In several countries medical centres have already filed for approval of their coronavirus vaccines to start the vaccination process soon. While BioNTech and Pfizer are expecting approval of their drug in the United Kingdom and the European Union, Russia's Sputnik V has been received by 100,000 individuals, showing over 95% efficacy.
Follow Sputnik's Live Feed to Find Out More!
GENOA (Sputnik) – Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has announced new restrictive measures in the country for the upcoming holiday season that include limitations on movements between city municipalities and regions, an extended curfew for New Year's night and closure of ski resorts.
Conte will sign the new decree later on Thursday, and it will enter into force immediately starting from 4 December.
“Christmas holidays are approaching. If we enter into this period with light measures like in ‘yellow’ regions, a new spike in the number of contagions will be inevitable. That is why we are forced to introduce further restrictions for the period from 21 December to 6 January. … We need to minimize the risk of the third wave which can arrive already in January,” Conte said on late Thursday at a press conference devoted to the new decree.
“From 21 December until 6 January, all movements between the regions will be prohibited, including for reaching second houses. On 25 and 26 December and on 1 January, movements from one city municipality to another will also be prohibited,” he said.
The prime minister added that on the whole national territory, the curfew remains in place from 10 p.m. until 5 a.m (21:00-04:00 GMT).
“For the New Year's night, the ban will be extended – from 10 p.m. of the previous day until 7 a.m. on January 1,” Conte said.
He noted that for urgent and well-motivated reasons movements would always be allowed.
Moreover, everybody, who travels out of touristic reasons in the period 21 December-6 January, will have to undergo quarantine. The premier called it a “dissuasive measure.”
“Ski resorts will stay closed. This measure will enter into force immediately, from 4 December, until 6 January,” Conte said.
RIO DE JANEIRO (Sputnik) – The number of people, who have died of COVID-19 in Brazil, has increased by 755 to 175,270 within the past 24 hours, the national Health Ministry said on late Thursday.
Within the same period of time, the number of confirmed cases has risen by 50,434 to 6,487,084.
In an all-time high for the country since the start of the outbreak, the United States recorded over 210,000 new coronavirus cases in 24 hours on Thursday, Johns Hopkins University data shows.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) adopted recommendations from an advisory panel that the first doses of a coronavirus vaccine be reserved for elderly care residents and health workers, according to a press release.
“[CDC Director Robert] Redfield supports their recommendations and has signed the memo and accepted these interim recommendations,” the release said on Thursday.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have resumed negotiations for a coronavirus economic relief package after an earlier breakdown in talks between the two sides, Pelosi’s office announced in a statement.
“The Speaker and Leader McConnell spoke at 12:45 pm today by phone about their shared commitment to completing an omnibus and COVID relief as soon as possible,” Drew Hammill, deputy chief of staff for Pelosi, said via Twitter on Thursday.
The talks commenced after a bipartisan group of US lawmakers unveiled on Tuesday a $908 billion COVID-19 relief bill aimed at breaking a months-long deadlock between Democrats and Republicans over new emergency assistance for small businesses, unemployed people and industries.
TORONTO (Sputnik) - The Canadian government is targeting January as the starting point for COVID-19 vaccine delivery throughout the country, Canada’s Vaccine Distribution Czar Maj. Gen. Dany Fortin said during a press conference.
"We are hard at it … so that we are certain to be ready when [the vaccine] comes in January," Fortin told reporters on Thursday.
Last week, the government installed Fortin as Vice President for Logistics and Operations at the Public Health Agency of Canada. He said government tapped the military in spring to help with the COVID-19 vaccine distribution.
Fortin explained the military would perform a "dry run" of the plan on7 December, have provincial distribution points set up by 14 December and hopes to be fully prepared before 25 December.
The federal government will contract private logistics firms to help with the delivery, with contracts to be awarded by December 15, he added.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik ) - The United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO) should declare COVID-19 vaccines global public goods, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said at the UN General Assembly on Thursday.
"President, it is crucial that the vaccine or vaccines to address coronavirus be declared by the United Nations and by the World Health Organization as global public goods," Maduro, speaking virtually, said at the 31st Special Session of the General Assembly in response to the COVID-19 crisis.
Global Public Goods (GPGs) are non-excludable goods that benefit all countries and/or deal with issues like global warming that require collective international action, according to WHO experts.
Maduro said the pandemic can only be overcome through a joint response from humanity and based on science.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The worldwide number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has surpassed 65 million, Johns Hopkins University says.
