tally stood at 1,03,95,278 on Thursday, while the death toll touched 1,50,336, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,00,16,859, pushing the national recovery rate to 96.36 per cent, while the COVID-19 case fatality rate stood at 1.45 per cent.

The number of active COVID-19 cases remained below three lakh for the 17th consecutive day.

There are 2,28,083 active coronavirus cases in the country, which account for 2.19 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated.

India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16.

It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and the one-crore mark on December 19.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), 17,84,00,995 samples have been tested for COVID-19 till January 6, including 9,37,590 on Wednesday.

(With inputs from agencies)

With 20,346 new coronavirus infections and 222 deaths in the past 24 hours, India's overall tally stood at 1,03,95,278 on Thursday, while the death toll touched 1,50,336, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said.

With 20,346 new coronavirus infections and 222 deaths in the past 24 hours, India's overall tally stood at 1,03,95,278 on Thursday, while the death toll touched 1,50,336, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said. The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,00,16,859, pushing the national recovery rate to 96.36 per cent, while the COVID-19 case fatality rate stood at 1.45 per cent. The number of active COVID-19 cases remained below three lakh for the 17th consecutive day. There are 2,28,083 active coronavirus cases in the country, which account for 2.19 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated. India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and the one-crore mark on December 19. According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), 17,84,00,995 samples have been tested for COVID-19 till January 6, including 9,37,590 on Wednesday. (With inputs from agencies)

20,346 new Covid-19 cases push India's tally to 1,03,95,278

Frustration over the slow rollout of COVID-19 vaccines has sparked tensions within the European Union, echoing disarray within the bloc at the beginning of the pandemic over sharing of protective medical equipment and the closure of borders.

Slow vaccine rollout stokes tensions among EU states

Various global leaders such as tech genius Bill Gates and the&nbsp;Director-General of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus have congratulated India for its quick and decisive actions regarding the coronavirus vaccine.

"It’s great to see India’s leadership in scientific innovation and vaccine manufacturing capability as the world works to end the COVID-19 pandemic," Bill Gates tweeted on Tuesday while tagging the Prime Minister's official Twitter account.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/india-news/india-to-begin-coronavirus-vaccine-roll-out-in-10-days-government-354599" hreflang="en">India to begin coronavirus vaccine roll out in 10 days: Government</a>

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It’s great to see India’s leadership in scientific innovation and vaccine manufacturing capability as the world works to end the COVID-19 pandemic <a href="https://twitter.com/PMOIndia?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PMOIndia</a> <a href="https://t.co/Ds4f3tmrm3">https://t.co/Ds4f3tmrm3</a>
— Bill Gates (@BillGates) <a href="https://twitter.com/BillGates/status/1346184604827279360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 4, 2021</a></blockquote>
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The message has come two days after the&nbsp;Drug Controller General of India approved AstraZeneca/Oxford's vaccine Covishield — which is being&nbsp;manufactured by the Serum Institute of India — and&nbsp;Bharat Biotech's&nbsp;indigenously developed vaccine Covaxin.

Director-General of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also took to Twitter to congratulate India for this achievement. "India continues to take decisive action &amp; demonstrate its resolve to end COVID19 pandemic. As the Earth globe europe-africa’s largest vaccine producer it’s well placed to do so," he said. "If we #ACTogether, we can ensure effective &amp; safe vaccines are used to protect the most vulnerable everywhere."

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<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/India?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#India</a> continues to take decisive action &amp; demonstrate its resolve to end <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#COVID19</a> pandemic. As the 🌍’s largest vaccine producer it’s well placed to do so. 
If we <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ACTogether?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ACTogether</a>, we can ensure effective &amp; safe vaccines are used to protect the most vulnerable everywhere <a href="https://twitter.com/narendramodi?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@narendramodi</a>
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) <a href="https://twitter.com/DrTedros/status/1346203046959865860?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 4, 2021</a></blockquote>
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<a href="https://www.wionews.com/videos/gravitas-indias-vaccine-rollout-354478">WATCH|</a>

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Meanwhile, the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi has assured people that India will soon be beginning the world's biggest&nbsp;inoculation drive. "World's biggest COVID-19 vaccination programme set to begin in India. For this, the country is proud of the contributions of its scientists and technicians," Modi said.

"As the largest vaccine producing country in the world, I want to give one more assurance to the global community today. India's vaccine production and delivery capacity will be used to help all humanity in fighting this crisis," he continued.

On Tuesday, the Indian government also announced that the country is all set to&nbsp;roll out its coronavirus vaccination campaign within ten days as part of emergency use authorisation(EUA).&nbsp;

Various global leaders such as tech genius Bill Gates and the Director-General of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus have congratulated India for its quick and decisive actions regarding the coronavirus vaccine.

Various global leaders such as tech genius Bill Gates and the Director-General of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus have congratulated India for its quick and decisive actions regarding the coronavirus vaccine. "It’s great to see India’s leadership in scientific innovation and vaccine manufacturing capability as the world works to end the COVID-19 pandemic," Bill Gates tweeted on Tuesday while tagging the Prime Minister's official Twitter account. Also read| India to begin coronavirus vaccine roll out in 10 days: Government It’s great to see India’s leadership in scientific innovation and vaccine manufacturing capability as the world works to end the COVID-19 pandemic @PMOIndia https://t.co/Ds4f3tmrm3 — Bill Gates (@BillGates) January 4, 2021 × The message has come two days after the Drug Controller General of India approved AstraZeneca/Oxford's vaccine Covishield — which is being manufactured by the Serum Institute of India — and Bharat Biotech's indigenously developed vaccine Covaxin. Director-General of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also took to Twitter to congratulate India for this achievement. "India continues to take decisive action & demonstrate its resolve to end COVID19 pandemic. As the Earth globe europe-africa’s largest vaccine producer it’s well placed to do so," he said. "If we #ACTogether, we can ensure effective & safe vaccines are used to protect the most vulnerable everywhere." #India continues to take decisive action & demonstrate its resolve to end #COVID19 pandemic. As the 🌍’s largest vaccine producer it’s well placed to do so. If we #ACTogether, we can ensure effective & safe vaccines are used to protect the most vulnerable everywhere @narendramodi — Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) January 4, 2021 × WATCH| × Meanwhile, the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi has assured people that India will soon be beginning the world's biggest inoculation drive. "World's biggest COVID-19 vaccination programme set to begin in India. For this, the country is proud of the contributions of its scientists and technicians," Modi said. "As the largest vaccine producing country in the world, I want to give one more assurance to the global community today. India's vaccine production and delivery capacity will be used to help all humanity in fighting this crisis," he continued. On Tuesday, the Indian government also announced that the country is all set to roll out its coronavirus vaccination campaign within ten days as part of emergency use authorisation(EUA).

Bill Gates and other world leaders applaud India for quick vaccine production

Indian government has approved two of its top COVID-19 vaccine contenders Oxford-AstraZeneca's Covishield and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin for emergency use on Sunday. Meanwhile, the government has conducted two vaccine dry runs to identify the shortcomings of the process and rectify it. As per reports COVID-19 vaccine in the country is likely to be rolled out in January.

Here's all you need to know about the process

Is it mandatory to take the vaccine?

No, taking the vaccine is voluntary.

First recipients of the Covid vaccine

Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Saturday said that free coronavirus vaccines will be provided to 3 crore frontline workers in the first base of the mega vaccination drive in India.

