Live news on coronavirus: UK to start vaccines on Tuesday; WHO criticizes mandatory vaccines | World News

As countries begin rolling out vaccines in the coming weeks and months, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged them to prioritize those most in need.

“These are not easy decisions,” he said, setting the WHO guidelines.

AFP: Tedros said healthcare workers at high risk of infection were a top priority, in addition to people at increased risk of serious illness or death due to their age, easing pressure on healthcare systems.

He said they should later be followed by people at higher risk of serious illness due to underlying conditions and marginalized groups at higher risk.

The WHO ACT-Accelerator mechanism, which pools risk and reward between rich and poor countries, is a global attempt to accelerate the development of Covid-19 vaccines, tests and treatments, and buy and distribute them evenly regardless of the wealth.

However, the scheme urgently needs $ 4.3 billion, with another $ 23.9 billion required in 2021.

“What we need now globally is not to enter the land of empty promises in terms of supporting the ACT-Accelerator,” Ryan said, urging wealthy donors to join.

“The means to do this assignment fairly and equitably are there. But what is not available is the financing for that to happen in 2021.

“There is too much of a gap between rhetoric and reality.”

The World Health Organization said on Monday that persuading people of the merits of a Covid-19 vaccine would be far more effective than trying to make jabs mandatory, reports AFP.

The WHO said it would be up to individual countries how they want to carry out their vaccination campaigns against the coronavirus pandemic.

But the UN health agency insisted that making it mandatory to get vaccinated against the disease would be the wrong way to go, adding that there have been examples in the past of forcing the use of vaccines only to see it backfire with further opposition to them.

“I don’t think mandates are the direction to go here, especially for these vaccines,” Kate O’Brien, director of the WHO immunization department, told a virtual press conference.

“It is a much better position to encourage and facilitate vaccination without those kinds of requirements.

“I don’t think we imagine that any country creates a mandate for vaccination.”

O’Brien said there may be certain hospital professions in which vaccination is necessary or highly recommended for staff and patient safety.

But WHO experts admitted there is a battle to be fought to convince the general public to apply the vaccines as they become available.

Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.

My name is Helen sullivan and I will bring you the latest updates from around the world.

You can find me on twitter @helenrsullivan to ask me what I would like for Christmas.

Britain will administer the first doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine on Tuesday, with the NHS giving top priority to people over 80, frontline healthcare workers and nursing home staff and residents.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization said Monday that persuading people of the merits of a Covid-19 vaccine would be far more effective than trying to make jabs mandatory.

The WHO said it would be up to individual countries how they want to carry out their vaccination campaigns against the coronavirus pandemic.

These are the key developments of the last hours:

• France is unlikely to end the blockade as planned on December 15. The top official of the French Health Ministry, Jérôme Salomon, backed the grim assessment previously attributed to Health Minister Olivier Véran, who said the country was unlikely to meet the conditions required to end its national shutdown on December 15. .
• DoRudy Giuliani, nald Trump’s personal attorney, who tested positive for Covid-19, is fine in the hospital and has no fever. said the president of the United States. “Rudy is fine,” Trump told reporters. “There is no temperature, and he actually called me this morning.”
• Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada will receive up to 249,000 doses of the vaccine. developed by the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer and the German BioNTech before the end of December.
• Italy’s Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese discovered during a cabinet meeting on Monday that she had coronavirus. prompting her to hastily leave the meeting. Political sources told Reuters. Citing a source in his office, the news agency reported that Lamorgese was asymptomatic and tested positive after undergoing a routine swab before the meeting.
• Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said that the government will offer Covid-19 vaccines to all Brazilians, No cost or obligation, once the health regulator Anvisa gives it scientific and legal approval. In a post on his Twitter account, Bolsonaro also said that the Ministry of Economy has pledged that there will be no shortage of resources for all who want a vaccine to obtain it.