Thousands protest vaccine mandates in Australia

Thousands of protesters marched through Australia's capital to the parliament building on Saturday to decry Covid-19 vaccine mandates, the latest in a string of rallies against pandemic restrictions around the world.

Demonstrators packed Canberra's streets before massing outside the parliament, some waving the red Australian ensign flag associated with "sovereign citizens" who believe national laws do not apply to them.

Protesters, many with children, rallied under bright skies brandishing banners proclaiming "Fight for Your Freedom & Rights", "Free Aus Freedom Now", or "No forced drugs" written above a symbol of a syringe.

Police estimated there were up to 10,000 protesters. They were "generally well behaved", a police spokesman said.

Three people were arrested including one man who drove his truck through a roadblock. Two others were taken into custody for a breach of the peace.

Australia says 94 percent of people aged over 16 have had at least two Covid-19 vaccinations. 

Though getting the jab is voluntary, it is generally required for people entering the country and for those working in a range of professions deemed at particular risk such as caring for the elderly.

Some Australian states such as New South Wales have begun to relax proof-of-vaccine requirements for entry to pubs, restaurants or shops. 

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who must call a general election by mid-May, called on the protesters to act peacefully.

But the Australian leader also said he understood their concerns, and stressed that the states -- not the federal government -- were responsible for many of the vaccine requirements.

- 'Free country' -

"My message to them today is Australia is a free country and they have a right to protest and I would ask them to do that in a peaceful way and a respectful way," Morrison told reporters when asked about the rallies.

"Those who are protesting today are speaking up for the things that they feel strongly about."

Morrison said he wanted to be "very clear" that the federal government had only supported mandates that relate to aged care workers, disability workers and those working in high-risk health situations.

"All other mandates that are related to vaccines have been imposed unilaterally by state governments," the prime minister added. "So, I understand their concerns about these issues."

Anti-vaccine mandate rallies have also swelled outside the New Zealand parliament in Wellington, where protesters and police faced each other under heavy rain on Saturday with no clashes.

Though the protests have been mostly peaceful, New Zealand police arrested 122 people and used pepper spray to quell scuffles on Thursday before taking a more hands-off approach in tackling the demonstrations.

World attention has been focused on Canadian truckers who have jammed a key bridge linking Canada and the United States, defying a judge's order to leave Friday night. 

Thousands of people were also driving towards Paris on Friday hoping to blockade the capital in protest at Covid vaccination rules in France.

Agence France-Presse

Get vaccinated, or get punished? How jab mandates divide

Vaccine mandates have been divisive ever since the first rollout two centuries ago, and they continue to split public opinion today as governments scramble to inoculate populations against coronavirus.

With Austria set to become the first country in Europe to impose Covid-19 vaccinations on Friday, AFP looks at vaccine orders in Europe -- and whether they work:

Backlash, workarounds

In Austria, those who do not become vaccinated against Covid under the new mandate will face a 600-euro ($670) fine.

Tens of thousands have taken to the streets almost weekly to protest the decision.

In other countries, the authorities have flip-flopped on whether to impose a direct mandate or implement alternative measures to penalise the unjabbed.

But doctor and philosopher Anne-Marie Moulin, who advises vaccine policy in France, said hesitant governments can give the impression, true or not, of political motivations -- not just health concerns -- behind the measures.

And in France, even though no direct mandate exists, many have accused their government of infringing on their civil liberties.

There is evidence, meanwhile, that mandates may end up driving people away from jabs, while leaving people the choice can have positive results.

In September, when UK media reported the government was considering requiring health workers to get Covid-19 jabs, physician and vaccine expert Peter English warned that taking choice away could stimulate backlash.

"Most health care workers already choose to be vaccinated... and, as long as they are given the time required to get vaccinated, they do so," he commented at the time.

He said some of those not yet jabbed were hesitant, while very few held "irrational, faith-like anti-vaccine beliefs".

"You are unlikely... to shift the latter's beliefs, but you may be able to persuade the hesitant," he said, adding that a mandate risked hardening the undecided against jabs.

By some estimates, Sweden has managed to vaccinate over 90 percent of its population with no mandate.

And other Scandinavian countries also report high levels of vaccination without imposing consequences.

In France, jabs against Covid are not obligatory, but the state has imposed a compulsory vaccination pass to access most social activities, thus punishing the unvaccinated by barring them from places like restaurants and museums.

Historian Laurent-Henri Vignaud insisted, however, it was very different from a law requiring vaccination.

"In one case you're saying, 'the protective state is... telling you what you must do'," he told AFP of the option that was rejected.

"And in the other you're saying, 'do what you want, but your choice will be the difference between whether you can participate fully in social activities or not'."

Smallpox history lesson

Sweden was one of the first countries to impose a vaccine mandate in the early 19th century to contain a deadly smallpox outbreak.

Europe had for decades been ravaged by the highly contagious disease, which causes fever and a horrifying skin rash, and can lead to death.

Sweden lost as many as 300,000 lives between 1750 and 1800, before the world's first smallpox vaccine became widespread.

