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Coronavirus vaccine shots given worldwide

Over 84m Chinese children vaccinated against Covid

Nearly 84.4 million children between 3 and 11 have been vaccinated against Covid-19 across China, and over 49.4 million among them have had booster shots, a health official said Saturday.

The health authorities will continue to promote vaccination in this age group, Wu Liangyou, an official with the National Health Commission, said at a press conference.

Wu added that all children between 3 and 11 without medical contraindications would likely complete vaccination by the end of this year.
 
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Over 84m Chinese children vaccinated against Covid

Nearly 84.4 million children between 3 and 11 have been vaccinated against Covid-19 across China, and over 49.4 million among them have had booster shots, a health official said Saturday.

The health authorities will continue to promote vaccination in this age group, Wu Liangyou, an official with the National Health Commission, said at a press conference.

Wu added that all children between 3 and 11 without medical contraindications would likely complete vaccination by the end of this year.

With the old vax that don't match strain.
 
Turkey administers 118.3m vaccine shots

Turkey has administered over 118.3 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines since it launched an immunisation drive in January, according to official figures released on Saturday.

More than 55.8 million people have been given a first vaccine dose and over 49.5 million are fully vaccinated, the health ministry said.

Turkey has also given third booster shots to over 11.6 million people.

The ministry recorded 22,583 new coronavirus cases, 215 deaths, and 25,254 recoveries over the past day.

As many as 347,426 virus tests were done in the past 24 hours, the data showed.
 
Turkey administers 118.3m vaccine shots

Turkey has administered over 118.3 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines since it launched an immunisation drive in January, according to official figures released on Saturday.

More than 55.8 million people have been given a first vaccine dose and over 49.5 million are fully vaccinated, the health ministry said.

Turkey has also given third booster shots to over 11.6 million people.

The ministry recorded 22,583 new coronavirus cases, 215 deaths, and 25,254 recoveries over the past day.

As many as 347,426 virus tests were done in the past 24 hours, the data showed.

Useless old vax that don't match strain.
 
Fresh Dutch Covid lockdown as 10 EU states at 'high concern'

AFP
14 Nov 2021


THE HAGUE: European governments on Friday eyed unpopular Covid curbs, with the Netherlands opting for Western Europe's first partial lockdown of the winter as EU experts said 10 countries in the bloc were causing "very high concern".

Dutch premier Mark Rutte announced at least three weeks of lockdown measures targeting restaurants, shops and sporting events to curb a record spike in coronavirus infections.

The "annoying and far-reaching" measures came as the EU's diseases agency said 10 countries in the 27-member bloc faced a Covid situation of "very high concern", warning the pandemic was worsening across the continent.

In its weekly risk assessment, the European Centre for Disease Control listed Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland and Slovenia in its highest category of concern.

Since it emerged in China in December 2019, the coronavirus has killed over five million people and caused economic devastation around the world. Europe is facing a sharp deterioration in the epidemic situation, especially in Germany and central and eastern Europe. Non-vaccinated people are the most affected.

Announcing his country's partial lockdown, Rutte told the nation the crisis required a "hard blow of a few weeks because the virus is everywhere, throughout the country, in all sectors and all ages".
 

More than 7.46 billion doses have been administered across 184 countries,
according to data collected by Bloomberg.

The latest rate was roughly 35.8 million doses a day.

In the U.S., 437 million doses have been given so far. An average 1.33 million doses per day were administered over the last week.
 
El Salvador nears herd immunity against Covid - report

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said Friday that El Salvador is close to reaching herd immunity against Covid-19, thanks to progress in its vaccination drive launched in February.

Speaking to reporters upon the delivery of a new batch of vaccines, Giovanni Escalante, El Salvador's PAHO representative, said the organisation is "very pleased that El Salvador is very close to achieving herd immunity."
 
Austria orders non-vaccinated people into Covid-19 lockdown

Austria is placing millions of people not fully vaccinated against the coronavirus on lockdown as of Monday to deal with a surge in infections to record levels, Reuters quoted Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg as saying.

“We must raise the vaccination rate. It is shamefully low,” Schallenberg told a news conference announcing the new measure after a video call with the governors of Austria's nine provinces.
Roughly 65 per cent of the population is fully vaccinated against Covid-19, one of the lowest rates in western Europe.
 
