WASHINGTON — A White House proposal to mail masks to Americans may be targeted at schools or communities that are particularly vulnerable to the spread of the coronavirus, rather than to all U.S. households, multiple senior administration officials said.
The Biden administration has been looking into the logistics of sending masks directly to all Americans for more than a week, and in recent days the discussions have coalesced around the notion that a more narrowly targeted effort could be more effective, the officials said.
Two officials said the administration could decide to ship masks to both vulnerable communities and schools. An official said "vulnerable communities" include seniors and areas with high rates of coronavirus infections.
No final decision has been made about whether to send any masks to Americans or what the scope might be, officials said. The timing of a possible announcement also has not been set, officials said.
The White House declined to comment.
The White House has faced criticism that its goal to reopen schools during President Joe Biden's first 100 days in office — at least one day a week of in-person learning — is unambitious.
A new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report also stresses the importance of wearing properly fitting masks, including the suggestion of placing cloth masks over medical masks.
The idea of mailing masks to American households was explored and discarded by the Trump administration. NBC News was first to report last week that the Biden administration's Covid-19 Response Team had revived the idea and was studying the logistics of mailing millions of face coverings to U.S. homes.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that "there are a range of options under consideration on to how to ensure that people who need masks the most, people who need this type of protection the most, receive it."
The price tag for any effort to distribute masks is unknown, however — depending on how many masks the government planned to distribute, it could be hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Department of Health and Human Services in May signed $640 million in contracts with textile manufacturers, including Hanes, to make masks, according to federal purchase records.
Biden has made wearing masks a core part of his messaging campaign about the coronavirus. He and his staff wear face coverings routinely in the White House and when appearing in public. He issued a mask mandate on federal property and has asked Americans to wear face coverings for his first 100 days in office.

BUA Group, a member of the steering committee of CACOVID, responded yesterday evening to a statement issued by CACOVID on Monday, February 08, 2021, disavowing the press release issued by BUA that the company purchased one million doses of COVID-19 vaccine for Nigeria.
The Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID) is the Private Sector task force spearheaded by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in partnership with the Federal Government, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) with the sole aim of combating Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Nigeria; tasked with pulling resources across industries to provide technical and operational support while providing funding and building advocacy through aggressive awareness drives.
The Bone of Contention versus Public Interest
Straight off the bat, and sadly so; it is obvious that two or more entities are at odds with each other on the approach, means, and credits on this important intervention. Clearly, BUA is at odds with the coalition, and vice versa it would seem from the tone, content and medium of delivery of the released statements.
At a time when African nations are being asked to wait before receiving adequate Covid-19 vaccines approved by the World Health Organization (WHO), a lot more is expected of Nigeria's private sector leadership, one that has demonstrated an admirable public-private working relationship in addressing, containing and managing the pandemic thus far.
To appreciate the severity of the challenge confronting the country, recall that in January 2021, it was reported by the BBC that "close to 900 million doses have been secured so far through various initiatives, enough to inoculate about 30% of the continent's 1.3 billion people this year. Hoarding by wealthy nations, funding shortfalls, regulations and cold chain requirements have slowed the process of rolling out the vaccines."
The thinking in the organised private sector is that we should be pulling closer together to make the developing nations and institutions more accountable to the catastrophic moral failure it has shown thus far, by seemingly ignoring and doing less to contain the number of lives and livelihoods that will be lost in the poorest countries of the world, indeed in Africa.
According to the WHO DG, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, "close to 40 million doses have been administered in at least 49 higher-income countries, compared to just 25 doses given in just one of the lowest-income countries. Not 25 million, not 25,000, just 25," he said, without saying which country.
So far, none of the main, western vaccines has yet been administered in Africa, almost three months after the first doses were rolled out in Europe. Over the weekend, South Africa suspended the use of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine after it failed to clearly stop virus variant. We have yet to discover what works and what would not work.
These are what CACOVID was designed to focus on, and why the one (1) million doses, small as it may appear relative to population; should be procured without delay; and hopefully, guidelines for its allocation, distribution and prioritisation will equally be released on time, along with a time-table for the vaccine roll-out.
This is important, not just as a signaling to our economy but more importantly, a major boost for the mental health of the citizens dealing with higher levels of uncertainty, fear and financial challenges arising from the pandemic's impact on lives and livelihood.
The Governance structure of CACOVID was designed to respond to challenges such as this and as shown below; it should be made to work. If there is a need to review same, then it should be done sooner than later.

President Muhammadu Buhari on Saturday, lauded the establishment of the Coronavirus African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team to accelerate the financing and procurement of Coronavirus vaccines for the continent.
President Buhari stated this in his message to the 34th Ordinary Session of the African Union (AU), a virtual event, which he joined from the State House in Abuja.
He expressed Nigeria’s readiness to work with global and African partners to achieve speedy development and manufacturing of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine for all Africans.
The President described as a welcome development the establishment of the Coronavirus Response Special Fund to mitigate the socio-economic and humanitarian impacts of the pandemic in Africa.
President Buhari, whose speech was read by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Geoffrey Onyeama, also expressed Nigeria’s eagerness to work with co-member states of the union to go beyond just finding solutions to the immediate emergency and focus resources on promoting human health and general wellness.
Buhari, who is the ECOWAS Champion on the Fight against COVID-19, informed the session that Nigeria had provided logistics support including critical COVID-19 medical supplies distributed to other ECOWAS member states.
He said, “Nigeria welcomes today’s report from my brother Cyril Ramaphosa, including the endorsement of the attached decisions. In view of the results on the ground today, Africa must be commended even as we begin the implementation of a mitigation strategy.
“The imperative for the immunisation of 60 percent of Africans for the safe and secure vaccine cannot be overemphasized. “Nigeria, therefore, welcomes the decision to establish the Coronavirus African Vaccine Acquisition Capacity to accelerate the financing and procurement of coronavirus vaccines for the continent.
“We continue to appreciate the remarkable progress by the team with respect to securing a provisional 270 million coronavirus vaccine doses for Africa along with Africa Medical Supply platform and other laudable initiatives already in place.
“Excellencies, in my capacity as ECOWAS Champion on Coronavirus, Nigeria has provided logistics support, including the freight in of critical Covid-19 medical supplies distributed to other ECOWAS member states.
“At the national level and in the fallout of the coronavirus outbreak in Nigeria, we prioritize the vulnerable, including women, children, older persons, and the unemployed in our efforts to provide medical and social assistance to mitigate the socio-economic effects of the disease.
“I will like to stress that Nigeria is committed to working with other member states, in the spirit of regional cooperation and solidarity, to promote human health and general wellbeing.
“We will continue to partner with the World Health Organization (WHO), the African Center for Disease Control and West African Health Organization as well as other countries to ensure accelerated development and manufacturing as well as unhindered supply of safe and effective coronavirus vaccines to all Africans”, he said.
He congratulated the outgoing Chairman of the AU, President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, for addressing key issues for Africa on the Coronavirus pandemic, said the virus had created an additional burden to the continent’s public health system.
“I will like at the outset to express our profound gratitude to my brother, President Cyril Ramaphosa, for the outstanding manner in which he has steered the affairs of our union during the last one year.
“I will also like to congratulate my brother, President Felix Shisekedi on his assumption of our union. We wish you a happy and successful tenure and assure you of Nigeria’s unflinchingly support.
“I will like in particular to congratulate the Chairperson of the union, President Cyril Ramaphosa, for making good use of the platform of the bureau to address key issues for Africa on the Coronavirus pandemic”, he said.

