 | | | | The Spanish region of Catalonia will keep its current coronavirus restrictions in place and will not progress to more relaxed measures on Monday as originally planned, due to worsening infection rates, the regional government said on Thursday. | | | | | | On Jan. 1, 2020, as the world welcomed a new decade, Chinese authorities in Wuhan shut down a seafood market in the central city of 11 million, suspecting that an outbreak of a new "viral pneumonia" affecting 27 people might be linked to the site. | | | | | | The promise of COVID-19 vaccines is "phenomenal" and "potentially game-changing", Hans Kluge, the World Health Organization's regional director for Europe, told a briefing on Thursday. | | | | | | The World Health Organization's European office is planning a meeting next week with the health ministers of its 53 member states to look into protecting schools from COVID-19, including alternating classes, regional director Hans Kluge said on Thursday. | | | | | | Brazil's Butantan Institute biomedical center on Thursday received 1 million doses of a Chinese vaccine developed by Sinovac Biotech that is undergoing late-stage testing by the institute in Sao Paulo state. | | | | | | EU regulators have reached out to their British counterparts to share information from their review of Pfizer Inc's COVID-19 vaccine, a WHO medical expert said on Thursday. | | | | | | England's National Health Service (NHS) is looking at ways to deploy Pfizer/BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine in care homes with the medical regulator, but there is no guarantee that it will happen, deputy Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Van-Tam said. | | | | | | Switzerland cannot allow a third wave of the coronavirus, Health Minister Alain Berset said on Thursday, calling the situation "very worrying" as infection levels stabilise at a high level and saying the country may need to act to tighten restrictions. | | | | | | French drug maker Sanofi will announce the price of the potential COVID-19 vaccine it is developing with Britain's GlaxoSmithKline after it has released Phase I/II results of the trials, vaccines chief Thomas Triomphe said on Thursday. | | | | | | The World Health Organization does not recommend countries issuing "immunity passports" for those who have recovered from COVID-19, but is investigating the prospects of using e-vaccination certificates, a WHO medical expert said on Thursday. | | | | | | Iran's total cases of novel coronavirus hit 1 million on Thursday with 13,922 new cases recorded in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said, as the Middle East's worst-affected country's death toll reached 49,348. | | | | | |