The Nordic nation imposed vaccines in 1816, and by the end of that century had become the first country to eradicate the disease.

The British government followed suit in 1853 with the "United Kingdom Vaccination Act", which required parents to vaccinate babies against smallpox within their first three months or face fines.

Across the Channel, French soldiers fighting the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 suffered huge losses due to smallpox and were ultimately defeated by their better-vaccinated adversaries.

But it would still take decades of parliamentary arguing for France to decide to make smallpox jabs mandatory for babies, in the country's first such law, in 1902.

In the United Kingdom, meanwhile, a major shift in public opinion had caused the government to backpedal and pass a new law in 1898 that allowed people to refuse jabs for moral reasons.

Protests against jabs, which were not as consistently safe or effective as today's vaccines, had begun as soon as Britain's mandate was imposed decades earlier.

The government eventually relented after thousands of parents were prosecuted for refusing the jab as part of a peaceful but hugely popular movement in the city of Leicester.

"By the time France opted to impose vaccination at the start of the 20th century, England had abandoned the idea and never went back," Moulin told AFP.

Today, Sweden and the United Kingdom have some of the laxest vaccine requirements in Europe.

Agence France-Presse

Italy tightens border rules amid omicron threat

Italy will tighten restrictions for arrivals from the rest of the EU from Thursday, requiring coronavirus tests of everyone and a five-day quarantine for those who are not vaccinated.

Previously, EU arrivals had to show proof of vaccination, recent recovery or a negative test.

The decree signed by Health Minister Roberto Speranza late on Tuesday "provides for the obligation of a negative test on departure for all arrivals from European Union countries", a spokesperson said.

"For the unvaccinated, in addition to the negative test, a five-day quarantine is planned."

Unvaccinated people arriving from outside the bloc must already quarantine, and tests are required of those with jabs.

The new measures, valid from December 16 to January 31, come as Europe battles a fresh wave of coronavirus infections sparked by the spread of the new Omicron variant.

Early data suggests it can be resistant to vaccines and is more transmissible than the Delta variant, which currently accounts for the bulk of the world's coronavirus cases.

Italy was the first EU country to experience a major outbreak of Covid-19 in early 2020. 

In recent months, it has sought to control infections through the use of health pass showing proof of vaccination, recent recovery or a negative test for everything from going to work to eating in restaurants.

More than 20,000 new cases were reported in Italy on Tuesday, and another 120 deaths.

Agence France-Presse

Indian coronavirus vaccine ‘highly efficacious’: study

Covaxin, the first Covid-19 vaccine developed in India, is "highly efficacious" and presents no safety concerns, according to a study published in the Lancet on Thursday.

Covaxin, developed by Bharat Biotech, gained emergency approval from the World Health Organization last week and has already been cleared for use in 17 countries.

The UN body has described it as "extremely suitable for low- and middle-income countries due to easy storage requirements".

Some of the other approved vaccines must be stored at very low temperatures, which throws up logistical and cost problems.

Covaxin "was highly efficacious against laboratory-confirmed symptomatic Covid-19 disease in adults," the report said.

The jab was also "well tolerated with no safety concerns raised in this interim analysis", it added.

The Indian-developed vaccine has a 78-percent efficacy rate after two doses over a month, according to the WHO.

It has joined the anti-Covid vaccines produced by Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson&Johnson, Sinopharm and Sinovac on the WHO-approved list.

The roll-out of Covaxin can "increase the finite global manufacturing capacity, and improve insufficient supply of vaccines which disproportionately affects low-income and middle-income countries", said Chinese researchers Li Jingxin Li and Zhu Fengcai, who did not take part in the study.

They did however mention certain limits to the study, saying that as the trials had been conducted solely in India, there was a less ethnically diverse study group.

Also the studies were carried out between November 2020 and January 2021, before the more contagious Delta variant of the virus became widespread.

But despite the trial dates, the researchers involved were able to identify which of the patients were infected with the Delta variant. For this sub-group the study found that Covaxin still provided protection against Covid, but was slightly less effective.

Agence France-Presse

Moderna targets 1 billion more COVID vaccine doses for poor countries

Moderna Inc said on Friday it aims to deliver one billion doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to low-income countries in 2022, in addition to the doses it has already committed to the global vaccine-sharing platform COVAX.

These vaccines will be part of the 2-3 billion doses the company had forecast to produce next year.

"To date, more than 250 million people have been vaccinated globally with the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. However, we recognize that access to vaccines continues to be a challenge in many parts of the world," Chief Executive Officer Stéphane Bancel said in a letter posted on the company's website.

Moderna on Thursday announced plans to invest up to $500 million to build a factory in Africa to make up to 500 million doses of mRNA vaccines each year, including its COVID-19 shot.

The company had committed in May to supply up to 500 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to the COVAX facility from the fourth quarter of 2021 through 2022.

"We are committed to doubling our manufacturing and expanding supply even further until our vaccine is no longer needed in low-income countries," Bancel said.

