Country, Other	Total Cases	New Cases	Total Deaths
World	113,534,065	+444,774	2,518,427
USA	29,052,262	+77,377	520,785
India	11,063,038	+16,568	156,861
Brazil	10,393,886	+67,878	251,661
Russia	4,212,100	+11,198	84,876
UK	4,154,562	+9,985	122,070
France	3,686,813	+25,403	85,582
Spain	3,180,212	+9,568	68,813
Italy	2,868,435	+19,886	96,974
Turkey	2,674,766	+9,572	28,358
Germany	2,426,819	+10,782	70,003
Colombia	2,241,225	+3,683	59,396
Argentina	2,093,645	+8,234	51,795
Mexico	2,060,908	+8,642	182,815
Poland	1,673,252	+12,142	43,094
Iran	1,607,081	+8,206	59,830
South Africa	1,509,124	+1,676	49,667
Ukraine	1,325,841	+8,147	25,596
Indonesia	1,314,634	+8,493	35,518
Peru	1,308,722	+7,923	45,903
Czechia	1,198,323	+13,793	19,915
Netherlands	1,073,971	+5,011	15,438
Canada	858,220	+3,094	21,865
Chile	812,344	+4,472	20,310
Portugal	801,746	+1,160	16,185
Romania	791,971	+3,923	20,167
Israel	767,726	+3,970	5,687
Belgium	760,809	+3,113	21,988
Iraq	684,362	+4,074	13,351
Pakistan	575,941	+1,361	12,772
Philippines	568,676	+2,265	12,201
Bangladesh	544,954	+410	8,384
Morocco	482,514	+386	8,598
Austria	452,767	+2,391	8,493
Serbia	449,901	+3,588	4,398
Japan	428,553	+1,086	7,647
Hungary	414,514	+4,385	14,672
UAE	381,662	+3,025	1,182
Jordan	380,268	+3,827	4,627
Saudi Arabia	376,377	+356	6,480
Lebanon	366,319	+3,469	4,560
Panama	339,383	+682	5,810
Slovakia	300,775	+2,438	6,859
Malaysia	293,698	+1,924	1,100
Belarus	282,898	+1,191	1,948
Ecuador	281,169	+2,390	15,669
Nepal	273,872	+112	2,685
Georgia	269,800	+362	3,475
Bolivia	245,719	+1,339	11,547
Bulgaria	243,946	+1,822	10,079
Croatia	241,592	+544	5,489
Dominican Republic	237,629	+746	3,075
Azerbaijan	233,770	+126	3,209
Tunisia	231,298	+855	7,911
Ireland	217,478	+608	4,271
Kazakhstan	210,357	+795	2,540
Denmark	209,682	+603	2,351
Costa Rica	203,914	+418	2,796
Lithuania	196,066	+557	3,212
Kuwait	188,024	+1,019	1,067
Slovenia	187,762	+757	3,809
Greece	186,469	+1,783	6,410
Moldova	181,886	+1,736	3,871
Egypt	180,640	+589	10,541
Palestine	179,293	+1,525	2,008
Guatemala	173,142	+378	6,334
Armenia	171,227	+282	3,179
Honduras	167,494	+947	4,076
Qatar	162,268	+465	257
Paraguay	156,189	+1,285	3,135
Ethiopia	156,112	+878	2,321
Nigeria	154,476	+634	1,891
Myanmar	141,841	+25	3,198
Oman	140,588	+288	1,562
Venezuela	137,871	+426	1,334
Libya	131,833	+571	2,156
Bahrain	120,495	+637	439
Algeria	112,622	+161	2,973
Kenya	105,057	+277	1,847
Albania	104,313	+986	1,736
North Macedonia	101,214	+582	3,111
China	89,871	+7	4,636
S. Korea	88,516	+396	1,581
Kyrgyzstan	86,091	+66	1,463
Latvia	84,258	+813	1,593
Sri Lanka	81,933	+466	459
Ghana	81,673	+428	588
Uzbekistan	79,773	+24	622
Zambia	77,171	+687	1,059
Montenegro	74,183	+571	987
Norway	70,040	+551	620
Estonia	61,627	+1,154	567
Singapore	59,900	+10	29
El Salvador	59,712	+157	1,832
Mozambique	57,597	+677	613
Cyprus	33,909	+199	231
Thailand	25,764	+72	83
Suriname	8,901	+9	170
Aruba	7,804	+29	71
Vietnam	2,420	+8	35

 

Retrieved from:  https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

 

 

 

Europe's vaccine rollout "will continue to be difficult" the next few weeks, official says

From CNN's James Frater

 

European Council President Charles Michel gives a press conference at the end of the first day of a two-days video conference of the Members of the European Council on the Covid-19 pandemic, in Brussels, on Thursday, February 25. Olivier Hoslet/POOL/AFP/Getty Images

The European Union's vaccine rollout "will continue to be difficult" in the next few weeks, European Council President Charles Michel said during an EU summit Thursday. 

