Vaccine trial resumes as virus continues its grim march

Clinical trials of one of the more advanced Covid-19 experimental vaccines resumed on Saturday after a short safety hiatus as the number of infections continued to rise in countries around the world.

The world’s hopes for relief from the pandemic were hit earlier in the week when pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford announced that they had “voluntarily stopped” the vaccine trial after a UK volunteer developed a disease. inexplicable.

But on Saturday British regulators gave the go-ahead for the test to resume after a safety review.

The global death toll from coronavirus has risen to 916,000 with 28.5 million infections, while France and the United Arab Emirates recorded grim new milestones for daily infections on Saturday.

And with billions still suffering the consequences of the pandemic, a global race for a vaccine is underway, with nine companies already in the last stages of Phase 3 trials.

Even during the hiatus, AstraZeneca said it was hopeful that the vaccine could still be available “by the end of this year, early next year.”

Oxford University said that “in large trials like this one, some participants are expected to feel bad and each case must be carefully evaluated.”

Charlotte Summers, a professor of intensive care medicine at the University of Cambridge, said the break showed the researchers’ commitment “to put safety at the center of their development agenda.”

“To deal with the global Covid-19 pandemic, we need to develop vaccines and therapies that people are comfortable using, therefore it is vital to maintain public confidence that we stick to the evidence and do not draw conclusions sooner. the information is available, “he said. .

– Reaction –

That public trust will be crucial in convincing a public that is impatient for a vaccine and, in some corners, skeptical.

Among the impatient is US President Donald Trump, who has been accused by his rival Joe Biden of “undermining public confidence” by regularly raising the possibility that a vaccine will be ready before the November election.

Biden also called Trump “reckless” for holding a rally in the Nevada city of Reno, even after the venue had to be changed because the event violated local Covid-19 restrictions.

Meanwhile, some of those potentially skeptical of a vaccine flocked to numerous German cities and Poland’s capital Warsaw on Saturday, protesting against coronavirus measures and often defying mask-wearing rules.

The movement is made up of several different groups, from self-proclaimed “free thinkers” to anti-vaccine activists, conspiracy theorists and far-right activists.

– Milestones in France, UAE –

There are signs of a resurgence of the virus in numerous countries that lifted many coronavirus measures after rolling back the first wave of infections months ago.

France reported 10,000 new infections on Saturday, the highest daily number in the country since large-scale tests were launched.

The milestone came a day after Prime Minister Jean Castex refused to announce major new restrictions despite a “clear worsening” of the outbreak in the country.

“We have to be successful in living with this virus, without going back to the idea of ​​a generalized lockdown,” said Castex, who recently came out of isolation after giving two negative results for the virus.

The fears emerged briefly after the prime minister spent part of last weekend with Tour de France boss Christian Prudhomme, who tested positive for Covid-19.

Another country that reached a daily milestone on Saturday was the United Arab Emirates, which recorded more than 1,000 new coronavirus cases on Saturday for the first time.

In Spain, which this week became the first country in the EU to pass half a million infections, an infection was detected among the companions of Princess Leonor.

The 14-year-old heir to the Spanish throne, who only returned to school in Madrid on Wednesday, will now have to serve a two-week quarantine.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s uncle, businessman Mohamad Makhlouf, died on Saturday from Covid-19, two sources close to him told AFP.

And in Latin America, which this week surpassed the milestone of eight million virus cases, Brazil, the most affected, registered more than 131,000 deaths from Covid-19 as of Saturday, the second highest in the world behind the United States.

Meanwhile, Latvia reinstated a mandatory 14-day quarantine for arrivals from neighboring Estonia due to an increase in cases there.