(Reuters) – Here’s what you need to know about the coronavirus right now:
U.S. tops 15 million cases
U.S. coronavirus cases crossed the 15 million mark on Tuesday as regulators moved a step closer to approving a vaccine.
Leading health officials are once again sounding the alarm of further spread when people gather for the year-end holidays. “We’re in for a very challenging period,” top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci told a virtual summit on Tuesday.
Pfizer cleared another hurdle when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration released documents that raised no new red flags over the safety or efficacy of the vaccine it developed with Germany’s BioNTech.
Allergy warning over Pfizer vaccine
Britain’s medicine regulator has advised that people with a history of significant allergic reactions do not get Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine after two people reported adverse effects on the first day of rollout.
Britain began mass vaccinating its population on Tuesday in a global drive that poses one of the biggest logistical challenges in peacetime history, starting with the elderly and frontline workers.
National Health Service medical director Stephen Powis said the advice had been changed after two NHS workers reported anaphylactoid reactions associated with getting the shot.
Merkel pushes for tougher German lockdown
Chancellor Angela Merkel threw her weight behind calls for a fuller lockdown in Germany that would include closing shops after Christmas, telling legislators that vaccines alone would not majorly alter the pandemic’s course in the first quarter.
Europe’s largest economy has been in partial lockdown for six weeks, with bars and restaurants closed but shops and schools open. That has stopped the coronavirus’s exponential growth but infection levels remain at a high level.
Speaking in parliament on Wednesday, Merkel said regional leaders should follow scientific guidance, which has called for people to further reduce their contact with others.
Rich countries have bought too many vaccines, says Amnesty
Rich countries have secured enough coronavirus vaccines to protect their populations nearly three times over by the end of 2021, Amnesty International and other groups said on Wednesday, possibly depriving billions of people in poorer areas.
Amnesty and other organisations including Frontline AIDS, Global Justice Now and Oxfam, urged governments and the pharmaceutical industry to take action to ensure intellectual property of vaccines is shared widely.
The World Health Organization has backed a global vaccine programme scheme known as COVAX, which seeks to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines and 189 countries have joined. But some countries such as the United States have not signed up, having secured bilateral deals.
COVID case on ‘cruise-to-nowhere’
Nearly 1,700 passengers on a Royal Caribbean ‘cruise-to-nowhere’ from Singapore remained confined in their cabins for more than 14 hours on Wednesday after a COVID-19 case was detected on board, forcing the ship back to port.
All passengers aboard the Quantum of the Seas vessel had cleared a mandatory polymerase chain reaction test for the virus up to three days before the four-day cruise started on Monday.
The cruise in waters off Singapore is open only to Singapore residents and makes no stops.
(Compiled by Linda Noakes)