-reuters-

US to send more than 8 million COVID-19 vaccines to Philippines, Bangladesh

The United States announced Friday it is sending more than 8 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to the Philippines and Bangladesh in the latest wave of aid to a world still struggling to tame the pandemic.

Five shipments totalling 5,575,050 doses will go to the Philippines by next week, a White House official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Another 2,508,480 doses will arrive early next week in Bangladesh, the official said.

The vaccines— all Pfizer-BioNTech— are being donated through the World Health Organization's COVAX program.

The "administration understands that putting an end to this pandemic requires eliminating it around the world," the official said, noting that US donations represent "the largest-ever purchase and donation of vaccines by a single country."

Hard-hit Bangladesh has already received millions of US vaccine doses, including another 2.5 million sent just last week.

According to AFP's database, only about 10 percent of Bangladesh's population has been fully vaccinated.

The impoverished country of about 170 million people, which neighbors India, has imposed some of the world's longest lockdowns in an attempt to stop the spread of COVID-19.

The Philippines has recorded more than 2.5 million infections, including over 38,000 deaths. Just over a quarter of the adult population has been fully vaccinated amid a delayed and slow vaccination rollout.

Officials warn the economy could take more than a decade to recover from the pandemic impact, which has thrown millions out of work.

Nearly 70 percent of the economy, including 23.3 million workers, remained under "heightened quarantine" restrictions, Economic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua said Thursday.

At his recent address to the United Nations, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte scored wealthy nations for "hoarding" vaccines while the supply still came in trickles to poor nations. 

Agence France-Presse

Pfizer submits data to US for COVID-19 vaccine in younger children

Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE submitted initial trial data for their COVID-19 vaccine in children aged 5 to 11 to US regulators on Tuesday and said they would make a formal request for emergency use authorization in the coming weeks.

Coronavirus infections have soared in children and hit their highest point in early September, according to data from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The vaccine, which is already authorized in teens aged 12 to 15 and fully approved for ages 16 and up, has been shown to induce a strong immune response in the target age group in a 2,268-participant clinical trial, the companies said on Sept. 20.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was authorized in kids aged 12-15 roughly a month after the companies filed for authorization. If the same timeline is followed for this application, kids could start receiving their shots as soon as late October.

A rapid authorization could help mitigate a potential surge of cases this fall, with schools already open nationwide.

While kids are less susceptible to severe COVID-19, they can spread the virus to others, including vulnerable populations that are more at risk of severe illness. 

-reuters-

Sinovac highly effective against serious COVID – Malaysia study

KUALA LUMPUR — Sinovac’s COVID-19 vaccine is highly effective against serious illness, although rival shots from Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca showed better protection rates, a large real world study from Malaysia showed.

The latest data is a boost to the Chinese firm, whose COVID-19 vaccine has been under growing scrutiny over its effectiveness following reports of infections among health-care workers fully immunized with the Sinovac shot in Indonesia and Thailand.

The study, conducted by the Malaysian government, found that 0.011 percent of about 7.2 million recipients of the Sinovac shot required treatment in intensive care units (ICU) for COVID-19 infections, health officials told reporters on Thursday.

Comparisons

By contrast, 0.002 percent of about 6.5 million recipients of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine needed ICU treatment for COVID-19 infections, while 0.001 percent of 744,958 recipients of the AstraZeneca shot required similar treatment.

Kalaiarasu Peariasamy, a director at the Institute for Clinical Research that conducted the study along with a national COVID-19 task force, said vaccinations—regardless of the brand—have reduced the risk of admission to intensive care by 83 percent and lowered the risk of death by 88 percent based on a smaller study involving about 1.26 million people.

“The breakthrough rate for intensive care unit admission is extremely low,” he said, adding overall ICU admissions among fully vaccinated individuals stood at 0.0066 percent.

Mortality rate of the fully vaccinated people was also low at 0.01 percent and the majority of them were either above 60 years of age or with comorbidities.

Demographics

There were differences in the demographics of the recipients of the three vaccines and it could have resulted in the different results, Peariasamy said.

Many of AstraZeneca recipients were in the “midadulthood age,” while the Pfizer and Sinovac shots were “very much for the vulnerable population,” he said.

AstraZeneca recipients also accounted for a much smaller proportion of the study, which involved about 14.5 million fully vaccinated individuals and conducted for more than five months since April 1.

In July, Malaysia said it will stop administering the Sinovac vaccine once its supplies end, as it has a sufficient number of other vaccines for its program.

The Sinovac vaccine has been widely used in several countries including China, Indonesia, Thailand and Brazil, and the company said earlier this month it had supplied 1.8 billion doses at home and abroad.

Malaysia has fully vaccinated 58.7 percent of its 32 million population and gave at least one dose to 68.8 percent.

-reuters-

UK panel does not recommend COVID vaccines for healthy 12- to 15-year-olds

UK advice contrasts with United States and Israel

LONDON - Britain's vaccine advisers said they were not recommending the vaccination of all 12- to 15-year-olds against COVID-19, preferring a precautionary approach in healthy children due to a rare side effect of heart inflammation.

