Apple to require employee proof of COVID-19 booster: The Verge

Apple Inc will require retail and corporate employees to provide proof of a COVID-19 booster shot, The Verge reported, citing an internal email.

Starting Jan. 24, unvaccinated employees or those who haven't submitted proof of vaccination will need negative COVID-19 tests to enter Apple workplaces, the report said. The Verge said it was not immediately clear if the testing requirement applies to both corporate and retail employees.

"Due to waning efficacy of the primary series of COVID-19 vaccines and the emergence of highly transmissible variants such as Omicron, a booster shot is now part of staying up to date with your COVID-19 vaccination to protect against severe disease," the memo read, according to The Verge.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Many companies in the US have been strengthening their COVID-19 rules, mandating vaccination and delaying back-to-office plans as the Omicron variant increases infections across the country.

This week, Facebook parent Meta Platforms mandated COVID-19 booster shots for all workers returning to offices. It also delayed US office reopenings to March 28, from an earlier plan of Jan. 31.

Alphabet Inc's Google on Friday said it was temporarily mandating weekly COVID-19 tests for people entering its US offices.

A report by The Information said Amazon.com Inc has offered its US warehouse workers $40 to get a booster shot.

-reuters

Unvaccinated NBA players to face extensive COVID-19 curbs

NBA players who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 will have to comply with a long list of restrictions to take part in the upcoming season, according to a memo obtained by Reuters.

The National Basketball Association's tentative protocols released to teams on Tuesday showed vaccinated players will only be tested if they show coronavirus symptoms or are a close contact of a positive case.

However, unvaccinated players will have to undergo daily testing prior to entering a team facility, participating in team activities or interacting with players and coaches.

The protocols outlined in the memo are pending agreement between the league and the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA).

The NBPA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The 2021-2022 season is set to begin on Oct. 19 amid continuing concerns over the highly contagious delta variant of the novel coronavirus that has hit those who are unvaccinated particularly hard.

A handful of high-profile players, including Brooklyn Nets' Kyrie Irving and Washington Wizards Bradley Beal, have publicly refused to receive the shots, while some have repeated claims about the vaccine shown to be false by medical professionals.

"It’s untrue," the nation's top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci told the Hugh Hewitt syndicated radio show on Wednesday referring to claims that the COVID-19 vaccine is dangerous or could hurt those who receive it.

"Although I do respect people’s individual rights... when you’re dealing with a deadly pandemic, you’ve got to also understand your responsibility to the society within which you live."

Among U.S. adults, 11% - or roughly 23 million people - have said they do not want the vaccine, do not plan to get it and that there was nothing that would encourage them to do so, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in August.

'BEST SUITED'

Four-time NBA champion LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers said he decided to get the vaccine after initially being sceptical but stopped short of widely encouraging the jabs.

"I don't talk about other people and what they should do," James said. "I don't think I personally should get involved in what other people do for their bodies and livelihoods ... I felt like it was best suited for me and my family and my friends."

In July, NBA Players Association executive director Michele Roberts told Yahoo Sports that vaccination was not mandatory but 90% of players had already received their shots.

"The situation is obviously we would like to see essentially all of the players for the general safety to get vaccinated," Fauci told MSNBC in an interview on Wednesday.

Under the NBA draft rules circulated, the league would not allow unvaccinated players to dine in the same room as other players and they must also be given a locker as far away as possible from other players.

Unvaccinated players will also have to remain at the team hotel during road trips, outside game time except for team and essential activities.

With strict vaccination requirements in some local markets, including New York City and San Francisco, players could risk losing pay if they are unable to compete.

"Any player who elects not to comply with local vaccination mandates will not be paid for games that he misses," said league spokesman Mike Bass.

Damian Lillard, a Portland Trail Blazer who won a gold medal as part of Team USA at the Tokyo Olympics, this week said he got the COVID-19 vaccine just as he had other immunizations growing up, noting some of his relatives had died from COVID.

"I'm just not going to put their health or their lives in danger," he told reporters. "It's pretty simple, actually." 

(Reporting by Manasi Pathak in Bengaluru and Amy Tennery in New York, additional reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Peter Rutherford and Ken Ferris )

-reuters

Thai experts eye boosters as 618 medIcal workers infected despite Sinovac jabs

BANGKOK - Thailand's health ministry said on Sunday more than 600 medical workers who received two doses of China's Sinovac vaccine have been infected with COVID-19, as authorities weigh giving booster doses to raise immunity.

Of the 677,348 medical personnel who received two doses of Sinovac, 618 became infected, health ministry data from April to July showed. A nurse has died and another medical worker is in critical condition.