“Our top priority now is speeding up the production and delivery of vaccines and vaccinations across the European Union," Michel said. "It's why we support the Commission's efforts to work with [the] industry to identify bottlenecks, guarantee supply chains and scale up production. And we want more predictability and transparency to ensure that pharmaceutical companies comply with the commitments."

“We know that the next few weeks will continue to be difficult as far as vaccinations are concerned. However, I would, at the same time, like to give a message of hope and optimism," Michel added. 

More than 50 million doses of vaccines will have been delivered to the EU, with more than 29 million doses administered as of Thursday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. That's about 6.4% of the bloc's total population and 8% of the adult population.

 

 

 

Decline in Covid-19 spread is faster than expected, influential modeling team says

From CNN's Maggie Fox

 

Coronavirus cases and deaths are making a “dramatic” decline that is faster than expected, an influential forecasting team said in an update Thursday. The team projects that 574,000 people will have died of Covid-19 in the US by June 1.

Cases and deaths are dropping more quickly than expected – a drop of 70% over the past five weeks, the team at the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington reported.

“Daily reported cases in the last week decreased to 65,200 per day on average compared to 96,800 the week before,” the IHME said in its new report.

In its last forecast, the IHME predicted 562,000 Americans will have died by April 1. Currently, according to Johns Hopkins University, 507,806 Americans have died of Covid-19. 

“Despite increasing mobility and the spread of new variants, particularly B.1.1.7, daily cases continue a dramatic decline that began in the second week of January. While the decrease is likely driven by declining seasonality and rising vaccination, it is faster than expected,” it added.

The B.1.1.7 variant, first seen in the UK, has been found across the US and experts fear it might fuel a new surge as it appears to be more contagious. There’s little sign it’s doing so yet, the IHME said.

“Daily deaths are also declining, but the decline is half the size of daily cases,” the IHME said. That may partly be because of a rising ratio of deaths in Alabama, Arizona, California, Delaware, and Georgia. But the number of daily deaths has dropped nearly 35% in the last five weeks.

“In our reference scenario, which represents what we think is most likely to happen, our model projects 574,000 cumulative deaths on June 1. This represents 76,000 additional deaths from February 22 to June 1,” it said.

“Daily deaths are expected to decline steadily until June 1. By June 1, we project that 88,600 lives will be saved by the projected vaccine rollout.”

One other big factor in the slowed spread: Americans are wearing masks. “Mask use has fortunately remained high, with more than three-quarters of adults reporting they wear a mask when leaving home. As new variants likely spread, the behavioral response will be critical in determining if there will be an increase in cases and deaths in April and May. In our worse scenario, where mask use begins to decline this month, infections and detected cases may remain at current levels until late April,” the IHME said.

IHME estimates that 165.82 million Americans will have been vaccinated by June 1 – close to half the population. 

“COVID-19 remains the number 1 cause of death in the United States of America this week,” the IHME said. “We estimated that 19% of people in the United States of America have been infected as of February 22.”

 

 

 

South Korea extends social distancing measures as vaccinations begin  

From CNN’s Gawon Bae and Jake Kwon in Seoul

 

 

A health care worker gestures to her arm before receiving a dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine at a public health center in Incheon, South Korea on February 26. SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg/Getty Images

South Korea began its vaccine rollout on Friday as health authorities extended current social distancing measures and bans on gatherings of five or more people until March 14, according to Health Ministry Spokesperson Son Young-rae.

Son emphasized that people should still abide by the measures while the government strives to safely and effectively form herd immunity. He urged people to trust the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine as explained by health authorities and actively receive it.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in visited a vaccination clinic on Friday to encourage medical workers on the frontline of vaccination and anti-virus work as he inspected the preparedness and operations, according to the presidential Blue House.

South Korea reported 406 new Covid-19 cases from Thursday, increasing the total to 88,922, according to KDCA. Four fatalities were added, bringing the death toll to 1,585.

 

https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-vaccine-updates-02-26-21/index.html

 

 

 

China approves two more Covid-19 vaccines

By Sui-Lee Wee

 

 

The Chinese pharmaceutical company CanSinoBIO ran a late-stage clinical trial for its coronavirus vaccine candidate in Oaxaca, Mexico, in November. It is now seeking regulatory approval.Credit...Jorge Luis Plata/Reuters

China has approved two Covid-19 vaccines whose manufacturers say are effective at preventing serious illness, paving the way for their deployment in the country and the developing world over the next few months.

