Germany’s health minister, Jens Spahn, called Friday for COVID-19 vaccine booster shots for anyone who was fully vaccinated at least six months ago, as the nation faces a fourth wave of coronavirus infections.<\/P>
Speaking to reporters following a two-day summit in Bavaria with health ministers from the 16 German states, Spahn said Germany’s COVID-19 situation is entering a very difficult period, as the country’s Robert Koch Institute reported a record 37,120 new daily cases Friday.<\/P>
Spahn said the “fourth wave” is not only here, but it has “been here for a long time,” and is gaining strength “and has clearly accelerated.”<\/P>
The minister said some German state leaders have warned the country may need a new lockdown if urgent action is not taken.<\/P>
The surge in Germany is part of a rise in COVID-19 cases and deaths in Europe that have made the region the new epicenter of the pandemic, Hans Kluge, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Europe regional director, said Thursday.<\/P>
At a regular COVID-19 briefing at the agency headquarters in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and other experts discussed the surge in Europe, where cases have risen 55% in the past four weeks, despite an ample supply of vaccines.<\/P>
“Let me be very clear: This should not be happening. We have all the tools to prevent COVID-19 transmission and save lives, and we continue to call on all countries to use those tools,” Tedros said.<\/P>
The WHO chief also decried the fact that the world’s low-income nations have received only 0.4% of the world’s vaccines. He said those nations rely almost exclusively on vaccines distributed through the WHO-managed global vaccine cooperative, COVAX.<\/P>
Tedros said no more vaccines should go to nations that have vaccinated more than 40% of their populations and no more boosters should be administered, except to patients who are immunocompromised, until COVAX gets the vaccines it needs to inoculate low-income nations to the 40% level.<\/P>
Separately, in the United States, the Biden administration says it has severed ties with a U.S. company that was awarded a $628 million deal by the Trump administration to produce COVID-19 vaccines.<\/P>
Earlier this year, Emergent BioSolutions was found to have contaminated 15 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine with ingredients designated for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. The Food and Drug Administration later threw out at least 60 million more Johnson & Johnson shots produced at the Baltimore plant.<\/P>
Americans who work for companies with at least 100 employees must be fully vaccinated by January 4 or undergo weekly testing for COVID-19, the Biden administration said Thursday. The new rule affects about 84 million workers, but it is not immediately clear how many of those workers are unvaccinated.<\/P>
WHO has issued an alert about fake AstraZeneca vaccines in Iran. WHO said the “difficult to detect products” are “illicitly refilled vials of used and discarded genuine COVID-19 VACCINE AstraZeneca” and pose a risk for being “illicitly or accidentally inserted into the regulated supply chain or authorized immunization program.”<\/P>
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said early Friday that it has recorded 248.7 million global COVID-19 cases and more than 5 million deaths. The center said 7.1 billion vaccine doses have been administered.<\/P>
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Source: Voice of America<\/P>
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