China gets ready for large-scale rollout of coronavirus vaccines
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Provincial governments across China are placing orders for experimental, domestically made coronavirus vaccines, though health officials have yet to say how well they work or how they may reach the country’s 1.4 billion people.
Developers are speeding up final testing, the Chinese foreign minister said during a U.N. meeting last week, as Britain approved emergency use of Pfizer Inc.’s vaccine candidate and providers scrambled to set up distribution.
Even without final approval, more than 1 million health care workers and others in China who are deemed at high risk of infection have received experimental vaccines under emergency use permission. There has been no word on possible side effects.
China’s fledgling pharmaceutical industry has at least five vaccines from four producers being tested in more than a dozen countries including Russia, Egypt and Mexico. Health experts say even if they are successful, the certification process for the United States, Europe, Japan and other developed countries might be too complex for them to be used there. However, China said it will ensure the products are affordable for developing countries.
One developer, China National Pharmaceutical Group, known as Sinopharm, said in November it applied for final market approval for use of its vaccine in China. Others have been approved for emergency use on people deemed at high risk of infection.
“We must be prepared for large-scale production,” said Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, who has overseen much of the country’s response, during a visit last week to developers, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
The government has yet to say how many people it plans to vaccinate. Sun said plans call for vaccinating border personnel and other high-risk populations this month.
A university campus in Georgia briefly told students to lock their doors and turn off their lights Sunday after a shooting at a nearby restaurant.
Kennesaw State University sent an alert across its Marietta campus about 2:45 p.m. about an “armed intruder.”
The alert was lifted about an hour later with the university saying on social media that the suspect had been apprehended.
The university issued the alert after a man fired a gun at the restaurant just off campus and then ran, Marietta Police said in a statement.
Police did not release any additional information about the shooting, including the name of the man taken into custody or whether anyone was hurt.
The campus is about 20 miles north of Atlanta.
Ga. school lockdown:
Venezuela’s congressional election Sunday will almost certainly give President Nicolas Maduro control over the country’s last major independent institution, but will do little to improve his image at home and
Venezuela election:
abroad.
Maduro, who already has the loyalty of the courts, the military, prosecutors and other institutions, seeks to load the National Assembly with members of his United Socialist Party of Venezuela. Critics say he’s guaranteed that by rigging the system to smother the last remnants of democracy in Venezuela.
An opposition coalition led by U.S.-backed politician Juan Guaido is boycotting the vote. The European Union, the U.S. and several other nations have already declared the vote a sham.
“How’s Maduro’s fraud going?” Guaido tweeted, showing photos of an empty polling place. “Failed.”
Despite Venezuela’s political turmoil, voting took place with no apparent problems in Caracas, where polling places were operated by civilian militia members and armed soldiers alongside election workers.
Belarus protests: More than 300 people were detained in the Belarusian capital Sunday, where crowds of people took to the streets for the 18th consecutive weekend, demanding the ouster of the country’s authoritarian leader who won a sixth term in office in an election widely seen as rigged.
Thousands of people Sunday took part in dozens of small rallies scattered all over Minsk, the Belarusian capital — a new tactic the opposition employed instead of one large gathering to make it harder for the security forces to target the protesters.
“We believe! We can! We will win!” the demonstrators chanted.
Several people wore Santa Claus costumes and masks depicting President Alexander Lukashenko. “Give Belarusians a gift: go away,” a banner they carried read.
Police in Minsk said they detained more than 300 people. The Viasna human rights group released the names of 215 people detained in Minsk and other cities, where rallies also took place.
Mass protests have rocked Belarus, a former Soviet republic in eastern
Europe, since official results from the Aug. 9 presidential election gave Lukashenko a landslide victory.
WWII bomb: German explosives experts successfully defused and disposed of an 1,100-pound bomb Sunday in the country’s financial capital of Frankf urt. The bomb was dropped during World War II and discovered during recent construction.
About 13,000 residents were evacuated from the city’s Gallus district and trains were stopped from running through the area as Hesse state experts went to work on the bomb.
The bomb was found Thursday and experts had estimated they would need at least six hours to defuse it, but they were able to complete their work in under two hours, the dpa news agency reported.
By evening, Deutsche Bahn said trains were running and residents were able to return to their homes. Around 700 who were unable to find places to stay with friends or family during the operation were looked after in Frankfurt’s convention center.
Brexit talks: European Union and British negotiators Sunday entered what is potentially the final attempt to strike a deal over future trade ties, even though “significant differences remain“on three essential points.
With less than four weeks remaining before the Jan. 1 cutoff day, the negotiators might have less than 48 hours to clinch a breakthrough because European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will assess late Monday if there is any point in continuing.
If there remain major issues with legal oversight of any trade deal and standards of fair play the UK needs to meet to be able to export in the EU, fisheries appears to move toward some sense of compromise.
While the U.K. left the EU on Jan. 31, it remains within the bloc’s tariff-free single market and customs union through Dec. 31.