China now has four vaccines approved for general use; two are already being mass produced, by the companies Sinopharm and Sinovac Biotech. The addition of two more could significantly speed up China’s strategy of vaccine diplomacy and its mass domestic inoculation drive, which has been slow in part because the government is prioritizing the export of its vaccines.

All four vaccines have been shown to prevent severe illness, but they have been dogged by a lack of transparency around clinical data.

CanSinoBIO, which has teamed up with a military institute that belongs to the People’s Liberation Army, said this week that its one-shot vaccine had an efficacy rate of 65.28 percent at preventing all symptomatic Covid-19 cases. Separately, Sinopharm, a state-controlled company with a vaccine that is already in use in China, said the shot that it developed with its affiliate, the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, had an efficacy rate of 72.51 percent.

The companies gave few details on their analyses, such as how many people contracted Covid-19 during the trials. That will make it hard for scientists to evaluate the new vaccines independently.

Several developing countries have already ordered the two new vaccines, which can be easily stored at refrigerated temperatures.

Like other Chinese vaccine makers, CanSino had to start its Phase 3 clinical trials abroad — in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Pakistan and Russia — because there were so few domestic cases. The company’s vaccine has already been approved for use by the Chinese military.

Unlike Sinopharm and Sinovac, CanSino’s chief executive, Yu Xuefeng, has indicated that the company could struggle to ramp up production to meet the needs of China’s 1.4 billion people. Mr. Yu has said that the company’s vaccine production capacity was 100 million doses per year, or 200 million doses at the most.

The CanSino vaccine is made with a virus, called Ad5, that is modified to carry genetic instructions into a human cell. The cell begins making a coronavirus protein and the immune system learns to attack it. Before the release of the efficacy data, scientists were doubtful that the Ad5 vector would work effectively because it is a common cold virus that many people are likely to have been exposed to.

Sinopharm tested its Wuhan vaccine in seven countries, including Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. In December, the vaccine that it developed with the Beijing Institute of Biological Production was approved for use. Like the Beijing vaccine, the Wuhan shot was made using a tried-and-tested technology that relies on a weakened virus to stimulate the immune system.

Both Sinopharm vaccines were approved in July for emergency use and rolled out to thousands of health care workers and travelers even before the completion of Phase 3 trials. The company said it could produce a maximum of one billion doses this year.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/02/25/world/covid-19-coronavirus/china-approves-two-more-covid-19-vaccines

 

 

 

A debate over a ‘vaccine passport’ to allow travel in the E.U. grows

 

 

European leaders, deeply concerned that another summer’s lucrative tourism trade could be lost to the pandemic, are escalating calls for the European Union to introduce a common system that would allow borders to reopen to people who have been inoculated against the virus.

Even as Europe’s vaccination program contends with long delays and one senior European Union official admitting it would be “difficult” to reach the bloc’s goal of vaccinating 70 percent of adults by the end of summer, the idea of a European Union-wide vaccine passport system has become a hotly discussed topic.

Senior officials in Greece and Spain — countries heavily reliant on tourism — are among those who have supported proposals for a program of so-called vaccine passports.

They argue that requiring people to show a certificate proving they have received a coronavirus shot would restore the bloc’s pillar of free movement, help draw in summer holidaymakers and allow business trips to return.

Before a scheduled online meeting on Thursday of the heads of all 27 European Union nations, the Austrian chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, added his voice in support of the idea.

“We want to get back to normal as quickly as possible, have our old lives back and maximum freedom,” Mr. Kurz said in a tweet on Wednesday. “We therefore want an EU-wide Green Passport, with which people can travel freely, do business without restrictions and go on holiday, as well as finally enjoy gastronomy, culture, events and other things again.”

But there is concern brewing that introducing a vaccine passport system so early in Europe’s vaccination program would create a two-tier system by the summer of inoculated people who could travel carefree while those yet to be vaccinated would be grounded.

European leaders are not expected to make a decision at the summit meeting on Thursday on the use of vaccination certificates, but they are expected to discuss how to ensure such a program would be able to run across all countries in the bloc.

In an interview with Bild Live, a digital offshoot of the German tabloid, Mr. Kurz urged that the passport system to be one easily accessible on a cellphone.

He said he supported the idea “so everyone can have all the freedoms back that we value so much,” adding that he was “personally very optimistic about the summer.”

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/02/25/world/covid-19-coronavirus/a-debate-over-a-vaccine-passport-to-allow-travel-in-the-eu-grows

 

 

 

Germans are rejecting AstraZeneca as hundreds of thousands of doses go unused

 

 

A nurse gets her first dose of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine at the vaccination center in Rostock, Germany, this month. Many people are skipping appointments or refusing to sign up for the AstraZeneca shot, which they fear is less effective than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.Credit...Lena Mucha for The New York Times

BERLIN — A preference for the vaccine developed by the German company BioNTech with Pfizer is causing a surplus in Germany of the shot developed by AstraZeneca, a British-Swedish company, according to state health officials.