The exact number of the coronavirus cases stood at 65,016,336 as of 22:50 GMT on Thursday. More than 1.5 million people have died of the disease, the university added.
The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on 11 March. The biggest number of cases so far have been registered in the United States, India and Brazil.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The number of people, who have died of COVID-19 around the world, has exceeded 1.5 million, Johns Hopkins University says.
As of 22:00 GMT on Thursday, the exact number of fatalities stood at 1,501,907 while the number of confirmed cases was nearing 65 million.
The United States, India and Brazil remain the worst-hit nations.
The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, introduced a new regional stay-at-home order for the state, which envisages regions with intensive care unit (ICU) capacity "far below 15%" to be placed under the order for 3 weeks.
According to Newsom, no regions yet have been placed under this stay-at-home order, while all non-essential travel is currently restricted statewide.
Under the order, the only sectors that will remain open are schools that are already opened, critical infrastructure, 20% capacity for retail, and those restaurants working for take-out and delivery.
Our ICUs are climbing quickly toward their capacity. Our death rate is rising.
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) December 3, 2020
To slow the surge of #COVID19 and save lives, CA is introducing a Regional Stay-At-Home Order.
Regions where ICU capacity⁰fall below 15% will be placed into this Stay-at-Home Order ⁰for 3 weeks.
ANKARA (Sputnik) - Turkey detected an all-time high of 32,381 new cases of the coronavirus infection over the past day, the Ministry of Health said on Thursday.
Turkey's COVID-19 toll kept hitting record daily increases nearly every day of the past week.
"We detected 32,381 new cases today. The death toll has increased by 187 to 14,316. Hospitalized people in critical condition count 5,611," the ministry said in an update.
MADRID (Sputnik) - Portugal will be provided 22 million doses of coronavirus vaccines to cover the entire population from the total supply solicited by the European Union, Portuguese Health Minister Marta Temido said on Thursday.
"Portugal will receive 22 million vaccine doses," Temido said at a press conference, specifying that the supply will be provided under EU contracts signed with pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca, Sanofi, Johnson&Johnsen, BioTech, CureVac, and Moderna.
Some of these companies' candidate vaccines require two doses per person, but Portugal's share will still be enough to cover the entire of its 10 million population. The first vaccination tier is expected to involve 950,000 people, commencing in January.
"The priority group includes people over 50 years of age with the following health conditions: heart, kidney and lungs, as well as health care workers," Francisco Ramos, the coordinator of Portugal's COVID-19 vaccination working group, said.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Certain categories of prominent businessmen, artists and athletes will be allowed to enter England without the need to serve a 14-day quarantine beginning from Saturday, UK Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps said on Thursday.
"New Business Traveller exemption: From 4am on Sat 5th Dec high-value business travellers will no longer need to self-isolate when returning to ENGLAND from a country NOT in a travel corridor, allowing more travel to support the economy and jobs. Conditions apply," Shapps said on Twitter.
In a follow-up tweet, the official added that the exemption would also apply to "certain performing arts professionals, TV production staff, journalists and recently signed elite sportspersons."
More detailed eligibility criteria are expected to be published by the UK government soon.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - In addition to vaccines against the coronavirus of Russia's Gamaleya, Vector and Chumakov centers, at least 10 more drugs are being developed today in the country, Anna Popova, the head of Rospotrebnadzor, said on Thursday.
"There are at least 10 of them being developed in the country today," Popova told the Rossiya 24 broadcaster, answering a relevant question.
She clarified that Vector was developing three more vaccines.
"We hope that they will be very successful. This is a combined vaccine against influenza and coronavirus, and the one based on the measles virus," Popova explained.
MOSCOW, (Sputnik) - Restrictions introduced in connection with COVID-19 pandemic continue to affect oil demand, and the winter months cause particular uncertainty, according to the draft communique following the OPEC+ meeting seen by Sputnik.
"It noted that renewed lockdowns, due to more stringent COVID-19 containment measures, continue to impact the global economy and oil demand recovery, with prevailing uncertainties over the winter months. Global oil demand is expected to contract by 9.8 million barrels a day (mb/d) in 2020, before rebounding by 5.9 mb/d in 2021," the document says.
MOSCOW, (Sputnik) - Public health officials in Africa are expecting to see an increase in the rate of COVID-19 transmission on the continent by the end of the year, with this growth driven in a handful of countries, Dr. Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, the deputy director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Thursday.
