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Retrieved from: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
People with and without protective masks walk on the street while shopping as the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues in Amsterdam, Netherlands October 7, 2020. REUTERS/Eva Plevier
The Dutch government on Tuesday decided to re-impose measures, including the wearing of face masks, aimed at slowing the latest spike in COVID-19 infections, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said.
The use of a "corona pass", showing proof of a COVID-19 vaccination or recent negative coronavirus test, would be broadened as of Nov. 6 to public places including museums, gyms and outdoor terraces, Rutte said.
Coronavirus infections in the Netherlands have been rising for a month after most social distancing measures were scrapped in late September, and reached their highest level since July in the past week.
This has forced many hospitals to cut back on regular care again, to make room for urgent COVID-19 cases.
In a televised news conference, Rutte called on all Dutch, vaccinated and unvaccinated, to stick to basic hygiene rules and to stay at home if they had symptoms of a possible infection.
"Our own behaviour is crucial, a very large part of our coronavirus policy depends on it," the prime minister said.
Face masks will be reintroduced in stores and other public places, while people are advised to work at home for at least half of the time.
The government next week could decide to broaden the use of the corona pass to the workplace, Rutte said.
Dutch health authorities on Tuesday recommended COVID-19 vaccine booster shots for older adults. Around 84% of the Dutch adult population has been vaccinated.
As of Tuesday, new infections were up nearly 40% week-on-week to more than 300 infections per 100,000 people, approaching peaks previously seen in July 2021, and in December and October 2020. read more
The strain on hospitals is an immediate concern, as the country's National Institute for Health said on Tuesday admissions are up 31% in the past week, with unvaccinated patients accounting for most hospitalisations.
Among people testing positive in the past month, about 52% say they were unvaccinated, while 45% say they were fully vaccinated, according to RIVM data.
Earlier on Tuesday the country's Health Council recommended that fully vaccinated adults aged 60 and older should begin receiving a booster shot.
Rutte's government routinely adopts the council's recommendations.
Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/dutch-weigh-vaccine-boosters-new-restrictions-covid-19-cases-surge-2021-11-02/
AstraZeneca Plc (AZN.L) provided Thailand 10.5 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine last month, the firm said on Tuesday, months after an official said the government was considering curbing exports from its local plant because of lower supplies.
Thailand had been pushing for 10 million doses each month to be able to fight back against coronavirus infections in the country of about 66 million people.
James Teague, managing director of AstraZeneca Thailand, said that the company had increased batchwise vaccine production by a fifth at its plant, from 580,000 doses to on average 700,000.
"This means more doses than anticipated are being produced in Thailand to help vaccinate people across the country and region," he said in a statement.
AstraZeneca is also committed to supplying shots to Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Taiwan and Malaysia, some of whom have had higher caseloads than Thailand.
Teague said the firm has so far delivered 35.1 million doses to Thailand as part of its promise of 61 million doses by end-2021. The company will also import from its other supply chains to boost stocks, he said.
October was the first time AstraZeneca's supplies to Thailand topped 10 million doses, the amount Thai officials had claimed the country was owed per month.
A senior Thai official had warned in July Thailand could regulate exports if domestic supplies fell short.
Leaked letters, however, showed that AstraZeneca had told Thailand it should be able to supply around 6 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine per month.
AstraZeneca's local manufacturing partner, Siam Bioscience, is owned by the country's king.
Earlier this year, a former opposition politician was charged with the crime of defaming the Thai monarchy over his comments on the king's company.
Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/astrazeneca-increases-covid-19-vaccine-supply-thailand-after-row-2021-11-02/
A medical worker in protective suit collects a swab from a man during a mass nucleic acid testing in Huichuan district following new cases of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Zunyi, Guizhou province, China October 23, 2021. cnsphoto via REUTERS
China will not give up on its zero-tolerance policy towards local COVID-19 cases any time soon, some experts said, as the policy has allowed it to quickly quell local outbreaks, while the virus continues to spread outside its borders.
To stop local cases from turning into wider outbreaks, China has developed and continually refined its COVID-fighting arsenal -- including mass testing, targeted lockdowns and travel restrictions - even when those anti-COVID measures occasionally disrupted local economies.
"The policy (in China) will remain for a long time," Zhong Nanshan, a respiratory disease expert who helped formulate China's COVID strategy in early 2020, told state media.
"How long it will last depends on the virus-control situation worldwide."
In a major outbreak in July-August, China counted a total of over 1,200 local symptomatic infections. In the latest flare-up, mostly in northern China, some 538 local cases were reported between Oct. 17 and Nov. 1.
Despite the lower caseload, the geographical spread of the infections has put constraints on China's leisure and tourism sectors.
Since Oct. 23, travel agencies have not been allowed to organise tourism between certain provinces, with such restrictions affecting trips to nearly one-third of the mainland's 31 province-level regions including Beijing.
