WHO approves AstraZeneca vaccine for emergency use – latest updates

Monday, February 15, 2021

WHO approves AstraZeneca/Oxford Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use

The World Health Organization has listed AstraZeneca and Oxford University's Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, widening access to the relatively inexpensive shot in the developing world.

"We now have all the pieces in place for the rapid distribution of vaccines. But we still need to scale up production," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, told a news briefing. "We continue to call for Covid-19 vaccine developers to submit their dossiers to WHO for review at the same time as they submit them to regulators in high-income countries," he said.

The listing by the UN health agency comes days after a WHO panel provided interim recommendations on the vaccine, saying two doses with an interval of around 8 to 12 weeks should be given to all adults, and can be used in countries with the South African variant of the coronavirus as well.

UK opens quarantine hotels, pushes on with vaccine drive

Britain’s newly established quarantine hotels received their first guests as the government tries to prevent new coronavirus variants from derailing a fast-moving vaccination drive that has delivered more than 15 million shots in ten weeks.

Passengers arriving at London’s Heathrow Airport were escorted by security guards to buses that took them to nearby hotels.

Britain also reported on  a further 9,765 cases and 230 deaths within 28 days of a positive test.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that world powers should clinch a global treaty on pandemics to ensure proper transparency after the novel coronavirus outbreak which originated in China.

Italy's daily infections fall to 7,351

Italy reported 258 coronavirus-related deaths on Monday against 221 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections fell to 7,351 from 11,068 the day before.

Italy has registered 93,835 deaths linked to Covid-19 since its outbreak emerged in February last year, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the seventh-highest in the world. The country has reported 2.73 million cases to date.

France reports 412 more deaths

France reported 4,376 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 on Monday, up slightly from last Monday's 4,317 and compared with 16,547 on Sunday.

France typically registers a low number of new cases the day after the weekend, but the week-on-week increase remained below 4% for the fourth day in a row and is now back to levels last seen at the start of the year.

The total case count is now up to 3.47 million, and the health ministry reported an additional 412 deaths on Monday, taking the total to 82,226.

Turkey registers over 7,900 new infections

Turkey reported 7,945 new coronavirus cases, including 660 symptomatic patients, and 91 more fatalities.

The overall case count has now topped 2.59 million, with the death toll reaching 27,562, according to the Health Ministry.

Some 7,106 more patients won their battle against the virus, bringing the total number of recoveries past 2.48 million.

Colombia receives first Covid-19 shots, vaccination may begin early

Colombia's first Covid-19 vaccines - 50,000 doses from Pfizer Inc - have arrived in the Andean country, President Ivan Duque said, ahead of a possible early rollout of inoculations.

The government had planned to administer the first dose on Saturday, but could begin vaccinations several days earlier, the health ministry said in a statement.

The government said last week it was expecting to receive more than 5.7 million doses from different providers in February and March.

EU tries to prevent Covid border chaos

The European Commission urged better coordination between EU members on Monday, a day after Germany imposed border measures to stem the spread of new coronavirus variants.

The EU executive said it was sending letters to all 27 members to highlight travel recommendations they had agreed to last October to prevent the chaos seen at the start of the pandemic, when unilateral closures snarled traffic and freight.

Germany has been filtering crossings from Austria and the Czech Republic since Sunday in a bid to slow the spread of coronavirus variants that emerged in the UK, South Africa and Brazil. 

Earlier, France's Europe Minister Clement Beaune had urged Germany not to close the border.

South Africa reopens its land borders as virus cases decline

South Africa has reopened its major land borders with neighbouring countries after closing them last month to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

At least 20 border posts reopened, with officials saying steps will be taken to avoid tightly packed crowds of travellers gathering at the immigration posts, which would spread the virus.

Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi, who is to inspect the reopening of the Lebombo border post with Mozambique on Monday, said South Africa is working with neighbouring countries to ensure simpler movements of people.

Russia reports 14,207 new Covid-19 cases, 394 deaths

Russia reported 14,207 new Covid-19 cases, including 1,818 in Moscow, taking the national infection tally to 4,086,090 since the pandemic began.

Russia's coronavirus task force said 394 people had died in the last 24 hours, pushing the official national death toll to 80,520.

Malaysia reports 2,176 new cases, 10 deaths

Malaysia reported 2,176 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total number of infections from the pandemic to 266,445.

The Health Ministry also reported 10 new deaths, raising total fatalities to 975.

Zimbabwe receives first vaccines from Sinopharm in China

Zimbabwe has received its first Covid-19 vaccines with the arrival of an Air Zimbabwe jet carrying 200,000 Sinopharm doses from China.

It is one of China’s first shipments of vaccines to Africa, after deliveries to Egypt and Equatorial Guinea.

The first Sinopharm vaccines are a donation from China to the southern African country. President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government has purchased an additional 600,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine that are expected to arrive early next month, according to the state media.

Mnangagwa, in a Twitter post, said the Chinese vaccines will be administered to Zimbabweans this week.

New Zealand's largest city enters lockdown 

New Zealand’s largest city Auckland has begun a three-day lockdown following the discovery of three unexplained coronavirus cases in the community.