The advice could see Britain pursue a different approach to the United States, Israel and some European countries, which have rolled out vaccinations to children more broadly.

However, a final decision has not been taken, as the British government said it would consult medical advisers to look at other factors, such as disruption to schools.

Many politicians and some scientists have spoken out in favor of vaccinating more children amid concern that COVID-19 could spread in schools that are reopening after summer holidays, further disrupting education.

Britain has reported more than 133,000 deaths from COVID-19 and nearly 7 million cases, and while transmission among children can be high, they are rarely severely ill from the disease.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) on Friday said children with underlying conditions that made them more at risk from COVID-19 should get vaccinated.

For healthy children, there was still a small benefit from receiving COVID-19 vaccination, and advisers said the risk-benefit was "finely balanced".

However, the JCVI said it wanted more information on the long-term effects of rare reports of heart inflammation, known as myocarditis, in young people following vaccination with Pfizer's shot.

Myocarditis is rare and normally mild, with patients usually recovering in a few days.

"Of course these vaccines do work and would be beneficial to children in terms of preventing infection and disease, but the number of serious cases that we see of COVID in children this age are really very small," JCVI member Adam Finn told Reuters.

"There are uncertainties about the long-term implications of (myocarditis), and that makes the risk-benefit balance for these children really quite tight and much tighter than we would be comfortable to make the recommendation."

UK health minister Sajid Javid, who sets policy for England, and his counterparts from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, wrote to the chief medical officers (CMOs) of the four nations, asking for further advice, "including on educational impacts".

"Given the importance of this issue, we would be grateful if you could provide your advice as soon as possible," the four health ministers said in a letter to the CMOs.

The JCVI is also expected to advise on a potential booster vaccine program for the elderly and vulnerable which could start this month.

JCVI member Finn said there would be an update on boosters "within the next few days."

-reuters-

Israel offers COVID-19 booster to all vaccinated people

JERUSALEM - Israel on Sunday began offering a COVID-19 booster to children as young as 12, and its prime minister said a campaign that began a month ago among seniors has slowed a rise in severe illness caused by the Delta variant.

Announcing the decision, top Israeli health officials said the effectiveness of the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine waned six months after administration, making a booster necessary.

"The third dose brings us to the level of protection achieved by the second dose, when it was fresh," said Sharon Alroy-Preis, head of public health at Israel's Health Ministry.

"That means, people are 10 times more protected after the third vaccine dose," she told a news conference, where the expanded booster drive was announced.

Those eligible for the third shot can receive it provided at least five months have passed since their second jab - a timeframe shorter than an eight-month interval in effect in the United States, which is considering cutting the waiting time.

Hoping to curb the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant, Israel began administering the booster to its older population a month ago and has been gradually lowering the age of eligibility. It stood at 30 before Sunday's announcement.

So far 2 million people out of a population of 9.3 million have received three doses.

"There are already results: the increase in severe morbidity has begun to slow," Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in a statement. "But we have to complete third doses for all of our citizens. I call on those aged 12 and up to go out and immediately take the third shot."

Israel and other countries have pressed ahead with booster plans despite opposition from the World Health Organization, which said more of the world should be vaccinated with a first dose before people receive a third.

The United States has said it will offer booster doses to all Americans, citing data showing diminishing protection. Canada, France and Germany have also planned booster campaigns. 

(Editing by Jeffrey Heller; editing by Barbara Lewis)

-reuters-

Small Chinese COVID-19 vaccine studies show positive signs vs Delta variant

With the coronavirus largely stopped at China’s borders it can be hard to assess just how well the national vaccination drive is working against the highly transmissible Delta variant of the disease.

But two small peer-reviewed studies indicate that the vaccines might just be effective.

In one study, researchers with the Chinese Academy of Sciences collected 28 serum samples from participants three weeks after they received the full three doses of a vaccine by Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical.

They tested the serum to see how well the vaccine, known as ZF2001, neutralised several variants of the coronavirus, according to a study published in the journal The Lancet on Friday.

The researchers, who included Gao Fu, head of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, found that the serum from people given the vaccine showed roughly equivalent sensitivity against the Epsilon variant, the one first detected in the United States, and the Delta variant, first detected in India, as compared with the ancestral strain first detected in Wuhan.

“ZF2001 preserved the neutralising activity against the newly emerging Delta variant,” the researchers wrote.

But it was much less effective against the Beta variant, first identified in South Africa, and the Gamma variant, first identified in Brazil.

According to the paper, the levels of neutralising antibodies dropped “1.1 times” for the Epsilon variant, 1.2 times for the Delta variant, 1.8 times for the Beta variant first identified in South Africa and 1.5 times for the Gamma variant, first identified in Brazil.

Of the 28 people sampled, 16 had their shots over a period of 4-6 months and 12 had the doses over two months.

The results showed that participants with longer intervals between the second and third dose had greater resilience to variants.

“The better performance of the extended interval regimen is probably because of the longer antibody maturation in the recipients than in those with the shorter interval regimen,” the researchers wrote.