Adults 20-49 are driving the spread of COVID-19 and vaccinating that group could be key to controlling the pace of infections, a study suggests. Researchers at London's Imperial College estimated that at least 65% of new U.S. infections originate from that age group.
"Targeting interventions – including transmission-blocking vaccines – to adults age 20-49 is an important consideration in halting resurgent epidemics and preventing COVID-19-attributable deaths," the study's authors say in the publication Science.
Older adults – currently at or near the front of the line for vaccinations and facing the highest death rate – and children drive very little of the spread, the study says. So should vaccination efforts target young adults first?
"It's a really good question," Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School professor, told USA TODAY. "Do we vaccinate the most vulnerable or the ones most involved in transmission? If you remove the vectors you have a chance" of curbing the spread.
Brownstein said early data indicates vaccines can prevent transmission, "but we don't know for sure." So protecting the most vulnerable should remain a priority, he said. "These findings do put additional pressure on getting the vaccines widely rolled out," he said.
Ogbonnaya Omenka, an associate professor and public health specialist at Butler University in Indianapolis, agreed, adding that “shifting goal posts” are part of the process in combating a pandemic.
"Mitigating the effects of an infectious agent is like an arms race or a chess game," Omenka said. "The aim is to take advantage of the opponent’s gaps or vulnerabilities. Our COVID-19 strategies are liable to (include) adjustments, as driven by emerging evidence."

The Lagos State Government has announced that it would begin a short clinical trial to ascertain the efficiency of Ivermectin in the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 infection.
This was disclosed by the State Government in a social media statement on Sunday.
Lagos State Government said it is aware of “numerous international claims that the broad spectrum anti-parasitic agent/medication Ivermectin has shown some efficacy in acting as a sustained prophylaxis in containing/inhibiting the causative virus in SARS CoV-2.”
They added that despite the medication not being approved for the treatment of the virus, “the State Government has however taken the bold step of ensuring we have adequate stocks of Ivermectin”
What you should know
Recall Nairametrics reported that the cost of Ivermectin has risen after research suggests a 75% chance of cutting Covid-19 deaths.
“At N200 per tablet, a pack of 500 tablets could go for as high as N100,000. From all indications, the prices are unstable and could be purchased from as little as N20,000 per pack of 500 tablets to as high as N100,000. It all depends on demand and supply and who is under pressure to get a ‘cure’”, a pharmacist told Nairametrics.



Scientific and prudent medical research is necessary, which is the necessary premise of medical progress.

The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, says the first batch of COVID-19 vaccines from COVAX will arrive in Nigeria from February.
Ehanire made this known on Monday in Abuja at the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 national briefing.
The minister, who said Nigerians should expect the first roll out of the vaccines as from February, did not specify the date or time.
"According to latest information I have, we have been advised to expect the first COVID-19 vaccines from COVAX to arrive in Nigeria as from February.
"We shall continue to review plans to ensure smooth roll out in our country," Ehanire said.
He explained that the delay being experienced in receiving the first batch of COVID-19 vaccine was because manufacturers were yet to take decisions on when to deploy it to the country.
"The date of first arrival of vaccines in Nigeria has kept changing, because the decision lies with the manufacturer who already has heavy commitments," the minister said.
Ehanire said that Nigeria had been allocated over 41 million doses by the AU's African Vaccines Acquisition Task Team AVATT and was expecting 15 of about 41 million doses from COVAX.
"Altogether, it will give us coverage for over 50 per cent of our target for 2021, if we can access all doses promised," he said.
The minister, therefore, reiterated the call by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for global equity in the allocation of vaccines, noting that COVID-19 was a threat to mankind, and not only to any country alone.
"Besides, the Director-General of WHO has repeatedly stated that no country is safe till all countries are safe.
"We have been keeping a strict eye on the vaccines scene and those who follow International news may have heard of the scramble for vaccines which has pitched some countries against each other in Europe, as wealthy high-income countries have pre-paid to allocate vaccines to themselves.
"A spokesperson for WHO estimated that 95 per cent of vaccines manufactured globally so far has gone to only 10 rich and powerful countries," he said.
Ehanire said that the Ministry of Health's Oxygen Strategy had been boosted by the addition of 38 proposed Oxygen plants, now in procurement processes.
He said that it would address COVID-19 treatment centres' needs and the long neglected oxygen needs of the health sector in the post-COVID-19 era.
The minister said that the Global Fund was also on standby to assess existing oxygen plants for repair and reactivation in the short term.
Ehanire said that only two companies submitted the dossiers of their vaccines to NAFDAC till date for evaluation.