Coronavirus toll at 1100 GMT Sunday

AFP
14 Nov 2021

PARIS: The novel coronavirus has killed at least 5,094,101 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT on Sunday.

At least 252,864,960 cases of coronavirus have been registered. The vast majority have recovered, though some have continued to experience symptoms weeks or even months later.

The figures are based on daily reports provided by health authorities in each country. They exclude revisions made by other statistical organisations, which show that the number of deaths is much higher.

The World Health Organization estimates that the pandemic's overall toll could be two to three times higher than official records, due to the excess mortality that is directly and indirectly linked to Covid-19. A large number of the less severe or asymptomatic cases also remain undetected, despite intensified testing in many countries.

On Saturday, 7,908 new deaths and 472,528 new cases were recorded worldwide.

Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were the United States with 1,240 new deaths, followed by Russia with 1,219 and Brazil with 731.

The United States is the worst-affected country with 762,972 deaths from 47,051,430 cases.

After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 611,222 deaths from 21,953,838 cases, India with 463,530 deaths from 34,437,307 cases, Mexico with 291,089 deaths from 3,844,791 cases, and Russia with 255,386 deaths from 9,070,674 cases.

The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Peru with 608 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Bulgaria with 376, Bosnia-Herzegovina with 365, Republic of North Macedonia with 351, Montenegro with 350, Hungary with 330 and Czech Republic with 294.

Latin America and the Caribbean overall has 1,530,406 deaths from 46,276,783 cases, Europe 1,453,054 deaths from 78,361,727 infections, and Asia 883,199 deaths from 56,465,562 cases.

The United States and Canada has reported 792,288 deaths from 48,797,575 cases, Africa 220,517 deaths from 8,559,709 cases, the Middle East 211,613 deaths from 14,120,415 cases, and Oceania 3,024 deaths from 283,189 cases.

As a result of corrections by national authorities or late publication of data, the figures updated over the past 24 hours may not correspond exactly to the previous day's tallies.
 
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Austria is placing about 2 million unvaccinated people in lockdown from Monday amid record infection levels and growing pressure on hospitals.

"We are not taking this step lightly but it is necessary," Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg said.

Unvaccinated people will only be able to leave home for a limited number of reasons, like working or buying food.
About 65% of Austria's population is fully vaccinated, one of the lowest rates in western Europe.

Meanwhile the seven-day infection rate is more than 800 cases per 100,000 people, one of the highest in Europe.

Overall, Europe has again become the region most seriously-affected by the pandemic and several countries are introducing restrictions and warning of rising cases.

The unvaccinated were already barred from visiting restaurants, hairdressers and cinemas but will now be told to stay at home.
"In reality we have told one third of the population: you will not leave your apartment anymore apart from for certain reasons," Mr Schallenberg said.

"That is a massive reduction in contacts between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated."

The government says police will carry out spot checks in public spaces to determine their vaccination status.

The new measures - which do not apply to children under 12 or those who have recently recovered from Covid - will initially last for 10 days, Health Minister Wolfgang Mückstein said.

Some critics have questioned whether the move is constitutional. The far-right Freedom Party has said it will create a group of second-class citizens.


In neighbouring Germany, where Health Minister Jens Spahn has warned of a pandemic of the unvaccinated, the federal government and state leaders are due to meet next week to discus possible new restrictions.


Germany's 67.3% vaccination rate is higher than in Austria, but not by much. Germany has designated Austria a high-risk area, meaning anyone arriving from there must go into quarantine.

And the Netherlands has imposed a "lockdown-lite" designed to limit social contacts in response to a sharp increase in infections.
Measures include early closing for restaurants and shops and barring spectators from sporting events.

About 84% of Dutch adults have been fully vaccinated. Most patients in Dutch hospitals have not had their jab.

Vaccination rates are significantly lower in some eastern European nations.

Latvia, where 59% of the population are fully vaccinated, re-imposed lockdown last month and has banned lawmakers who refuse the vaccine from voting on laws and taking part in debates until the middle of next year. They will also see their pay docked.

In Russia only about 35% of the population are fully vaccinated, according to Our World In Data. At the end of October, Moscow shut shops, restaurants and schools in a partial lockdown and workers were given nine days paid holiday to curb infections.