An expert panel has recommended a third dose to trigger immunity for medical workers who are at risk, senior health official Sopon Iamsirithawon, told a news briefing on Sunday.

"This will be a different vaccine, either viral vector AstraZeneca or an mRNA vaccine, which Thailand will be receiving in the near term," he said, adding that the recommendation will be considered on Monday.

The announcement comes as the Southeast Asian country reported a record high of 9,418 community infections on Sunday. On Saturday authorities reported a record of 91 new daily coronavirus fatalities.

Thailand has reported a total of 336,371 confirmed infections and 2,711 fatalities since the pandemic began last year.

The majority of Thailand's medical and frontline workers were given Sinovac's shots after February with the viral vector vaccine from AstraZeneca arriving in June.

Thailand is expecting a donation of 1.5 million Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines from the United States later this month and has ordered 20 million doses that will be delivered after October.

Neighbouring Indonesia, which has also heavily relied on Sinovac, said on Friday it would give the Moderna vaccine as boosters to medical workers. 

(Reporting by Chayut Setboonsarng; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

-reuters

US triples vaccines for Taiwan with 2.5 million-dose shipment

WASHINGTON - The United States will ship 2.5 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Taiwan on Saturday, a senior administration official told Reuters, more than tripling Washington's previous allocation of shots for the island, which has faced increasing political and military pressure from China.

Washington, competing with Beijing to deepen geopolitical clout through so-called "vaccine diplomacy," initially had promised to donate 750,000 doses to Taiwan but is increasing that number as President Joe Biden's administration advances its pledge to send 80 million US-made shots around the world.

China, which considers Taiwan an integral part of its territory, has repeatedly offered to send coronavirus vaccines to the island, which has been battling a spike in domestic infections. 

Taipei has expressed concern about the safety of Chinese shots.

The 2.5 million donated doses of the Moderna Inc vaccine will leave Memphis, Tennessee, on a flight belonging to Taiwan's China Airlines early on Saturday and arrive in Taipei on Sunday evening, the senior US administration official said, adding that the prompt delivery was due to experts from both sides being able to work out regulatory issues.

"We are not allocating these doses, or delivering these doses, based on political or economic conditions. We are donating these vaccines with the singular objective of saving lives," the official said.

"Our vaccines do not come with strings attached," the official said, adding Taiwan had "faced unfair challenges in its efforts to acquire vaccines on the global marketplace."

A deal for Taiwan to purchase vaccines from Germany's BioNTech SE fell through this year, with Taiwan's government blaming pressure from Beijing.

China has denied the accusation, saying Taiwan is free to obtain the vaccines through Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group Co Ltd, which has a contract to sell BioNTech's vaccine in China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

"We believe that these attempts by China to block purchases, for political purposes, are reprehensible," the senior Biden administration official said.

The de facto US embassy, the American Institute in Taiwan, later confirmed the delivery.

"The donation reflects our commitment to Taiwan as a trusted friend, and a member of the international family of democracies," it said in a statement.

Taiwan is trying to speed up the arrival of the millions of vaccines it has on order, although infections remain comparatively low despite a rise in domestic cases. Only around 6% of Taiwan's 23.5 million people have received at least one shot of a vaccine regimen.

The US shipment comes at a time when Washington has been working with Taipei to create secure supply chains for strategic items such as computer chips, of which Taiwan is a key producer, that are vital for US automobile manufacturers and other industries.

It also comes after Taiwan announced on Friday that it will allow Terry Gou, the billionaire founder of Taiwan's Foxconn and semiconductor giant TSMC, to negotiate on its behalf for COVID-19 vaccines.

Taiwan Presidential Office spokesman Xavier Chang said Washington's assistance with vaccines confirmed the "rock-solid friendship between Taiwan and the United States."

Jonathan Fritz, a senior State Department official, said on Thursday that China had been "very aggressively using vaccine donations as a lever to induce more of Taiwan's diplomatic partners to switch recognition."

Beijing has steadily whittled down the number of Taiwan's diplomatic allies, which now stands at just 15 countries.

The United States, which like most countries has no formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, has watched with alarm the stepped up tensions with Beijing, and Biden's administration has vowed to boost ties with the island, which it is required under US law to supply with the means of defense.

Earlier this week Taiwan reported the largest incursion yet by China's air force, including fighters and nuclear-capable bombers, into its air defense identification zone. 

