On Friday, the prime ministers of Britain and France were scheduled to receive the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot as a way to boost confidence in the vaccine.
Analysis: Both Andrew Cuomo and Kamala Harris once made comments of questionable wisdom about the safety vaccines
Months ago, both made comments of questionable wisdom about the safety of the then-impending vaccines. Both indicated that they didn’t fully trust the Trump administration to oversee the process.
Cuba, fighting outbreak, approves second vaccine candidate for late-stage trials
Cuba will begin late-stage clinical trials for a second coronavirus vaccine candidate as part of the Caribbean nation’s effort to immunize its population without importing shots from abroad.
The country’s pharmaceutical regulator, CECMED, announced Thursday that it had approved the vaccine candidate Abdala for Phase 3 trials with enrollment beginning next week.
Cuba already authorized late-stage trials for its Soberana 2 candidate, which will end in July. Both vaccine candidates target the spike protein that allows the virus to enter and infect cells.
It is also testing the Soberana 2 vaccine on volunteers in Iran. The communist island nation has a long history of vaccine development even as it has languished under decades of U.S. sanctions.
But while Cuban authorities have pledged to inoculate residents using only homegrown vaccines, an unprecedented surge in new cases on the island could accelerate calls to abandon the strategy.
Cuba, with a population of 11 million, is suffering its worst outbreak since the pandemic began, with an average of about 750 new cases each day for the past seven days.
According to the country’s public registry of clinical trials, authorities will test the Abdala vaccine candidate on 48,000 volunteers between the ages of 19 and 80 in Cuba’s eastern provinces. The vaccine, which Reuters reports is named after a poem by 19th-century Cuban independence hero Jose Marti, will include three shots.
New Zealand close to approving travel bubble with neighboring Australia
New Zealand may reopen to Australian travelers as soon as next month, reciprocating a half-bubble in place since October that allows people to fly from New Zealand to Australia without having to quarantine for two weeks.
But the impending deal comes with a warning from Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to her citizens: Be prepared to get stuck in Australia if the border suddenly shuts.
Australia and New Zealand owe their success in suppressing the coronavirus in large part to having some of the strictest border controls in the world. In Australia, state governments have snapped their borders shut at short notice in response to outbreaks in neighboring regions, splitting families and stranding travelers.
“Australia is dealing with the equivalent of one state, New Zealand, and we’re dealing with multiple [Australian states],” Ardern told reporters. “And that means there is a chance we could have an outbreak that could cause a pause in travel.”
Government officials say insurance companies are unlikely to cover coronavirus-related cancellations, so it’s a risk travelers will have to bear if they’re caught out by a cluster of new infections in either country.
Australia has already halted its one-way bubble arrangement with New Zealand several times after small outbreaks, such as one at a high school in Auckland last month. Australian officials are also in talks with Singapore about opening a travel bubble with the city-state by July.
Sen. Tim Kaine says he still suffers covid-19 symptoms
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said Thursday that he is still feeling some lingering effects nearly a year after first experiencing symptoms of covid-19. Kaine, a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, tested positive for coronavirus antibodies in May.
The two-term senator told reporters in the Capitol on Thursday he sometimes feels a tingling sensation all over his body and about five times a day he feels migrating hot spots on different parts of his body.
He said the symptoms are likely neurological, in the same way some covid long-haulers have lost their sense of taste or smell, but he said they are not debilitating and do not interrupt his work.
Kaine said the symptoms serve as a reminder of the serious implications of the virus and the need to get vaccinated when one is able.
Chimps at Czech zoos connect through Zoom during lockdown
Two groups of chimpanzees plunged into loneliness and boredom amid the coronavirus pandemic have found a new way to stay entertained thanks to an idea from concerned staff: daily Zoom calls.
The animals, in the Czech Republic’s Dvur Kralove Safari Park and at another zoo in the city of Brno, have suffered as a result of the country’s lockdowns because of a lack of visitors. Staff members say that for such intelligent creatures, stimulation and interaction are vital to their happiness and well-being.
But with the coronavirus showing no signs of slowing down in the country, staff members are faced with the challenge of trying to keep the animals entertained inside enclosures without any people walking past to engage with them.
Zoos were ordered to close in December, and it is not known when they will be allowed to reopen.
Major European nations restart vaccinations using ‘safe and effective’ Oxford-AstraZeneca shot
Much of Europe on Friday was restarting use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine after the European Union’s pharmaceutical regulator declared the shot safe amid blood clot concerns.
The agency, which reviewed 25 cases involving rare blood clots, including nine deaths, said that the vaccine remained “safe and effective” but that it could not rule out a link to the disorders and that more analysis was needed. Still, more than 20 million people in Europe and Britain have already received the vaccine, the agency said.
“Due to the several serious cases in Norway, we want to thoroughly review the situation before we make a conclusion,” Euronews quoted Geir Bukholm, director of the Division of Infection Control at the Norwegian Institute for Public Health, as saying. “This will take some time and we will provide an update at the end of next week.”
On Friday, the prime ministers of Britain and France were both scheduled to receive the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot as a way to boost confidence in the vaccine as Europe grapples with lagging immunization campaigns.
The struggle to vaccinate Europe’s population comes as the continent is suffering a devastating new wave of infections, the World Health Organization said Thursday. The surge is being driven by a more contagious variant first identified in Britain and has hit central and eastern Europe particularly hard.
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