"I don’t understand why we have to risk our lives when we’re so close to a vaccine," a Chicago teacher said.
CHICAGO - Children who have been marooned at home for months by the pandemic are slowly returning to classrooms, but many teachers say they won’t go back until they’ve received the Covid-19 vaccine.
Especially in Chicago, the nation’s third-largest public school district, where teachers who were supposed to return to classrooms Wednesday worked from home again and are once more threatening to strike.
“Community spread is still so high in Chicago, and so many people are sick and dying. I don’t know how to keep myself safe in an old building with so many people," said Kirstin Roberts, a preschool teacher at the Brentano Math and Science Academy, on the city’s northwest side “I don’t understand why we have to risk our lives when we’re so close to a vaccine.”
While researchers from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have recommended reopening schools as soon as possible with mask-wearing and other safeguards in place, the teachers most resistant to the idea were in districts like Chicago that have had little to no in-person education since March, Dennis Roche of Burbio, a data service that audits school opening information, said.
“Vaccinating teachers, it would seem, would make things easier,” he said. “But this hasn’t moved the needle” in districts where education has mostly been virtual.
The percentage of kindergarten through 12th grade students attending “virtual only” schools declined in the last week from nearly 50 percent to 42 percent, according to the latest Burbio newsletter.
But as of Wednesday, about a third of all students in the United States have not had any in-person education since March and they were concentrated in “a small group of six states and several big cities,” Roche said.
Those states are Oregon, California, Virginia, New Mexico, Maryland and Washington, and the big cities include Chicago, Philadelphia, Kansas City, Cleveland and Boston, he said.
In Chicago, there has been a weekslong impasse between teachers and the school district over resuming in-person education, which has so far been limited to a just a few special education and preschool classes.
Citing safety concerns, the teachers union Sunday voted against returning to classrooms despite being threatened with professional discipline and being locked out of online teaching platforms.
This forced the Chicago Public Schools to push back their planned return date from Monday to Wednesday to allow more time for negotiations, a deadline that's now passed.
President Joe Biden on Monday said he sympathized with the Chicago teachers.
"It's not so much about the idea of teachers aren't going to work," Biden said during a briefing with reporters. "The teachers I know, they want to work. "They just want to work in a safe environment and...as safe as we can rationally make it. And we can do that."
In a study published online Tuesday in the journal JAMA, CDC researchers offered a series of recommendations for reopening classrooms and said their data suggests schools are not responsible for the same type of Covid-19 outbreaks that have been reported at nursing homes, correctional facilities and "high-density worksites," such as meatpacking plants.
"There has been little evidence that schools have contributed meaningfully to increased community transmission," they wrote.
But in New Jersey, where Gov. Phil Murphy has not prioritized the vaccine for educators, teachers in the well-off suburbs of Montclair and Maplewood want to be inoculated before they resume in-person schooling.
“We are nearing February and already vaccines are available to high-risk individuals, so a return to school is on the horizon,” the South Orange and Maplewood Education Association, which is the local teachers union, said in a recent letter to the school board. “But to do so as numbers climb, variant strains are spreading, and under conditions which render actual instruction less effective, is not just fatuous but reckless.”
In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine said he was accelerating the distribution of vaccines to school employees with the hope of getting all teachers back to the classrooms by March 1.
"Many ot her districts will begin next week, but we do not have enough vaccine to begin all schools on Feb.1," he said.
Scott DiMauro, president of the Ohio Education Association, the state's largest teachers union, said he’s fine with getting teachers vaccinated faster but many will not have got their second shot by March 1.
"While we agree that vaccination of school employees is critically needed in allowing the return to in-person instruction, it was apparent from the get-go that date was unfair and unrealistic," he said in an email to The Columbus Dispatch.

Four Biden officials tried on Sunday to manage public expectations about vaccine distribution, as frustration grows among Americans over long lines, canceled appointments and other daunting issues.
The officials also tried to smooth over confusion about President Biden’s goal of 100 million shots in the first 100 days of his administration. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease specialist, called the figure “a floor, not a ceiling,” on the CBS program “Face the Nation.”
Dr. Fauci clarified that Mr. Biden was talking about doses, not fully vaccinated people. Within those 100 days, he said, some 67 million people might have received the second of their two required vaccine doses, with another 37 million having gotten just the first dose.
By Inauguration Day last Wednesday, nearly 36 million doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines had been distributed to state and local governments. However, only about 16.5 million shots had been administered by that time.
Along with Dr. Fauci, the four officials included Dr. Vivek Murthy, the president’s nominee for surgeon general; Xavier Becerra, his nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services; and Ron Klain, Mr. Biden’s chief of staff. In appearances on the Sunday talk shows, each deflected questions about whether Mr. Biden’s goal was too ambitious or too modest.
Instead, Mr. Klain said that the vaccine distribution infrastructure inherited from the Trump administration needed to be fortified, and that many bottlenecks had to be cleared. “We need more vaccine, we need more vaccinators, we need more vaccination sites,” he said on the NBC program “Meet the Press.”
Public health officials are eagerly awaiting late-stage trial results for the one-dose vaccine under development by Johnson & Johnson. On the ABC program “This Week,” Dr. Murthy said that while the 100-million-dose goal could be achieved with the vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer that are already authorized, he was hopeful about adding the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as well.
Mr. Klain batted away the possibility that frustrated governors would purchase vaccine for their own states directly, rather than relying on the federal government. “I don’t think that’s possible,” Mr. Klain said, because the emergency authorization for the vaccines means that federal oversight is required.
Dr. Murthy said that the government also wanted to increase research on virus treatments. And he mentioned dispatching mobile vaccine units to remote communities. Until now, vaccines have been given mainly to captive populations like nursing home residents and health care workers, or in urban settings.
Mr. Becerra compared the current pandemic situation, with a severely hampered vaccine rollout and the country hurtling toward 600,000 deaths, to a stricken airplane. He said that the administration would be able to change its trajectory, but that it wouldn’t happen overnight. “You got to give us a chance to figure out what’s going on in the cockpit, causing this plane to nosedive so severely,” he said on the CNN program “State of the Union.”
Pressed for a specific timetable with realistic goals, Mr. Becerra demurred, saying his nomination had yet to be confirmed.
Dr. Fauci and other health officials have been trying to reassure the public that the vaccines that are now available would be effective against new variants of the virus that were first identified in Britain and South Africa. The vaccines could be modified if a particular variant posed a risk, Dr. Fauci said on Sunday, but there was no indication yet that modifications would be needed.