(Reporting by Michael Martina, David Brunnstrom and Andrea Shalal in Washington; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Mary Milliken, Daniel Wallis and Steve Orlofsky)

-reuters

BioNTech eyes COVID-19 vaccine for 12-15 year olds from June in EU

FRANKFURT - BioNTech said Thursday that it expected its COVID-19 vaccine, jointly developed with Pfizer, to be available to 12 to 15-year-olds in Europe from June.

The German firm's CEO Ugur Sahin told Der Spiegel weekly that it was "in the final stretches" of preparing its submission for European regulatory approval. 

The evaluation of the trial data "takes four to six weeks on average", he added.

Vaccinating children is seen as a crucial next step toward herd immunity and ending the pandemic.

The prospect of getting older children inoculated before the next school year starts would also relieve the strain on parents who are juggling the demands of homeschooling while keeping up with jobs.

"It's very important to enable children a return to their normal school lives and allow them to meet with family and friends," Sahin told Spiegel.

BioNTech/Pfizer already applied for emergency US authorization of their jab for 12 to 15-year-olds earlier this month.

Sahin expects to submit a similar request to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) next Wednesday, he told Spiegel.

The move comes after BioNTech and Pfizer in late March announced that phase 3 clinical trials of their vaccine for children aged 12-15 showed it was 100 percent effective in warding off the disease.

Both companies are also racing to get the jab approved for younger children, from six months upwards.

"In July, the first results for five to 12-year-olds could be available, and those for younger children in September," he said.

Ongoing trials so far are "very encouraging", Sahin said, suggesting that "children are very well protected by the vaccine".

The BioNTech/Pfizer shot is based on novel mRNA technology and was the first COVID-19 jab to be approved in the West late last year.

Agence France-Presse

UK says 5 million get second shot as COVID daily deaths fall to 10

LONDON - Britain reported 10 deaths from COVID-19 within 28 days of a positive test on Saturday, the lowest daily figure since early September, as its vaccine rollout reached another milestone.

Official data also showed 31,301,267 people had received their first shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, with five million now having had both doses in what is the fastest rollout in Europe.

"Our spectacular vaccination program has now delivered over five million second doses, giving those most vulnerable to COVID - including half of all those aged over 80 - the best possible protection," health minister Matt Hancock said in a statement.

Britain remains on track to hit the government's target of offering a vaccine shot to all over-50s by mid-April and all adults by the end of July, the government said.

The latest data also showed there were 3,423 new cases, a slight rise from 3,402 reported the day before, though unlike countries such as France and Germany which are battling a third wave of the coronavirus, infections in Britain have been steadily falling.

Strict lockdown measures in England began to be eased on March 29 and Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to update the country with further details about lifting restrictions on Monday, including whether outdoor hospitality can reopen on April 12 as planned. 

-reuters

Hong Kong widens vaccine scheme to people over 30, domestic helpers

HONG KONG - Hong Kong authorities said on Monday that the city's vaccine scheme would be widened to include those aged between 30-60 years old and domestic helpers, as they aim to increase take up amongst residents in the Asian financial hub.

People have been relatively slow to come forward for vaccination since Hong Kong began unrolling its program in February, starting with a vaccine made by China's Sinovac Biotech Ltd. The Pfizer/BioNTtech vaccine was added earlier this month.

Around 190,000 people have received their first vaccination dose, around 2.5 percent of the city's population.

At least 6 people have died and several fallen seriously ill after receiving a vaccination by China's Sinovac. The government said no direct link was established between the the vaccine and the first two deaths, while the other deaths were still being analyzed.

Health Secretary Sophia Chan told a news briefing that the city faced a critical moment in controlling COVID-19 and that vaccinating Hong Kong’s 7.5 million residents would help resume normality and relax social distancing measures.

The widening of the scheme will enable around 5 million residents to be vaccinated, she said.

"I urge members of the public to get vaccinated as soon as possible to protect yourself and others and increase inoculation rates," she said.

The US Consulate said on Monday two employees had tested positive for COVID-19 and the office had been closed for disinfection, with contact tracing under way.

While the pair do not work in offices that interact with the public, services for US citizens and visa applicants would be cancelled on Tuesday and Wednesday, it added.

The consulate said it has abided by all Hong Kong government requirements for the arrival, testing and quarantine of all diplomatic personnel and their families since the start of the pandemic.

The former British colony has recorded around 11,200 total coronavirus cases, far lower than other developed cities. 

-reuters

Japan to give $41 million aid to Asian nations over vaccine supply

TOKYO - Japan will provide 4.5 billion yen ($41 million) grant aid through an international organization to 25 countries in Asia and the Pacific Islands region to help them build a cold-chain distribution network for COVID-19 vaccines, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

The grant aid will be used to secure cold-storage facilities, transport vehicles and other equipment necessary for the stable delivery of vaccines in those countries, including Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, according to the ministry.