"In first phase of COVID-19 Vaccination, free vaccine shall be provided across the nation to most prioritised beneficiaries that include 1 crore healthcare and 2 crore frontline workers," Vardhan wrote on Twitter.

People over 50 years of age and people with comorbidities will also be part of priority groups.

How do we register for Covid-19 vaccination?

As per reports, the COVID-19 Vaccine Intelligence Network (Co-WIN) system will be used to track the enlisted beneficiaries for vaccination and COVID-19 vaccines on a real-time basis.

Only pre-registered beneficiaries will be vaccinated per the prioritization – there will be no provision for on-the-spot registrations.

The registered mobile number will be used to inform the eligible beneficiaries. 
 
Currently, common people cannot register for the upcoming vaccine for the coronavirus pandemic as only officials have access to it for now.&nbsp; 
 
Once live, the Co-WIN app or website will give three options for registration including self-registration, individual registration, and bulk upload. The logistics of it have not yet been revealed.&nbsp;

What are the required documents for registration?

One of the following document will be required for registration – Driving licence, PAN card, bank passbook, passport, pension document, MGNERGA job card, voter ID, official IDs of MPs/ MLAs/ MLCs, government-issued service ID card and health insurance smartcard issued by Ministry of Labour.

Photo ID is a must for both registration and verification of beneficiary at the session site to ensure that the intended person is vaccinated, the guidelines state.

How will one know if they are eligible for vaccination?

The eligible beneficiaries would be informed through their mobile number.

How many doses of the vaccine would be required?

The government has said that two doses of the vaccine 28 days apart must be administered for a beneficiary.

Will the covid-19 vaccine be given to everyone simultaneously?

No, the vaccination process would take place in phases. The first phase would include high-risk groups as aforementioned.

(With inputs from agencies)

Indian government has approved two of its top COVID-19 vaccine contenders Oxford-AstraZeneca's Covishield and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin for emergency use on Sunday.

Indian government has approved two of its top COVID-19 vaccine contenders Oxford-AstraZeneca's Covishield and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin for emergency use on Sunday. Meanwhile, the government has conducted two vaccine dry runs to identify the shortcomings of the process and rectify it. As per reports COVID-19 vaccine in the country is likely to be rolled out in January. Here's all you need to know about the process Is it mandatory to take the vaccine? No, taking the vaccine is voluntary. First recipients of the Covid vaccine Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Saturday said that free coronavirus vaccines will be provided to 3 crore frontline workers in the first base of the mega vaccination drive in India. "In first phase of COVID-19 Vaccination, free vaccine shall be provided across the nation to most prioritised beneficiaries that include 1 crore healthcare and 2 crore frontline workers," Vardhan wrote on Twitter. People over 50 years of age and people with comorbidities will also be part of priority groups. How do we register for Covid-19 vaccination? As per reports, the COVID-19 Vaccine Intelligence Network (Co-WIN) system will be used to track the enlisted beneficiaries for vaccination and COVID-19 vaccines on a real-time basis. Only pre-registered beneficiaries will be vaccinated per the prioritization – there will be no provision for on-the-spot registrations. The registered mobile number will be used to inform the eligible beneficiaries. Currently, common people cannot register for the upcoming vaccine for the coronavirus pandemic as only officials have access to it for now. Once live, the Co-WIN app or website will give three options for registration including self-registration, individual registration, and bulk upload. The logistics of it have not yet been revealed. What are the required documents for registration? One of the following document will be required for registration – Driving licence, PAN card, bank passbook, passport, pension document, MGNERGA job card, voter ID, official IDs of MPs/ MLAs/ MLCs, government-issued service ID card and health insurance smartcard issued by Ministry of Labour. Photo ID is a must for both registration and verification of beneficiary at the session site to ensure that the intended person is vaccinated, the guidelines state. How will one know if they are eligible for vaccination? The eligible beneficiaries would be informed through their mobile number. How many doses of the vaccine would be required? The government has said that two doses of the vaccine 28 days apart must be administered for a beneficiary. Will the covid-19 vaccine be given to everyone simultaneously? No, the vaccination process would take place in phases. The first phase would include high-risk groups as aforementioned. (With inputs from agencies)

Covid vaccination drive in India: Registration, process and documents needed

As governments around the world rush to vaccinate their citizens against the surging <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/coronavirus">coronavirus</a>, scientists are locked in a heated debate over a surprising question: Is it wisest to hold back the second doses everyone will need, or to give as many people as possible an inoculation now — and push back the second doses until later?

Since even the first shot appears to provide some protection against COVID-19, some experts believe that the shortest route to containing the virus is to disseminate the initial injections as widely as possible now.

Officials in Britain have already elected to delay second doses of <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/coronavirus-vaccine">vaccines</a> made by the pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca and Pfizer as a way of more widely distributing the partial protection afforded by a single shot.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/brazils-private-clinics-seek-indias-covaxin-vaccine-354288" hreflang="en">Brazil's private clinics seek India's COVAXIN vaccine</a>

Health officials in the United States have been adamantly opposed to the idea. “I would not be in favor of that,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, told CNN on Friday. “We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing.”

But on Sunday, Moncef Slaoui, scientific adviser of Operation Warp Speed, the federal effort to accelerate vaccine development and distribution, offered up an intriguing alternative: giving some Americans two half-doses of the Moderna vaccine, a way to possibly milk more immunity from the nation’s limited vaccine supply.

The rising debate reflects nationwide frustration that so few Americans have gotten the first doses — far below the number the Trump administration had hoped would be inoculated by the end of 2020. But the controversy itself carries risks in a country where health measures have been politicized and many remain hesitant to take the vaccine.

“Even the appearance of tinkering has negatives, in terms of people having trust in the process,” said Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at the University of Florida.

Also read|&nbsp;<a data-ctorig="https://www.wionews.com/world/mexican-doctor-admitted-to-icu-after-receiving-pfizer-covid-19-vaccine-354093" data-cturl="https://www.google.com/url?client=internal-element-cse&amp;cx=006054055338965708568:09spwrlibei&amp;q=https://www.wionews.com/world/mexican-doctor-admitted-to-icu-after-receiving-pfizer-covid-19-vaccine-354093&amp;sa=U&amp;ved=2ahUKEwjE2pbkwoHuAhUT63MBHS7PDYYQFjAAegQIAhAC&amp;usg=AOvVaw35kU5dg5JYTZFzkO6jRITH" dir="ltr" href="https://www.wionews.com/world/mexican-doctor-admitted-to-icu-after-receiving-pfizer-covid-19-vaccine-354093" target="_blank">Mexican doctor admitted to ICU after receiving Pfizer&nbsp;Covid-19&nbsp;vaccine</a>

The public rollout remained bumpy over the weekend. Seniors lined up early for vaccinations in one Tennessee town, but the doses were gone by 10 a.m. In Houston, the Health Department phone system crashed Saturday, the first day officials opened a free vaccination clinic to the public.

Nursing home workers in Ohio were opting out of the vaccination in great numbers, according to Gov. Mike DeWine, while Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles, now a center of the pandemic, warned that vaccine distribution was moving far too slowly. Hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients during the past month have more than doubled in California.

The vaccines authorized so far in the United States are produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. Britain has greenlit the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines.

