1. How
COVID-19 is affecting the globe.
Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have passed 271.5 million
globally, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of confirmed deaths
has passed 5.32 million. More than 8.55 billion vaccination doses have
been administered globally, according to Our World in Data.
Poland's daily death toll from COVID-19 during the fourth
wave of the pandemic has climbed to a record 660. "They are mainly
unvaccinated people," government spokesman Piotr Muller said. "There
is no doubt that Omicron is already in Poland. Within the EU, we have free
movement of people, so it is obvious that this mutation should be in
Poland," Muller said.
The Netherlands will extend COVID-19 restrictions through the
Christmas holidays, including the early closure of schools, Prime Minister Mark
Rutte said on Tuesday. The rapid spread of the Omicron variant, which is making
up roughly 1% of new infections, "is a reason to be concerned and to be
cautious," Rutte said in televised comments.
South Korea warned on Wednesday it may reinstate stricter
social distancing as it posted a record daily COVID-19 case tally due to a
persistent spike in breakthrough infections among those vaccinated and serious
cases. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) posted 7,850
cases for Tuesday, with the number of patients in a serious condition also
reaching a fresh high at 964.
A typhoon has forced the Philippines to delay COVID-19
vaccinations of millions of people living in the path of the storm. Half
of the country's 110 million population has received at least one dose of a
COVID-19 vaccine.
Rwanda has confirmed six cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19,
the health ministry said, as it urged people to get vaccinated.
Italy has extended a COVID-19 state of emergency to
31 March and ruled that all visitors from EU countries must take a test before
departure, amid concerns over the spread of the Omicron variant.
2. US
study suggests COVID-19 vaccines may be ineffective against Omicron without
booster.
All three U.S.-authorized COVID-19 vaccines appear to be
significantly less protective against the newly-detected Omicron variant
of the coronavirus in laboratory testing, but a booster dose probably restores
most of the protection, according to a study released on Tuesday.
The study from researchers at Massachusetts General
Hospital (MGH), Harvard and MIT, that has not yet been peer-reviewed, tested
blood from people who received the Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and
Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines against a pseudo-virus engineered to resemble the
Omicron variant.
The researchers found "low to absent" antibody
neutralization of the variant from the regular regimens of all three vaccines -
two shots of the Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines or one of J&J's
single-dose vaccine.
But the blood from recent recipients of an additional booster
dose exhibited potent neutralization of the variant, the study found.
The scientists also suggested that Omicron is more infectious
than previous variants of concern - about twice as transmissible as the Delta
variant, which may soon be overtaken by Omicron.
The results are in line with other studies recently published.
Image Credit: World Economic Forum |
3. Pfizer
set to displace AstraZeneca as top supplier of COVID-19 shots to poor nations.
Pfizer and BioNtech are set to displace AstraZeneca as
the main suppliers of COVID-19 vaccines to the global COVAX
programme at the start of 2022, a shift that shows the increasing
importance of their shot for poorer states.
The expected change comes with headaches for receiving
countries that lack sufficient cold storage capacity to handle the Pfizer
vaccine, and amid risks of a shortage of syringes needed to administer that
shot.
AstraZeneca is currently the most distributed vaccine by
COVAX, according to data from Gavi, the vaccine alliance that co-manages the
programme with the World Health Organization (WHO).
The programme has so far delivered more than 600 million shots
to nearly 150 countries, of which more than 220 million are AstraZeneca's and
about 160 million Pfizer's.
But in the first quarter of next year Pfizer is set to take
over, according to Gavi and WHO figures on doses assigned by the COVAX
programme for future supplies.
By the end of March, another 150 million Pfizer doses are to
be distributed by COVAX, a WHO document shows.
A spokesperson for Gavi confirmed that Pfizer is ahead in
terms of "allocated" jabs, with about 470 million doses delivered or
readied for delivery, against 350 million from AstraZeneca.
Source:
World Economic Forum (weforum.org)
0 Comments