Fri 04 December 2020:
The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that the social and economic impact of the virus “is enormous and growing.”
He said it’s foolish to believe a vaccine can undo damage from the global pandemic that will last for years or even decades.
Speaking to world leaders at the General Assembly’s first and mainly virtual special session on the virus, Guterres accused some countries he didn’t name of ignoring or rejecting the World Health Organization’s recommendations at the start of the crisis early this year.
Meanwhile, the UN said people with disabilities are more vulnerable to the virus threat and have a higher risk of being infected.
Handicapped people have difficulties in taking the most important precautions against the virus such as washing their hands, observing social distancing and complying with local healthcare rules.
Moderna vaccine promises at least 3 months immunity
The Moderna vaccine, which the company says was recently demonstrated to have 94 percent efficacy, causes the human immune system to produce potent antibodies that endure for at least three months.
Researchers at the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, which co-developed the drug, studied the immune response of 34 adult participants, young and old, from the first stage of a clinical trial.
Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, they said that the antibodies, which stop the SARS-CoV-2 virus from invading human cells, “declined slightly over time, as expected, but they remained elevated in all participants 3 months after the booster vaccination.”
US sees record of over 210,000 new Covid cases in 24 hours
The United States recorded more than 210,000 Covid-19 cases in 24 hours, according to Johns Hopkins University, in an all-time high for the country since the start of the pandemic.
The number of new deaths over the same period was 2,907, the university said, one of the worst US daily tolls yet according to figures recorded by AFP at 8:30 pm (0130 GMT Friday).
Biden will call for 100 days of mask-wearing
US President-elect Joe Biden has said that he will ask Americans to commit to 100 days of wearing masks as one of his first acts as president, stopping just short of the nationwide mandate he’s pushed before to stop the spread of the virus.
The president-elect has frequently emphasised mask-wearing as a “patriotic duty” and during the campaign floated the idea of instituting a nationwide mask mandate, which he later acknowledged would be beyond the ability of the president to enforce.
South Africa will make first vaccine payment
South Africa is hosting three trials, including for Johnson & Johnson and a partnership between AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.
The country confirmed last week that it plans to sign up to Covax, a global initiative that strives to ensure that poorer countries have access to shots, Bloomberg reported.
The National Treasury paid R500 million ($33 million) toward the programme and will need to find a further R4.5 billion to move to “the front of the queue,” finance minister Tito Mboweni said in an interview.
However, News24 reported that the country missed the first payment window to join Covax.
The proposal will initially provide doses for just 3% of South Africa’s population of about 59 million, according to Anban Pillay, deputy director general of the Department of Health, or 10% over the longer term.
The government has said that front-line health-care workers and the elderly will be given priority, meaning advance-purchase agreements with pharmaceutical companies will be needed to protect the wider community, Bloomberg said.
Who will get the vaccine first in UK
Care home residents and their carers are top of the list to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in the UK, sky news reported but the head of the NHS has said most of them will have to wait to get their jabs.
The government’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has confirmed its priority list for the first phase of the UK’s mass vaccine rollout, which will begin early next week.
It comes after the UK became the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for use.
The priority list for the first phase is as follows:
1 – Residents in a care home for older adults and their carers
2 – All those aged 80 and over. Frontline health and social care workers
3 – All those aged 75 and over
4 – All those aged 70 and over. Clinically extremely vulnerable individuals
5 – All those aged 65 and over
6 – All individuals aged 16-64 with underlying health conditions which put them at higher risk of serious disease and mortality
7 – All those aged 60 and over
8 – All those aged 55 and over
9 – All those aged 50 and over
Two groups will not receive the vaccine:
1 – Pregnant women
2 – Most children under 16
What about pregnant women and children?
The vaccine has not been advised for pregnant women as there is no data on its safety.
“Women should be advised not to come forward for vaccination if they may be pregnant or are planning a pregnancy within three months of the first dose,” the JCVI stated.
It will also not be generally available for children. The JCVI stated that “following infection, almost all children will have asymptomatic infection or mild disease” and as such don’t need it.
However, it will be available for “those children at very high risk of exposure and serious outcomes, such as older children with severe neuro-disabilities that require residential care”.
Covid-19 has infected at least 65.5 million people and killed more than 1.5 million.
