COVID-19 vaccine development pipeline gears up

[gracielle]

OMS da primera homologación de emergencia a vacuna de Pfizer para su "acceso universal"

LUCHA CONTRA LA PANDEMIA afp La Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) dio este jueves su primera homologación de urgencia desde el inicio de la pandemia a la vacuna Pfizer-BioNTech, lo que facilitará su uso en los países que aún no la validaron, indicó en un comunicado. "Es un paso muy positivo…

www.elpais.com.uy

1 January 2021
WHO gives first emergency approval of Pfizer vaccine for its "universal access".
The procedure allows the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to purchase the vaccine for distribution in poor countries.
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday gave its first emergency approval since the start of the pandemic to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which will facilitate its use in countries that have not yet validated it, said in a statement.

...."It is a very positive step to guarantee universal access to vaccines against COVID-19," said Mariangela Simao, director in charge of access to medicines at this UN agency, according to the statement. This procedure, which can be used by WHO in the event of a health emergency, allows countries that do not have the means to quickly determine the efficacy and safety of a drug to have faster access to treatments.

The procedure also allows UNICEF, the UN agency in charge of much of the logistics of vaccine distribution around the world, and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to buy the vaccine for distribution in poor countries, according to the notice. However, Dr. Mariangela Simao stressed that "an even greater effort is needed to ensure that sufficient doses of vaccines are available to meet the needs of priority populations around the world."

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has already been injected for several weeks in the United Kingdom, but also in the European Union, the United States and Switzerland, among others. Several million people have already been vaccinated with the drug, with an efficacy estimated at 95%, but which requires very low temperatures of around -80 degrees Celsius, which makes its distribution and storage more difficult.

 

[sergio]

The issue is what adverse effects might be in six months, one year or more. This can be said of the other more trusted vaccines as well. We just don't know as there has been no time to observe reactions.

 

[artisans]

Turns out the Pfizer - BioNTech and Moderna vaccines being given in the US also have significant side effects for some,
nothing life threatening but there is no free lunch...
What the Vaccine Side Effects Feel Like, According to Those Who’ve Gotten It

What the Vaccine Side Effects Feel Like, According to Those Who’ve Gotten It (Published 2020)

Here is what some of the first Americans to be vaccinated against Covid-19 are saying about how they felt afterward, with some side effects but no second thoughts.

www.nytimes.com

 

[toongeorges]

so...the government is crying about foul treatment but has no one to blame but themselves for defaulting in the first place. gotta love that logic.

i also am highly skeptical there is much truth to that story they are selling.

Dismiss, distort and distract from the 4 Ds of disinformation?
Reference:

 

[Pierre Smith]

Turns out the Pfizer - BioNTech and Moderna vaccines being given in the US also have significant side effects for some,
nothing life threatening but there is no free lunch...

What the Vaccine Side Effects Feel Like, According to Those Who’ve Gotten It

What the Vaccine Side Effects Feel Like, According to Those Who’ve Gotten It (Published 2020)

Here is what some of the first Americans to be vaccinated against Covid-19 are saying about how they felt afterward, with some side effects but no second thoughts.

www.nytimes.com

Irresponsible reporting. You have such reactions in under a dozen people out of hundreds of thousands or even millions. But, of course, stories like this will prompt untold numbers to resist getting vaccinated. Basically, NY Times is irresponsible to give this goofy story a platform, and anyone who shares that article or the information contained therein is equally irresponsible.

Anti-vaccination types have been spreading disease in their moronic communities over the past few years in our California communities, to laughs here. But this sort of goofiness with Covid is a lot more serious, and any commitment to High Cretinism in the Covid context really should be scrutinized a lot more.

 

[gracielle]

Taiwan Tightens Pandemic Measures After First Local COVID-19 Case Since April

Taiwan is tightening borders as a new, more contagious variant of COVID-19 spreads around the world.

thediplomat.com

Taiwan reports first local Covid-19 case in more than 250 days

Taiwan has recorded its first locally-transmitted case of coronavirus since April. The island has had one of the most successful pandemic responses in the world, and the new infection ends a 255-day run without local transmission, underscoring the difficulties in controlling the virus even in...

edition.cnn.com

 

[Redpossum]

Turkey was on a 4-day lockdown from Thursday through Sunday. I don't have a link, but I was told this by several different students in Turkey over the weekend. They said it was allowed to go to the grocery store on foot only, not driving, but that most people didn't, because the police were stopping people almost every block and asking questions.

I was also told that even outside these 4 days, there is currently a hard curfew from 9pm to 5am.

One of the interesting things about teaching English online is that I hear a lot of things from my students that I never see in the news.The majority of my students are from nations with authoritarian governments, (e.g. Turkey and KSA), where the news is tightly controlled. Thus I tend to regard what they tell me as more reliable than news reporting from their countries, particularly when I hear the same thing consistently from several students.

 

[jeff1234]

Israel wants to be the first country to work their way out of the pandemic through vaccinations. More than 10% of the country is has already received their first vaccination. They've offerred inducements to encourage people to get vaccinated. For example you will be able to go to theaters and restaurants.
Meanwhile an American doctor put forward the idea of not saving millions of doses for the second shot, better to give more people a first vaccination sooner and give additional shots later.

 

[antipodean]

Israel wants to be the first country to work their way out of the pandemic through vaccinations. More than 10% of the country is has already received their first vaccination. They've offerred inducements to encourage people to get vaccinated. For example you will be able to go to theaters and restaurants.
Meanwhile an American doctor put forward the idea of not saving millions of doses for the second shot, better to give more people a first vaccination sooner and give additional shots later.

In the EU they are also floating the idea of giving people half-doses of their vaccines in order to speed up the initial rollout in order to slow the spread.

 

[artisans]

Xi Jinping's letter to Alberto Fernández accelerated the trade agreement for 15 million Chinese vaccines. Excerpts of Infobae... negotiations between Ginés González García and the pharmaceutical company Sinopharm....China has not sold a single locally produced vaccine in Latin America, and the likely agreement with Argentina places Beijing on a commercial offensive that by volume outstrips private companies Pfizer, Oxford-AstraZeneca and Moderna......The Sinopharm company, linked to the Chinese state, is already preparing a dossier with the tests, trials and investigations to be sent without delay to the ANMAT and the Ministry of Health......“The Chinese vaccine is going to arrive. It's a matter of time ”, commented Alberto Fernández in Chapadmalal.

La carta de Xi Jinping a Alberto Fernández aceleró el acuerdo comercial por 15 millones de vacunas chinas

La relación personal y geopolítica de ambos mandatarios impactó en las negociaciones entre Ginés González García y la compañía farmacéutica Sinopharm que estaban trabadas por el precio de las dosis y la compleja burocracia de Beijing.

www.infobae.com