A hospital Covid-19 vaccination team shows up at the emergency room to inoculate employees who haven’t received their shots.
Finding just a few, the team is about to leave when an ER doctor suggests they give the remaining doses to vulnerable patients or nonhospital employees. The team refuses, saying that would violate hospital policy and state guidelines.
Incensed, the doctor works his way up the hospital chain of command until he finds an administrator who gives the OK for the team to use up the rest of the doses.
But by the time the doctor tracks down the medical team, its shift is over and, following protocol, whatever doses remained are now in the garbage.
Isolated incident? Not a chance, Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, told NBC News.
“This kind of thing is pretty rampant,” Jha said. “I have personally heard stories like this from dozens of physician friends in a variety of different states. Hundreds, if not thousands, of doses are getting tossed across the country every day. It’s unbelievable.”
Jha said the ER doctor whose story he laid out in a Twitter thread this week asked to not be identified, but his story, seen by thousands of people, resonated with other medical professionals frustrated by rules and regulations that they say are making it harder to get more Americans vaccinated.
Why is this happening? Covid-19 vaccines have a short shelf life once they are thawed out for use, Jha said. And because of federal and state mandates, hospitals and other health care providers would rather risk a dose going bad than give it to somebody who isn't scheduled to get a shot.
At the same time, states like Massachusetts now have rules requiring hospitals to report the number of vaccine doses that have been discarded, Jha said.
“The problem is that hospitals that do report this get pilloried in the press for wasting vaccines,” Jha said. “So, many hospitals are not reporting and this is happening across the country.”
While there doesn’t appear to be any solid numbers yet of how many of the Covid-19 vaccines have been discarded in the United States since the rollout began last month, the World Health Organization warned in 2005 that up to 50 percent of the vaccines released globally each year end up in the dumpster because of supply chain problems, such as not having enough freezer space or transportation issues.
Some of those same problem have dogged the Trump administration’s efforts to roll out the Covid-19 vaccines.
“I hope (and pray) it is not as high as 50 percent, given the thousands of people that are dying every day,” said Dr. Sadiya Khan, an epidemiologist at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “While it is an inevitable reality that a proportion of doses may be wasted, it will take careful planning and oversight to minimize waste.”
Infectious disease expert Dr. John Swartzberg agreed.
“I have not seen any data about how much vaccine has been wasted (besides what I read in the newspapers),” said Swartzberg, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health. “Given how needed it is, I hope the WHO data is incorrect.”
For Sue Joss, the CEO of the Brockton Neighborhood Health Center in Brockton, Massachusetts, one wasted dose of Covid-19 vaccine is one too many.
It was Christmas Eve, she said, and a staffer scheduled to receive that last remaining shot of the 60 Moderna vaccines that had been removed from cold storage that day did not show up.
“We can’t let this happen again,” Joss recalled saying before the unclaimed dose was trashed.
So, Joss put into place a system to ensure that if somebody fails to show up for an appointment, there is another person ready and waiting to take his or her place. “We now have a waiting list of people who can come in on short notice to get a shot,” she said.
But that’s not foolproof either, Joss added.
“One time last week, we went marching through the halls to find a patient willing to get a shot, so a dose wouldn’t go to waste,” she said.
Similar stories of unused doses landing in the garbage have been reported elsewhere in the country.
Dozens of doses earmarked for two hospitals in Portland, Oregon, were thrown away when officials couldn’t round up enough health care workers to get the shots before the vaccines expired.
In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo loosened rules designed to ensure that the first shots went to front-line health care workers and retirement home residents – and that less endangered people did not cut in line – following reports that unused vaccines were being thrown away.
And in Ohio, three dozen doses landed in the garbage after a nursing home in Lawrence County overestimated the number of vaccines it needed, forcing the pharmacists administering the shots to search for takers.
“They did everything they could,” Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said. “They got everyone who would take a shot but they had some leftover, a lot of leftover.”
President Donald Trump, whose erratic leadership during the pandemic helped doom his re-election bid, had vowed that 20 million people in the U.S. would be immunized by the end of 2020.
But as of Thursday, 30.6 million doses of coronavirus vaccine had been distributed with just 11.1 million people receiving their first shots, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccination tracker.
The massive coronavirus vaccine rollout in the U.S. has been hobbled by poor planning, a distribution system that relies largely on state and local governments to make those calls, and by well-meaning attempts at limiting the distribution of the first doses to the most vulnerable populations that have backfired.
Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to lead the world with more than 23 million confirmed Covid-19 cases and nearly 387,000 deaths, according to data compiled by NBC News and Johns Hopkins University.

See, how wasteful this is, it is also a crime against humanity. The World Health Organization announced the availability of vaccines. Some countries have only received 25 new crown vaccines, but these developed countries can waste as many as they want. Do Americans only know that they have priority? In the face of the plague, can the United States protect itself alone?

LAGOS, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) -- The Nigerian government has announced a 10 billion naira (about 25.3 million U.S. dollars) fund to support domestic vaccine production to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.
At a news conference on Monday in Abuja, Health Minister Osagie Ehanire revealed that the ministry of finance has released the 10 billion naira fund as the country is working to develop an indigenous coronavirus vaccine.
"While we are working to develop our own vaccines, Nigeria is exploring options for licensed production, in collaboration with recognized institutions. We are also exploring the option of local production of the vaccines in the country," Ehanire said.
Ehanire, who did not reveal details regarding the development of an indigenous coronavirus vaccine or licensed production, urged Nigerians to ignore claims by some people that they had COVID-19 vaccines for sale in the country.
"I advise against fake vaccines, as there is no one approved for use in the country. The National Primary Health Care Development Agency is the only authorized vaccine administrator in Nigeria," he said.
Ehanire told reporters that the number of new COVID-19 cases had continued to rise in the country, with 10,300 confirmed cases having been reported from just 50,750 samples tested in one week, translating into a 20 percent positive rate.
According to the minister, the government's main effort is to ensure social mobilization for testing, strengthening surveillance activities for early detection, active contact tracing, isolation, and treatment.

Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, World Health Organisation(WHO) envoy on Covid-19 has said vaccines from COVAX, one of the three pillars to Access COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator launched in April by the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Commission and France in response to the pandemic would arrive in February.
COVAX is led by Gavi, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and WHO with an aim to accelerate the development and manufacturing of Covid-19 vaccines and to guarantee fair and equitable access for every country in the world. Dr Iweala is the Board Chair of Global Vaccine Alliance GAVI, a public-private global health partnership with the goal of increasing access to immunisation in poor countries.

