The Latest: France s Macron endorses sharing of vaccine tech
A car drives on a road in the outskirts in Frankfurt, Germany, right after the end of the curfew on Thursday, May 6, 2021. The German Federal Constitutional Court decided on Wednesday that the curfew to avoid the outspread of the coronavirus is justified. (AP Photo/Michael Probst) May 06, 2021 - 3:44 AM
PARIS â French President Emmanuel Macron is joining the Biden administration in saying that he backs the sharing of the valuable technology behind COVID-19 vaccines. But Macro is also insisting that the immediate priority for wealthier countries should be first donating more doses to poorer countries.
400 People Quarantined at Fiji Hospital After COVID Patient Dies
On 5/6/21 at 11:13 AM EDT
Associated Press reported.
Four-hundred patients, doctors, nurses and staff are quarantined inside the building in Lautoka, the nation s second-largest city, as leaders grow increasingly fearful of the spread of coronavirus.
Dr. James Fong, the permanent secretary for health, said the hospital is closed and all medical services are being diverted to other facilities. He said those sequestered in the hospital would be provided with food, bedding and whatever other supplies they need. Right now, we are in a war with this virus and the frontline has just extended to Lautoka Hospital, Fong said. This will be the greatest test our health care system has ever faced––it will be a test for all of us. Lives are at stake, sacrifices must be made, and every Fijian s commitment is needed. The virus is insidious, it is unrelenting.
Handout, Presidential Communications Operations Office
President Rodrigo Duterte apologized to the Philippine public after he was criticized for being inoculated this week with an unauthorized COVID-19 vaccine which food and drug regulators have not approved for local emergency use.
In a late-night address on Wednesday, Duterte said he told the Chinese envoy to Manila to take back the 1,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine that Beijing had donated to the Philippines. The government had released photos of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III giving Duterte a shot of the vaccine on Monday.
“So we are sorry. You are right. We are wrong,” Duterte said. “By tomorrow or the next day, Sinopharm will be gone.
Published May 5, 2021, 1:44 PM
A member of the country’s vaccine expert panel (VEP) is seeing President Duterte’s decision to receive the Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccine as a boon for the government’s vaccination program, saying it would encourage more people to get themselves vaccinated.
Dr. Rontgene Solante, chief of the Adult Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine unit of San Lazaro Hospital, said President Duterte’s gesture could further boost the government’s initiative to inoculate 70 to 80 million Filipinos by end of the year to achieve herd immunity.
President Duterte receives the coronavirus vaccine from Health Secretary Francisco Duque III on May 3, 2021 (Photo: Sen. Go/Facebook)