Japan aims to help ensure the delivery of vaccines "to each and every person in the all corners of developing countries" with the hope of containing the coronavirus pandemic as quickly as possible, it said, adding the aid will be delivered through the United Nations Children's Fund.

The other recipient countries are Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, the Cook Islands, East Timor, Fiji, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Micronesia, Myanmar, Nepal, Niue, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Sri Lanka, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Vietnam.

Japan has also pledged $200 million to the COVAX facility, an international vaccine distribution platform set up to ensure equitable access to shots for developing countries.

The COVAX initiative aims to deliver 2 billion doses of coronavirus vaccines across the world by the end of 2021.

-Kyodo News

Russia approves its third COVID-19 vaccine labelled CoviVac

MOSCOW — Russia on Saturday approved a third coronavirus vaccine for domestic use, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said on state TV, though large-scale clinical trials of the shot, labelled CoviVac and produced by the Chumakov Centre, have yet to begin.

Russia has already approved two COVID-19 vaccines, including the Sputnik V shot, developed by Moscow's Gamaleya Institute, following a similar approach of granting approval before seeing any late-stage trial results.

The preemptive approvals had raised concerns among some scientists in the West, but inoculations with those first two shots began on a mass scale in Russia only after trials were concluded and showed success.

Sputnik V was approved in August and late-stage trials began in September. Mass vaccination was launched in December, after preliminary trial results showed the vaccine to be 91.4% effective.

Since then, more than two million Russians have been vaccinated with at least the first dose of Sputnik V, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said on Feb. 10.

Rollout of a second vaccine, developed by the Vector Institute in Novosibirsk, is beginning.

"Today, Russia is the only country to have already three vaccines against COVID-19," Prime Minister Mishustin said.

The Chumakov Centre, founded in 1955 in St Petersburg by Mikhail Chumakov, is known for its work with U.S. scientist Albert Sabin at the height of the Cold War, which led to the production of the widely-used polio vaccine.

DIFFERENT TYPE OF VACCINE

Unlike the Sputnik V vaccine, which uses a modified harmless cold virus that tricks the body into producing antigens to help the immune system prepare for a coronavirus infection, the CoviVac vaccine is a "whole-virion" vaccine.

This means it is made of a coronavirus that has been inactivated, or stripped of its ability to replicate.

"The vaccine we have developed... reflects the whole history of Russian, as well as global, vaccine science," the Chumakov Centre's director, Aidar Ishmukhametov, said on Saturday.

The advantage, according to virologist Alexander Chepurnov, cited by outlet Lenta.Ru, is that CoviVac includes all elements of the virus, creating a broader immune response that is likely to protect against any variants.

However, testing Russia's COVID-19 shots against SARS-CoV-2 variants that have emerged in the UK, South Africa and elsewhere is in its early stages. President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered a review of Russia's COVID-19 vaccines to be presented by March 15 assessing their ability to protect against the new variants.

RESULTS SO FAR

Globally, one other major vaccine candidate - India's COVAXIN by Bharat Biotech - uses the "whole-virion" approach.

India's drug regulator has touted the shot's ability to act against the whole body of a virus instead of just its "spike-protein" tip, potentially making it more effective in case of mutations.

The CoviVac shot is given in two doses, 14 days apart. It is transported and stored at normal fridge temperatures, of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius (35.6 to 46.4 Fahrenheit), Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova said in a government briefing in January.

The shot has already been tested for safety on 200 people aged between 18 and 60, Ishmukhametov told the state-run Vesti-24 news channel in late January.

This early-stage trial began on Sept. 21 last year, according to the state clinical trials register. It showed no side-effects, including no rise in temperature, Ishmukhametov said.

Mid-stage trials to test volunteers' immune responses were ongoing, he said at the time.

Only a placebo-controlled, large-scale trial could ascertain effectiveness, he added. This is due to begin now that the go-ahead has been granted.

The first 120,000 doses, however, will be produced and released to the national inoculation program in March, Mishustin said.

Then, the Chumakov Centre will produce around half a million doses per month on its platforms, Ishmukhametov said on Saturday.

Deputy Prime Minister Golikova also announced on Saturday that Russia will produce 88 million vaccine doses in the first half of this year, including 83 million Sputnik V doses. (Reporting by Polina Ivanova; Additional reporting by Darya Korsunskaya and Gleb Stolyarov; Editing by Nick Macfie, Kate Kelland and Frances Kerry)

-reuters

Raging virus, few shots. How Brazil missed its chance to secure COVID-19 vaccines

RIO DE JANEIRO — Weeks after other Latin American countries began inoculating their citizens against coronavirus, Brazil finally administered its first shot on Jan. 17 using China's Sinovac Biotech Ltd vaccine.

