Coronavirus live news: Germany blocks use of AstraZeneca vaccine in over-65s; Portugal says situation is ‘terrible’
German authorities say data on effectiveness is insufficient; Portuguese PM says situation is not ‘bad’ but ‘terrible’
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Public Health England said that AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine provides reassuring immune responses in elderly people even if data on the precise level of protection is patchy, Reuters reports.
AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine should only be given to people aged between 18 and 64, Germany’s vaccine committee said in a draft recommendation, a day ahead of a decision by European regulators on whether to approve the drugmaker’s shot.
“Both the AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines are safe and provide high levels of protection against COVID-19, particularly against severe disease,” Mary Ramsay, Head of Immunisations at PHE said in a statement. “There were too few cases in older people in the AstraZeneca trials to observe precise levels of protection in this group, but data on immune responses were very reassuring.”
The first phase of Portugal’s vaccination plan against Covid-19 will be extended by about two months into April following delivery delays, Reuters reports.
Portugal, where infections and deaths have spiked to record levels after Christmas, initially hoped to receive close to 3m vaccine doses in the first quarter, but this figure has fallen to just 1.5m due to delivery delays, the vaccination taskforce head, Francisco Ramos, said.
He had said in December the original plan envisaged 950,000 people – health professionals, key workers, people over 50 with pre-existing conditions and key political figures – being fully vaccinated in January and February.
Read the original article at The Guardian