Coronavirus live news: European countries seeing public resistance to AstraZeneca vaccine
Italy, Austria and Hungary report no-shows for appointments as France, Germany and Sweden also register public resistance
- Macron proposes vaccine plan as UK prepares to host G7
- South African variant could cut Pfizer antibody protection by two-thirds
- Brazil health workers accused of giving vaccinations with empty syringes
- UK coronavirus updates – live
- See all our coronavirus coverage
The World Health Organization has urged nations producing Covid vaccines not to distribute them unilaterally but to donate them to the global Covax scheme to ensure fairness, Reuters reports.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the plea as China makes agreements across Africa, Russia distributes shots in Latin America and the EU eyes giving vaccines to poorer countries, all outside of the Covax facility.
What we can do, if that comes through Covax, is the earmarked donation can go to those countries and the Covax stocks can go to other countries. So we can strike a balance.
Reported daily coronavirus infections have been falling across the world for a month and on Tuesday hit their lowest since mid-October, figures that suggest the seasonality of the virus show.
But optimism over a way out of the crisis has been tempered by new variants of the virus, raising fears about the efficacy of vaccines, Reuters reports.
Read the original article at The Guardian