US hits milestone of 100mn jabs three months into effort
WASHINGTON: The US has achieved a milestone of administering more than 100 million Covid-19 shots, with 66 million people having received at least a first dose of the vaccine.
About 2.3 million doses a day are being given in the US, a figure that is likely to rise significantly in coming weeks with the roll-out of Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose vaccine.
President Joe Biden has pledged there will be enough doses by the end of May for any American adult who wants to be immunised.
Meanwhile, the European Union is facing further shortfalls in its coronavirus inoculation programme after Anglo/Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca said production problems and export restrictions would reduce planned deliveries of its vaccine.
AstraZeneca blamed production problems and export restrictions for the latest shortfall. The company had previously warned it was facing shortfalls from its European supply chain due to “lower-than-expected output from the production process” and was hoping to compensate in part by sourcing vaccines from its global network.
The leaders of Austria, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Latvia and Bulgaria are calling for talks among European Union leaders about the distribution of vaccines within the 27-nation bloc.
Austrian media reported on Saturday that the five leaders wrote a joint letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel. That came after Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz complained on Friday that, even though the EU had agreed on distribution of the vaccines on a per-capita basis, some countries were receiving considerably more than others.
The letter asserted that “if this system were to carry on, it would continue creating and exacerbating huge disparities among Member States by this summer”.
The Philippines on Saturday reported a spike in coronavirus infections and its first case of the highly contagious variant first identified in Brazil, while confirming nearly 100 infections of a new variant discovered locally.
A Filipino returning from Brazil tested positive for the P.1 Brazil variant after 752 samples were sequenced at the genome centre, the health ministry said in a statement.
It also reported that 98 cases were of the similar P.3 variant first detected in the Southeast Asian country early this month.
The ministry reported 5,000 new coronavirus cases, the largest single-day increase in more than six months, and 72 additional deaths. Confirmed cases have increased to 616,611 while confirmed deaths have reached 12,766.
“At present, the P.3 is not identified as a variant of concern as current available data are insufficient to conclude whether the variant will have significant public health implications,” the ministry said.
It reported 59 new infections of the B.1.1.7 variant first detected in Britain, and 32 cases of the B.1.351 variant discovered in South Africa. This brings cases for those variants to 177 and 90, respectively.