Britain will start rolling out the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech on Tuesday, the first Western country to begin vaccinating its population against infection from the new coronavirus.

Britain has ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine; enough for just under a third of the population as two shots of the shot are needed per person to gain immunity.

Below are details on what the government, companies and health service have said about the manufacturing and storage process, logistics of the rollout, who gets the vaccine and where they will get it.

Manufacturing process

– The vaccine needs to be shipped and stored at minus 70 degrees Celsius (-94F) or below.

– The two companies have developed specially designed, temperature-controlled shippers which can maintain their temperature for 10 days unopened. The shippers can also be used for storage, maintaining the required temperature, for a further 30 days.

– Once thawed, the vaccine vial can be stored for up to five days at refrigerated temperatures (2-8 degrees Celsius).

– The UK market will be supplied by Pfizer’s manufacturing site in Puurs, Belgium, one of its largest sterile injectable sites.

Logistic details

– Pfizer dispatched initial volumes of vaccine from Belgium, which arrived at secure locations in Britain by the weekend. Around 800,000 doses are expected to be available in the first week of rollout.

– After arriving, there is a post-delivery quality assurance process to ensure the vaccine’s quality and integrity has been maintained through transit, which can take 12-24 hours.

– Each box is then opened and unpacked manually, with temperature data downloaded from each box.

– There are five packs of 975 doses per box. Only sites with the right regulatory licence can split the vaccine packs, which limits where they can be sent in the first instance.

People and When

– Britain has said the speed of the rollout then depends on how fast Pfizer can manufacture and deliver the vaccine.

– It will be administered in two shots, about three weeks apart. The bulk of the rollout will happen in the new year.

– Older care home residents and their carers will be the highest priority to receive the vaccine, followed by those over 80 years of age and frontline health workers, according to the chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).

– People in descending bands from 80 to 50 will follow on in the first wave, along with people aged 16 years to 64 years with underlying health conditions which put them at higher risk of serious disease and mortality.

Where

– Britain will use hospitals, large vaccination centres and community medical centres to distribute the vaccine.

– At first, the vaccine will be available from around 50 “Hospital Hubs”, where shots will be defrosted and then prepared.

– Over 1,000 local vaccination centres, operated by groups of general practitioners (GPs), will then open. The health service has asked doctors to be ready to begin vaccinations from Dec. 14.

– When there is more vaccine and it is possible to split the packs up, the government has said it plans bigger vaccination centres and smaller arrangements through local pharmacies.

Reuters

South Korea said on Tuesday it had signed deals to provide coronavirus vaccines for 44 million people next year but it would not hurry inoculation to allow more time to observe potential side effects.

Its cautious approach comes as the country of almost 52 million people battles surging COVID-19 infections that health authorities say threaten to overwhelm the medical system.

Other countries are moving ahead to grant emergency use approval for the vaccines in a bid to contain virus transmission. Britain began rolling out Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday, and the United States and India have launched regulatory reviews on some vaccine candidates.

’’The South Korean government has arranged to buy 20 million doses each from AstraZeneca Plc, Pfizer Inc, and Moderna Inc, and another 4 million doses from Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen, enough to cover up to 34 million people,’’ Health Minister Park Neung-hoo said.

Additional doses for 10 million people would be procured through the World Health Organization’s global vaccine project, known as COVAX, he added.

Despite the current surge in cases, South Korea’s relative success in tamping down previous waves meant the government did not need to rush a vaccine, Park said.

“We don’t see the need to hurriedly begin vaccination without ensuring that the vaccines’ risks have been verified,” he said.

Shipments would begin no later than March, and vaccinations may start in the first half of next year depending on factors such as observations in other countries about their safety, the spread of COVID-19 and public demand, the health ministry said.

“We had initially planned to secure vaccines for 30 million people but decided to purchase more, as there is uncertainty over the success of the vaccine candidates and the competition is intense among countries for early purchases,” Park said.

The government allocated an additional 1.3 trillion won ($1.2 billion) to next year’s budget for vaccines.

The first vaccines would likely go to medical workers, elderly and medically vulnerable people, and social workers.

The government will seek to set up new storage to ensure the vaccines are kept at the right temperatures, with the Pfizer product required to be refrigerated at minus 70 Celsius degrees (minus 94 Fahrenheit degrees).

Wave of infections

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency reported 594 new COVID-19 infections as of midnight Monday, bringing the country’s total to 38,755, with 552 deaths.

South Korea’s previous two waves of infections were largely focused around a handful of facilities or events, while the new surge is being driven by smaller, harder-to-trace clusters in and around the densely populated capital city of Seoul.

Kang Do-tae, Vice Health Minister said the government had been unable to trace the origin of 26% of all cases.

“If social distancing is not implemented properly, outbreaks in the greater Seoul area would lead to greater transmissions nationwide,” Kang said

Health authorities predicted daily cases would hover between 550 and 750 this week, and could rise as high as 900 next week.