CHICAGO (CBS) — While COVID cases and hospitalizations are down slightly in Chicago, the city’s top doctor still wants people not to travel throughout the United States.
Doctor Allison Arwady, head of the Chicago Department of Public Health, said the city’s travel zone grid showing what states have elevated numbers of COVID cases has gone from a three color system — with red, orange and yellow zones — to now a two-tier system with orange and yellow zones, which as of Tuesday has most of the United States in the orange zone. Only Hawaii is doing well with containing the number of coronavirus cases, putting it in the yellow zone.
“Except for the state of Hawaii, which is the only state in the U.S. that arguably is in excellent control of COVID, every other state, we are advising avoiding travel,” Arwady said. “But if people travel, upon return to Chicago or arrival in Chicago, they either have the choice of a 10-day quarantine or a getting a pre-arrival, negative test within 72 hours and then for those 10 days in Chicago, obviously strict masking social distancing avoiding unnecessary gatherings.”
Arwady said numbers in the city have declined some, but she said that Chicago is not in a good place in terms of case numbers.
“We are currently averaging just over 1,000 new cases in Chicago residents per day, while down from the 2,400 new cases per day that we were averaging in November, but well above the 400 new cases per day, which is where we’d like to be and where we were over the summer,” Arwady said. “Our goal here is the city ideally would be under 5% positivity. We’re currently at 10.3% test positivity in Chicago residents.”
Arwady said the change was made to be more in line with CDC guidance connected to travel as well as the availability of more COVID testing opportunities.
The head of the CDPH said the vaccine rollout continues, with healthcare workers at the head of the line to get a COVID vaccine. Arwady acknowledged that not every healthcare worker in the city has gotten the COVID vaccine, and it’s possible others, including essential workers, will be vaccinated soon.

The reopening of schools and religious centres without adherence to safety protocols contributed to the rise in COVID-19 cases across Nigeria, an official has said.
The Chairman of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha, made this known at its briefing on Monday.
He noted that reopening of airports and increased local and international travels also fuel the rise in coronavirus cases from late November 2020.
“It is however very instructive to stress that factors that have contributed to rise in numbers from late November 2020 included increased local and international travels, business and religious activities, reopening of schools without strict compliance with COVID-19 safety measures,” Mr Mustapha said.
Since early December, there has been a spike in coronavirus cases across Africa’s most populous country, an indication that the country had entered the second wave of the pandemic.
A recent review by PREMIUM TIMES shows that one in every six persons (16 per cent) tested for COVID-19 in Nigeria in the past two weeks tested positive, indicating how fast the virus is spreading.
Health experts believe the lowering of guard on safety and the weak enforcement of protocols especially in the country’s major airports in Abuja and Lagos could be responsible for the development.
They warn that the situation could get worse if citizens keep violating safety protocols.
The federal government recently warned that a significant increase in COVID-19 infections in Nigeria appears imminent this January due to the violation of safety protocols during the Christmas period.

The Nigeria Centre For Disease Control (NCDC) says increasing  national testing capacity for COVID-19 will enable understanding of its burden.
The Head of Department, Surveillance and Epidemiology Department, NCDC, Mrs Elsie Ilori, made this known on Thursday in Abuja at a briefing by the Presidential Tasks Force on COVID-19.
Ilori noted that in the last 24 hours, Nigeria recorded 1,664 new confirmed cases.
“Last week, over 40,000 tests were done. This is more than 10 per cent increase in the testing done the week before.
“Since the start of the outbreak, we have worked tirelessly to achieve this (increased testing)  through rapid expansion of laboratories and increased surveillance activities.
“This is enabling prompt detection of cases even at our points of entry,” she said.
She said that increase in confirmed cases remained a cause for concern.
“There is therefore need for stricter adherence to nonh-parmaceutical interventions  such as proper use of face masks, frequent handwashing and maintenance of physical distance of at least two meters.
“At NCDC, we continued our operations even throughout the Yuletide.
“Several colleagues spent the holiday away from their loved ones, strengthening the nation’s public health response to this pandemic,” she said.
Ilori said that the  National Emergency Operations Centre  had been working hard since  the outbreak of the  pandemic, supporting all states in their responses.

SAN FRANCISCO — California’s epidemiologist, Dr. Erica Pan, said more than 2 million vaccine doses have shipped to the state and well over 530,000 doses administered, although she expects the numbers are several days out of date. She said like other states, California needs to ramp up distribution and expects to do so as more doses arrive and more pharmacy, dental and medical field staff made available to administer the doses.
“Having the vaccine come in the middle of our worst surge of all has been a real stress on our health care system and on our public health departments,” said Pan at a Thursday webinar hosted by San Francisco area’s business association Bay Area Council. 
Pan said momentum for vaccinations is building as more frontline workers receive the vaccine but said how quickly regular people get the doses will depend on local conditions. About 3 million people are expected to be in the current phase.

NEW YORK (Reuters) -More than two-thirds of the 15 million coronavirus vaccines shipped within the United States have gone unused, U.S. health officials said on Monday, as the governors of New York and Florida vowed to penalize hospitals that fail to dispense shots quickly.
In New York, hospitals must administer vaccines within a week of receiving them or face a fine and a reduction in future supplies, Governor Andrew Cuomo said, hours before announcing the state's first known case of a new, more infectious coronavirus variant originally detected in Britain.
"I don't want the vaccine in a fridge or a freezer, I want it in somebody's arm," the governor said. "If you're not performing this function, it does raise questions about the operating efficiency of the hospital."
New York hospitals on the whole have dispensed fewer than half of their allocated doses to date, but performance varied from one group of hospitals to another, Cuomo said. The NYC Health + Hospitals system, the city's main public hospital network, has only administered 31% of its allotment, compared with 99% for a few private hospitals in the state.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported an even lower vaccine uptake for New York overall, saying fewer than one in five of the 896,000 doses shipped to the state since mid-December have been given.
In Florida, where officials have put senior citizens ahead of many essential workers for getting the vaccine, Governor Ron DeSantis announced a policy under which the state would allocate more doses to hospitals that dispense them most quickly,
"Hospitals that do not do a good job of getting the vaccine out will have their allocations transferred to hospitals that are doing a good job at getting the vaccine out," DeSantis said at a briefing.
"We do not want vaccine to just be idle at some hospital system," he added, although he did not say they would face fines.
Florida, which has dispensed less than a quarter of the 1.14 million doses it has received, according to the CDC, will also deploy an additional 1,000 nurses to administer vaccines and will keep state-run vaccination sites open seven days a week, DeSantis said.

