ISLAMABAD – Pakistan’s planning minister says the country’s drug regulatory authority has approved the use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and the government is trying to get it before the first quarter of the year.
Asad Umar, who is also head of the national body for COVID-19, told Geo TV that the first-rate vaccine will be given to health workers and those aged 65 and over.
Umar said the Chinese company CanSino is also conducting clinical trials in Pakistan and hopes his vaccine would be scheduled next month.
He said Pakistan will receive the vaccines through the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Vaccines, or GAVI, and other international sources. The AstraZeneca vaccine is being prepared in India, which has stressed relations with rival Pakistan and says it will prioritize its own population.
Pakistan reported 2,521 new cases and 43 deaths in the last 24 hours.
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THE VIRUS ISLANDER:
– India launches world’s largest COVID-19 vaccination campaign
– The Chinese city is reporting a coronavirus found on ice cream
– Restaurants, bars scrambling for propane amidst a scattered winter
– China has completed construction of a 1,500-room hospital for COVID-19 patients to combat an increase in diseases that the government has said are more difficult to contain and has blamed infectious people or goods from abroad.
– Brazil has not yet approved a single vaccine, and independent health experts who participated in their vaccination program say the plan is still unfinished, at best.
– A new report by the UN estimates that the COVID-19 pandemic will reduce the number of international migrants by 2 million by mid-2020 due to border closures and discontinuation of travel worldwide.
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HERE’S WHAT ELSE’S INVOLVED:
BEIJING – China on Sunday reported 109 new confirmed COVID-19 cases, two-thirds of which were in a northern region near Beijing, and no fatalities.
There were 72 new cases in Hebei district, where the government is building isolation hospitals with a total of 9,500 rooms to combat an increase in infections, according to the National Health Commission.
The virus in China was largely first detected in downtown Wuhan in late 2019 but has reported hundreds of new infections since December. The Health Commission on Saturday blamed travelers and imported goods said to have brought the virus from abroad.
China’s death toll stands at 4,653 out of a total of 88,227 cases.
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MEXICO CITY – Mexico posted its second straight day of more than 20,000 coronavirus cases on Saturday, suggesting an increase in a country already struggling in many areas with hospital overcrowding.
20,523 cases were re-diagnosed Saturday after 21,366 infections were reported on Friday. That was about twice the daily rate of increase just a week ago. Reporting usually declines on weekends, suggesting higher numbers could be next week.
The country also recorded 1,219 more deaths, a record that was close. The country has now seen nearly 1.63 million total infections and has so far recorded more than 140,000 deaths in the pandemic.
In Mexico City, the typical center of the pandemic in Mexico, 88 percent of hospital beds are full.
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BATON ROUGE, La. – Louisiana has identified the first case of the state of a coronavirus variant that is believed to be more susceptible than the original one.
The governor’s office said Saturday that the case was found in a man in the New Orleans area.
The variant, first discovered in Britain, has frightened officials in many countries as studies show that it may spread more easily than other viral strains, although it is not believed to be more lethal and appears to be vulnerable to vaccines.
Gov. John Bel Edwards issued a statement stating that it is imperative that “everyone duplicates the mitigation measures that we know are effective in reducing the spread of the virus. ”
Edwards noted that the variant has been found in at least 15 other states.
In neighboring Texas, health officials in Dallas County on Saturday reported the third state case of the variant, this one in a Dallas man in his 20s with no travel history outside the United States.
Texas told a man from the Houston area as his first case of someone with the new variant on Jan. 7.
CARSON CITY, Nev. – take your pick – Nevada on Saturday reported a daily record of 63 COVID-19 deaths along with an additional 2,040 confirmed cases while the coronavirus outbreak continued.
The state’s pandemic disease numbers increased to 260,090 cases and 3,761 deaths, according to Department of Health and Human Services data.
Nevada’s previous high number of deaths on a single day was 62.
The 311 deaths reported in the week since Jan. 10 one-week high in pandemics for Nevada, surpassing the 299 deaths reported the previous week, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
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WILMINGTON, Del. – President Joe Biden introduced his team of scientific advisers on Saturday, saying they will lead by “science and reality. We believe in both. ”
Biden is raising the position of science adviser to the level of Cabinet, White House first. He named Eric Lander, a pioneer in human genome mapping according to the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, “one of the most wonderful people I know.”
Lander is a founding director of the MIT Broad Institute and Harvard and was the lead author of the first paper announcing details about the human genome.
Lander says Biden has called on his advisers and “the entire scientific community and the American public to” rise to this point. “
Vice President Kamala Harris reminded her mother of the late Shyamala Gopalan Harris, a cancer researcher, who put her faith in teaching her to think critically.
“The science behind climate change is not a mistake. The science behind the virus is not partial, ”said Harris. “The same laws apply, the same evidence is true whether you accept them or not.”
As the spread of coronavirus vaccines begins, the U.S. will lead the world with 23.6 million cases and more than 393,000 confirmed deaths.
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HONOLULU – Health officials in Hawaii have partnered with local pharmacies to offer residents indoor drive-thru and coronavirus vaccines.
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports that the Department of Health began listing approved care homes in Oahu for vaccines this week. Neighboring islands have started driving clinics, county hubs and other mobile services.
The health department is working with employers to identify frontline staff to be vaccinated. The department plans to launch an online portal where employees can sign up for the vaccine. Officials say more than 56,000 people have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
Health officials reported 150 newly diagnosed coronavirus cases and no new deaths on Friday. The state has more than 24,000 confirmed cases and more than 300 deaths since the outbreak began.
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PIERRE, SD – South Dakota is looking to eradicate coronavirus by enabling a larger group of people.
Health Secretary Kim Malsam-Rysdon says the state will start vaccinating people 80 or older and those with high-risk medical conditions. Some rural healthcare providers are concerned that their patients will be lost to large hospital systems.
South Dakota has vaccinated 6.5% of the population, one of the highest rates in the country. Last fall, the state had one of the highest favorable rates in the country.
The Department of Health reported 341 positive tests, increasing the total number diagnosed to 105,278.
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OKLAHOMA CITY – The Oklahoma City school district is about to start some personal classes for the area’s youngest students and those in other education.
The area’s pre-kindergarten will begin through level 4 students and those in other education returning Tuesday for interpersonal and personal classes. Students at grades 5-12 are expected to return on 1 February.
Oklahoma was fourth in the country Saturday in the rate of new cases per person with 1,448 per 100,000, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The seven-day follow-up average of new cases in the state has risen from 2,626 per day on Jan. 1 to 3,922 on Friday. Average deaths rose from 23 daily deaths to 31 according to the data.
The state health department on Saturday reported 3,621 coronavirus cases and 27 deaths for confirmed numbers of 351,665 cases and 2,952 deaths.
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DALLAS – A third person has been reported with a case of the coronavirus variant in Texas.
Dallas County Health and Human Services announced Saturday that a Dallas man in his 20s with no travel history outside the United States has been positive for the difference that has come from the United Kingdom.
Texas is among a few states with at least one known case of the new variant that appears to be spreading more easily. But state health officials say there is no evidence it is causing a more serious disease, and say routine vaccinations are expected to remain effective.
Texas told a man from the Houston area as his first case of someone with the new variant on Jan. 7.
The state health department reported Friday that there were total numbers of more than 2 million cases and more than 31.00 deaths in Texas.