Health officials say the cases are of the more contagious variant first found in Britain and that genome testing hadn’t linked them to any previous known cases.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the lockdown after an urgent meeting with other top lawmakers in the Cabinet. She says they decided to take a cautious approach until they find out more about the outbreak.

The rest of New Zealand has also had restrictions imposed, including limiting crowd sizes to 100.

China reports nine new cases

China has reported nine new coronavirus cases in the mainland, compared to seven a day earlier, the health commission said.

Of the cases, eight were imported infections originating overseas, while one case was recorded in Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing, the National Health Commission said in a statement.

New asymptomatic infections, which China does not classify as confirmed Covid-19 cases, fell to 10 from 17 a day earlier.

Germany's cases rise by 4,426 

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany has increased by 4,426 to 2,338,987, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed. 

The reported death toll rose by 116 to 65,076, the tally showed.

South Korea eases curbs 

South Korea has eased some of its strictest social distancing rules for businesses, but kept limits on private gatherings as authorities prepared to unveil plans for the roll out of the first coronavirus vaccines later this month.

The decision comes after a subdued Lunar New Year holiday last week. Daily coronavirus infections rebounded to above 400 ahead of the break, but have dropped since then with the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) reporting 344 new infections as of midnight Sunday.

The country is planning to start its vaccination programme from Feb 26, details of which are due to be announced by the head of the KDCA later in the day. Healthcare workers and older residents will be among the first to be vaccinated.

Kazakhstan approves Russia's Sputnik V vaccine for use

Kazakhstan has approved Russia's Sputnik V vaccine for use against the coronavirus, the Central Asian nation's government said.

Kazakhstan has already started producing Sputnik V locally for use in its mass vaccination campaign.

England's quarantine hotels open in bid to keep variants out

Passengers arriving in England from Monday from any of 33 "red list" countries will have to spend 14 days quarantined in a hotel room under new border restrictions designed to stop new variants of the coronavirus.

The launch of the system, which had already been set out earlier this month, marks the government's latest effort to prevent another relapse into crisis after a second wave of a more contagious Covid-19 variant forced the country into a prolonged lockdown at the start of the year.

New cases, deaths and hospitalisations are falling sharply and the rollout of vaccines has reached more than 15 million people, but ministers are still wary that new mutations from overseas might unravel that progress.

The government has lined up 4,963 hotel rooms that must be booked in advance as part of a "quarantine package." These hotels will have a "visible security presence," the government said.

A further 58,000 rooms are on standby.

Countries on the red list include South Africa and Brazil —both of which have seen variants of the virus that could reduce the efficacy of existing vaccines.

Arrivals from countries not on the red list are required to quarantine at home for 10 days and take two Covid-19 tests.

The tougher quarantine restrictions also carry heavy fines and penalties with potential prison sentences of up to 10 years. 

Mexico's death toll rises to 174,207

Mexico's Health Ministry has reported 436 new deaths from coronavirus in the country, bringing the toll to 174,207.

Virus variants challenge US vaccine efforts

As US coronavirus vaccination efforts ramp up, a growing number of virus variants could challenge the public health response.

Researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles told Reuters that a new coronavirus variant found in California drove a surge in cases during the Christmas-New Year holiday period.

Dr Jasmine Plummer compared the CAL.20C variant to another highly contagious variant, first discovered in the United Kingdom.

"We are learning a lot from the strains. If we look at the UK variant, we're actually learning that it's more infectious."

On Sunday, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said there are over 1,000 cases of the British coronavirus variant known as B1.1.7 in the United States. 

She added that it may become the dominant strain by the end of March. 

The highly transmissible South African mutation was also first detected in the United States at the end of January. 

Reuters data on Sunday showed there were more than 27 million coronavirus cases in the US. The nation's death toll is steadily climbing toward half a million. 

Brazil reports 24,759 new cases, 713 deaths

Brazil has recorded 24,759 additional confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, along with 713 more deaths from Covid-19, the Health Ministry said.

Brazil has registered more than 9.8 million cases of the virus since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 239,245, according to ministry data.

Australia suspends travel 'bubble' with New Zealand

Australia has suspended quarantine-free travel with neighbouring New Zealand after three new community cases of Covid-19 were detected in Auckland over the weekend.

New Zealand, however, said on Sunday it was locking down its largest city after new cases emerged in the country, which has been credited with virtually eliminating the virus within its borders.

Australia’s chief medical officer, Paul Kelly, convened an urgent meeting late on Sunday and it was decided that all flights originating in New Zealand would be classified as "Red Zone" flights for an initial period of 72 hours from Monday.

"As a result of this, all people arriving on such flights originating within this three-day period will need to go into 14 days of supervised hotel quarantine," Australia's Department of Health said on its website.

The travel bubble was set up so that New Zealanders could get to Australia without needing to spend 14 days in a hotel, although quarantine was mandatory for people travelling in the other direction.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday that genomic sequencing of the latest Covid-19 community cases showed they were the variant B1.1.7, the more transmissible variant first detected in the UK.

The source of the new cases is still unknown as results do not link directly to any other positive cases detected in New Zealand to date.