February 25 coronavirus news

The European Union's goal is to vaccinate 70% of adults in each member state "by the summer," Europe's Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said during a virtual summit on Thursday. 

“We are seeing more and more people being vaccinated every day and we are taking decisive action to increase the production, delivery and the rollout of vaccines across the EU. But we are also very aware that we need to vaccinate as quickly as possible," Kyriakides said.

“We stand ready to update or to conclude new advanced purchase agreements and are working very closely with manufacturers to address any bottlenecks in production as they appear,” Kyriakides added. 

Bahrain approved the use of Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot coronavirus vaccine, making it the fifth vaccine authorized for emergency use in the tiny Gulf nation, according to the Bahrain News Agency. 

The vaccine will be available for the elderly, people with chronic diseases and other at-risk groups, the statement said. 

The country of 1.6 million people had previously approved the AstraZeneca vaccine, the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, the Sinopharm vaccine and the Sputnik V vaccine. 

Covid-19 cases in England have fallen 78% since the government imposed a national lockdown on Jan. 4, according to weekly statistics from the National Health Service Test and Trace.

Some 84,310 people tested positive for the virus between Feb. 11 and Feb. 17, the lowest weekly figure recorded since September. 

That’s out of a total of out of a total of 2,580,210 people who were tested that week, a 14% decrease from the previous week.

Thursday’s figure was a large decrease from the 388,037 recorded between New Year’s Eve and Jan. 6, the week UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson imposed harsh measures to curb the spread of a more transmissible variant of Covid-19 first discovered in southeast England.

Johnson set out a four-step roadmap on Monday to take England out of its Covid-19 lockdown, declaring that the nation was on a "one-way road to freedom."

The UK has the highest Covid-19 death toll in Europe, with more than 120,000 fatalities, and remains under strict pandemic restrictions.

It has administered nearly 19 million first vaccine doses, with 642,788 fully vaccinated, according to data from John Hopkins University.

Guatemala's Health Ministry approved the emergency use of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine against Covid-19, according to a statement from the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) released Thursday. 

Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the RDIF said, “Guatemala is the third country of Central America to approve the use of Sputnik V," and the 37th country worldwide.

Sputnik V provides full protection against severe cases of COVID-19 over the course of taking two shots, the RDIF statement says. 

To date, Guatemala has registered at least 172,764 cases of Covid-19 with a death toll of 6,327, according to John Hopkins University. 

The United Kingdom lowered its Covid alert level from five to four, the Department of Health and Social Care announced Thursday.

“We should be under no illusions – transmission rates, hospital pressures and deaths are still very high. In time, the vaccines will have a major impact and we encourage everyone to get vaccinated when they receive the offer. However for the time being it is really important that we all – vaccinated or not – remain vigilant and continue to follow the guidelines," the statement continued.

Syria will start administering vaccines the country has received “from a friendly country” to frontlines workers treating coronavirus patients next week, the health minister Hassan al-Ghobash said Thursday, according to state news agency SANA. 

The name and quantities of the vaccines were not mentioned in the statement. 

“Al-Ghobash stated that the vaccination will begin to be given to the most vulnerable group, who are the workers at the isolation centers, with a priority for the older age group and the nature of their work,” SANA added. 

The vaccines will be administered in two doses within 21 days of one another and have been administered in other countries with a “demonstrated efficacy," the statement said. 

Human Rights Watch called on authorities to provide equitable access to all the different areas in Syria, including areas controlled by different groups. 

“Although the Syrian government bears primary responsibility for providing health care to everyone in its territory, it has repeatedly withheld vital food, medicine, and aid from political opponents and civilians. The UN Security Council’s failure to maintain a cross-border aid system for northeast Syria also means there is no guaranteed channel for vaccine distribution for two million people living there,” Human Rights Watch said. 

Finland will go into a three-week lockdown starting March 8 and is prepared to declare a state of emergency, Prime Minister Sanna Marin said Thursday.

Marin was speaking during a news conference as the country faces a "significant" increase in the number of coronavirus cases and a rise in hospitalizations. 

The strictest restrictions will be introduced Thursday in seven hospital districts, including the capital Helsinki. Such measures include distance working, the recommended use of face masks, protection of high-risk groups, distance schooling in higher education, lockdown of public areas, closure of adult leisure activities and a ban on gatherings. 

The lockdown will not include a curfew but will involve the closing of restaurants and ordering school students that are 13 or older to shift to remote learning, the government said. 

The incidence of cases across the country was 62 infections per 100,000 population in the week of Feb. 15, compared to 46 infections per 100,000 population in the previous week, the Health Ministry said in a statement Thursday.  

The coronavirus situation has “deteriorated in recent weeks, especially in the Helsinki and Uusimaa hospital districts,” the ministry added. 

Hospital workload has been increasing over the past week across the country. The need for intensive care has also increased in the last couple of weeks, but the intensive care unit capacity nationwide has not been threatened, according to the ministry.

To date, at least 690 cases of coronavirus variants have been reported in Finland. Of these, 660 are cases related to the variant first detected in the UK.

The number of Covid-19 vaccine doses administered in the US as second doses outpaced first doses for the first time over the past week, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Over the past seven days, the number of doses administered has jumped by nearly 10.2 million doses. Of those, just over half – 5.1 million – were second doses.

The week before that added over 11.5 million newly administered doses to the total. Five million, or 43%, were second doses.

To date, about 14% of the population – more than 45 million people – have received at least one dose of vaccine. More than 6% of the population – about 20.6 million people – have been fully vaccinated with both shots. 

Data published by the CDC may be delayed, and doses may not have been given on the day reported.

More on where US vaccines stand: Both vaccines currently authorized for emergency use in the US, from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, require two shots several weeks apart.

A single-dose vaccine by Johnson & Johnson may receive the same authorization within the coming days.

Amid low vaccine supply, a number of experts have advocated delaying second doses in favor of getting more people their first. Some research has suggested a high degree of temporary protection from just one dose.

However, US officials have pushed back on this, saying it’s unclear how long that protection lasts, and arguing we need to stick with the evidence from clinical trials.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post misstated the number of doses added in the week before last. It was 11.5 million.

Moderna has completed enrollment for a Phase 2/3 trial studying their vaccine in adolescents and will start the Phase 2 study in younger children soon, the company said in a press release Thursday. 

“TeenCOVE,” the study of mRNA-1273 in adolescents ages 12 to 17, completed Phase 2/3 enrollment of 3,000 US participants.

Phase 2 “KidCOVE,” Moderna’s study of the vaccine in younger children, ages 6 months to 11 years, will start in the near term, the release said.

The release also updated on a next-generation vaccine against Covid-19, called mRNA-1283, which is being developed as a “potential refrigerator stable mRNA vaccine that will facilitate easier distribution and administration.”

This next generation vaccine is intended to be evaluated for use as a booster dose for those who have previously been vaccinated or infected as well as a primary series for those who are have not had Covid-19 and have yet to be vaccinated.

Moderna is one of two companies with Covid-19 vaccines authorized for emergency use in the United States.