All of them are intended to be delivered in multiple doses on a strict schedule, relying on a tiered protection strategy. The first injection teaches the immune system to recognize a new pathogen by showing it a harmless version of some of the virus’ most salient features.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/videos/outdoor-gym-and-at-home-exercises-on-trend-in-2021-354292">WATCH|</a>

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After the body has had time to study up on this material, as it were, a second shot presents these features again, helping immune cells commit the lesson to memory. These subsequent doses are intended to increase the potency and durability of immunity.

Clinical trials run by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna showed the vaccines were highly effective at preventing cases of COVID-19 when delivered in two doses separated by three or four weeks.

Some protection appears to kick in after the first shot of vaccine, although it’s unclear how quickly it might wane. Still, some experts now argue that spreading vaccines more thinly across a population by concentrating on first doses might save more lives than making sure half as many individuals receive both doses on schedule.

That would be a remarkable departure from the original plan. Since the vaccine rollout began last month in the United States, second shots of the vaccines have been held back to guarantee that they will be available on schedule for people who have already gotten their first injections.

But in Britain, doctors have been told to postpone appointments for second doses that had been scheduled for January, so that those doses can be given instead as first shots to other patients. Officials are now pushing the second doses of both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines as far back as 12 weeks after the first one.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-may-halve-modernas-vaccine-doses-to-inoculate-more-people-354289" hreflang="en">US may halve Moderna's vaccine doses to inoculate more people</a>

In a regulatory document, British health officials said that AstraZeneca’s vaccine was 73% effective in clinical trial participants three weeks after the first dose was given and before the second dose was administered. (In cases in which participants never received a second dose, the interval ended 12 weeks after the first dose was given.)

But some researchers fear the delayed-dose approach could prove disastrous, particularly in the United States, where vaccine rollouts are already stymied by logistical hurdles and a patchwork approach to prioritizing who gets the first jabs.

“We have an issue with distribution, not the number of doses,” said Saad Omer, a vaccine expert at Yale University. “Doubling the number of doses doesn’t double your capacity to give doses.”

Federal health officials said last week that some 14 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines had been shipped out across the country. But as of Saturday morning, just 4.2 million people in the United States had gotten their first shots.

That number is most likely an underestimate because of lags in reporting. Still, the figure falls far short of the goal that federal health officials set as recently as last month to give 20 million people their first shots by the end of 2020.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/when-in-doubt-call-it-covid-trump-accuses-exaggeration-of-tally-fauci-reacts-354280" hreflang="en">'When in doubt, call it Covid': Trump accuses 'exaggeration' of tally</a>

Many of these rollout woes are caused by logistical issues — against the backdrop of a strained health care system and skepticism around vaccines. Freeing up more doses for first injections won’t solve problems like those, some researchers argue.

Shweta Bansal, a mathematical biologist at Georgetown University, and others also raised concerns about the social and psychological effects of delaying second doses.

“The longer the duration between doses, the more likely people are to forget to come back,” she said. “Or people may not remember which vaccine that they got, and we don’t know what a mix and match might do.”

In an emailed statement, Dr. Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the Food and Drug Administration, endorsed only the strictly scheduled two-dose regimens that were tested in clinical trials of the vaccines.

The “depth or duration of protection after a single dose of vaccine,” he said, cannot be determined from the research published so far. “Though it is quite a reasonable question to study a single-dose regimen in future clinical trials, we simply don’t currently have these data.”

Slaoui of Operation Warp Speed said in an emailed statement Sunday that “the approach some countries are taking of delaying the booster shot could backfire and could decrease confidence in the vaccines.”

The vaccine-makers themselves have taken divergent positions.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/a-covid-19-relief-fund-was-only-for-black-residents-then-came-the-lawsuits-354254" hreflang="en">A COVID-19 relief fund was only for black residents. Then came the lawsuits</a>

In a trial of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, volunteers in Britain were originally intended to receive two doses given four weeks apart. But some vaccinated participants ended up receiving their doses several months apart, and still acquired some protection against COVID-19.

An extended gap between doses “gives you a lot of flexibility for how you administer your vaccines, dependent on the supply that you have,” said Menelas Pangalos, executive vice president of biopharmaceuticals research and development at AstraZeneca.

Delayed dosing could help get countries “in very good shape for immunizing large swaths of their populations to protect them quickly.”

Steven Danehy, a spokesperson for Pfizer, struck a far more conservative tone. “Although partial protection from the vaccine appears to begin as early as 12 days after the first dose, two doses of the vaccine are required to provide the maximum protection against the disease, a vaccine efficacy of 95%,” he said.

“There are no data to demonstrate that protection after the first dose is sustained after 21 days,” he added.

Ray Jordan, a spokesperson for Moderna, said the company could not comment on altering dosing plans at this time.

There is no dispute that second doses should be administered sometime near the first dose.

“They key is to expose the immune system at a time when it still recognizes” the immunity-stimulating ingredients in the vaccine, said Angela Rasmussen, a virus expert affiliated with Georgetown University.

During a public health emergency, “companies will tend to pick the shortest period they can that gives them that full, protective response,” said Dean of the University of Florida.

But it’s unclear when that critical window really starts to close in the body. Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University who supports delaying second doses, said she thought the body’s memory of the first injection could last at least a few months.

Doses of other routine vaccines, she noted, are scheduled several months apart or even longer, to great success. “Let’s vaccinate as many people as possible now, and give them the booster dose when they become available,” she said.

Dr. Robert Wachter, an infectious disease physician at the University of California, San Francisco, said he was originally skeptical of the idea of delaying second doses.

But the disappointingly slow vaccine rollout in the United States, coupled with concerns about a new and fast-spreading variant of the coronavirus, have changed his mind, and he now believes this is a strategy worth exploring.

“The past couple weeks have been sobering,” he said.

Other researchers are less eager to take the gamble. Delaying doses without strong supporting data “is like going into the Wild West,” said Dr. Phyllis Tien, an infectious disease physician at the University of California, San Francisco. “I think we need to follow what the evidence says: two shots 21 days apart for Pfizer, or 28 days apart for Moderna.”

Some experts also fear that delaying an immunity-boosting second dose might give the coronavirus more opportunity to multiply and mutate in partly protected people.

There is some evidence to support the alternative strategy of halving the dose of each shot, suggested Sunday by Slauoi of Operation Warp Speed.

In an interview on the CBS program “Face the Nation,” Slaoui pointed to data from clinical trials run by Moderna, whose vaccine is typically given in two doses, four weeks apart, each containing 100 micrograms of active ingredient.

In the trials, people between the ages of 18 and 55 who received two half-doses produced an “identical immune response to the 100 microgram dose,” Slaoui said. The FDA and Moderna are now considering implementing this regimen on a more widespread scale, he added.

While there’s little or no data to support the soundness of second dose delays, Slaoui said, “injecting half the volume” might constitute “a more responsible approach that will be based on facts and data to immunize more people.”

But Dean and John Moore, a vaccine expert at Cornell University, both pointed out that this regimen would still represent a departure from the ones rigorously tested in clinical trials.

A half-dose that elicits an immune response that appears similar to that triggered by a full dose may not in the end deliver the expected protection against the coronavirus, Moore noted. Halving doses “is not something I would want to see done unless it were absolutely necessary,” he said.

