Norway's capital Oslo and nine neighbouring municipalities imposed some of their toughest lockdown measures yet on Saturday after an outbreak of a more contagious coronavirus variant, first identified in Britain. Shops selling food will remain open, along with pharmacies and petrol stations. Organised sports activities will be halted, restaurants must close and schools must rely more on remote learning, while households have been asked not to have any visitors at home.
EU hit by delay to Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine delivery
23 Jan, 2021 07:35 PM
6 minutes to read
Financial Times
By: Michael Peel, Sam Fleming, Mehreen Khan and Donato Paolo Mancini
AstraZeneca has warned EU countries to expect significant shortfalls to early deliveries of its coronavirus vaccine, in a fresh blow to the rollout of the bloc s immunisation programme, European officials have said. The EU was expecting 100m doses of the jab in the first quarter of the year. But people with knowledge of the discussions said the company may fail to deliver even half that amount, although they stressed that final figures had not been established.
Norway, one of the first European countries to curb activities to rein in the spread of the coronavirus, will relax restrictions "little by little", the prime minister said on Tuesday.
Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is safe for elderly people, says WHO The World Health Organization’s Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety says it has not seen any unexpected or untoward increase in fatalities in frail and elderly individuals who have received the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
The committee published its opinion today (January 22) after reviewing deaths following vaccination with BNT162b2 in this demographic in Europe as well as those reported via the WHO global database (VigiBase). Norway, in particular, had reported 23 deaths in elderly people following vaccination.
“The current reports do not suggest any unexpected or untoward increase in fatalities in frail, elderly individuals or any unusual characteristics of adverse events following administration of BNT162b2,” says a statement from the committee, following the review with experts from the European Medicines Agency and Uppsala Monitoring Centre.
Covid-19 news: UK variant may be 30 per cent more deadly newscientist.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from newscientist.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.