Many people — including health workers — are skipping appointments or refusing to sign up for the AstraZeneca shot, which they fear is less effective than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the officials say. As a result, two weeks after the first delivery of 1.45 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine arrived in Germany, only 270,986 have been administered, according to data collected by the public health authority.

“Vaccinating fast is the order of the day,” Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said Thursday during a videoconference in Bavaria, stressing that all three vaccines in use in Germany had been approved by the European Medicines Agency and were trustworthy.

“I personally have little sympathy for the reluctance to use one vaccine or another,” he said. “This is a first-world problem, certainly for those who are still waiting for their first vaccination and even more so for people in countries who might not even have the prospect of receiving a first inoculation this year.”

The rejection of the AstraZeneca vaccine has been fueled by weeks of negative coverage about it in the German media, which has portrayed it as “second-class,” citing its lower efficacy rate compared with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and reporting stories of people suffering adverse reactions.

Clinical trials do suggest that Pfizer’s efficacy, at 95 percent, is higher than AstraZeneca’s, which is between 60 and 90 percent depending on factors such as the spacing of doses. Still, it is difficult to directly compare shots unless they are tested head-to-head in the same trial. And many health professionals suggest getting whichever vaccine is available first, since Covid-19 poses such significant health risks.

Widespread skepticism in Germany about vaccines has exacerbated people’s reluctance to take the AstraZeneca shot. Medical and other frontline workers have also expressed resentment about being given unused AstraZeneca shots, instead of the Pfizer-BioNTech one, saying it showed a lack of respect after their efforts to help the country fight the pandemic over the past year.

The rejection of the AstraZeneca vaccine has caused delays in a mass vaccination campaign that was already struggling with bureaucratic and logistical hurdles. That has raised concerns that failure to immunize people quickly enough could stymie efforts to return the country to normal life, as new coronavirus infections are increasing even as Germany remains largely locked down.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/02/25/world/covid-19-coronavirus/germans-are-rejecting-astrazeneca-as-hundreds-of-thousands-of-doses-go-unused

 

 

 

Summary

 

Here are the key developments from the last few hours:

· Police have found the remains of missing businesswoman Melissa Caddick on the NSW south coast months after she disappeared following raids on her home late last year. Police said that on Sunday campers at a location south of Tathra had discovered a shoe and “decomposed” foot washed up on a remote beach – which DNA tests identified as belonging to Caddick.

· The ABC are reporting that Australian Federal Police have been notified after Scott Morrison and two senators, Labor’s Penny Wong and the Greens’ Sarah Hanson-Young, received a letter detailing an allegation of historical rape against a cabinet minister.

· Victims of south-east Queensland’s 2011 floods have won a partial $440m payout a decade after the negligent operation of two dams saw thousands of homes and businesses swamped.

· Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine could soon be delivered at temperatures 50 degrees warmer than currently required if Australia follows the US’s lead to ease the rollout. The potential change in storage temperature requirements is being considered as the federal health department confirmed that 25 Pfizer vaccine vials – at least 125 doses - were spoiled at St Vincent’s care services in Werribee because it was not possible to verify their temperature had been maintained.

· Billionaire Harvey Norman chairman Gerry Harvey has defied political pressure to pay back an estimated $22m in jobkeeper after the retailer’s profits more than doubled during the pandemic, to $462m.

· Facebook has returned news to Australian users after an eight day blackout and standoff with the federal government.

· Victoria will soon ease mask rules and social gathering restrictions, while workers will be able to return to offices, despite two new Covid-19 cases. Premier Daniel Andrews said up to 30 visitors will be allowed to gather at homes each day from 11.59pm on Friday, while outdoor gatherings of up to 100 people will be permitted in public places.

· The New South Wales Department of Education has confirmed it received correspondence last year voicing concerns of some teachers in relation to the actions of Frank Zumbo, the office manager for Hughes MP Craig Kelly.

· Leading scientists working across Australia and Antarctica have described 19 ecosystems that are collapsing due to the impact of humans and warned urgent action is required to prevent their complete loss.

· The man who led Papua New Guinea to independence, the country’s Grand Chief and longest-serving prime minister, Sir Michael Somare, has died in Port Moresby, aged 84, prompting tributes from both sides of Australian politics.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2021/feb/26/australia-politics-live-vaccine-health-coronavirus-nsw-victoria-restrictions-brittany-higgens-scott-morrison-business-economy-politics