“Everyone is looking for solutions right now, because there is an urgent need for more doses,” Dean said. “But the dust has not settled on the best way to achieve this.”

As governments around the world rush to vaccinate their citizens against the surging coronavirus, scientists are locked in a heated debate over a surprising question: Is it wisest to hold back the second doses everyone will need, or to give as many people as possible an inoculation now — and push back the second doses until later?

As governments around the world rush to vaccinate their citizens against the surging coronavirus, scientists are locked in a heated debate over a surprising question: Is it wisest to hold back the second doses everyone will need, or to give as many people as possible an inoculation now — and push back the second doses until later? Since even the first shot appears to provide some protection against COVID-19, some experts believe that the shortest route to containing the virus is to disseminate the initial injections as widely as possible now. Officials in Britain have already elected to delay second doses of vaccines made by the pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca and Pfizer as a way of more widely distributing the partial protection afforded by a single shot. Also read| Brazil's private clinics seek India's COVAXIN vaccine Health officials in the United States have been adamantly opposed to the idea. “I would not be in favor of that,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, told CNN on Friday. “We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing.” But on Sunday, Moncef Slaoui, scientific adviser of Operation Warp Speed, the federal effort to accelerate vaccine development and distribution, offered up an intriguing alternative: giving some Americans two half-doses of the Moderna vaccine, a way to possibly milk more immunity from the nation’s limited vaccine supply. The rising debate reflects nationwide frustration that so few Americans have gotten the first doses — far below the number the Trump administration had hoped would be inoculated by the end of 2020. But the controversy itself carries risks in a country where health measures have been politicized and many remain hesitant to take the vaccine. “Even the appearance of tinkering has negatives, in terms of people having trust in the process,” said Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at the University of Florida. Also read| Mexican doctor admitted to ICU after receiving Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine The public rollout remained bumpy over the weekend. Seniors lined up early for vaccinations in one Tennessee town, but the doses were gone by 10 a.m. In Houston, the Health Department phone system crashed Saturday, the first day officials opened a free vaccination clinic to the public. Nursing home workers in Ohio were opting out of the vaccination in great numbers, according to Gov. Mike DeWine, while Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles, now a center of the pandemic, warned that vaccine distribution was moving far too slowly. Hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients during the past month have more than doubled in California. The vaccines authorized so far in the United States are produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. Britain has greenlit the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines. All of them are intended to be delivered in multiple doses on a strict schedule, relying on a tiered protection strategy. The first injection teaches the immune system to recognize a new pathogen by showing it a harmless version of some of the virus’ most salient features. WATCH| × After the body has had time to study up on this material, as it were, a second shot presents these features again, helping immune cells commit the lesson to memory. These subsequent doses are intended to increase the potency and durability of immunity. Clinical trials run by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna showed the vaccines were highly effective at preventing cases of COVID-19 when delivered in two doses separated by three or four weeks. Some protection appears to kick in after the first shot of vaccine, although it’s unclear how quickly it might wane. Still, some experts now argue that spreading vaccines more thinly across a population by concentrating on first doses might save more lives than making sure half as many individuals receive both doses on schedule. That would be a remarkable departure from the original plan. Since the vaccine rollout began last month in the United States, second shots of the vaccines have been held back to guarantee that they will be available on schedule for people who have already gotten their first injections. But in Britain, doctors have been told to postpone appointments for second doses that had been scheduled for January, so that those doses can be given instead as first shots to other patients. Officials are now pushing the second doses of both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines as far back as 12 weeks after the first one. Also read| US may halve Moderna's vaccine doses to inoculate more people In a regulatory document, British health officials said that AstraZeneca’s vaccine was 73% effective in clinical trial participants three weeks after the first dose was given and before the second dose was administered. (In cases in which participants never received a second dose, the interval ended 12 weeks after the first dose was given.) But some researchers fear the delayed-dose approach could prove disastrous, particularly in the United States, where vaccine rollouts are already stymied by logistical hurdles and a patchwork approach to prioritizing who gets the first jabs. “We have an issue with distribution, not the number of doses,” said Saad Omer, a vaccine expert at Yale University. “Doubling the number of doses doesn’t double your capacity to give doses.” Federal health officials said last week that some 14 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines had been shipped out across the country. But as of Saturday morning, just 4.2 million people in the United States had gotten their first shots. That number is most likely an underestimate because of lags in reporting. Still, the figure falls far short of the goal that federal health officials set as recently as last month to give 20 million people their first shots by the end of 2020. Also read| 'When in doubt, call it Covid': Trump accuses 'exaggeration' of tally Many of these rollout woes are caused by logistical issues — against the backdrop of a strained health care system and skepticism around vaccines. Freeing up more doses for first injections won’t solve problems like those, some researchers argue. Shweta Bansal, a mathematical biologist at Georgetown University, and others also raised concerns about the social and psychological effects of delaying second doses. “The longer the duration between doses, the more likely people are to forget to come back,” she said. “Or people may not remember which vaccine that they got, and we don’t know what a mix and match might do.” In an emailed statement, Dr. Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the Food and Drug Administration, endorsed only the strictly scheduled two-dose regimens that were tested in clinical trials of the vaccines. The “depth or duration of protection after a single dose of vaccine,” he said, cannot be determined from the research published so far. “Though it is quite a reasonable question to study a single-dose regimen in future clinical trials, we simply don’t currently have these data.” Slaoui of Operation Warp Speed said in an emailed statement Sunday that “the approach some countries are taking of delaying the booster shot could backfire and could decrease confidence in the vaccines.” The vaccine-makers themselves have taken divergent positions. Also read| A COVID-19 relief fund was only for black residents. Then came the lawsuits In a trial of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, volunteers in Britain were originally intended to receive two doses given four weeks apart. But some vaccinated participants ended up receiving their doses several months apart, and still acquired some protection against COVID-19. An extended gap between doses “gives you a lot of flexibility for how you administer your vaccines, dependent on the supply that you have,” said Menelas Pangalos, executive vice president of biopharmaceuticals research and development at AstraZeneca. Delayed dosing could help get countries “in very good shape for immunizing large swaths of their populations to protect them quickly.” Steven Danehy, a spokesperson for Pfizer, struck a far more conservative tone. “Although partial protection from the vaccine appears to begin as early as 12 days after the first dose, two doses of the vaccine are required to provide the maximum protection against the disease, a vaccine efficacy of 95%,” he said. “There are no data to demonstrate that protection after the first dose is sustained after 21 days,” he added. Ray Jordan, a spokesperson for Moderna, said the company could not comment on altering dosing plans at this time. There is no dispute that second doses should be administered sometime near the first dose. “They key is to expose the immune system at a time when it still recognizes” the immunity-stimulating ingredients in the vaccine, said Angela Rasmussen, a virus expert affiliated with Georgetown University. During a public health emergency, “companies will tend to pick the shortest period they can that gives them that full, protective response,” said Dean of the University of Florida. But it’s unclear when that critical window really starts to close in the body. Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University who supports delaying second doses, said she thought the body’s memory of the first injection could last at least a few months. Doses of other routine vaccines, she noted, are scheduled several months apart or even longer, to great success. “Let’s vaccinate as many people as possible now, and give them the booster dose when they become available,” she said. Dr. Robert Wachter, an infectious disease physician at the University of California, San Francisco, said he was originally skeptical of the idea of delaying second doses. But the disappointingly slow vaccine rollout in the United States, coupled with concerns about a new and fast-spreading variant of the coronavirus, have changed his mind, and he now believes this is a strategy worth exploring. “The past couple weeks have been sobering,” he said. Other researchers are less eager to take the gamble. Delaying doses without strong supporting data “is like going into the Wild West,” said Dr. Phyllis Tien, an infectious disease physician at the University of California, San Francisco. “I think we need to follow what the evidence says: two shots 21 days apart for Pfizer, or 28 days apart for Moderna.” Some experts also fear that delaying an immunity-boosting second dose might give the coronavirus more opportunity to multiply and mutate in partly protected people. There is some evidence to support the alternative strategy of halving the dose of each shot, suggested Sunday by Slauoi of Operation Warp Speed. In an interview on the CBS program “Face the Nation,” Slaoui pointed to data from clinical trials run by Moderna, whose vaccine is typically given in two doses, four weeks apart, each containing 100 micrograms of active ingredient. In the trials, people between the ages of 18 and 55 who received two half-doses produced an “identical immune response to the 100 microgram dose,” Slaoui said. The FDA and Moderna are now considering implementing this regimen on a more widespread scale, he added. While there’s little or no data to support the soundness of second dose delays, Slaoui said, “injecting half the volume” might constitute “a more responsible approach that will be based on facts and data to immunize more people.” But Dean and John Moore, a vaccine expert at Cornell University, both pointed out that this regimen would still represent a departure from the ones rigorously tested in clinical trials. A half-dose that elicits an immune response that appears similar to that triggered by a full dose may not in the end deliver the expected protection against the coronavirus, Moore noted. Halving doses “is not something I would want to see done unless it were absolutely necessary,” he said. “Everyone is looking for solutions right now, because there is an urgent need for more doses,” Dean said. “But the dust has not settled on the best way to achieve this.”

