WASHINGTON: The United States hopes to begin coronavirus vaccinations in early December, a top government health official said Sunday, the latest positive news to emerge even as cases surge across the worst-hit nation and elsewhere around the globe.
The beginning of vaccinations could be a crucial shift in the battle against a virus that has claimed more than 1.4 million lives worldwide, including 255,000 just in the US, since emerging from China late last year.
A slew of positive results from vaccines has bolstered hopes for an end to the pandemic as surging cases force nations to reimpose restrictions and lockdowns that slowed the spread earlier this year but turned lives and economies upside down across the globe.
Two leading vaccine candidates - one by Pfizer and German partner BioNTech and another by US firm Moderna -have shown to be 95 percent effective and Pfizer already applied to emergency use approval from US health authorities.
"Our plan is to be able to ship vaccines to the immunization sites within 24 hours of approval" by the US Food and Drug Administration, Moncef Slaoui, head of the US government virus vaccine effort, told CNN, pointing to possible dates of December 11-12.
FDA vaccine advisors reportedly will meet December 10 to discuss approving vaccines.
Slaoui estimated that 20 million people across the US could be vaccinated in December, with 30 million per month after that.
US drug regulators on Saturday already gave emergency approval to a Covid-19 antibody therapy - one used by US President Donald Trump - and G20 nations were pushing for global "equitable" access to vaccines with worries poorer nations will be left behind.
With cases surpassing 12 million in the United States, the highest in the world, many Americans were nonetheless heading to airports to travel for next week's Thanksgiving holiday despite health officials' warnings to stay home.
Some US states were imposing new restrictions, including California, where a 10 pm to 5 am curfew was taking effect. New York city has closed schools again.
On the opposite side of the Atlantic, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to announce that restrictions across England are to end on December 2 as planned, his office said.
But the lockdown will be followed by a return to a three-tiered set of regional curbs.
Britain has suffered more than any other country in Europe from the coronavirus, with more than 54,000 deaths from 1.4 million cases.
US hopes to start virus vaccines in December as pandemic surges
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US hopes to start virus vaccines in December as pandemic surges
- Slaoui estimated that 20 million people across the US could be vaccinated in December, with 30 million per month after that
- The beginning of vaccinations could be a crucial shift in the battle against a virus that has claimed more than 1.4 million lives worldwide
Four killed in Ukraine as Moscow and Kyiv exchange drone strikes
- Kyiv said Russian drone strikes had killed two people and wounded seven more in Kharkiv
- Synegubov said two people had been killed in the attack on the Shevchenkivsky district
KHARKIV, Ukraine: Russian and Ukrainian drone strikes killed at least four people Wednesday, officials said, as the war between the neighbors dragged on for more than four years with no diplomatic breakthrough in sight.
The latest attacks came with a third round of three-party talks derailed by the war in the Middle East, despite pressure from Washington on both sides to agree to an elusive peace deal.
Kyiv said Russian drone strikes had killed two people and wounded seven more in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which lies close to the Russian border, was encircled at the beginning of Russia’s invasion four years ago.
It has been attacked almost daily since Moscow’s forces were pushed back later in 2022.
The governor of the wider region, Oleg Synegubov, said two people had been killed in the attack on the Shevchenkivsky district.
“A civilian enterprise caught fire as a result of the enemy strike,” he said, adding that three women and four men had been hospitalized.
Another Russian drone wounded 20 people in the afternoon, after hitting a civilian minibus in the southeastern city of Kherson, Ukrainian prosecutors said.
In the Russian-occupied part of the southern Zaporizhzhia region, Moscow-installed authorities said two civilians had been killed in their car by a Ukrainian drone strike on the frontline town of Vasylivka.
“The danger of repeated strikes remains,” Kremlin-appointed governor Yevgeny Balitsky said.