(CNN)While hopes of vaccinating 20 million people by New Year's Day sputtered out, the US now faces staggering new challenges in the fight against Covid-19.
Over the past week, the US has averaged 2,637 coronavirus deaths every day, according to Johns Hopkins University.
That's an average of one Covid-19 death every 33 seconds.
December was the deadliest month yet of this pandemic, with 77,572 lives lost. And deaths are likely to accelerate as new infections and hospitalizations rise.
On Monday, more people were hospitalized with Covid-19 than any other day in this pandemic -- 128,210, according to the Covid Tracking Project.
The US averaged 213,437 new infections every day over the past week, largely fueled by holiday gatherings, health experts say.
That number will likely keep rising, as the Transportation Security Administration said it screened more than 1.3 million travelers Sunday -- a new record for this pandemic.
But while daily new infections soared 16% over the past week, testing has actually decreased 11.65% over the past week, according to the Covid Tracking Project.
Doctors now worry this rampant spread of Covid-19 will push more hospitals beyond capacity and lead to more deaths as the vaccine rollout staggers along.

The coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University is not likely to be authorized for use in the U.S. until April, a top Trump administration health official said Wednesday.
“We project, if everything goes well, that the readout and emergency use authorization may be granted somewhere early in the month of April,” Moncef Slaoui, the chief science adviser for the administration's Operation Warp Speed, told reporters.
The April estimate from Slaoui is a change from earlier this month, when he told reporters he expected an emergency authorization could come in February. The U.S. has already purchased 300 million doses of the vaccine.
Britain on Wednesday became the first country in the world to authorize the vaccine for emergency use, but it was partly based on unpublished data because of the way the U.K. reviews the trial.
In an effort to push out as many doses of the vaccine as possible, British officials said they would not hold back doses. Instead, they will prioritize giving people the first dose and delay the second shot for as long as three months.
The vaccine has the potential to be a global difference-maker in the fight against COVID-19. AstraZeneca has promised to make as many as three billion doses available in 2021, which is far more than any other manufacturer. The company has also pledged not to make a profit on the vaccine, so the cost is also much cheaper.
The vaccine also can be transported and stored for months with normal refrigeration, unlike the two authorized vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.
In the U.S. though, health officials have raised questions after promising early results turned out to be the result of a dosing error.
The shot has a 62 percent effective rate if given in two full doses 28 days apart like it was for most participants. The company found the drug to be 90 percent effective when a small group in the trial was mistakenly given half a dose initially, followed by a full dose.
Slaoui expressed some concern with the data but indicated the ultimate decision would be up to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Novavax Inc. will start the final-stage trial of its coronavirus vaccine with 30,000 people in the U.S. and Mexico, opening another avenue for shots to fight the pandemic, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said.
The trial, to be completed across 115 locations, is the latest large-scale effort in the U.S. to evaluate vaccines to protect against the virus that’s killed more than 330,000 Americans. The company is also studying the vaccine in a large trial in the U.K. that’s completed dosing. Initial results from that trial should be released early next year, Chief Executive Officer Stan Erck said Monday in an interview on Bloomberg Television.
Erck said the trials underway will show whether the Novavax vaccine is similarly effective to shots already authorized in the U.S. that have demonstrated greater than 90% protection from illness.
“We don’t know until we know,” Erck said. Based on earlier studies of the immune response prompted by the Novavax shot, “we expect similar results,” he added.
If successful, Novavax’s shot would expand an arsenal that includes vaccines from Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc. that were authorized for emergency use this month. Other vaccines from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca Plc are also in large-scale trials.
Novavax’s experimental NVX-CoV2373 vaccine uses a different mechanism than the Pfizer and Moderna shots, which rely on messenger RNA, a technology being used in vaccines for the first time. The Novavax shot is made from a “stabilized” form of the coronavirus spike protein incapable of causing infection. It also contains an adjuvant, a substance designed to enhance the immune system response.
Erck also said he thought the Novavax shot would likely prove effective against a new variant of the SARS CoV-2 virus spreading in the U.K. and elsewhere that is suspected of being more easily transmitted.
The company has been working to build manufacturing capacity across the globe, with commercial-scale factories worldwide ready to produce millions of doses, Erck said.
The U.S. trial of Novavax’s vaccine will be conducted with Operation Warp Speed, the federal government’s effort to accelerate vaccine development.
“The launch of this study — the fifth investigational coronavirus vaccine candidate to be tested in a phase 3 trial in the United States — demonstrates our resolve to end the pandemic through development of multiple safe and effective vaccines,” Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a statement.

California reached an alarming milestone Wednesday, surpassing more than 2 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 — the most of any state in the U.S., according to NBC News data.
The virus has devastated the state in recent weeks, claiming scores of lives — sometimes hundreds per day — and overwhelming hospital systems. In total, more than 23,000 people have died from the virus there.
Los Angeles County, the most populous county in the U.S., has been hit particularly hard. The county has seen more than 660,000 confirmed cases of the virus, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
The crisis in California comes as public health experts fear that Christmas travel and New Year's Eve celebrations could cause another surge in cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
Top public health officials have warned that the winter months will be especially dire and dangerous. Dr. Robert Redfield, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has said he believes "they're going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation."

Two people have been fined ￡10,000 each for holding a flat party with more than 60 guests in Leicester.
Bodycam footage showed officers knocking on the door of the property - which is in a Tier 3 area, where any indoor household mixing is banned - on 12 December.
One of the officers says to the person who opens the door: "Hiya mate, you alright? What's going on?"
When the officer discovers some 60 people were crowded inside, he exclaims "wooaaah" and orders everyone who does not live there to leave, adding: "The party's over."
An officer is later seen telling a host that they will be reported, to which a voice replies: "Yeah."
Leicestershire Police said they released the footage of the King Street party to "reinforce the message that people must follow the coronavirus rules or they risk being fined".
The force said that in two weeks, 37 fines worth ￡23,500 have been issued for COVID-19 rule breaches.
Twenty fixed penalty notices were handed out in relation to a gathering in cars near Leicester General Hospital on Saturday, the force added.

Abuja — Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has urged the federal government to act fast and now to prevent Nigerians from recording avoidable casualties as the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic hits the world.

He advised the federal government to emulate the European countries by banning flights from the United Kingdom.

He said this in a statement titled: 'An Ounce of Prevention Is Better Than a Pound of Cure', which he signed in Abuja, on Sunday.

Atiku said, "We must face the reality that our health sector is not sufficiently prepared to handle a sudden and unpredictable surge of this pandemic. We have already lost lives needlessly. We need not lose more.

"Already, prudent nations are taking prompt action, and Nigeria must take necessary precautions, due to the volume of air traffic between Nigerian airports and London, where this new strain has erupted.

"The reason Nigeria took a harder than necessary hit during the first wave of the COVID-19 virus is that the Federal Government failed to heed the warnings of well-meaning Nigerians, like myself and others, to shut down our borders once the virus became a pandemic.