With efficacy of just over 50% - barely above Brazil's threshold for regulatory approval - the Chinese shot was not the government's first choice. But for now, there is little else available.

The country's principle strategy - to manufacture 100 million doses of the AstraZeneca PLC vaccine locally - has been plagued by repeated delays. That effort isn't expected to yield a finished product until March at the earliest. 

AstraZeneca last week sent 2 million emergency doses to help Brazil get started. Meanwhile, Brazil's Health Ministry has yet to sign deals with other vaccine makers.

The delays leave Brazil's 210 million residents vulnerable to one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks on the planet. Brazil has tallied more than 218,000 COVID-19 fatalities, second only to the United States, and vaccinated less than 0.5% of its population.

Brazil's vaccine rollout is just the latest misstep by its Health Ministry, which President Jair Bolsonaro has stocked with active-duty and retired military men with little public health experience. 

Those newcomers failed to grasp how quickly they needed to move to secure supplies amid heated global competition, and the importance of hedging their bets by striking deals with multiple manufacturers, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former officials, pharmaceutical executives, diplomats and public health experts.

The ministry's hesitance led to a missed opportunity back in August to order 70 million doses of a vaccine made by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE, with delivery starting in December, Pfizer said in a Jan. 7 statement.

Reuters also viewed an internal Health Ministry WhatsApp chat log, containing thousands of messages exchanged between senior officials last year as the global race for vaccines was heating up. The messages reveal that the new leadership team prioritized hydroxychloroquine and its cousin chloroquine, anti-malarial drugs championed by Bolsonaro as COVID-19 treatments despite little scientific evidence that they work.

"There was not sufficient focus on the vaccines, and a lack of technical vision," former Health Minister Nelson Teich told Reuters in an interview. Teich resigned in May in a disagreement with Bolsonaro over the hydroxychloroquine strategy.

Reuters sent a detailed list of questions for this story to the president's office, which directed queries to the Health Ministry. The ministry did not respond.

Bolsonaro - who contracted the coronavirus last year and says he won't take any COVID-19 shot - has defended his government's vaccine rollout. "With respect, nobody would do better than my government is doing," he said in a Jan. 15 television interview.

While many nations have struggled to obtain vaccines as manufacturers strive to meet global demand, Brazil was better positioned than many. It has a long history of successful inoculation drives, and its state-funded production facilities can churn out vaccines at scale.

The federal government squandered those advantages, said Marcia Castro, a native Brazilian and professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.

"It's a succession of errors that began from the start of the pandemic," she said. "And sadly, we're measuring those mistakes in the number of deaths."

HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE OBSESSION

The AstraZeneca shot was supposed to be the main pillar of Brazil's inoculation plan. According to a person involved in the deal, the Cambridge, England-based firm started talking to the Health Ministry about buying its vaccine around early June.

By then, Teich, the former health minister, was gone, replaced by Eduardo Pazuello, an Army general with no medical background. He quickly surrounded himself with other military men.

Negotiations with a ministry in upheaval were challenging, said the person familiar with the talks.

"There were no decisions being driven from the top," the person said, referring to Bolsonaro and the new ministry leadership.

The new officials were betting on hydroxychloroquine to mitigate Brazil's pandemic, months of internal ministry WhatsApp chats viewed by Reuters revealed. Vaccines were mentioned infrequently in the chats, and at times with skepticism.

For example, on June 12, just days after being named deputy health minister, Elcio Franco, a retired Army colonel, alerted colleagues to a magazine article featuring AstraZeneca's top Brazilian executive discussing the company's vaccine. Franco expressed surprise that anyone might volunteer to participate in a vaccine trial.

"Who would be a guinea pig?" Franco wrote to his colleagues.

Franco did, however, express confidence in hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine.

In June, COVID-19 deaths per day were reaching new highs in Brazil, official data showed. Franco claimed the opposite was true.

"Death rates are dropping dramatically due to Bolsonaro's treatment protocol," he posted to the internal WhatsApp group on June 15. "Chloroquine is reversing the situation."

Franco did not respond to requests for comment through the Health Ministry or his LinkedIn account.

Brazil is now dealing with another surge of infections that's pushing hospitals to the breaking point in several cities.

The Health Ministry has doubled down on anti-malarials. It publicly has urged infected people to take them soon after the onset of symptoms, and this month it sent 120,000 hydroxychloroquine pills to the badly hit northern state of Amazonas.