“Our data are consistent with common practice of using the 0, 1, and 6 months regimen for subunit vaccines against diseases such as hepatitis B, and provide guidance to further optimise the vaccination regimen.”

ZF2001 was authorised for emergency use in China and Uzbekistan in March this year.

The Uzbekistan government announced on the weekend that the vaccine had been approved for local production.

Researchers in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou also concluded that two other more widely used inactivated vaccines by Sinovac and Sinopharm were effective in preventing cases caused by the Delta variant.

The assessment, published earlier this month in Emerging Microbes & Infections, was based on observation of a community outbreak in the city in late May and early June when an imported Delta case infected 153 people.

Of the infected, 38 were vaccinated and 115 were not.

The researchers tracked 74 people infected with Covid-19 and 292 close contacts as the controls to explore vaccine efficacy in real-world settings.

The participants were aged 18-59 years and most were vaccinated with the Sinovac jabs. Some people have been given both vaccines, but researchers said they did not separate them in the study because it was not designed to compare the two and both vaccines were based on the same widely available technology.

The team included researchers from the Guangzhou Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Health, and Sun Yat-sen University, including respiratory expert Zhong Nanshan.

They found that a single dose of inactivated vaccine yielded a vaccine efficacy of only 13.8 per cent, not sufficiently protective against the Delta strain infection. After two doses, the efficacy rose to 59 per cent against the coronavirus in general and 70.2 per cent against moderate disease.

The efficacy against severe disease was estimated as 100 per cent, but researchers said it might be overestimated because there were only two severe Covid-19 patients in the control group.

There were no severe and critical cases or deaths among the vaccinated study participants, and all the 16 severe or critical cases were not vaccinated.

“We speculated that the inactivated vaccine could prevent severe Covid-19 well,” they wrote. “The two-dose dosing scheme of the inactivated vaccines was effective against the Delta variant infection in real-world settings, with the estimated efficacy exceeding the World Health Organization minimal threshold of 50 per cent.”

They said their findings could have important global implications because more than 350 million inactivated vaccines had been exported worldwide as of June.

But they cautioned that the efficacy results should be considered in the context of stringent containment efforts in China.

The selection of controls, people who live, work or travel with confirmed cases “might have affected the estimated vaccine efficacy”, the researchers wrote.

The Delta variant has put countries around the world on the guard with some considering booster shots for better protection.

A report by the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention published last week showed two doses of mRNA vaccines were 74.7 per cent effective against infection among nursing home residents in March and May. But this declined significantly to 53.1 per cent during June and July when the Delta variant circulation predominated.

The report suggested an additional dose of Covid-19 vaccine might be considered for nursing home and long-term care facility residents to optimise a protective immune response.

-South China Morning Post-

Quebec to roll out Canada's first vaccine passport

MONTREAL - Canadians wanting to eat at a restaurant, go to a bar or gym, or attend a festival in Quebec will have to present a vaccine passport starting September 1, officials announced Tuesday.

The province will be the first in Canada to require such passes, which are increasingly being used across the world to limit entry to public places to those who have been vaccinated, recovered from Covid-19 or tested negative.

They are also hugely controversial in some jurisdictions leading to mass protests against mandatory inoculations.

"Our objective with the passport is not to go backwards to a lockdown and, at the same time, to avoid overloading our hospitals," Quebec Health Minister Christian Dube told a news conference.

Health officials have warned that Covid-19 infections are once again on the rise after plunging in June and July, despite more than 60 percent of the Canadian population being fully vaccinated.

The Quebec government is to clarify in the coming weeks which public places will be obliged to require the vaccine passports, which will be in paper or electronic format.

New York was the first American city to announce last week the introduction of vaccine passes for access to public places.

Quebec, the second most populous province in Canada after Ontario, recorded 234 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday.

Some 84 percent of Quebecers have received a first dose of vaccine and 70 percent are fully vaccinated.

Dube warned that a fourth wave of Covid-19 infections led by the more contagious Delta variant in the fall was "inevitable."

To date, the Delta variant is responsible for a third of Covid-19 cases in Quebec but the minister expects it to increase to 50 percent "in the coming weeks."

Agence France-Presse 

Getting a COVID-19 booster shot

Doctor Ziv Feldman receives a third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Israel on Friday. Israel will offer a third dose of COVID-19 vaccines to people aged over 60 according to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett beginning Sunday as part of a “complementary vaccination program” as concerns mount over the more contagious Delta variant. 

-reuters-

Google and Facebook say on-campus workers must be vaccinated

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - Google and Facebook on Wednesday said workers returning to offices will need to be vaccinated against Covid-19, in the latest move by firms and US government agencies.

Spikes in infections due to a Delta variant of the virus have ramped up concerns in the United States, where 611,000 people have died in the pandemic.

Google will make campuses off-limits to unvaccinated employees and extend its global work-from-home option through October 18, according to chief executive Sundar Pichai.

"Anyone coming to work on our campuses will need to be vaccinated," Pichai said in a blog post.