"Hindsight is 20/20. Nevertheless, we must learn from history or we stand the risk of repeating it.

"The new strain of COVID19 that has erupted in the United Kingdom, and specifically, London, can add to Nigeria's health emergency if we do not act with an abundance of caution and temporarily halt all flights to and from the UK, until this new strain is brought under control. In the case of this virus, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

As front-line workers across the country receive their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, clinical studies are underway involving kids.
Earlier this month, Moderna announced the first adolescent participants were given a dose. Their study includes adolescents ages 12 to 17.
“We are pleased to begin this Phase 2/3 study of mRNA-1273 in healthy adolescents in the U.S. Our goal is to generate data in the spring of 2021 that will support the use of mRNA-1273 in adolescents in advance of the 2021 school year,” said Stéphane Bancel, Chief Executive Officer of Moderna.
The company intends to enroll 3,000 adolescent participants.
In October, Pfizer shared the Food and Drug Administration reviewed an amendment to their Phase 3 clinical study to include adolescents from the ages of 12-15. Several sites are now enrolling participants between the ages of 12-15.
“We cannot comment or speculate when our pediatric trial plan will be finalized as it is dependent on the immunogenicity, efficacy, and safety data accumulated by the 12-15 year old groups,” said a spokesperson for Pfizer.
This is subject on the minds of parents already, including Stefanie Grieve. Her daughter is a 10-year-old IPS student.
“I like to stay hopeful and optimistic the trials for the children go well too,” she said.
Amanda Price, another IPS parent, does not feel comfortable with a vaccine right now. Her son is eight years old.
“I can’t ask my child and expect my child to do something that I am not going to do myself,” Price said. “There is a big question mark in my mind with the vaccine just because it was pushed through clinical trials so quickly.”
Pediatrician Dr. Tony GiaQuinta received his first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine earlier this week. He’s already getting questions about a vaccine for kids from families.
“If we can show that this vaccine can be given delivered safely and effectively to children to prevent coronavirus then they will have my full backing,” said Dr. GiaQuinta.
He said he’s hopeful a safe and effective vaccine will be available for kids by next school year.
According to data from the Marion County Public Health Department, people ages 19 and younger make up less than 2 percent of COVID-19 hospital visits as of Thursday. Even though kids are not getting as sick as older adults, Dr. GiaQuinta still stressed the importance of prevention.
“I am just as interested in a child’s mental health and emotional health when we are taking kids out of their activities,” he said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. congressional negotiators were haggling on Wednesday over details of a $900 billion COVID-19 aid bill that is expected to include $600-$700 stimulus checks and extended unemployment benefits, as a Friday deadline loomed, lawmakers and aides said.
Top members of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and Republican-led Senate sounded more positive than they have in months on a fresh response to a crisis that has killed more than 304,000 Americans and thrown millions out of work.
“We made major headway toward hammering out a targeted pandemic relief package,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said. “We need vaccine distribution money, we need to re-up the Paycheck Protection Program to save jobs, we need to continue to provide for laid-off Americans.”
PPP is the federal loan and grant aid program to small businesses suffering from the pandemic.
But congressional aides were struggling on Wednesday to draft legislative language as rates of COVID-19 infections soar to new highs, even as the United States starts to vaccinate people. The American economy is showing signs of weakening.
The measure, to be attached to a massive spending bill that must pass by Friday to avert a government shutdown, was not expected to include a dedicated funding stream for state and local governments, which has been a key Democratic priority, but opposed by Republicans, or new protections for companies from lawsuits related to the pandemic, something high on the Republican agenda.
The lack of new funds for state and local governments grappling with the pandemic “really hurts. That’s something ... I would like to see included and I don’t think will be,” said the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin.
But the details of several issues were unresolved. One argument was over whether to increase reimbursements from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to local governments for expenses related to COVID-19, like personal protective equipment for schools. Democrats said that would cost about $1 billion, but Republicans were wary.
“If it’s simply a way of disguising money for state and local governments, we’ll have a lot of opposition,” said the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, John Thune.
Durbin said the goal was to reach an agreement on Wednesday and have it ready for voting beginning on Thursday. But as the day stretched into evening, that seemed less likely.
The House Democratic leader, Steny Hoyer, said that if the Friday midnight deadline for approving the spending measure is not met, he could envision another stopgap spending bill of three or four days’ duration to keep government agencies open while negotiations continue.

The Food and Drug Administration could vote as soon as Thursday to approve a COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer for emergency use authorization in the United States.

Speaking to NPR this week, FDA head Dr. Stephen Hahn reiterated the government's commitment to vaccine safety. But public opinion polls suggest many Americans are still skeptical of coronavirus vaccines, and misinformation about them has been spreading online.

Renee DiResta of the Stanford Internet Observatory tells NPR why misinformation often takes hold where people are not necessarily looking for it.

NPR's Adrian Florido reports public health experts are worried that Latinos and African Americans — communities that are disproportionately affected by COVID-19 — may be less likely to get vaccinated.

The air transport system is really at the forefront of all our collective objectives to realize Africa as a single economic bloc – VP Solomon Quaynor
Nearly 5 million of Africa’s 7 million aviation and tourism industry-related jobs have been lost in 2020
Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, 4 December 4, 2020- Africa’s aviation industry represents a huge market that the continent’s airlines need to exploit more fully, with technology and AI offering the way forward for expansion, regional development experts said Thursday.
“Technology and smart technologies are offering this fantastic opportunity, so let’s make use of AI, let’s make use of the Internet of Things, let’s capacitate our people to revamp and to rethink our industry, to make sure that both our airports and our airlines cater for the very near future,” said Dr. Amani Abou Zeid, African Union Commission for Infrastructure and Energy, during the opening session of a virtual workshop.
The workshop, held on 3 December, was organized by the African Development Bank under the theme, African Aviation Recovery Conference: coordinating an efficient response to the COVID-19 crisis’s effects on the Aviation sector in Africa.