Many cities with infections have also closed indoor entertainment and cultural venues. A flurry of marathons, theatrical performances and concerts have been delayed or cancelled.
China also requires weeks of quarantine for most travellers arriving from abroad.
In contrast, some Asia-Pacific countries are starting to open selectively to fully vaccinated international travellers as they seek to secure a more normal footing for their economies and societies.
Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-wont-give-up-its-zero-tolerance-covid-policy-soon-experts-2021-11-02/
A container with doses of Pfizer-BioNtech coronavirus vaccines was unloaded at Benito Juárez International Airport in Mexico City earlier this year.Credit...Hector Vivas/Getty Images
With its coronavirus vaccine on track this year to generate the biggest single-year sales ever for a medical product, Pfizer on Tuesday disclosed revenue projections indicating that the shot will likely beat that record or come close in 2022.
The company said while reporting its third quarter earnings that it expects its vaccine to bring in $36 billion in revenue this year. Pfizer said it has already reached supply deals worth $29 billion in revenue for its vaccine next year, covering 1.7 billion shots it has already committed to countries around the world. Billions more in sales are likely to come as the company reaches more deals to sell to governments the four billion shots it expects to produce next year.
The company’s chief executive, Dr. Albert Bourla, told analysts on Tuesday that most of the company’s negotiations are with high- and upper-middle-income countries. He said he was concerned that poorer countries and their proxies were not lining up to place orders. “I don’t want to reach a level that again the low- and middle-income countries will be behind in their deliveries because they didn’t place their orders,” he said.
Pfizer says it is selling shots for poorer countries at discounted prices, but many of the world’s poorest countries cannot afford to buy doses directly. They have depended on donations from the United States and other wealthy countries, and on supply from Covax, the United Nations program to vaccinate the globe.
There remain stark differences in vaccine access: Worldwide, about 75 percent of all shots that have gone into arms have been administered in high- and upper-middle-income countries, according to the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford. Only 0.6 percent of doses have been administered in low-income countries.
The enormous sales figures will translate into billions in profits for Pfizer. The company, which must split its vaccine revenue with development partner BioNTech, said that it expects its profit margins on the vaccine will be in the high 20 percent range next year, the same margin it projected this year.
The doses that will be delivered next year include booster shots, mostly for wealthier countries, and primary immunizations, with an emphasis on second doses, for poorer countries.
A small chunk of the doses will be given to children. The company won authorization last week for its vaccine to be given in the United States to children between the ages of 5 and 11. An advisory panel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted unanimously on Tuesday to recommend pediatric doses for that age group, and if the director signs off, children could begin receiving it this week.
Pfizer expects to have initial data from its studies evaluating its vaccine in children between the ages of 2 and 4 by the end of December and in children between the ages of six months and 1 by the end of March, the company’s research chief, Dr. Mikael Dolsten, told analysts on Tuesday.
Pfizer could get another revenue boost next year from an antiviral pill it is developing for high-risk Covid patients early in their infections. Results are expected within the next few months from a key clinical trial evaluating whether the drug can cut the risk of hospitalizations and death.
A Pfizer executive, Angela Hwang, said the company sees a market of up to 150 million people for the pill. She called it a “durable opportunity,” saying that governments may be interested in stockpiling the drug.
A rival pill from Merck, known as molnupiravir, has already been shown to halve the risk of hospitalization in similar patients. Merck said last week that it expects molnupiravir to generate between $5 and $7 billion in revenue globally through the end of next year.
Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/02/business/pfizer-covid-vaccine-revenue-profits.html
Moving the body of a Covid victim at the morgue of a hospital in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, last month.Credit...Roman Yarovitcyn/Associated Press
The official daily death toll from the coronavirus in Russia hit a record of 1,178 on Tuesday as the authorities urged the public to get vaccinated and signaled that a partial lockdown could be extended in some regions.
Russia is in the middle of a vicious fourth wave of the coronavirus, which is wreaking havoc in a population that is largely unvaccinated and distrustful of government interventions to slow the spread. The police have opened 503 criminal investigations into the distribution of fake vaccine certificates since July and have shut down more than 2,000 websites peddling them, the Interior Ministry said on Tuesday.
President Vladimir V. Putin has declared this week to be a “nonworking” period, with nonessential workers encouraged to stay home and employers encouraged to pay them at least the minimum wage to do so. In some regions, including Moscow, restaurants, bars and other businesses are closed. There were signals that the restrictions might extend beyond seven days, but the Kremlin said on Tuesday that no official decisions had been confirmed.
Nonetheless, Anna Popova, a senior health official, said on Monday, “The effect from the measures being taken, and the ones that have been taken, will not come immediately.”
“It is likely that more time will be needed,” she added.
Russia’s coronavirus task force has been reporting more than 1,000 daily deaths since mid-October, for a total of 240,871 since the pandemic’s beginning, though those numbers undercount the true toll. The government’s statistics agency, which provides its own monthly figures, said last week that it had recorded at least 44,265 coronavirus deaths in September, and some 462,000 in total.
