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Europeans also receive the corona vaccine from the American manufacturer Moderna, which is seen as very promising. The EU Commission has negotiated a framework contract for up to 160 million cans, as Commission Head Ursula von der Leyen announced on Tuesday. The contract will be formally sealed on Wednesday.
The EU Commission now has contracts with the manufacturers of the three vaccines, which are given the best chance of rapid approval in the coming weeks. Besides Moderna, these are Biontech / Pfizer and Astra Zeneca. All three had announced promising test data in recent days. Consequently, all three vaccines are effective and well tolerated.
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No corona vaccine has yet been approved in Europe. The federal government and the EU Commission expect the first licenses to be issued in December. Before this, however, an examination by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is necessary.
The modern vaccine that has been ordered now is 94.5 percent effective according to the manufacturer. The EMA has started what is known as an ongoing review process for readiness, the goal of which is to get approval relatively quickly.
Qantas airline is considering the introduction of electronic vaccination records
Australian airline Qantas is considering introducing a corona vaccination pass for passengers. If a vaccine is widely available, Qantas could require international travelers to get vaccinated before a flight, company director Alan Joyce told Network Nine. Qantas has already spoken with other airlines about a vaccination certificate.
Joyce said such a document would require a lot of thought, logistics and possibly government help. Think of an electronic vaccination pass that certifies which vaccine the holder has received and whether it will be accepted at their travel destination.
Australia has imposed one of the toughest travel restrictions in the world due to the pandemic. International travel is only possible under certain conditions. In the country of 26 million inhabitants, there have been almost 28,000 infections and a little more than 900 deaths from the virus.
WHO warns against acceleration of the wreath during Christmas
The World Health Organization (WHO) warns against relaxing wreath restrictions during Christmas if authorities do not have the infection process fully under control. “If people infect each other and if a country does not have the necessary infrastructure to pursue cases, isolate contacts and quarantine them, relaxation will lead to further contagion,” said the WHO emergency aid coordinator. , Mike Ryan, in Geneva.
Governments must be aware that they can only weigh the risks. There is no scientific formula that indicates which easing is justifiable or how many vacations are safe without significant requirements. “There is a higher and lower risk of the situation getting better or worse,” he said. Governments would have to weigh the risks of the virus spreading further against the economic and social risks of maintaining restrictions. If people are not allowed to gather over the holidays, there is great frustration, crown fatigue and possibly resistance to the measures, he admitted.
Oxford-developed vaccine shows 70 percent effectiveness
According to the BBC, the corona vaccine developed by the University of Oxford has been shown to be 70 percent effective in tests. This is both a triumph and a disappointment in view of the fact that the two vaccines from the US company Pfizer, which works with the German company Biontech, and its competitor Moderna each showed 95 percent effectiveness. However, the vaccine developed by British researchers is cheaper and easier to transport, according to the report. The Oxford scientists work with the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company Astra Zeneca.
According to the BBC, the vaccine was tested on more than 20,000 volunteers, one from the UK and the other from Brazil. There were 30 illnesses in the group that received two injections of the drug. There were 101 infections in the control group, which only received a placebo. The end result is a 70 percent effectiveness. Surprisingly, however, the researchers found that the level of protection had increased to 90 percent if the test subjects had been given a half dose and then a full dose. The background for this difference is not yet clear.
The UK government has reserved 100 million doses of vaccine. That should be enough to vaccinate 50 million people. Almost 67 million people live in the UK. Britain wants to start the first vaccines before Christmas. The announced Health Minister Matt Hancock. According to him, most vaccinations will take place from January to March. “And we hope that sometime after Easter we can gradually return to normal.”
Fauci warns about the spread of the virus during Thanksgiving
With a view to the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States next Thursday, virologist Anthony Fauci has warned of a further spread of the corona virus. “People at airports” are “likely to” cause even more problems in the United States than we already have, “Fauci, who is also a member of the US government’s Corona task force, warned on CBS TV Sunday. Cases carried over to Thanksgiving will only show up in the statistics weeks later, making it even more difficult to control the virus.
The harvest festival is celebrated on November 26. Many US citizens often visit family and friends for this, and internal traffic increases considerably during the holidays. Pictures from last weekend show crowded airports, many people seem to be flying anyway. More than two million people were screened at US airports on Friday and Saturday, according to the TSA. It is the first time since mid-March that this number has exceeded one million.
The vaccines are likely to be available in the coming months, Fauci said. Until then, Americans would have to resist and take precautions to contain the virus. This includes, for example, limiting holiday gatherings to people in the same household, wearing masks, keeping a distance, and washing hands.
Vaccinations in the U.S. Possibly as of December 12
The first vaccines against the corona virus could possibly be distributed in the United States on December 12. After approval by the US pharmaceutical agency FDA, the vaccine from pharmaceutical company Pfizer and its German partner Biontech could be delivered to the US states within 24 hours, said Operation Warp Speed program director Moncef Slaoui, the CNN television station. His program is in charge of vaccination against the coronavirus in the United States.
Pfizer requested emergency FDA approval for its candidate vaccine on Friday. Its advisory council will decide on the application on December 10. In the event of a yes, that is, approval of the vaccine, vaccinations could start two days later, Slaoui said. Pfizer and Biontech recently announced that their vaccine could prevent 95 percent of Covid-19 diseases. The study on the vaccine is still ongoing.
On Saturday, the FDA granted a mixture of experimental antibodies from Regeneron’s emergency approval, which was received by US President Donald Trump when he was infected with corona in October. The combination of two antibodies is said to help the immune system fight Covid-19. Emergency approval means that the product will be released while safety and efficacy studies continue.
Mutated coronavirus in Denmark “in all probability” eradicated
Animals infected with the coronavirus have been discovered on a mink farm in central France. Now 1,000 minks will be slaughtered, as the Ministry of Agriculture announced on Sunday. A company in the Eure-et-Loir department southwest of Paris is affected. A total of two farms in France were analyzed, one of them negative. For two more, results are not expected until the end of this week.
There have already been positive cases of corona in mink in Sweden, Greece and the Netherlands. The virus was found to be mutated in Denmark. Experts fear that if a vaccine is passed to humans, it could be less effective. Therefore, in Denmark about 17 million minks should be slaughtered. According to the Copenhagen Ministry of Health, the mutated virus is “in all probability” eradicated.