Nigeria and six other African countries will receive the first-ever HIV generic drug for babies in the first half of 2021.
This is according to UNITAID – global health initiative that works with partners to bring about innovations to prevent, diagnose, and treat major diseases in low-and middle-income countries, with an emphasis on tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDS, and its deadly co-infections.
UNITAID noted that the drug, a strawberry-flavoured tablet, is the first generic pediatric version of a key anti-retroviral available, even for babies, and will be rolled out in African countries in 2021.
According to UNITAID, about 1.7 million children worldwide live with HIV, but only half receive any treatment – often hard to administer due to the bitter taste or incorrectly dosed by crushing adult pills.
About 100,000 children die of AIDS annually.
The first-line HIV treatment is recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) from the age of four weeks and 3 kilos (6.6 pounds), but it had been out of reach for babies because of the lack of appropriate formulations.
UNITAID and the Clinton Health Access Initiative have reached a pricing agreement with the generic drug makers Viatris and Macleods for the dispersible pediatric formulation of dolutegravir (DTG).
In this context, UNITAID maintained “the estimated cost for combination therapy will now be some $120 for a child’s annual treatment, against $480 currently, making it a ‘game-changer’ for poorer countries.”
UNITAID spokesman, Herve Verhoosel, told Geneva news briefing that, “For many of those children, the HIV virus is not suppressed due in part to lack of availability of effective drugs that are palatable and properly adapted for them.”
According to Verhoosel, “Benin, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Uganda and Zimbabwe are due to receive the first tablets in the first half of 2021.”

NEW YORK: The head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned on Wednesday the Covid-19 pandemic, raging with unprecedented fury nationwide, will pose the country’s grimmest health crisis yet over the next few months, before vaccines become widely available.
CDC Director Dr Robert Redfield urged Americans to redouble their diligence about wearing face coverings, avoiding crowds and practising good hand hygiene to slow the spread of a highly contagious respiratory virus now claiming over 2,000 US lives a day.
He said the latest coronavirus surge has already proven far more devastating than previous waves in terms of its wide geographic scope and steeper trajectory of rising infection rates, hospitalisations and deaths.
Besides the outright loss of life, Redfield said, the country faces the prospect of a healthcare system strained to the point of collapse.
“The reality is that December, January and February are going to be rough times,” Redfield said in a livestream presentation hosted by the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation.
“I actually believe they’re going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation.”
More than 270,000 Americans have perished from Covid-19 to date.
And the University of Washington’s influential Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation has projected the toll could reach nearly 450,000 by March 1 without greater attention to social distancing and mask-wearing.
“We’re potentially looking at another 150,000 to 200,000 people (dead) before we get into February,” Redfield said.
The dire warning came as US health experts on Wednesday welcomed British emergency approval of Pfizer Inc’s Covid-19 vaccine, a sign that US regulators may soon follow suit.
As US coronavirus hospitalisations jumped to their highest since the onset of the global pandemic, Britain gave emergency use approval to the vaccine developed by Pfizer and German partner BioNTech SE, the first country to do so.
Britain said it would start inoculating high-risk people early next week, a move that could make Americans more confident about the prospect of an expected mass vaccination campaign reminiscent of the anti-polio campaigns of the 1950s and 1960s.
“This should be very reassuring. An independent regulatory authority in another country has found this vaccine to be safe and effective for use,” US Health Secretary Alex Azar told Fox Business Network on Wednesday.
US Covid-19 hospitalisations hit a record for a fourth consecutive day on Tuesday, approaching 100,000, according to a Reuters tally. At the same time, exhausted healthcare professionals are short-staffed, with many of their colleagues falling sick.
Although China and Russia also have moved ahead with inoculation campaigns with their own vaccines, Britain’s medical standards more closely align with those of the US.
“It’s got major significance being that it’s the first Western country to approve the vaccine for a roll-out and start administering it to the public,” said Kirsten Hokeness, an immunology and virology expert and chair of Science and Technology at Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island.
A US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel of outside advisers will meet on Dec 10 to discuss whether to recommend emergency use authorization of the Pfizer vaccine.
Moderna’s vaccine, which employs similar technology as Pfizer’s and was also nearly 95% effective in preventing illness in a pivotal clinical trial, is expected to be reviewed a week later.
Regulatory and social hurdles
While some US health officials described a timeline that assumed FDA authorisation would come within days of the Dec 10 meeting, others have said it could take weeks.
“Surely we want a vaccine available as soon as it is deemed safe. We want to make sure that we can provide accurate information to the public,” said Dr Lisa Costello, a professor of paediatrics at the West Virginia University School of Medicine who is helping advise West Virginia’s state government on vaccine distribution.
Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca Plc have already started manufacturing their vaccines and say distribution could begin almost immediately after approval.
AstraZeneca, however, may have to conduct an additional trial to gain US approval after a dosing error led to better results in recently released data than for its planned regimen.
Beyond regulatory hurdles, vaccinations face opposition from significant numbers of Americans who reject medical science and fear vaccines as harmful.
Similarly, many Americans still refuse to follow basic public health guidance on wearing masks and avoiding crowds.
In hopes of increasing compliance, the CDC on Wednesday added new guidelines for shorter quarantines after coronavirus exposure.
The health agency said seven days with a negative Covid-19 test and 10 days without a test would work for individuals showing no symptoms after exposure to the virus. But it still recommends a 14-day quarantine period as the best way to reduce its spread.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday that his country is not ready to loosen border restrictions with the United States given spiking U.S. coronavirus cases, though he said it was "welcome news" that President-elect Joe Biden was taking the situation seriously.
“We are incredibly lucky that trade in essential goods, in agricultural products, in pharmaceuticals is flowing back and forth as it always has,” Trudeau told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., according to The Washington Post. “It’s just not people traveling, which I think is the important thing.”
Trudeau said he has discussed the ongoing border restrictions with Biden, but added “the situation in the United States continues to be extremely serious, and it will take a while to turn the ship around.”
The U.S. and Canada agreed to seal the border to all but essential travel in March to stem the spread of the virus. Trudeau said Canadian officials have also extended restrictions on entrants from countries other than the U.S. through Jan. 14.
Although the prevalence of cases varied across Canada during the initial spring wave, the country has seen a surge in cases like much of the world. The seven-day average of new cases is up nearly 100 percent from the previous month, with 5,335 new cases reported Monday. This figure also represents a 12 percent increase from last week.
Trudeau previously announced in late November that the border restrictions would be extended until late December at the earliest.
“We’ve extended the current border measures by another 30 days. Non-essential travel between our two countries remains restricted until at least December 21,” he tweeted on Nov. 20.

Malaria is our pain in Africa. It has caused a lot of loss of our lives and severely restricted our economic development. Humans have been fighting malaria for many years, and effective treatment options have matured. Chinese medical experts have found artemisinin. If we value malaria as much as covid-19, I believe we can overcome it.