Less than half of Russian adults are vaccinated, according to the official statistics, a figure that may be difficult to lift, considering that 45 percent have no plans to get a shot, according to the independent polling center Levada. Analysts say that mixed government messaging and public distrust are to blame — the Russian vaccine Sputnik V has been widely available for months.
A mass text message sent out by the Moscow city government on Tuesday said, “You can protect your close ones by signing them up for a vaccine.” It noted that one out of every nine people older than 60 who contracted Covid was dying and that vaccinated people were eligible to receive a cash prize of 10,000 rubles, or about $140.
Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/11/02/world/kids-vaccine-covid-children/russia-hits-a-daily-record-for-coronavirus-deaths
By Eva Corlett
India will soon start clinical trials of US-based Akston Biosciences second-generation Covid-19 vaccine — one of the most promising candidates that can be rapidly produced at a low cost, suitable for repeated dosing if immunity wanes and requires no refrigeration.
The vaccine samples have been sent to the Central Drugs Laboratory in Kasauli as a protocol for check.
The vaccine candidate — tentatively titled ‘AKS-452’ — is shelf-stable for a minimum of six months at 25°C and remains potent for a month at 37°C.
“The samples have been sent to CDL, Kasauli and trial is expected to begin in a month at around 12 sites in India,” a senior government official told News18. “The total sample size from Indian trial is around 1,600 people under phase2/phase 3 trials, which take at least a year to conclude.”
Ideal for Countries with Poor Storage Infra
The vaccine, if proven effective, can solve the storage issues in areas, which lack good infrastructure as the company says the vaccine candidate is shelf-stable at room temperature for at least six months and is ideal for hot countries such as Kenya because it can be transported and stored for months without refrigeration.
The company, which in August, had dosed the first subjects in a Phase II open-label clinical trial of its protein subunit Covid-19 vaccine candidate, says that “the vaccine has been engineered to use standard, low-cost, antibody manufacturing techniques, such that a single production line could be capable of producing over one billion doses per year at existing plants around the world.”
The first generation of vaccines are those which worked on the original strain of novel coronavirus such as Covishield, Covaxin and products by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson vaccines among others.
Any improvement in these vaccines such as reduction in side-effects, adaptation to the requirements of the world would lead to the creation of second- and third-generation vaccines.
According to Akston Biosciences, “The extended shelf stability, the clinical data that show a single injection of the 90μg dose provides 100% seroconversion at significantly higher titres than confirmed Covid-19-positive convalescent serum samples, and the ease of manufacturing relative to currently approved vaccines, indicate that our second-generation vaccine has the potential to more easily safeguard the health of populations worldwide against Covid.”
Retrieved from: https://www.news18.com/news/india/india-to-start-clinical-trials-of-us-based-second-generation-low-cost-covid-19-vaccine-4395065.html
Here’s a round-up of the day’s leading Covid stories:
· Australia may soon welcome foreign workers back into the country. NSW premier has pushed for further border re-openings as the state grapples with skilled labour shortages after 18 months of closed borders.
· Australia also remains on track to reach 80% of the population over 16 being fully vaccinated against Covid-19 in a matter of days.
· The Dutch government has reintroduced face masks in an attempt to stop rising Covid-19 cases. Prime minister Mark Ruttesaid the use of Covid passports would also be broadened out to include museums, gyms and outdoor terraces. The advice comes amid a major surge in new cases in the Netherlands.
· The UK has had its highest number of daily Covid deaths reported since late February, as another 293 people have died within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test.
· UK government is increasingly worried that hospitalisations and deaths among double-vaccinated people could rise due to waning immunity as an estimated 4.5 million people have failed to get their booster shots despite being eligible.
· The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) unanimously voted in favour of the broad use of Pfizer and BioNTech jabs for children as young as 5. The shots could be administered as soon as Wednesday.
· China has urged its citizens to stockpile daily necessities, prompting panic-buying, amid surging vegetable prices linked to recent extreme weather, fears of supply shortages and an ongoing Covid outbreak.
· Romania broke its daily death toll record, after another 591 people died from Covid. It has lagged behind on vaccinations and is well below the average within the EU.
· Russia also set another daily record for Covid deaths reporting 1,178 on Tuesday.
· Greece announced new restrictions on non-vaccinated people and increased fines for non-compliance after reporting a daily record high of Covid-19 cases on Tuesday.
· Public health officials in Ireland say that its case numbers are at their highest point since January, as another 3,726 were registered – 70% higher than a week ago.
· A scientist has quit the UK government’s pandemic advisery body Sage, saying that the Covid crisis is “a long way from over”. Sir Jeremy Farrar, quit the body at the end of October.
· The UK government’s independent vaccine advisers recommended against Covid shots for healthy teenagers despite considering evidence that the jabs would reduce infections, hospitalisations and some deaths in the age group.
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