 ASTRAZENECA TALKS

The person involved in the AstraZeneca talks said the Health Ministry's leadership didn't appear to grasp how quickly they'd need to act to secure a portion of the company's limited supply.

In an initial meeting around the start of June, Pazuello, the new chief, showed interest in buying the vaccine, "and then got up and left the room," the person said. "He didn't come to future calls."

Pazuello did not respond to requests for comment.

During ministry talks, AstraZeneca officials stressed the need for Brazil to make a financial commitment to guarantee delivery, the source said.

Ministry newcomers were still mastering government red tape, slowing the transaction, three people familiar with the situation said. The officials also proceeded cautiously to avoid any perception that they stood to profit from an unproven vaccine, following public graft scandals that had upended the country in recent years, the people said.

"They fear that people will assume there were kickbacks involved and their opponents will use it as a reason to launch an investigation," the source said.

Meanwhile, Britain, the European Union and the United States signed large deals with AstraZeneca.

With Brazil's Health Ministry dithering, AstraZeneca reached out to officials in other parts of government to help unlock funding, said the person involved in the negotiations.

AstraZeneca did not respond to requests for comment.

On June 27, Brazil announced it had signed a $127 million agreement to start producing AstraZeneca's vaccine at Rio de Janeiro's federally funded Fiocruz Institute. Franco, the deputy health minister, said in late June that Brazil would initially produce some 30 million doses of the vaccine, half by December 2020, the rest in January 2021.

But Fiocruz has yet to manufacture a single dose because it lacks the active ingredient needed to make the vaccine. The first shipment of that Chinese-made material is now delayed until around Feb. 8, Fiocruz said this week, without giving a reason. Fiocruz had previously predicted it would produce finished doses by March. It will update that forecast once the ingredient arrives, the statement said.

Yang Wanming, China's ambassador to Brazil, said in a Tuesday press conference that "technical" obstacles were holding up the shipment. He did not elaborate.

With its timetable slipping, the Health Ministry in late December appealed to AstraZeneca, which was able to source 2 million ready-to-use shots from India. Those doses, which arrived in Brazil on Jan. 22, will immunize just 0.5% of Brazil's population.

PFIZER FAILURE

Negotiations with Pfizer, meanwhile, have turned testy. The Health Ministry publicly has chastised the company for demanding Brazil sign a waiver shielding it from any potential liability regarding its vaccine.

Pfizer says many countries have signed the waiver; it blames Brazil's government for dragging its feet. In a January statement, the company said it began talks in June with the Health Ministry, which it said passed on Pfizer's August 15 offer to supply 70 million doses.

With those negotiations bogged down, Brazil's government has turned to the Sinovac shot.

Bolsonaro, a vocal China critic, had vowed never to purchase the Chinese vaccine. On Jan. 13, he delighted in pointing out to supporters that the vaccine's Brazilian trials, conducted at São Paulo's Butantan Institute, a public biomedical research center, had shown a disappointing efficacy rate of 50.4%.

But with few options left, the Health Ministry recently announced a deal to purchase up to 100 million doses from Butantan.

On Jan. 18, Bolsonaro struck a more conciliatory tone. Sinovac's shot, he told supporters, was "Brazil's vaccine."

-reuters

Singapore gets Asia's first batch of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine

SINGAPORE - Singapore received its first batch of Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine on Monday, according to its flag carrier, ahead of a rollout in the city-state that health officials have said could be as soon as two-three weeks away.

Singapore Airlines, which carried the vaccines on board one of its freighters from Belgium, did not specify the size of the batch.

Singapore is the first Asian country to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech shots after it said last week that it had approved the companies' vaccine.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, 68, has said he would be among the early recipients of the vaccine in the nation of 5.7 million people, which has one of the lowest coronavirus fatality rates globally.

"Delighted to see the first shipment of vaccines arrive in Singapore," Lee posted on Facebook on Monday, adding that the authorities will announce details of a rollout in due course.

He reiterated that the vaccination will be voluntary, and that he encouraged Singaporeans to take it.

The government plans to first administer the vaccine to healthcare workers and the elderly. Health ministry official Kenneth Mak had last week said the first jabs could be given "within the next two to three weeks" if safely delivered.

Singapore has kept new local infections to almost zero each day in recent months and will further ease restrictions next week.

It has signed advanced purchase agreements and made early down-payments on several vaccine candidates including those being developed by Moderna and Sinovac, setting aside more than S$1 billion ($746.16 million) for shots.

