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 Austria breaks ranks with EU on vaccines
Austria broke ranks with the European Union on Tuesday and said it
would work together with Israel and Denmark to produce
second-generation vaccines against coronavirus mutations.
The announcement is a rebuke to the EU's joint vaccine procurement
programme for member states which has been criticised for being slow
to agree deals with manufacturers.
Production problems and supply chain bottlenecks have also slowed
deliveries to the bloc, delaying the roll-out of vaccines.
Turkey's reopening relieves restaurants but worries doctors
Turkish restaurants reopened and many children returned to school on
Tuesday after the government announced steps to ease curbs even as
cases edged higher, raising concerns in the top medical association.
On Monday evening, President Tayyip Erdogan lifted weekend lockdowns
in low- and medium-risk cities and limited lockdowns to Sundays in
those deemed higher risk under what he called a "controlled
normalisation".
Cafe and restaurant owners, limited to takeaway service for much of
last year, have long urged a reopening of in-house dining after
sector revenues dropped.
No respite from France's COVID-19 measures in next 4-6 weeks
France will retain its current measures aimed at curbing the spread
of COVID-19, including a curfew at night, as a bare minimum for the
next four to six weeks, its health minister said on Monday.
Other measures now in force include the closure of bars, restaurants
and museums and the minister, Olivier Veran, said he hoped France
would not have to go beyond those measures to rein in the disease.
Prime Minister Jean Castex said last week a new lockdown was not on
the agenda but that the government would assess this week whether
local weekend lockdowns might be needed in 20 areas considered very
worrying, including Paris and the surrounding region.
[to top of second column] |
 Fauci says U.S. must stick to
two-shot strategy
The United States must stick to a two-dose
strategy for the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna
vaccines, top U.S. infectious disease official
Anthony Fauci told the Washington Post
newspaper.
Fauci said that delaying a second dose to
inoculate more Americans creates risks.
He warned that shifting to a single-dose
strategy for the vaccines could leave people
less protected, enable variants to spread and
possibly boost skepticism among Americans
already hesitant to get the shots.
WHO panel issues strong advice against
hydroxychloroquine
The drug hydroxychloroquine, once touted by
former U.S. President Donald Trump as a pandemic
"game-changer", should not be used to prevent
COVID-19 and has no meaningful effect on
patients already infected, a World Health
Organization expert panel said on Tuesday.
"The panel considers that this drug is no longer
a research priority and that resources should
rather be oriented to evaluate other more
promising drugs to prevent COVID-19," they wrote
in the BMJ British medical journal.
This "strong recommendation", the experts said,
is based on high-certainty evidence from six
randomised controlled trials involving more than
6,000 participants both with and without known
exposure to COVID-19.
(Compiled by Linda Noakes, Editing by Timothy
Heritage)
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