(Reuters) – Here’s what you need to know about the coronavirus right now:
Breakthrough in pandemic battle with Pfizer vaccine…
Pfizer Inc’s experimental COVID-19 vaccine is more than 90% effective based on initial trial results, the drugmaker said on Monday, a major victory in the war against a virus that has killed over a million people and battered the world’s economy.
Scientists, public health officials and investors welcomed the first successful interim data from a large-scale clinical test as a watershed moment that could help turn the tide of the pandemic if the full trial results pan out. However, mass roll-outs, which needs regulatory approval, will not happen this year and several vaccines are seen as necessary to meet massive global needs.
Pfizer and BioNTech need to get regulators to sign off on the shot before it can start shipping vaccines to those considered most in need by governments. The vaccine, which is based on a novel technology that uses synthetic mRNA to activate the immune system against the virus, also needs to be kept at supercooled temperatures of minus 70 degrees Celsius (-94 F) or below.
…but will enough people take the vaccine?
With COVID-19 vaccine trial results looking positive, governments and pharmaceutical firms face their next daunting challenge: convincing the world to get inoculated. The World Health Organization estimates that about 70% of people must be inoculated to break transmission of the virus.
Experts are also cautioning any conversation over a vaccine’s risks and rewards must be frank. A return to normal life will still take time, with no one shot likely to be a silver bullet. And many questions are likely to remain, including how long a vaccine will provide protection.
“We need a serious, well-funded and community-based public engagement strategy,” said Melinda Mills, an Oxford University expert in demographic science who led a recent report on the issue by the British Academy and the Royal Society. The report found that, in part due to misinformation and behavioural factors, around 36% of people in Britain say they are either uncertain or very unlikely to agree to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
Australia may open borders to Asia
Australia is considering opening its borders to low-risk Asian countries such as Taiwan, Japan, Singapore and even parts of China, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Tuesday, as Canberra seeks to revive an economy battered by COVID-19.
The move comes after Australia recorded three days in a row without any locally acquired cases of COVID-19.
Reviving tourism would be a much-needed boost to Australia’s economy, which shrank 7% in the three months that ended in June, the most since records began in 1959. Morrison ruled out entry from the United States or Europe.
Brazil suspends Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine trial
Brazil’s health regulator has suspended a clinical trial for China’s Sinovac coronavirus vaccine citing a severe adverse event, surprising the trial organisers who countered there had been a death but it was unrelated to the vaccine.
The health regulator, Anvisa, said on Monday the event took place on Oct. 29 but did not specify if the incident took place in Brazil or in another country. It also did not give an indication of how long the suspension of the large late-stage trial might last. Sinovac did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Sinovac’s vaccine is among the three experimental COVID-19 vaccines that China has been using to inoculate hundreds of thousands of people under an emergency use programme. A Chinese health official said on Oct. 20 that serious side effects have not been observed in clinical trials.
(Compiled by Karishma Singh; editing by Richard Pullin)