"We're rolling this policy out in the United States in the coming weeks and will expand to other regions in the coming months."

Implementation will be adapted to local conditions, including vaccine availability, according to the Silicon Valley-based tech titan.

"I hope these steps will give everyone greater peace of mind as offices reopen," Pichai said.

"Seeing Googlers together in the offices these past few weeks filled me with optimism, and I'm looking forward to brighter days ahead."

Google and Facebook were among companies worldwide that abandoned campuses early last year, letting people work remotely rather than risk exposure to Covid-19 in offices.

Google has been paying the salaries of campus workers unable to do their jobs because of closed offices, and helping employees get access to vaccines, according to Pichai.

"Even as the virus continues to surge in many parts of the world, it’s encouraging to see very high vaccination rates for our Google community in areas where vaccines are widely available," Pichai said.

"This is a big reason why we felt comfortable opening some of our offices to employees who wanted to return early."

Tech titan Facebook put out similar word on Wednesday, saying that as its offices re-open, only vaccinated workers will be welcomed.

"We will be requiring anyone coming to work at any of our US campuses to be vaccinated," Facebook vice president of people Lori Goler said in response to an AFP inquiry.

"We will have a process for those who cannot be vaccinated for medical or other reasons and will be evaluating our approach in other regions as the situation evolves."

Many unions and critics of mandates have spoken out against required vaccinations, citing personal freedom arguments.

President Joe Biden said Tuesday that a vaccine mandate for America's more than two million federal workers was under consideration.

California and New York City announced that official workers would need to get vaccinated or take weekly tests.

Agence France-Presse

Facebook says it should not be blamed for US failing to meet vaccine goals

Facebook on Saturday defended itself against US President Joe Biden's assertion that the social media platform is "killing people" by allowing misinformation about coronavirus vaccines to proliferate, saying the facts tell a different story.

"The data shows that 85 percent of Facebook users in the US have been or want to be vaccinated against COVID-19," Facebook said in a corporate blog post by Guy Rosen, a company vice president. "President Biden’s goal was for 70 percent of Americans to be vaccinated by July 4. Facebook is not the reason this goal was missed."

COVID-19 misinformation has spread during the pandemic on social media sites including Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet Inc-owned YouTube. Researchers and lawmakers have long accused Facebook of failing to police harmful content on its platforms.

"They're killing people. ... Look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. And they're killing people," Biden told reporters at the White House on Friday when asked about misinformation and what his message was to social media platforms such as Facebook.

The company has introduced rules against making specific false claims about COVID-19 and vaccines for it, and says it provides people with reliable information on these topics.

The Delta variant of the coronavirus is now the dominant strain worldwide, accompanied by a surge of deaths around the United States almost entirely among unvaccinated people, U.S. officials said on Friday.

American cases of COVID-19 are up 70 percent over the previous week and deaths are up 26 percent, with outbreaks occurring in parts of the country with low vaccination rates.

-reuters-

White House slams Facebook as conduit for COVID-19 misinformation

WASHINGTON - Facebook is not doing enough to stop the spread of false claims about COVID-19 and vaccines, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Thursday, part of a new administration pushback on misinformation in the United States.

Facebook, which owns Instagram and WhatsApp, needs to work harder to remove inaccurate vaccine information from its platform, Psaki said.

She said 12 people were responsible for almost 65 percent of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms. The finding was reported in May by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, but Facebook has disputed the methodology.

"All of them remain active on Facebook," Psaki said. Facebook also "needs to move more quickly to remove harmful violative posts," she said.

US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy also raised the alarm over the growing wave of misinformation about COVID-19 and related vaccines, saying it is making it harder to fight the pandemic and save lives.

"American lives are at risk," he said in a statement.

In his first advisory as the nation's top doctor under President Joe Biden, Murthy called on tech companies to tweak their algorithms to further demote false information and share more data with researchers and the government to help teachers, healthcare workers and the media fight misinformation.

"Health misinformation is a serious threat to public health. It can cause confusion, sow mistrust, harm people's health, and undermine public health efforts. Limiting the spread of health misinformation is a moral and civic imperative," he said in the advisory, first reported by National Public Radio.

False information feeds hesitancy to get vaccinated, leading to preventable deaths, Murthy said, noting misinformation can affect other health conditions and is a worldwide problem.

A Facebook spokesperson said the company has partnered with government experts, health authorities and researchers to take "aggressive action against misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines to protect public health".

"So far we've removed more than 18 million pieces of COVID misinformation, removed accounts that repeatedly break these rules, and connected more than 2 billion people to reliable information about COVID-19 and COVID vaccines across our apps," the spokesperson added.

Facebook has introduced rules against making certain false claims about COVID-19 and its vaccines. Still, researchers and lawmakers have long complained about the lax policing of content on its site.

Murthy said at a White House press briefing that COVID-19 misinformation comes mostly from individuals who may not know they are spreading false claims, but also a few "bad actors".

