The Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine begins shipping from the Pfizer Michigan plant to hospitals and other sites in the United States on Sunday for delivery from Monday to millions of Americans to fight against the pandemic whose global death toll approaches 1.6 million.
The hardest-hit country is the United States with 297,697 dead. On the old continent, Italy has overtaken the United Kingdom as the European country most bereaved by the pandemic with 64,036 deaths.
“I am concerned about the two-week Christmas celebration,” Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza commented on Saturday.
“Lunches with dozens of people at Christmas are to be avoided”, warned the president of the Italian Higher Institute of Health, Silvio Brusaferro, urging “to adopt great caution”.
Over the past seven days, among European countries, Italy has recorded the highest number of new deaths from Covid-19 (4,522), ahead of Russia (3,769), Germany (2,949), United Kingdom (3,012) and Poland (2,815).
Globally, the pandemic has killed nearly 1.6 million people since the WHO office in China reported the onset of the disease at the end of December 2019, according to a report established by AFP from from official sources Saturday at midday.
“100% confident”
In the United States, infections have skyrocketed, with 1.1 million new cases confirmed in the past five days and the number of deaths now approaching 300,000.
US President Donald Trump said Friday evening that the first injections of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine would take place within 24 hours, that is to say on Saturday.
“The distribution has started” and “the first shipments will arrive on Monday morning,” finally declared General Gus Perna, head of the government operation Warp Speed (speed of light) which ensures the delivery of the vaccine.
“We are 100% operationally confident that we will deliver the vaccine to Americans” at that time, he added, predicting that 145 sites across all states would receive the vaccine on Monday, an additional 425 sites on Tuesday and 66 Wednesday.
This first phase concerns around three million people. Federal authorities have recommended vaccinating healthcare workers and residents of retirement homes first, but the decision is up to the states. The goal is to vaccinate 20 million people in total by December.
The doses are shipped in boxes ensuring that an adequate temperature is maintained for their conservation, at -70 ° Celsius.
The United States was the sixth country on Friday to approve the US-German alliance’s vaccine, after the United Kingdom, Canada, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Mexico. The European Medicines Agency is expected to issue an opinion by the end of December.
The vaccine from French laboratories Sanofi and British GSK should not be ready until the end of 2021, after less good results than expected in the first clinical trials. Australia on Friday abandoned a vaccine in the first phase of trials at the University of Queensland after a false positive result of HIV (the virus responsible for AIDS).
Third wave in South Korea
According to data compiled by AFP, Europe is the area with the most new contaminations this week (+236,700 on average per day).
In France (57,000 dead), there is a “high risk” of an outbreak “in the coming weeks”, alerted the public health body France on Friday, while the French government announced Thursday a cautious deconfinement from the December 15.
The pandemic is also at “too high and dangerous a level” in Belgium, partially contained, warned virologist Steven Van Gucht, spokesperson for health authorities, on Friday.
In Asia, South Korea, which is facing a third wave of infections, reported 1,030 new cases on Sunday, a record for the second day in a row. Long set up as a model for managing the health crisis, the country was surprised by this epidemic resurgence and President Moon Jae-in spoke on Saturday of a “very serious” situation. He apologized for the difficulties encountered by his government in the face of this new wave.
China, where the pandemic started a year ago, has established containment in one northern city and launched a major testing campaign in another, both close to the Russian border, after the discovery of one case of coronavirus in each of these cities.