"A few countries are driving the numbers, this can provide a picture that a continent is suddenly not doing as well. But most countries on the continent are still keeping their numbers quite low," Dr. Ouma said at a World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa virtual press briefing.
Despite the predicted increase in new cases, Dr. Ouma praised many African countries for publishing consistent health advice and said that the rise in transmission would likely not be at the rate seen in other parts of the world.
"It's very important that the public health measures are kept upfront so that we keep these numbers low, particularly as we enter into this very active season of the end of year holidays. We do expect that the numbers will go up, but we still do not expect that it will be at the rate that we have seen in Europe and North America," the public health official said.
As of Thursday, the WHO African Region has registered more than 1.5 million cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, resulting in 33,621 deaths. Over half of these positive tests, 790,004 in total, have been confirmed in South Africa.
A combined 684,718 positive tests have also been registered in North Africa and countries of the Horn of Africa by the WHO's Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean.
ATHENS, (Sputnik) - Pfizer will expand its presence in Greece by opening a new hub in Thessaloniki, the country's second-largest city and a large port in the Aegean Sea, with the capacity to employ up to 600 people, Greek government spokesman Stelios Petsas said on Thursday.
In mid-November, Pfizer announced that its COVID-19 candidate vaccine concluded phase 3 clinical trials, with a declared efficacy level of 95 percent. On Wednesday, the United Kingdom authorized the Pfizer vaccine for emergency use, becoming the first country to do so.
MOSCOW, (Sputnik) - The OPEC+ alliance of oil-producing countries have to take into account both positive outlook such as the emergence of COVID-19 vaccines and the negative market uncertainty, sparked by the second wave of the pandemic, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak on Thursday.
Earlier in the day, the OPEC+ energy ministers started their meeting, which was postponed from Tuesday amid the differences within the alliance on the future oil cuts. The ministers now have to decide whether to extend the existing cuts of 7.7 million barrels per day or ease the oil output cuts to 5.8 million barrels per day starting from January 1.
"Today, we have to discuss the results of the implementation of the agreement in November, as well as assess the forecasts for the development of the market, taking into account the emerging positive factors that positively affect the current situation. This is the certainty with the elections in the United States, these are stimulating measures of many countries against the spread of coronavirus, I also mean the emergence of new vaccines against the disease, " Novak said at the opening of the OPEC+ meeting.
"At the same time, there are uncertainties that we see. These are restrictive measures in many countries. ... And, of course, it concerns the low winter demand. Today we need to assess all these factors and make an informed decision," the Russian deputy prime minister underlined.
TORONTO, (Sputnik) - Canadians will receive the first coronavirus vaccines by the early spring of 2021, leaked documents from Canada’s Chief of Defense Staff Gen. Jonathan Vance revealed on Thursday.
"Track 1 vaccines are likely to be delivered to Canadians at the height of the second wave of the pandemic and in the midst of the spring 2021 thaw - a period of heightened flood risk for many communities," Vance said in a planning memo obtained by the Toronto Sun.
Additionally, Vance projects that Canadians may "potentially" be vaccinated by the end of 2021.
To date, the Canadian government has signed preliminary contracts with at least a dozen biotechnology companies to procure their vaccines should they proceed to the production phase. However, critics have said these are only tenders, non-refundable at that, and will leave Canada lagging behind other countries.
The Chief of Defense Staff’s planning notes seem to confirm the fears that Canada’s vaccination effort is months behind countries like Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom, which are set to begin vaccination campaigns later this month.
As of Thursday, Canadian authorities have reported more than 391,000 coronavirus cases and more than 12,325 virus-related deaths.
Iraq has been negotiating with US pharmaceutical company Pfizer to obtain a vaccine against the coronavirus, the Health Ministry announced on Thursday, adding that it is also in contact with AstraZeneca and other companies on the matter.
"Several meetings have been held with Pfizer starting 22 July, when the company was at the testing stage, and we signed an agreement with them not to announce information during the production phases. It was followed by other meetings … with the last one on 23 November", the ministry said in a statement.
The deal set a number of conditions for the talks, which were discussed with the relevant advisory committees and then approved by the country’s Higher Committee for Health and National Safety at its Wednesday session, the ministry added, noting that one of the most important was a vaccine to be accredited by one of the foreign organisations and the World Health Organisation.
"Once Britain announced the approval of the Pfizer vaccine [on Wednesday], we directly contacted the company and asked them to hold a meeting tomorrow to discuss a mechanism for logistical issues, and the date was set", the statement added.