Many Russians remain suspicious of the Sputnik V vaccine, which is internationally recognised as an effective shield against Covid.

Some other countries are also introducing measures applying only to the unvaccinated. In Australia, the state of Queensland will bar unvaccinated people from restaurants, pubs and sports events from 17 December.

And Singapore has said that those who remain unvaccinated by choice will have to pay for their own medical bills from December.
 
Get Covid shots to avoid new restrictions: UK PM Johnson

People in Britain must come forward for Covid-19 vaccines when they are eligible if new coronavirus restrictions this winter are to be avoided, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said, according to Reuters.

“If we want to avoid new restrictions on our daily lives, we must all get vaccinated as soon as we are eligible,” Johnson said at a news conference after the booster vaccination programme was expanded.

“Please go and get vaccinated to protect yourself and others, and, in doing so, we can help to ensure that we can continue in the way that we are: sticking to our plan of using vaccination to control this virus."
 
Egypt tightens rules on unvaccinated officials, students

Egypt has barred officials and students not vaccinated against Covid-19 from government offices and universities unless they show a negative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, reports AFP.

Officials who have not had a jab must show a PCR test, which is prohibitively expensive in Egypt, “every three days to access their workplace”, the tourism and antiquities ministry said after a government order was issued.
The same rules apply for students to access universities, state newspaper Al-Ahram said.

The North African nation said the restrictions will be extended from December 1 to apply to all Egyptians.
 
Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna making $1,000 profit every second

AFP
17 Nov 2021

WASHINGTON: Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna are making combined profits of $65,000 every minute from their highly successful Covid-19 vaccines while the world’s poorest countries remain largely unvaccinated, according to a new analysis.

The companies have sold the vast majority of their doses to rich countries, leaving low-income nations in the lurch, said the People’s Vaccine Alliance (PVA), a coalition campaigning for wider access to Covid vaccines, which based its calculations on the firms’ own earning reports.

The Alliance estimates that the trio will make pre-tax profits of $34 billion this year between them, which works out to over $1,000 a second, $65,000 a minute or $93.5 million a day.

“It is obscene that just a few companies are making millions of dollars in profit every single hour, while just two percent of people in low-income countries have been fully vaccinated against coronavirus,” Maaza Seyoum of the African Alliance and People’s Vaccine Alliance Africa said.

“Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna have used their monopolies to prioritise the most profitable contracts with the richest governments, leaving low-income countries out in the cold.”

Pfizer and BioNTech have delivered less than one percent of their total supplies to low-income countries while Moderna has delivered just 0.2 percent, the PVA said.

Currently, 98 percent of people in low-income countries have not been fully vaccinated.

The three companies’ actions are in contrast to AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, which provided their vaccines on a not-for-profit basis, though both have announced they foresee ending this arrangement in future as the pandemic winds down.

PVA said that despite receiving public funding of more than $8 billion, Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna have refused calls to transfer vaccine technology to producers in low- and middle-income countries via the World Health Organization, “a move that could increase global supply, drive down prices and save millions of lives.”

“In Moderna’s case, this is despite explicit pressure from the White House and requests from the WHO that the company collaborate in and help accelerate its plan to replicate the Moderna vaccine for wider production at its mRNA hub in South Africa,” the group said. While Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla has dismissed technology transfer as “dangerous nonsense,” the WHO’s decision to grant emergency use approval to the Indian-developed Covaxin earlier this month proves that developing countries have the capacity and expertise, PVA added.

PVA, whose 80 members include the African Alliance, Global Justice Now, Oxfam, and UNAIDS, is calling for pharmaceutical corporations to immediately suspend intellectual property rights for COVID vaccines by agreeing to a proposed waiver of World Trade Organisation’s TRIPS agreement.

More than 100 nations, including the United States, back that move, but it is being blocked by rich countries including the UK and Germany.
 
Dutch debate dropping 'corona pass' to indoor venues for the unvaccinated

The Dutch parliament is debating a government proposal to scrap the “corona pass” for people not vaccinated against Covid-19, with proponents citing record-high infection rates and opponents saying the move would be discriminatory, reports Reuters.

The pass, which grants access to indoor public venues, is now available to people who have been vaccinated, have recovered from Covid-19 or have tested negative for the virus. Under the current government proposal, the last option would be dropped.
 

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