As rollout falters, scientists debate new vaccination tactics

After weeks of administering the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, the UK has become the first country to give the first shot of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine on Monday.

UK begins rollout of AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine

While the world is struggling to get access to coronavirus vaccine, a&nbsp;pharmacist was caught purposely ruining nearly&nbsp;500 doses of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in a hospital in Wisconsin, US.

An employee of&nbsp;Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, Wisconsin, the pharmacist&nbsp;deliberately removed vaccine from the refrigerator to spoil the doses being saved for locals of the area. Nearly 57 vials of&nbsp;vaccine were found left out of cold storage earlier this week, officials reported.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/who-grants-emergency-validation-to-pfizer-biontech-covid-vaccine-353709">WHO grants 'emergency validation' to Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine</a>

Each vial contains 10 doses and nearly 60 doses were already administered by the time the officials realised the vaccine had been kept&nbsp;unrefrigerated long enough for the vaccine to become ineffective. Following this, the remaining 500 doses were thrown out by the hospital staff.

The pharmacist has since been fired for the blunder, although the reason behind this sabotage has not been made clear yet by the authorities or the pharmaceutical company.

While the doses were thrown out, Dr. Jeff Bahr, Aurora Health Care Medical Group president has reported that Moderna Inc has assured that any recipients of the&nbsp;refrigerated vaccine shot will not be facing any side effects.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/videos/gravitas-pandemic-diminishes-new-years-magic-353691">WATCH|</a>

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The people who were administered with the ineffective doses of the Modern vaccine are being notified and will be called in again for another shot of the same vaccine. This will also lead to a further delay for nearly 570 people who were scheduled for the shot in the coming days. First priority will now be given to the people who were administered the ineffective shot.

While Bahr said there was no evidence that the pharmacist tampered with the doses in any other way rather than placing them out of the refrigerator, Grafton police said in a statement that the pharmacist "knew the spoiled vaccinations would be useless and that people who received the vaccinations would think they had been vaccinated against the virus when in fact they were not."

The pharmacist had earlier called it an 'inadvertent error' in the initial stages of the investigation, but later admitted to deliberately placing the doses out of the refrigerator, hospital officials reported.

While the world is struggling to get access to coronavirus vaccine, a pharmacist was caught purposely ruining nearly 500 doses of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in a hospital in Wisconsin, US.

While the world is struggling to get access to coronavirus vaccine, a pharmacist was caught purposely ruining nearly 500 doses of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in a hospital in Wisconsin, US. An employee of Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, Wisconsin, the pharmacist deliberately removed vaccine from the refrigerator to spoil the doses being saved for locals of the area. Nearly 57 vials of vaccine were found left out of cold storage earlier this week, officials reported. Also read| WHO grants 'emergency validation' to Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine Each vial contains 10 doses and nearly 60 doses were already administered by the time the officials realised the vaccine had been kept unrefrigerated long enough for the vaccine to become ineffective. Following this, the remaining 500 doses were thrown out by the hospital staff. The pharmacist has since been fired for the blunder, although the reason behind this sabotage has not been made clear yet by the authorities or the pharmaceutical company. While the doses were thrown out, Dr. Jeff Bahr, Aurora Health Care Medical Group president has reported that Moderna Inc has assured that any recipients of the refrigerated vaccine shot will not be facing any side effects. WATCH| × The people who were administered with the ineffective doses of the Modern vaccine are being notified and will be called in again for another shot of the same vaccine. This will also lead to a further delay for nearly 570 people who were scheduled for the shot in the coming days. First priority will now be given to the people who were administered the ineffective shot. While Bahr said there was no evidence that the pharmacist tampered with the doses in any other way rather than placing them out of the refrigerator, Grafton police said in a statement that the pharmacist "knew the spoiled vaccinations would be useless and that people who received the vaccinations would think they had been vaccinated against the virus when in fact they were not." The pharmacist had earlier called it an 'inadvertent error' in the initial stages of the investigation, but later admitted to deliberately placing the doses out of the refrigerator, hospital officials reported.

Wisconsin pharmacist arrested for removing 500 doses of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine

In yet another coronavirus vaccine-related accident, a&nbsp;West Virginia clinic accidentally injected antibodies to 44 people&nbsp;instead of&nbsp;Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine, the&nbsp;West Virginia National Guard reported.

People were administered with&nbsp;a Regeneron antibody product, instead of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.&nbsp;This incident was soon identified and reported to the higher authorities.&nbsp;

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/who-grants-emergency-validation-to-pfizer-biontech-covid-vaccine-353709">WHO grants 'emergency validation' to Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine</a>

"The moment that we were notified of what happened, we acted right away to correct it, and we immediately reviewed and strengthened our protocols to enhance our distribution process to prevent this from happening again,"&nbsp;said Maj. Gen. James Hoyer, adjutant general of the West Virginia National Guard, in the statement.

After the incident was identified, the Boone County Health Department reached out to 42 people who had been wrongfully injected with antibodies and has now given them the option of rescheduling for their shot of the vaccine on Thursday.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/more-infections-variant-of-covid-19-found-in-florida-353754" hreflang="en">More infections variant of Covid-19 found in Florida</a>

Officers have claimed it to be an isolated incident, but are still unsure about how did the mix-up of the antibodies and the vaccine occur. An investigation was immediately launched into the matter by the National Guard and the local authorities.

The experts have also assured that since the drug was administered as a shot, it will not come up as a hurdle in the process of&nbsp;inoculation of the affected people.

