EU drug regulator approves COVID-19 vaccine, first shots expected in days
The European Union drug regulator recommended the BioNTech-Pfizer coronavirus vaccine for use Monday, raising hopes that the 27 nations in the bloc can begin administering the first shots to their citizens shortly after Christmas.
The move by the European Medicines Agency comes weeks after the same vaccine was authorised in Britain and the United States, prompting pressure from EU governments for the agency to speed up its process as virus cases surged again across the continent.
Adding to an already grisly toll were concerns over a newly identified strain that appears to spread more easily. But experts expressed confidence that the new vaccine would still be effective against it.
Singapore receives Asia s 1st shipment of Pfizer s COVID-19 vaccines
Singapore received its first batch of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines for COVID-19 on Monday, becoming the first country in Asia to receive the shots. The first shipment of COVID-19 vaccines landed in Singapore this evening, the government said in a short statement.
Boxes containing the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine are prepared to be shipped at the Pfizer Global Supply Kalamazoo manufacturing plant on Dec. 13, 2020, in Portage, Michigan. (Pool/Getty/Kyodo)
Singapore Airlines transported the vaccines from Belgium, and the shipment was received by Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung at Changi airport.
The airline said it was the first Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine shipment to be delivered to a country in Asia.
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US President-elect Joe Biden receives his first dose of the coronavirus vaccine at ChristianaCare Christiana Hospital in Newark, Delaware on December 21, 2020, from nurse practitioner Tabe Mase. (AP/Carolyn Kaster)
NEWARK (AP) US President-elect Joe Biden on Monday received his first dose of the coronavirus vaccine on live television as part of a growing effort to convince the American public the inoculations are safe.
The president-elect took a dose of Pfizer vaccine at a hospital not far from his Delaware home, hours after his wife, Jill Biden, did the same. The injections came the same day that a second vaccine, produced by Moderna, will start arriving in states. It joins Pfizer’s in the nation’s arsenal against the COVID-19 pandemic, which has now killed more than 317,000 people in the United States and upended life around the globe.
Front-line essential workers including grocery store staff, teachers and first responders as well as the over 75s should be next in line to get COVID-19 vaccine, CDC advisory panel says
CDC s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted 13 to 1 on Sunday to recommend 49million front-line workers and older adults be prioritized next
30million first responders, teachers, grocery workers, prison guards and 19million adults aged 75+ should be in Phase1B to receive COVID-19 vaccine
Phase1A started this week with medical staff and nursing homes
Panel also voted on third priority list of 57million non-frontline workers, like those in media, finance and IT, those aged 65-74 or with high-risk conditions