 | | | | The European Commission said on Wednesday it had struck a deal for an extra 150 million doses of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine this year, nearly doubling the number of shots secured from the U.S. biotech firm for 2021. | | | | | | British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would outline a "cautious and prudent" route out of lockdown on Monday, and until then he urged people not to pay too much attention to speculation. | | | | | | Germany is set to speed up its vaccination programme, but even with declining case numbers the rapid spread of more infectious variants of the coronavirus means nobody should drop their guard, Health Minister Jens Spahn said on Wednesday. | | | | | | British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Vir Biotechnology Inc will expand their existing partnership developing antibody therapies for COVID-19 to research therapies for other diseases, the companies said on Wednesday. | | | | | | Medtronic plc said on Wednesday it was issuing a global recall of its unused Valiant Navion thoracic stent graft system after the death of a patient. | | | | | | Gaza received its first shipment of COVID-19 vaccines on Wednesday after Israel approved the transfer through its border with the Hamas Islamist-run territory, Israeli and Palestinian officials said. | | | | | | With falling rates of COVID-19 infection in India and surveys suggesting nearly 300 million people may already have antibodies, some experts believe the worst of the disease has passed, despite a recent uptick in two hard-hit states. | | | | | | The Dutch government raced on Wednesday to prepare legislation to keep a nighttime curfew in place after a court ordered it to scrap the controversial COVID-19 measure which has become the focus of campaigning a month before a general election. | | | | | | Pfizer has not yet delivered to the European Union about 10 million COVID-19 vaccine doses that were due in December, EU officials said, leaving it about one-third short of the supplies it had expected by now from the U.S. company. | | | | | | South Africa will administer its first COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday, with President Cyril Ramaphosa to get the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) shot alongside health workers. | | | | | | Despite its wealth and reputation for efficiency, the Netherlands trails in the European Union vaccination rankings, its roll-out hampered by poor planning and a conservative strategy that kept more than 40% of its vaccines in storage rather than in people's arms. | | | | | |