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Clay Marsha, the&nbsp;coordinator of West Virginia’s coronavirus task force also reported that the drug administered is the same one that was given to the outgoing US President Donald Trump when he had tested positive for the novel coronavirus. "In fact, this product was the same one that was administered to President Trump when he became infected," he said. "While this injection is not harmful, it was substituted for the vaccine."

The hospital officials and staff have claimed that the vaccine was also not incorrectly labelled, and therefore the reason and confusion behind the mix-up stays a mystery for now.

In yet another coronavirus vaccine-related accident, a West Virginia clinic accidentally injected antibodies to 44 people instead of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine, the West Virginia National Guard reported.

In yet another coronavirus vaccine-related accident, a West Virginia clinic accidentally injected antibodies to 44 people instead of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine, the West Virginia National Guard reported. People were administered with a Regeneron antibody product, instead of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. This incident was soon identified and reported to the higher authorities. Also read| WHO grants 'emergency validation' to Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine "The moment that we were notified of what happened, we acted right away to correct it, and we immediately reviewed and strengthened our protocols to enhance our distribution process to prevent this from happening again," said Maj. Gen. James Hoyer, adjutant general of the West Virginia National Guard, in the statement. After the incident was identified, the Boone County Health Department reached out to 42 people who had been wrongfully injected with antibodies and has now given them the option of rescheduling for their shot of the vaccine on Thursday. Also read| More infections variant of Covid-19 found in Florida Officers have claimed it to be an isolated incident, but are still unsure about how did the mix-up of the antibodies and the vaccine occur. An investigation was immediately launched into the matter by the National Guard and the local authorities. The experts have also assured that since the drug was administered as a shot, it will not come up as a hurdle in the process of inoculation of the affected people. WATCH| × Clay Marsha, the coordinator of West Virginia’s coronavirus task force also reported that the drug administered is the same one that was given to the outgoing US President Donald Trump when he had tested positive for the novel coronavirus. "In fact, this product was the same one that was administered to President Trump when he became infected," he said. "While this injection is not harmful, it was substituted for the vaccine." The hospital officials and staff have claimed that the vaccine was also not incorrectly labelled, and therefore the reason and confusion behind the mix-up stays a mystery for now.

West Virginia: 44 people accidentally injected with antibodies instead of COVID-19 vaccine

India's process of vaccine roll out might take a little longer. An expert panel backed by India's drug regulator will seek more data from the leading vaccine candidates Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Oxford University's COVID-19 vaccine before granting emergency use approval.

WION Dispatch: Indian experts take cautions approach,

President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday criticized the speed of vaccine distribution under the Trump administration and promised to step up the pace when he takes office, while delivering a sober warning about the toll of the coronavirus pandemic.

Biden offered a bleak assessment of the months ahead, saying they would be “a very tough period for our nation,” and he exhorted Americans to make the sacrifices necessary to overcome the devastation of the virus.

“It’s going to take all the grit and determination we have as Americans to get it done,” he said.

He warned that if the current pace of administering vaccines under President Donald Trump continued, “it’s going to take years, not months,” to vaccinate the nation. And he said he had directed his team to prepare a more aggressive effort once he takes office in three weeks, pledging “to move heaven and earth to get us going in the right direction.”

“This is going to be the greatest operational challenge we’ve ever faced as a nation,” Biden said during an address in Wilmington, Delaware, “but we’re going to get it done.”

Biden will assume the presidency amid a health crisis that has already killed more than 336,000 people in the United States and inflicted widespread economic disruption. Distributing vaccines to the American people will pose an early test for him.

Earlier this month, federal officials had said their goal was for 20 million people to get their first shots of a vaccine by the end of the year. As of Monday morning, 11.4 million doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines had been sent out across the country, but just 2.1 million people in the United States had received their first dose, according to a dashboard maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which most likely reflects a reporting lag of several days.

Biden has vowed to get 100 million vaccine shots into the arms of Americans in his first 100 days in office; vaccination currently requires two shots, which would suggest that about 50 million people would be vaccinated in that time.

On Tuesday, Biden announced new members of his COVID-19 response team, including coordinators to handle vaccinations, testing and supply chain management.

Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s effort to fast-track the development and rollout of vaccines, spent billions of dollars to help drug companies test and manufacture their vaccines and ensure that they would have a buyer. Those investments helped vaccines become available much faster than many experts had predicted.

Still, getting those vaccines into arms has gotten off to a slower start than federal officials had hoped.

“We certainly are not at the numbers that we wanted to be at the end of December,” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, said on CNN on Tuesday. But he added, “I believe that as we get into January, we are going to see an increase in the momentum.”

Moncef Slaoui, the scientific adviser to Operation Warp Speed, said as recently as last week that the odds were high that the first 100 million people in the United States would be immunized by the end of March.

Michael Pratt, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, defended the pace of the vaccine rollout. He said in a statement that it was “a testament to the success of Operation Warp Speed” that 20 million doses had already been made available to states and other jurisdictions. (Not all of the doses have been shipped.) And Trump said in a tweet that it was “up to the States to distribute the vaccines once brought to the designated areas by the Federal Government.”

The pace of inoculation in the United States is expected to pick up in the first months of next year as more vaccine supply became becomes available and more facilities begin giving it out to a wider swath selection of Americans. So far, vaccines have been given primarily to health care workers at hospitals and to residents of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.

In his remarks Tuesday, Biden said he could “see a return to normalcy in the next year,” but he also offered an ominous forecast for the near future. “We need to steel our spines for what’s ahead,” he said, adding that the next few months could be “the toughest during this entire pandemic.”

“I know it’s hard to hear, but it’s the truth,” he said.

He expressed hope that Trump, who has resisted wearing a mask and mocked Biden during the campaign for wearing one, could still influence the public in a positive way.

“It would make a huge difference for President Trump to say, ‘Wear masks,’” Biden said. “I hope the president will clearly and unambiguously urge all Americans to take the vaccine once it’s available.”

Hours before Biden spoke, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris received her first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. The shot was administered on live television, just as Biden’s was last week when he received the Pfizer vaccine at a hospital in Delaware.

Harris received the Moderna vaccine at United Medical Center, a public hospital in southeast Washington. She encouraged Americans to get vaccinated as well, saying: “It is relatively painless. It happens really quickly. It is safe.” Her husband, Doug Emhoff, also received the vaccine on Tuesday.

State and local officials have long said they need more money to distribute and administer vaccines. The $900 billion relief package that Trump signed into law on Sunday sets aside more than $8 billion for vaccine distribution, roughly in line with the $8.4 billion that health departments requested from Congress. The CDC in September had sent $200 million to the states for the effort, followed by another $140 million this month.

The government has said the goal is to allow anyone who wants a vaccine to get one by June, but it has not yet secured enough supply of vaccines that have been authorized for use. The United States has secured commitments for enough vaccine to vaccinate 200 million of the roughly 260 million adult Americans who are eligible to be inoculated.

Moderna has agreed to provide 200 million doses of its vaccine to the United States, with the first half coming by the end of March and the second half coming by the end of June.

Pfizer has also agreed to provide 200 million doses. With each person requiring two shots, it leaves the supply 120 million doses short.

Over the summer, before its vaccine had been shown to be effective, Pfizer agreed to provide an initial 100 million doses to the United States. At the time, the government passed on an offer from Pfizer to lock in additional supplies.

