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 Australia doubles Pfizer order as Astra clotting worries upend
rollout
Australia has doubled its order of the Pfizer Inc COVID-19 vaccine,
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Friday, as it raced to
overhaul its inoculation plan over concerns about the risks of blood
clots with the AstraZeneca Plc vaccine.
Until late Thursday, Australia based its vaccination programme
largely on an AstraZeneca shot, with an order for 50 million doses -
enough for the required two shots for its entire 25 million
population - to be made domestically by biopharma CSL Ltd. But it
has now joined a host of countries in restricting use of the vaccine
due to clotting concerns.
Green, amber or red: UK to classify travel destinations
Britain will confirm in early May whether it will allow
international travel to resume from May 17 and which countries will
fall into the red, amber or green categories in a new traffic light
system based on COVID-19 risks.
Factors in assessing the categories will include the percentage of
the population that has been vaccinated, rate of infection,
prevalence of variants of concern and the country's access to
reliable genomic sequencing.
S.Korea, Japan to tighten curbs
Japan aims to place Tokyo under a new, month-long "quasi-emergency"
state to combat surging COVID-19 cases, a minister said on Friday,
less than a month after the capital and host of the Summer Olympics
lifted a broader state of emergency.
Meanwhile, South Korea will reimpose a ban on nightclubs, karaoke
bars and other nightly entertainment facilities from Monday for
three weeks, authorities said on Friday, after the number of new
coronavirus cases surged, fanning fears over a potential fourth wave
of outbreaks.
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 French health body to say mRNA
vaccine should be used as second dose after
AstraZeneca
France's top health body will on Friday say that
recipients of a first dose of AstraZeneca's
traditional COVID-19 vaccine who are under 55
should get a second shot with a new-style
messenger-RNA vaccine, two sources aware of the
plans said on Thursday. The
Haute Autorite de la Sante, in charge of setting out how vaccines
approved by the European Medicines Agency should be used in France,
has now decided to proceed with the plan, the two sources said. But
there is no evidence that this approach combining messenger RNA
vaccines with traditional ones such as AsztraZeneca's will be as
effective.
Infections hit record in India
India reported 131,968 new infections on Friday, a record increase
for a third straight day, data from the health ministry showed.
Deaths rose by 780 to a total of 167,642.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi rejected calls from states
to offer vaccines to younger people to help contain the record
surge. Inoculations are currently limited to those aged over 45 and
health and frontline workers.
(Compiled by Karishma Singh; Editing by Himani Sarkar)
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