Most of the city-state's more than 58,000 coronavirus cases occurred in cramped migrant worker dormitories, but there are some concerns about asymptomatic carriers and undetected transmission taking place.

The government said on Saturday it was investigating whether 13 travellers who tested positive at a five-star hotel in November may have been infected there during their mandatory quarantine, rather than prior to their arrival in the country.

-reuters-

EU secures 160 million doses of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine

BRUSSELS - The European Union has struck a deal for up to 160 million doses of U.S. firm Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine candidate, the head of the European Commission said on Tuesday, taking the EU's potential stock of COVID-19 shots to nearly 2 billion.

Last week, Moderna said its experimental vaccine was 94.5% effective in preventing COVID-19, based on interim data from a late-stage clinical trial.

"I am happy to announce that tomorrow we will approve a new contract to secure another COVID-19 vaccine," Ursula von der Leyen said, adding the deal "allows us to buy up to 160 million doses of a vaccine produced by Moderna."

Actual purchases will be carried out by EU governments if the vaccine is approved by the EU's drug regulator.

The delivery timeline is unknown. The doses would be enough to vaccinate 80 million people as the vaccine is expected to be administered in two doses.

In August the EU's executive Commission, which co-leads talks with vaccine makers on behalf of member states, said it had held preliminary talks with Moderna over a deal for 80 million doses and an option for 80 million more.

The terms of the contract have not been disclosed.

An EU official involved in the talks told Reuters last week the EU was seeking a price below $25 per dose for Moderna's vaccine..

But Moderna Chief Executive Stephane Bancel said on Sunday the company would charge governments between $25 and $37 per dose, depending on the amount ordered.

A spokesman for the Commission declined to comment on pricing.

It is the sixth supply deal the EU has negotiated with COVID-19 vaccine makers and takes the total number of doses secured by the bloc to 1.96 billion for its population of around 450 million.

Brussels has already struck deals with AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech, Sanofi-GSK, Johnson & Johnson and CureVac.

It is also in talks to buy U.S. firm Novavax's potential COVID-19 vaccine. 

-reuters-

UK scientists immunize hundreds with coronavirus vaccine

LONDON (AP) — Scientists at Imperial College London say they are immunizing hundreds of people with an experimental coronavirus vaccine in an early trial after seeing no worrying safety problems in a small number vaccinated so far.

Dr. Robin Shattock, a professor at the college, told The Associated Press that he and colleagues had just finished a very slow and arduous process of testing the vaccine at a low dose in the initial participants and would now expand the trial to about 300 people, including some over age 75.

“It’s well tolerated. There aren’t any side effects,” he said, adding it was still very early in the study. Shattock, who is leading the vaccine research at Imperial, said he hopes to have enough safety data to start inoculating several thousand people in October.
Since COVID-19 infections have dropped dramatically in Britain, making it difficult to determine whether or not the vaccine works, Shattock said he and his colleagues are also looking to test their vaccine elsewhere.

“We’re looking very carefully at the pandemic, at the numbers where the hot spots are and talking to collaborators that have the facilities to do these kinds of studies,” he said.

The Imperial vaccine uses synthetic strands of genetic code based on the virus. Once injected into a muscle, the body’s own cells are instructed to make copies of a spiky protein on the coronavirus. That should in turn trigger an immune response so the body can fight off any future COVID-19 infection.

Earlier this week, the world’s biggest coronavirus vaccine study started in the United States, with the first of 30,000 planned volunteers getting immunized with shots created by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc.

Several other vaccines made by China and by Britain’s Oxford University, based on different vaccine technologies, began smaller final-stage tests in Brazil and other hard-hit countries earlier this month.

The World Health Organization has said multiple vaccine approaches are necessary for COVID-19, noting that the usual success rate for vaccine development is about 10%.

Shattock said there were numerous coronavirus vaccines now in clinical trials, and he predicted that at least some of them would prove to be effective.

“We have 20 vaccines in clinical trials, (so) we can be pretty confident that at least two of those will work,” he said. “It really depends on how strong the immune response needs to be to provide protection.”

Shattock said he was optimistic the Imperial vaccine would work, but must await the scientific data from the trial.

“I’m just going to hold my breath and wait to see,” he said.

-Associated Press

UK coronavirus vaccine prompts immune response in early test

LONDON (AP) — Scientists at Oxford University say their experimental coronavirus vaccine has been shown in an early trial to prompt a protective immune response in hundreds of people who got the shot.

British researchers first began testing the vaccine in April in about 1,000 people, half of whom got the experimental vaccine. Such early trials are designed to evaluate safety and see what kind of immune response was provoked, but can’t tell if the vaccine truly protects.

