WASHINGTON, Dec 4, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – The world passed the grim milestone of
1.5 million coronavirus deaths on Thursday, as several nations planned to
deliver much hoped-for vaccines early next year to break the cycle of
lockdowns and restrictions.
US President-elect Joe Biden said that on his first day in office he would
ask Americans to wear masks for 100 days to help reduce transmission of the
virus that is again surging in the country with the world’s highest number of
deaths and infections.
“I’m going to ask the public for 100 days to mask. Just 100 days to mask —
not forever,” Biden said in excerpts of an interview to be broadcast on CNN
later Thursday.
But even as the latest positive news about a vaccine was announced, with
the Moderna candidate showing it confers immunity for at least three months,
several countries marked new Covid-19 records.
The US, for instance, posted an all-time high of more than 210,000 new
cases in a 24-hour stretch to Thursday evening, meanwhile notching more than
2,900 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
And Italy registered 993 deaths, topping its previous record of 969 earlier
in the year when it was the first European country to be affected by the
pandemic.
To build trust in vaccines after they are approved, the 78-year-old Biden
said he was willing to be vaccinated in public — following up on similar
commitments from former US presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill
Clinton.
Biden also used the interview to say he had asked the government’s top
infectious disease specialist Anthony Fauci to join his Covid team and serve
as a chief medical adviser.
But in a sign of the difficult work ahead, California announced new
statewide bans on gatherings and non-essential activities, as hospitals in
the nation’s most populous state face being overwhelmed.
– Vaxx hack –
The pandemic is showing little sign of slowing, with more than 10,000 new
deaths recorded worldwide every day since November 24 — a rate never reached
before, according to an AFP tally.
As the world tires of economically crippling restrictions, attention has
turned to the race for a vaccine.
Britain on Wednesday became the first Western country to approve a Covid-19
vaccine for general use, piling pressure on other countries to swiftly follow
suit.
But Fauci said Britain “rushed” its approval process.
“In all fairness to so many of my UK friends, you know, they kind of ran
around the corner of the marathon and joined it in the last mile,” he told
CBS news.
He later walked back his comments, saying he had “a great deal of
confidence in what the UK does both scientifically and from a regulator
standpoint.”
Also on Thursday, a study showed that the Moderna vaccine, which was
recently demonstrated to have 94 percent efficacy, causes the immune system
to produce potent antibodies that endure for at least three months.
In anticipation of such vaccines being approved, France announced that its
vaccinations will be free and begin in January for one million elderly in
retirement homes, February for 14 million at-risk people and spring for the
rest of the population.
France was also mourning the latest high-profile figure to succumb to
Covid-19, former French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing, who died at the
age of 94.
Belgium’s government also said it intends to start vaccinating its most
vulnerable in January.
But the raised hopes didn’t only garner the attention of governments — IBM
said Thursday that hackers are targeting the Covid-19 vaccine supply chain.
The tech giant said it was “unclear” if a series of cyber attacks it
uncovered against companies involved in the effort to distribute doses around
the world had been successful.
IBM could not identify who was behind the attacks, but said that the
precision of the operation signals “the potential hallmarks of nation-state
tradecraft”.
– ‘Vaccine cannot undo damage’ –
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that even if vaccines are
quickly approved, the world would still be fighting the pandemic’s
aftershocks.
“Let’s not fool ourselves. A vaccine cannot undo damage that will stretch
across years, even decades to come,” Guterres said while opening a special UN
summit on the virus.
Guterres reiterated his call that vaccines be considered a “global public
good” that are shared around the world.
More than 180 countries have joined Covax, a global collaboration
initiative by the World Health Organization to work with manufacturers to
distribute vaccines equitably.
A reminder of the pandemic’s society-altering effects came again Thursday
with a landmark announcement from Warner Bros. studio, which said it will
release its entire 2021 slate of movies on HBO Max streaming and in theaters
simultaneously.
But some British football supporters were given a reminder of pre-pandemic
days as Arsenal welcomed a crowd of 2,000 for Thursday’s Europa League win
over Rapid Vienna.
It was the first time in 270 days that fans were back inside a Premier
League ground.