If such predictions are accurate, Kang said the country’s health system may collapse.

“There could be a dangerous situation where it becomes difficult not only to treat COVID-19 patients but also to provide essential medical services,” he said.

Reuters

The World Health Organization has launched a year-long global campaign for World No Tobacco Day 2021.

The campaign- tagged “Commit to Quit.” gives  more than 100 reasons to quit tobacco”.

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to millions of tobacco users saying they want to quit. The campaign will support at least 100 million people as they try to give up tobacco through communities of quitters.

WHO says “Commit to Quit” will help create healthier environments that are conducive to quitting tobacco by advocating for strong tobacco cessation policies; increasing access to cessation services; raising awareness of tobacco industry tactics, and empowering tobacco users to make successful quit attempts through “quit & win” initiatives.”

WHO, together with partners, will create and build-up digital communities where people can find the social support they need to quit. The focus will be on high burden countries, where the majority of the world’s tobacco users live.

It welcomes new contributions from partners, including private sector companies that have offered support, including Allen Carr’s Easyway, Amazon Web Services, Cipla, Facebook and WhatsApp, Google, Johnson & Johnson, Praekelt, and Soul Machines.

WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says quitting tobacco is challenging, especially with the added social and economic stresses that have come as a result of the pandemic. Worldwide around 780 million people say they want to quit, but only 30% of them have access to the tools that can help them do so. Together with partners, WHO will provide people with the tools and resources they need to make a successful quit attempt.

“Smoking kills 8 million people a year, but if users need more motivation to kick the habit, the pandemic provides the right incentive,” he stated.

WHO released a scientific brief earlier this year showing that smokers are at higher risk of developing severe disease and death from Covid-19. Tobacco is also a major risk factor for noncommunicable diseases like cardiovascular disease, cancer, respiratory disease and diabetes. Moreover, people living with these conditions are more vulnerable to severe Covid-19.

Both global and regional cessation tools will be rolled out as part of the campaign. WHO’s 24/7 digital health worker to help people quit tobacco is available in English and will soon be released to support people in Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish.

WHO Director of Health Promotion, Dr Ruediger Krech, says “Millions of people worldwide want to quit tobacco and must seize this opportunity and invest in services to help them be successful, while we urge everyone to divest from the tobacco industry and their interests,” 

To create environments conducive to quitting tobacco, WHO has worked with partners and countries around the globe to implement tobacco control measures that effectively reduce the demand for tobacco.

The Organization calls on all governments to ensure their citizens have access to brief advice, toll-free quit lines, mobile and digital cessation services, nicotine replacement therapies and other tools that are proven to help people quit. Strong cessation services improve health, save lives and save money.

Mercy Chukwudiebere

China’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office condemned U.S. sanctions on Chinese officials over their role in a national security law for Hong Kong as “purely double standards”, reports said on Tuesday.

The office expressed “strong indignation and condemnation” at the U.S. State Department decision to sanction the 14 Vice-Chairpersons of the National People’s Congress, China’s legislature.

The United States on Monday imposed financial sanctions and a travel ban on the officials over their alleged role in Beijing’s disqualification last month of elected opposition legislators in Hong Kong.

A spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry’s office of the commissioner to Hong Kong also condemned the U.S. move.

“This bullying by the United States once again reveals its evil intention to create chaos in Hong Kong and harm China’s sovereignty and security,” the spokesman said in a statement on Tuesday.

Reuters

Opposition demonstrators blocked streets in Armenia’s capital on Tuesday to mark the start of a protest campaign after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan ignored their call to step down over a ceasefire deal struck with Azerbaijan.

Hundreds chanted “Nikol, traitor” and “Armenia without Nikol” in the streets of Yerevan, answering an opposition call to protest after a deadline of midday Tuesday set by the opposition for Pashinyan to quit passed with him still in power.

Pashinyan, who swept to power in a peaceful revolution in May 2018, accepted a Russian-brokered ceasefire deal last month to end a bloody conflict between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces over the Nagorno-Karabkh enclave and surrounding areas.

Pashinyan’s opponents want him out over what they say was his disastrous handling of the six-week conflict that handed Azerbaijan territorial gains.

Pashinyan has accepted responsibility for the conflict’s outcome, but said he is now responsible for ensuring national security and stabilising the ex-Soviet republic of around three million.

Ishkhan Saghatelyan, an opposition politician for the Armenian Revolutionary Federation party, announced the start of coordinated civil disobedience on Tuesday after the deadline passed.

“Nikol, you will go anyway. Leave peacefully,” he said.

“…from now until 17:00 Armenia’s citizens have the legitimate right to use their right to peaceful actions of disobedience to express their demand and to make it heard,” he said.

The opposition has said it plans to block streets nationwide and to paralyse the national transport network if needed.

Armenian spiritual leader Karekin II said in a statement that he had met Pashinyan and urged him to resign.

Pashinyan did not comment on the protests publicly on Tuesday.

Reuters