India ask states to 'carefully calibrate' lockdown easing India's central government on Saturday urged states to be careful in reopening from COVID-19 lockdowns to prevent a resurgence of infections in the hard-hit country. Reuters Staff U.S.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India’s central government on Saturday urged states to be careful in reopening from COVID-19 lockdowns to prevent a resurgence of infections in the hard-hit country.

To meet its global vaccines pledge, the U.S. seeks to replace the millions of AstraZeneca doses under review.

With less than two weeks remaining to fulfill President Biden’s pledge to share 80 million doses of coronavirus vaccine with countries in need, production problems at an Emergent BioSolutions manufacturing plant are forcing the administration to revise its plan to send AstraZeneca doses overseas.

Officials are now working to replace tens of millions of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine that it had initially planned to include in the donation with others made by Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, according to people familiar with the discussions. Those three vaccines are authorized for emergency use in the United States; AstraZeneca’s is not.

Former British PM Brown and New Zealand PM Clark say rich nations should send more caccines to the poorer countries. Brown said recent pledges were a  "moral Failure." 

Former Prime Minister Helen Clark says the Covid-19 pandemic will continue to wreak havoc globally unless rich nations "share the burden" and help vaccinate poorer countries.

"If we're to end this pandemic, we need 70 per cent of the global population (according to the head of the World Health Organisation) vaccinated by the time the G7 meets in June next year. On the level of [vaccine] pledge we're seeing, and we're not going to meet that," she said in a webinar last night hosted by the Helen Clark Foundation.

"That means this disease is going to carry on in pandemic phase - which is ghastly. We need to see it coming off the accelerating pandemic, down to the point where it becomes somewhat endemic, and ideally, if more countries follow the approach of New Zealand and Australia - squashing it, eliminating it where it appears - we might even see an end to it one day.

"But the redistribution of existing vaccine orders from the high-income countries like ours is clearly important."  ...

European Union opens up to nonessential travel from US The European Union is opening up nonessential travel from the United States and other countries. Jordan Williams TheHill

The European Union is opening up nonessential travel from the United States and other countries.

In poorest countries, surges worsen shortages of vaccines KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Hati Maronjei once swore he would never get a COVID-19 shot, after a pastor warned that vaccines aren't safe. Now, four months after the first batch of vaccines arrived in Zimbabwe, the 44-year-old street hawker of electronic items is desperate for the shot he can’t get. AP NEWS

,,,,

A sense of dread is growing in some of the very poorest countries in the world as virus cases surge and more contagious variants take hold amid a crippling shortage of vaccine.