In research published Monday in the journal Lancet, scientists said that they found their experimental COVID-19 vaccine produced a dual immune response in people aged 18 to 55 that lasted at least two months after they were immunized.

“We are seeing good immune response in almost everybody,” said Dr. Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute at Oxford University. “What this vaccine does particularly well is trigger both arms of the immune system,” he said.

Hill said that neutralizing antibodies are produced — molecules which are key to blocking infection. In addition, the vaccine also causes a reaction in the body’s T-cells, which help by destroying cells that have been taken over by the virus.

The experimental COVID-19 vaccine caused minor side effects like fever, chills and muscle pain more often than in those who got a control meningitis vaccine.

Hill said that larger trials evaluating the vaccine’s effectiveness, involving about 10,000 people in the U.K. as well as participants in South Africa and Brazil are still underway. Another trial is slated to start in the U.S. soon, aiming to enroll about 30,000 people.

How quickly scientists are able to determine the vaccine’s effectiveness will depend largely on how much more transmission there is, but Hill estimated that if there were enough data to prove the vaccine’s efficacy, immunization of some high-risk groups in Britain could begin in December.

He said the vaccine seemed to produce a comparable level of antibodies to those produced by people who recovered from a COVID-19 infection and hoped that the T-cell response would provide even more protection.

“There’s increasing evidence that having a T-cell response as well as antibodies could be very important in controlling COVID-19,” Hill said. He suggested the immune response might be boosted after a second dose; in a small number of people, their trial tested two doses administered about four weeks apart.

Hill said Oxford’s vaccine is designed to reduce disease and transmission. It uses a harmless virus — a chimpanzee cold virus, engineered so it can’t spread — to carry the coronavirus’ spike protein into the body, which should trigger an immune response.

Hill said Oxford has partnered with drugmaker AstraZeneca to produce their vaccine globally, and that the company has already committed to making 2 billion doses.

“Even 2 billion doses may not be enough,” he said, pointing to the ongoing surge of infections worldwide. “I think its going to be very difficult to control this pandemic without a vaccine.”

Hill said researchers were also considering conducting a “challenge” trial by the end of 2020, an ethically controversial test where participants would be deliberately infected with COVID-19 after being immunized to see if the vaccine is effective.

“This has been done before in 19 different infectious diseases to develop vaccines and drugs and is likely to happen for COVID-19 as well,” he said.

Numerous countries including Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, U.S. and the U.K. have all signed deals to receive hundreds of millions of doses of the Oxford vaccine — which has not yet been licensed — with the first deliveries scheduled for the fall.

Chinese researchers also published a study on their experimental COVID-19 vaccine in the Lancet on Monday, using a similar technique as the Oxford scientists. They reported that in their study of about 500 people, an immune response was detected in those who were immunized, although they couldn’t tell if people were protected from the disease because they weren’t exposed to COVID-19 afterwards.

CanSino Biologics’ vaccine is made similarly to Oxford’s except the Chinese shot is made with a human cold virus, and the study showed people whose bodies recognized it didn’t get as much of the presumed COVID-19 benefit. Still, China’s government already gave special approval for the military to use CanSino’s vaccine while it explores final-stage studies.

In an accompanying editorial, Naor Bar-Zeev and William Moss of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health called both the Oxford and Chinese results “encouraging” but said further judgment should wait until the vaccine is tested on much bigger populations.

The World Health Organization’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, called for any eventual COVID-19 shots to be fairly distributed globally, saying it was up to political leaders to ensure the most vulnerable populations also get immunized.

“But one of the worrying patterns we see is some countries moving in the other direction,” he warned.

Britain announced Monday it had secured access to another 90 million experimental COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer and others, a move some campaigners warned could worsen a global scramble by rich countries to hoard the world’s limited supply of COVID-19 vaccines.

Last week, American researchers announced that the first COVID-19 vaccine tested there boosted people’s immune systems just as scientists had hoped and the shots will now enter the final phase of testing. That vaccine, developed by the National Institutes of Health and Moderna, produced the molecules key to blocking infection in volunteers who got it, at levels comparable to people who survived a COVID-19 infection.

The vaccine being developed by Pfizer also works to trigger a similar dual immune response as the Oxford shot. Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech also released an encouraging early report Monday.

Nearly two dozen potential vaccines are in various stages of human testing worldwide, with a handful entering necessary late-stage testing to prove effectiveness.

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AP Medical Writer Lauran Neergaard in Alexandria, Virginia, and Jamey Keaten in Geneva, contributed to this report.

The Associated Press