His advisory also urges people not to spread questionable information online. The head of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a group that tracks COVID-19 misinformation online, said it was inadequate.

"On tobacco packets they say that tobacco kills," the group's chief executive Imran Ahmed told NPR. "On social media we need a 'Surgeon General's Warning: Misinformation Kills.'"

US COVID-19 infections last week rose about 11 percent from the previous week, with the highest increases in areas with vaccination rates of less than 40 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and continued to tick up on Wednesday.

Cases plummeted in the spring as the vaccine rolled out following a winter spike in infections, but shots have slowed and just about 51 percent of the country has been vaccinated, Reuters data show.

"It's been hard to get people to move" from not wanting the COVID-19 vaccine "to recognizing that the risk is still there," Dr. Richard Besser, a former CDC chief who now heads the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, told MSNBC.

Representatives for the nation's largest tech companies could not be immediately reached for comment on the advisory.

-reuters-

TikTok Sounds used to spread COVID vaccine misinformation - think tank

A TikTok feature that allows users to add another person's audio to their videos is being used to promote misleading and harmful content about COVID-19 vaccines, a think tank said in a new report.

The London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue analyzed 124 videos that used speech from four original TikTok videos, including two that were removed by the company for breaking its COVID misinformation rules, to push misinformation and stoke fears about vaccine side-effects. The 124 videos had more than 20 million views.

"There's a part of the content which is still able to travel," said Ciaran O'Connor, an analyst at the counter-extremism think tank. He likened the spread of misinformation though TikTok's "Sounds" feature to WhatsApp audio messages that proliferated during the pandemic.

Viral trends where users create their own videos by riffing off the same music or speech clip are a central part of TikTok. The popular social video platform, which saw explosive growth during the pandemic, said it reviews the audio of rule-breaking videos and may prevent these being used as Sounds by other users. It said these cases were caused by human content moderation errors. It also said Sounds can be reported on the app.

Audio from one video of a user implying the COVID vaccine's fast development made it unsafe and making misleading comparisons to other illnesses has been used in more than 4,500 videos, ISD found.

TikTok said it had previously limited the distribution of videos using this Sound, rather than remove it completely, as it was only deemed to be potentially misleading. Even so, the top 25 videos on the TikTok page for this Sound have been viewed a total of 16.7 million times.

ISD found many of the videos used the Sound to signal support for the statement. TikTok said it took down some of the videos using the Sound and made the Sound more difficult to find in searches after reviewing the report's findings. It removed the three other Sounds identified in the report.

"We strive to promote an authentic TikTok experience by limiting the spread of misleading content, including audio, and promoting authoritative information about COVID-19 and vaccines across our app," a TikTok spokesperson said.

ISD found the app had added labels directing to authoritative COVID information on only two of the 124 videos. The company said this was because labels were only added on videos with specific hashtags.

TikTok last week announced changes to its content-moderation systems for certain content, moving to fully automated reviewing systems for categories like nudity and violent or graphic material. (Reporting by Elizabeth Culliford; Editing by Stephen Coates)

-reuters-

Biden: Biggest vaccine donation 'supercharges' battle against coronavirus

CARBIS BAY, England—U.S. President Joe Biden said on Thursday that a donation of 500 million doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to the world's poorest countries would supercharge the battle with the virus and comes with "no strings attached."

Biden, speaking alongside Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla in the English seaside resort of Carbis Bay ahead of a G7 summit, thanked other leaders for recognizing their responsibility to vaccinate the world.

"The United States is providing these half billion doses with no strings attached. No strings attached," Biden said. "Our vaccine donations don't include pressure for favors, or potential concessions. We're doing this to save lives."

Biden, keen to burnish his multilateral credentials on his first foreign trip as leader, cast the donation as a bold move that showed America recognized its responsibility to the world and to its own citizens.

"America will be the arsenal of vaccines in our fight against COVID-19, just as America was the arsenal of democracy during World War Two," Biden said.

The largest ever vaccine donation by a single country will cost the United States $3.5 billion but will spur further donations from other G7 leaders - including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

G7 leaders want to vaccinate the world by the end of 2022 to try to halt the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed more than 3.9 million people, devastated the global economy and upended the normal lives of billions of people.

Vaccination efforts so far are heavily correlated with wealth: the United States, Europe, Israel and Bahrain are far ahead of other countries. A total of 2.2 billion people have been vaccinated so far out of a world population of nearly 8 billion, based on Johns Hopkins University data.

'SAVE LIVES'

U.S. drugmaker Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech have agreed to supply the U.S. with the vaccines, delivering 200 million doses in 2021 and 300 million doses in the first half of 2022.

The shots, which will be produced at Pfizer's U.S. sites, will be supplied at a not-for-profit price. Around 100 countries will get the shots.

Pfizer CEO Bourla said the eyes of the world were on the leaders of rich nations to see if they would act to solve the COVID-19 crisis and share with poorer nations.

"This announcement with the U.S. government gets us closer to our goal and significantly enhances our ability to save even more lives across the globe," he said.