But as it became clear that more doses were needed, the government resumed talks with Pfizer. In a deal announced last week, Pfizer agreed to provide an additional 70 million doses by the end of June and another 30 million by the end of July.

As part of the deal, the government agreed to invoke the Defense Production Act, a Korean War-era law that allows the government to more quickly secure key supplies by forcing suppliers to prioritize orders from a specific contractor. Operation Warp Speed has so far used the Defense Production Act 18 times, including to help produce glass vials and syringes, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Biden said on Tuesday that he would also make use of the Defense Production Act upon taking office, saying he would “order private industry to accelerate the making of the materials needed for the vaccines as well as protective gear.”

The government has a few avenues for providing vaccines to the 60 million American adults not covered by the existing deals with Pfizer and Moderna.

It may be able to exercise options to buy more doses from Pfizer or Moderna. The government could also turn to vaccines from other manufacturers expected to report late-stage results in the coming weeks. Johnson &amp;amp; Johnson is expecting results late next month from a trial of its single-shot vaccine, a format that would make it easier to deliver than the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. And a U.S. trial evaluating a two-shot vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford could have results in February.

On Tuesday, Biden acknowledged he was not yet in control of the government’s virus response, saying, “My ability to change the direction of this pandemic starts in three weeks.” And he made clear that he would need help from Congress next year to provide additional funding to carry out his plans.

But even as he warned about the difficult weeks and months ahead, he struck an optimistic note about the longer term.

“We’re going to get through this,” he said. “Brighter days are coming.”

President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday criticized the speed of vaccine distribution under the Trump administration and promised to step up the pace when he takes office, while delivering a sober warning about the toll of the coronavirus pandemic.

President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday criticized the speed of vaccine distribution under the Trump administration and promised to step up the pace when he takes office, while delivering a sober warning about the toll of the coronavirus pandemic. Biden offered a bleak assessment of the months ahead, saying they would be “a very tough period for our nation,” and he exhorted Americans to make the sacrifices necessary to overcome the devastation of the virus. “It’s going to take all the grit and determination we have as Americans to get it done,” he said. He warned that if the current pace of administering vaccines under President Donald Trump continued, “it’s going to take years, not months,” to vaccinate the nation. And he said he had directed his team to prepare a more aggressive effort once he takes office in three weeks, pledging “to move heaven and earth to get us going in the right direction.” “This is going to be the greatest operational challenge we’ve ever faced as a nation,” Biden said during an address in Wilmington, Delaware, “but we’re going to get it done.” Biden will assume the presidency amid a health crisis that has already killed more than 336,000 people in the United States and inflicted widespread economic disruption. Distributing vaccines to the American people will pose an early test for him. Earlier this month, federal officials had said their goal was for 20 million people to get their first shots of a vaccine by the end of the year. As of Monday morning, 11.4 million doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines had been sent out across the country, but just 2.1 million people in the United States had received their first dose, according to a dashboard maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which most likely reflects a reporting lag of several days. Biden has vowed to get 100 million vaccine shots into the arms of Americans in his first 100 days in office; vaccination currently requires two shots, which would suggest that about 50 million people would be vaccinated in that time. On Tuesday, Biden announced new members of his COVID-19 response team, including coordinators to handle vaccinations, testing and supply chain management. Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s effort to fast-track the development and rollout of vaccines, spent billions of dollars to help drug companies test and manufacture their vaccines and ensure that they would have a buyer. Those investments helped vaccines become available much faster than many experts had predicted. Still, getting those vaccines into arms has gotten off to a slower start than federal officials had hoped. “We certainly are not at the numbers that we wanted to be at the end of December,” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, said on CNN on Tuesday. But he added, “I believe that as we get into January, we are going to see an increase in the momentum.” Moncef Slaoui, the scientific adviser to Operation Warp Speed, said as recently as last week that the odds were high that the first 100 million people in the United States would be immunized by the end of March. Michael Pratt, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, defended the pace of the vaccine rollout. He said in a statement that it was “a testament to the success of Operation Warp Speed” that 20 million doses had already been made available to states and other jurisdictions. (Not all of the doses have been shipped.) And Trump said in a tweet that it was “up to the States to distribute the vaccines once brought to the designated areas by the Federal Government.” The pace of inoculation in the United States is expected to pick up in the first months of next year as more vaccine supply became becomes available and more facilities begin giving it out to a wider swath selection of Americans. So far, vaccines have been given primarily to health care workers at hospitals and to residents of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. In his remarks Tuesday, Biden said he could “see a return to normalcy in the next year,” but he also offered an ominous forecast for the near future. “We need to steel our spines for what’s ahead,” he said, adding that the next few months could be “the toughest during this entire pandemic.” “I know it’s hard to hear, but it’s the truth,” he said. He expressed hope that Trump, who has resisted wearing a mask and mocked Biden during the campaign for wearing one, could still influence the public in a positive way. “It would make a huge difference for President Trump to say, ‘Wear masks,’” Biden said. “I hope the president will clearly and unambiguously urge all Americans to take the vaccine once it’s available.” Hours before Biden spoke, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris received her first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. The shot was administered on live television, just as Biden’s was last week when he received the Pfizer vaccine at a hospital in Delaware. Harris received the Moderna vaccine at United Medical Center, a public hospital in southeast Washington. She encouraged Americans to get vaccinated as well, saying: “It is relatively painless. It happens really quickly. It is safe.” Her husband, Doug Emhoff, also received the vaccine on Tuesday. State and local officials have long said they need more money to distribute and administer vaccines. The $900 billion relief package that Trump signed into law on Sunday sets aside more than $8 billion for vaccine distribution, roughly in line with the $8.4 billion that health departments requested from Congress. The CDC in September had sent $200 million to the states for the effort, followed by another $140 million this month. The government has said the goal is to allow anyone who wants a vaccine to get one by June, but it has not yet secured enough supply of vaccines that have been authorized for use. The United States has secured commitments for enough vaccine to vaccinate 200 million of the roughly 260 million adult Americans who are eligible to be inoculated. Moderna has agreed to provide 200 million doses of its vaccine to the United States, with the first half coming by the end of March and the second half coming by the end of June. Pfizer has also agreed to provide 200 million doses. With each person requiring two shots, it leaves the supply 120 million doses short. Over the summer, before its vaccine had been shown to be effective, Pfizer agreed to provide an initial 100 million doses to the United States. At the time, the government passed on an offer from Pfizer to lock in additional supplies. But as it became clear that more doses were needed, the government resumed talks with Pfizer. In a deal announced last week, Pfizer agreed to provide an additional 70 million doses by the end of June and another 30 million by the end of July. As part of the deal, the government agreed to invoke the Defense Production Act, a Korean War-era law that allows the government to more quickly secure key supplies by forcing suppliers to prioritize orders from a specific contractor. Operation Warp Speed has so far used the Defense Production Act 18 times, including to help produce glass vials and syringes, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Biden said on Tuesday that he would also make use of the Defense Production Act upon taking office, saying he would “order private industry to accelerate the making of the materials needed for the vaccines as well as protective gear.” The government has a few avenues for providing vaccines to the 60 million American adults not covered by the existing deals with Pfizer and Moderna. It may be able to exercise options to buy more doses from Pfizer or Moderna. The government could also turn to vaccines from other manufacturers expected to report late-stage results in the coming weeks. Johnson &amp; Johnson is expecting results late next month from a trial of its single-shot vaccine, a format that would make it easier to deliver than the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. And a U.S. trial evaluating a two-shot vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford could have results in February. On Tuesday, Biden acknowledged he was not yet in control of the government’s virus response, saying, “My ability to change the direction of this pandemic starts in three weeks.” And he made clear that he would need help from Congress next year to provide additional funding to carry out his plans. But even as he warned about the difficult weeks and months ahead, he struck an optimistic note about the longer term. “We’re going to get through this,” he said. “Brighter days are coming.”

