Second COVID-19 vaccine from Moderna looms as death toll surges

Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine is set for imminent approval in the US as COVID death tolls climb around the world.

A woman suspected to have COVID-19 is transported to hospital in Yonkers, New York, as the big chill bites. Picture: AFP

Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine is set for imminent approval in the US as COVID death tolls climb around the world, with Europe the first region to pass 500,000 ­fatalities and Brazil notching more than 1000 deaths in 24 hours.

The Moderna jab is now ­expected to become the second vaccine allowed in a Western country, after a panel of US ­experts recommended emergency use approval — advice that the country’s Food and Drug Administration is likely to act on.

Meanwhile, Europe is battling a winter surge that has placed it at the heart of the pandemic again, with the disease biting harder in countries like Germany than it did during the first wave in March and April.

The EU is under pressure to approve potential vaccines after Britain and the US began rolling out a drug produced by Pfizer and BioNtech. The bloc has promised to begin inoculations with the Pfizer drug before the end of the year. Late on Thursday it said it would fast-track the Moderna vaccine, with approval now scheduled for January 6, a week earlier than planned.

As the US fights back against the virus, several European countries are returning to lockdown, curfews and other restrictions as fears grow of an explosion in cases after the Christmas holidays.

Germany, which began a new partial lockdown this week, ­reported a record 30,000 infections on Thursday. Denmark, France, Turkey and The Netherlands have all strengthened curbs and Bulgaria said its restrictions would carry on until the end of January.

The EU is to start inoculations on December 27, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said.

China and Russia have been using locally developed vaccines. In Brazil 1092 new fatalities in 24 hours took the country’s total deaths to almost 185,000 — a number surpassed only by the US.

Across Latin America, one of the worst-hit regions, 30 million jobs have been lost during the pandemic, according to a report the International Labour Organisation. “Employment is in an intensive care unit, we need to take the necessary measures to get out of this,” said ILO regional director Vinicius Pinheiro.

In the US, where 3249 deaths were recorded on Thursday (Friday AEDT), emergency approval of the Moderna vaccine would pave the way for six million doses to potentially start shipping as soon as this weekend. The US began rolling out the Pfizer jabs on Monday, hoping to have 20 million people immunised in ­December. Senior officials have been pressed into service to convince the public that the vaccines are safe.

The White House said Vice-President Mike Pence and his wife would get the vaccine on ­Friday in public, adding that ­Donald Trump was “absolutely open to taking the vaccine”.

After being relatively spared by coronavirus, Africa is bracing for the pandemic’s second wave.

The continent’s most-hit ­nations are again having to contemplate stringent public health measures as they await the arrival of the vaccine cavalry.

In South Africa, the start of summer has triggered traffic jams on roads leading to the coast. As the African country worst hit in the pandemic, with almost 900,000 cases, South Africa is tightening health restrictions. But around Africa, a continent of more than 1.2 billion people, there are stark contrasts in the prevalence of the disease.

New cases are emerging in East Africa, in northern and southern Africa, but the trend in West Africa is a decline, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

In Uganda, every region has been affected by the pandemic. Neighbouring Rwanda, a far smaller but densely populated country, registered almost as many new cases in December (722) as since the beginning of infection (797). For several weeks, the World Health Organisation has been pressing African governments to up their game for an inevitable second wave.

Nevertheless, the epidemic has not been as destructive in ­Africa as experts feared, across a continent severely lacking in healthcare structures. Africa has reported 2.4 million cases, 3.6 per cent of the world’s total.

AFP