While such a large donation of vaccines was welcomed by many, there were immediately calls for the richest nations of the world to open up more of their giant hoards of vaccines.

Anti-poverty campaign group Oxfam called for more to be done to increase global production of vaccines.

"Surely, these 500 million vaccine doses are welcome as they will help more than 250 million people, but that’s still a drop in the bucket compared to the need across the world," said Niko Lusiani, Oxfam America’s vaccine lead.

"We need a transformation toward more distributed vaccine manufacturing so that qualified producers worldwide can produce billions more low-cost doses on their own terms, without intellectual property constraints," he said in a statement.

Another issue, especially in some poor countries, is the infrastructure for transporting the vaccines which often have to be stored at very cold temperatures.

IP WAIVER

Biden has also backed calls for a waiver of some vaccine intellectual property rights but there is no international consensus yet on how to proceed.

The new vaccine donations come on top of 80 million doses Washington has already pledged to donate by the end of June. There is also $2 billion in funding earmarked for the COVAX programme led by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), the White House said.

GAVI and the WHO welcomed the initiative.

Washington is also taking steps to support local production of COVID-19 vaccines in other countries, including through its Quad initiative with Japan, India and Australia. (Reporting by Steve Holland in St. Ives, England, Andrea Shalal in Washington and Caroline Copley in Berlin; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Keith Weir; Editing by Leslie Adler, David Evans, Emelia Sithole-Matarise, Giles Elgood, Jane Merriman and Marguerita Choy)

-reuters-

Poland to vaccinate 12-year-olds, join EU COVID certificate scheme

WARSAW - Poland will offer COVID-19 vaccinations to children aged 12-15 from June 7 and is also joining an EU certificate scheme to make travel easier, ministers said on Tuesday.

The European Commission on Friday authorized the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for use in that age group after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said the shot was safe and effective for them.

"Due to the decisions of the European Medicines Agency and the recommendation of the Medical Council, we have made a decision that from June 7, vaccinations of children aged 12 to 15 will begin. This is 2.5 million students," Michal Dworczyk, the minister charge of the country's vaccination drive, told a news conference.

Health Minister Adam Niedzielski also said that as of Tuesday Poland was joining the European Union's COVID certificate program, intended to make travelling in the bloc easier.

This makes Poland one of the first seven countries to join the program, which will formally start on July 1, he said.

"Poland is among the leaders who will be able to issue these certificates for the use of their citizens from June 1," Niedzielski said.

-reuters-

Donuts and hangouts: US kicks off COVID vaccination for teens

BLOOMFIELD HILLS, United States - Harrison Hunger, 14, received his Covid shot at a clinic in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, on Thursday and now has pastries on his mind.

Asked what he plans to do first, the teen doesn't skip a beat: "Probably go to Krispy Kreme, because they are offering free donuts to people with one of these," he says, showing off his vaccine card.

The campaign to immunize America's 17 million adolescents aged 12-to-15 kicked off in full force on Thursday, a key part of President Joe Biden's strategy to push the country toward herd immunity.

Across the country, kids lined up with their parents, eager to return to some semblance of their pre-pandemic lives.

"It will help me get back out more," said Daniel Fox, a 13-year-old among the first in the door when the Javits Center in New York City opened at 10 am. "Online playdates are pretty fun, but it's also fun to have an in-person playdate once in a while."

Fourteen-year-old twins Anaya and Jay Tsai also received their first doses.

"I've been very much looking forward to this day for a while. It's hugely important," said their mother Purva Tsai, 47.

"I hope it means things will start to get back to normal for the kids and they can socialize with their friends."

Numbers were a little low at a vaccine site set up at the Walter E Washington Convention Center in the US capital.

Kandall Frederick, 15, was driven in by her mom ahead of the school day.

"I was excited," she said. "I was the last one in the family to be vaccinated so now we will be all safe and sound, be on the go and do things more freely."

PIZZA AND BAND

In Hartford, Connecticut, 13-year-old Charles Muro said he was looking forward to worrying less post-vaccination -- and being able to grab some pizza. 

"This will be the future," he said. "It feels revolutionary... it is pretty cool to be in this unique group."

And 14-year-old Sadie Sindland, who was also in Hartford, said she is ready to get back to school full-time, to play in a band and to see friends, despite some nervousness. 

"I am always very scared of getting vaccines," Sadie said. "But I was really excited to get this Covid vaccine, because this is the first step to getting back to a normal society."

An April poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation that interviewed parents of 12-to-15-year-olds found that three in ten were keen to get their children vaccinated right away, a quarter will wait to see how it's working, a fifth will vaccinate only if their child's school requires it, and the remaining quarter will refuse the vaccine.

Teens are much less susceptible to Covid than older age groups, and the main reason to vaccinate them is to drive down overall transmission.

But extremely rare cases of severe Covid can still occur, as can a post-viral complication called multisystem inflammatory syndrome.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has called this week's authorization of the Pfizer Covid vaccine for youths aged 12 to 15 an important tool for more schools to return to in-person learning this fall.

Agence France-Presse