China’s Sinovac virus vaccine 78% effective, Brazilian study says
SAO PAULO — A vaccine candidate made by China’s Sinovac is 78% effective in protecting against COVID-19, according to results of a study announced Thursday by Brazilian state health officials seeking federal approval of the shot.
More than 12,000 health workers participated in the study, which detected 218 cases of COVID-19 — about 160 of those among people who received a placebo rather than the actual vaccine.
Turkish officials last month said that a smaller, companion study in that country of the same vaccine candidate found an efficacy rate of over 90%.
The government of Sao Paulo state, which has contracted for the vaccine, said it is asking Brazil’s federal health regulators for emergency approval to begin using it. Gov. Joao Doria plans to start a vaccination campaign for the state’s 46 million residents Jan. 25.
Sao Paulo’s Butantan Institute, which is Sinovac’s partner in Brazil, did not disclose data such as results by age and gender or the number of asymptomatic volunteers in the sample, which many epidemiologists require to assess whether the shot complies with safety standards.
Officials said details will be published after Brazil’s health regulatory agency approves the vaccine. The health agency said in a statement that it has not yet received full data on the study.
The researchers reported no serious side effects in the study.
The U.S. has required vaccine candidates to be tested in at least 30,000 people to determine safety and effectiveness.
Brazil is nearing 200,000 deaths caused by the virus.
Marathon bomber lawsuit: Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has sued the federal government for $250,000 over his treatment at the Colorado prison where he is serving a life sentence.
Tsarnaev, 26, calls his treatment in the handwritten suit filed Monday “unlawful, unreasonable and discriminatory.”
He cites the confiscation of a white baseball cap and bandanna that he bought at the prison commissary and a limit of three showers per week, the Boston Herald reported.
His treatment at the supermax Federal Correctional Complex Florence is contributing to his “mental and physical decline,” he says in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit has been assigned to a judge, according to court records. The judge said Tuesday the filing is deficient because it does not include a “certified copy of prisoner’s trust fund statement” and a $402 filing fee.
Three people died and more than 260 people were injured April 15, 2013, when two pressure cooker bombs were set off near the marathon’s finish line.
Tsarnaev’s older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was killed in a shootout with police three days later.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted and sentenced to death, but the death sentence was overturned last July by a federal appeals court that said the judge who oversaw the case did not adequately screen jurors for potential biases. That decision has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Iraq warrant: An arrest warrant was issued Thursday for outgoing President Donald Trump in connection with the killing of an Iranian general and a powerful Iraqi militia leader last year, Iraq’s judiciary said.
The warrant was issued by a judge in Baghdad’s investigative court tasked with probing the Washington-directed drone strike that killed Gen. Qassim Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the court’s media office said. They were killed outside the capital’s airport last
January.
The arrest warrant was for a charge of premeditated murder, which carries the death penalty on conviction. It is unlikely to be carried out but symbolic in the waning days of Trump’s presidency.
Hong Kong crackdown: Jailed Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong was arrested on a new charge under the national security law Thursday while a U.S. rights lawyer who was detained in a sweeping crackdown was granted bail.
Friends and family of Wong, who is serving a 13 ½ -month prison sentence for organizing and participating in an unauthorized protest in 2019, were informed that he had been arrested on suspicion of violating the national security law and was taken away to give a statement on
the new charge, according to a post on his Facebook page.
Separately, John Clancey, an American human rights lawyer who works at law firm Ho Tse Wai & Partners, was granted bail, his associate said. He was one of 53 activists arrested Wednesday under the national security law.
Afghan attacks: Two attacks in Afghanistan left at least 23 civilians and security forces dead, officials said Thursday, even as Afghan negotiators were in Qatar to resume talks with the Taliban aimed at finding an end to decades of conflict.
An Afghan negotiating team is in Qatar’s capital of Doha to resume talks aimed at finding an end to decades of relentless conflict even as violence has spiked across the country. The stop-and-go talks come amid
growing doubt over a U.S.-Taliban peace deal brokered by outgoing President Donald Trump.
No one claimed responsibility for either attack.
Ohio shooting: Whether a Columbus officer whoinstructed other officers to turn off their body cameras in the aftermath of Andre Hill’s death violated policy is part of a wide-ranging investigation into Hill’s killing, a city spokesperson said Thursday.
The instruction was captured on another officer’s body camera footage the day of the shooting and was included in several more copies of videos released by the city Thursday.
As officers begin to arrive to the scene early on the morning of Dec. 22, with Hill’s body still laying on the garage floor, an officer can be heard demanding all
the other officers turn their body cameras off.
Officers serve different roles at crime scenes, some requiring cameras and some not, said Glenn McEntyre, a spokesperson for the Columbus Department of Public Safety, which oversees the division of police.
Columbus Police Chief Thomas Quinlan has promised an investigation into Hill’s death, including that no one helped him as he lay on the garage floor.
The officer who shot Hill, Adam Coy was fired Dec. 28 for failing to activate his body camera before the confrontation and for not providing medical aid to Hill.
Beyond an internal Columbus Police Department investigation, Ohio’s attorney general, the U.S. attorney for central Ohio and the FBI have begun their own probes.