According to the ministry, Baghdad is also in contact with AstraZeneca and Chinese companies on getting the coronavirus vaccine.
"We are waiting for any of the vaccines to be approved by international organisations to start negotiations with them", the ministry said.
The ministry also noted that it has concluded an agreement with the GAVI Vaccine Alliance on the supply of vaccines for 20 percent of the Iraqi population.
"Communication channels are still open with all countries and companies working on the vaccine production, as well as with scientific advisory committees specialized in this field", the ministry said.
After becoming the first country in the world to approve the vaccine candidate designed by Pfizer and German firm BioNTech, the United Kingdom authorities announced on Wednesday that the immunisation campaign will begin as early as next week. Other countries, including Russia, have also developed vaccines.
To date, Iraq's health authorities have confirmed 556,728 coronavirus cases, with 12,340 deaths and around 486,000 recoveries.
The Greek authorities have extended the coronavirus-related restrictive measures until 14 December, government spokesman Stelios Petsas said on Thursday, adding that the Christmas shops would still open on Monday.
"The existing protection measures against the coronavirus have been extended until 6.00 a.m. [04:00 GMT] of 14 December", Petsas told reporters.
The government official added that Christmas stores would open on Monday, while additional details and working hours would be published on Friday.
"The epidemiological burden on the country remains high, higher than expected in previous weeks with the introduction of the lockdown. The pressure on the health care system is high. We will review all the research data this week, listen to the experts' reports and then the government will state its position. The prime minister will speak next week", Petsas noted.
When asked about the possibility of reopening schools and beauty salons next week, the government spokesman suggested waiting for official decisions.
Greece introduced the COVID-19 lockdown on 7 November. So far, the health authorities have confirmed over 107,000 cases of COVID-19 and 2,517 fatalities.
Germany continues to struggle with the coronavirus disease with no significant drop in infections, despite the number of cases reaching a plateau, the president of the Robert Koch Institute, Lothar Wieler, said Thursday.
"The situation remains tense, but without [restriction] measures introduced in November, today's situation would be far worse. Nevertheless, too many people get infected with Sars-CoV-2, the incidence remains high. It remains plateaued, but there is no significant lowering", Wieler said at a press briefing.
The health official added that the country's health ministry is still unable to trace all incidences of the disease while also referring to outbreaks at nursing homes.
"We see that in some regions hospitals are at their limit of maximum capacity ... We also see that the number of severe cases and fatalities is growing", Wieler added.
Wieler went on to ask Germans to continue following social distancing and hygiene rules.
Germany has confirmed a total of over 1 million cases, including 17,123 fatalities.
EU regulators have contacted their UK counterparts to share data from their review of Pfizer Inc's COVID-19 vaccine, according to a WHO medical expert.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russia has registered a new single-day record of 28,145 COVID-19 cases, up from 25,345 the day before, bringing the total to 2,375,546, the federal response centre said on Thursday.
The previous record of 27,543 COVID-19 cases was reported on November 27.
"In the past 24 hours, Russia has confirmed 28,145 COVID-19 cases in 85 regions, of which 5,988 (21.3 percent) were detected among the people showing no clinical symptoms", the response centre said, adding that the case count has reached 2,375,546.
BOGOTA (Sputnik) - Colombia will purchase 10 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by US pharmaceutical company Pfizer in collaboration with German firm BioNTech at a price of $12 per dose, a Colombian Finance Ministry resolution said.
"Through a memorandum ... of 24 November 2020, the director general of the National Public Budget requested the distribution of the Emergency Mitigation Fund's resources to purchase 10 million doses of the vaccine against the coronavirus Sars-Cov-2 (COVID-19) at a price of $12 per dose with the company Pfizer", the resolution, published by the broadcaster Blu Radio on Wednesday, read.
According to Blu Radio, the Finance Ministry has already transferred 437.138 million pesos ($123.9 million) to the Colombian National Unit for Disaster Risk Management to buy 10 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, adding to another 427 billion pesos that the country directed to its participation in the COVAX mechanism.
"The AstraZeneca deal has been done, and a memorandum of understanding was reached with both Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. But further negotiations are needed to finalise the amount of supplies and the timing of shipment", the newspaper JoongAng Ilbo said citing a government official.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The mass vaccination of Australian citizens against the coronavirus will start in March 2021, media reported on Thursday citing Health Minister Greg Hunt.
Hunt told reporters that doctors and senior citizens would be the first to be vaccinated against COVID-19, the broadcaster 7News reported.