Biden criticizes Trump on vaccine distribution and pledges to pick up pace

A Chinese drugmaker Sinopharm said on Wednesday that its coronavirus vaccine was found to be 79.3 per cent effective at preventing infection in preliminary data from the final round of testing, moving Beijing closer to possibly being able to fulfill its pledge to supply other developing countries.

This is lower than rival jabs developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna but a potential breakthrough in the battle to stem the pandemic in Asia.

China has been racing against the West to develop its own Covid-19 vaccines, with five already in large-scale Phase 3 clinical trials.

But Wednesday's announced was the first data released regarding the efficacy of a Chinese vaccine candidate.

"The protective effect of the (Sinopharm CNBG Beijing) vaccine against Covid-19 is 79.34 percent," said the Beijing Institute of Biological Products, a Sinopharm subsidiary.

Sinopharm has applied to China's drug regulator for approval of the inactivated coronavirus vaccine, the statement said, a type of inoculation using particles of the pathogen.

But China has struggled to gain international trust for its vaccine candidates, hindered by a lack of transparency on test results.

It has also been slow to complete Phase 3 trials, which had to be conducted abroad due to China's success at curbing the spread of Covid-19 within its own borders.

Chinese officials have repeatedly assured the public of the vaccines' safety, claiming that there have been no serious adverse reactions.

More than one million people have already been vaccinated with unapproved vaccines in China under its emergency use programme, including frontline health workers, state-owned enterprise employees and workers planning to travel abroad.

The United Arab Emirates approved a Sinopharm vaccine earlier this month, becoming the first foreign country to approve a China-developed Covid-19 vaccine. It said the vaccine was 86 percent effective, according to interim results of a Phase 3 trial.

Beijing has pledged to share the vaccine at a fair cost -- a potential boost for poorer Asian countries who are otherwise reliant on limited distribution offered by the COVAX scheme.

"China has made the firm commitment that after China's new coronavirus vaccines are completed and put into use, they will serve as a global public product and be supplied to the world at a fair and reasonable price," foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Friday.

"We will also give priority to developing countries for vaccines. This will be made through a variety of ways, including through donations and aid." 
 
(With inputs from agencies)

A Chinese drugmaker Sinopharm said on Wednesday that its coronavirus vaccine was found to be 79.3 per cent effective at preventing infection in preliminary data from the final round of testing, moving Beijing closer to possibly being able to fulfill its pledge to supply other developing countries.

A Chinese drugmaker Sinopharm said on Wednesday that its coronavirus vaccine was found to be 79.3 per cent effective at preventing infection in preliminary data from the final round of testing, moving Beijing closer to possibly being able to fulfill its pledge to supply other developing countries. This is lower than rival jabs developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna but a potential breakthrough in the battle to stem the pandemic in Asia. China has been racing against the West to develop its own Covid-19 vaccines, with five already in large-scale Phase 3 clinical trials. But Wednesday's announced was the first data released regarding the efficacy of a Chinese vaccine candidate. "The protective effect of the (Sinopharm CNBG Beijing) vaccine against Covid-19 is 79.34 percent," said the Beijing Institute of Biological Products, a Sinopharm subsidiary. Sinopharm has applied to China's drug regulator for approval of the inactivated coronavirus vaccine, the statement said, a type of inoculation using particles of the pathogen. But China has struggled to gain international trust for its vaccine candidates, hindered by a lack of transparency on test results. It has also been slow to complete Phase 3 trials, which had to be conducted abroad due to China's success at curbing the spread of Covid-19 within its own borders. Chinese officials have repeatedly assured the public of the vaccines' safety, claiming that there have been no serious adverse reactions. More than one million people have already been vaccinated with unapproved vaccines in China under its emergency use programme, including frontline health workers, state-owned enterprise employees and workers planning to travel abroad. The United Arab Emirates approved a Sinopharm vaccine earlier this month, becoming the first foreign country to approve a China-developed Covid-19 vaccine. It said the vaccine was 86 percent effective, according to interim results of a Phase 3 trial. Beijing has pledged to share the vaccine at a fair cost -- a potential boost for poorer Asian countries who are otherwise reliant on limited distribution offered by the COVAX scheme. "China has made the firm commitment that after China's new coronavirus vaccines are completed and put into use, they will serve as a global public product and be supplied to the world at a fair and reasonable price," foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Friday. "We will also give priority to developing countries for vaccines. This will be made through a variety of ways, including through donations and aid." (With inputs from agencies)

Chinese drugmaker: Sinopharm vaccine 79.3% effective in final tests

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is now ready to take shots of country’s indigenous vaccine Sputnik V against the coronavirus, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"He said he will be vaccinated, he made this decision and was waiting until all formalities are completed," the spokesman was quoted as saying to Rossiya 1 TV Channel on its website.

Russia launched a voluntary vaccination programme with the Russia-made Sputnik V vaccine earlier in December, starting with the most vulnerable groups in Moscow.

Sputnik V, created by Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute, made headlines in August when it became the first vaccine against Covid-19 to be registered anywhere in the world.

People over the age of 60 may begin to apply for shots on Monday, Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on his website on Sunday, the day after the Russian health ministry said the vaccine was approved for use by elderly people after a separate trial.

68-year-old Putin said earlier that the Russian vaccine was effective and safe and he saw no reason not to be vaccinated adding that he was waiting until it became available.

Since the start of the coronavirus outbreak in Russia, Putin has mainly worked remotely, held meetings via videolink and limited travel.

He said in August that one of his daughters had taken part in the clinical trial of the vaccine and felt well afterwards. 
 
(With inputs from agencies)

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is now ready to take shots of country’s indigenous vaccine Sputnik V against the coronavirus, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is now ready to take shots of country’s indigenous vaccine Sputnik V against the coronavirus, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "He said he will be vaccinated, he made this decision and was waiting until all formalities are completed," the spokesman was quoted as saying to Rossiya 1 TV Channel on its website. Russia launched a voluntary vaccination programme with the Russia-made Sputnik V vaccine earlier in December, starting with the most vulnerable groups in Moscow. Sputnik V, created by Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute, made headlines in August when it became the first vaccine against Covid-19 to be registered anywhere in the world. People over the age of 60 may begin to apply for shots on Monday, Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on his website on Sunday, the day after the Russian health ministry said the vaccine was approved for use by elderly people after a separate trial. 68-year-old Putin said earlier that the Russian vaccine was effective and safe and he saw no reason not to be vaccinated adding that he was waiting until it became available. Since the start of the coronavirus outbreak in Russia, Putin has mainly worked remotely, held meetings via videolink and limited travel. He said in August that one of his daughters had taken part in the clinical trial of the vaccine and felt well afterwards. (With inputs from agencies)

Vladimir Putin to receive Russian COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V soon

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