Ursula von der Leyen received the vaccine a day after announcing that Pfizer/BioNTech will deliver additional 50 million vaccine doses…reports Asian Lite News
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has received her first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
“After we passed 100 million vaccinations in the EU, I’m very glad I got my first shot of Covid-19 vaccine today,” she said in a tweet on Thursday.
“Vaccinations will further gather pace, as deliveries are accelerating in the EU. The swifter we vaccinate, the sooner we can control the pandemic,” she added.
The European Union’s executive chief received the vaccine a day after announcing that Pfizer/BioNTech will deliver in the second quarter of this year an additional 50 million vaccine doses, originally scheduled for the fourth quarter, reports Xinhua news agency.
On Wednesday, von der Leyen stressed that the EU member states should focus on vaccines that have “proven their worth”, in an indirect reference to the AstraZeneca jab.
Shortage in the supply of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and concerns over its “possible link to very rare cases of unusual blood clots with low blood platelets” have somewhat stalled the fast vaccination pace.
White House said that the move included the expulsion of 10 Russian diplomats from the US and sanctions on several organisations and individuals…reports Asian Lite News
The US has launched diplomatic and financial offensives against Russian officials and businesses in retaliation for election-meddling and Moscow-linked hacking that compromised major federal agencies.
The move included the expulsion of 10 Russian diplomats from the US and sanctions on several organisations and individuals, the White House and State Department said on Thursday, DPA news agency reported.
The US government also cited Russia’s continued occupation of Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine seven years ago, and for reportedly offering bounties to militants in Afghanistan who killed US troops.
Among the expelled diplomats are five employees of Russian intelligence services.
In addition, US banks will be barred from trading in fresh Russian state debt starting on June 14, while six Russian technology companies accused of helping the state engage in malicious cyber activities were hit.
Despite the fresh sanctions, the US does not seek to escalate tensions with Russia, President Joe Biden said Thursday.
“The United States is not looking to kick off a cycle of escalation and conflict with Russia,” Biden said in brief remarks at the White House. “We want a stable, predictable relationship.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin
The White House had also stressed this earlier. “The Biden administration has been clear that the United States desires a relationship with Russia that is stable and predictable,” a White House statement read.
“We do not think that we need to continue on a negative trajectory. However, we have also been clear – publicly and privately – that we will defend our national interests and impose costs for Russian government actions that seek to harm us.”
Biden warned that “if Russia continues to interfere with our democracy, I’m prepared to take further actions to respond”.
The list of activities the US says it wants to warn Russia against include: tampering with US elections; cyberattacks; the use of corruption to influence foreign governments; taking actions against dissidents or journalists; and violating principles of international law.
Biden has raised the stakes in his relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin of late. It has only been weeks since, during a broadcast interview, Biden responded affirmatively when asked if he thought Putin was “a killer.”
Today, we announced steps to hold the Russian Government to account for its reckless actions. We will continue to act firmly in response to Russian actions that cause harm to us or our allies and partners. pic.twitter.com/aPDqT6toqg
The US also officially named the Russian intelligence service SVR as being behind the SolarWinds attack.
The US also does not recognize Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and has condemned its support for separatist militants in eastern Ukraine. And it has denounced Moscow for the attempted assassination of dissident Alexei Navalny in eastern Russia last year. Navalny is currently on a hunger strike in a Russian prison.
It’s a sharp change in tack out of Washington from the last four years, where the administration of Donald Trump was often seen as more friendly to the Kremlin.
Democrats routinely accused Trump of being too cosy with Putin, although Trump also expelled Russian diplomats – after the Kremlin’s alleged use of nerve agent to poison a former Russian spy in Britain.
Moscow has denied all the charges against it.
Former US President Donald Trump(IANS)
Russia summoned US Ambassador John Sullivan to Moscow’s Foreign Ministry after the White House announcement.
Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova warned that “such aggressive behaviour will undoubtedly receive a rebuff – a response to the sanctions will be inevitable.”
The US Treasury Department said that the sanctions related to the alleged election tampering will affect 32 entities and individuals. It also said that, in coordination with Australia, Britain, Canada and the European Union, it had levied sanctions on eight individuals and entities linked to the Crimean occupation.
EU voices support
The European Union expressed solidarity with the US in the wake of Russia’s “malicious cyber activities.”
“The compromise affected governments and businesses worldwide, including in EU members,” EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said in a statement sent out on behalf of the bloc.
John J Sullivan(Wikipedia)
The United States’ 29 fellow NATO members, many of whom are in the EU, also backed Washington.
“The US and other allies assess that all available evidence points to the responsibility of the Russian Federation for the SolarWinds hack,” a joint written statement read.
Poland deemed three Russian diplomats, employees of the Russian embassy in Warsaw, as personae non gratae and expressed solidarity with the US.
The three diplomats are to be expelled as a consequence of them breaching the terms of their diplomatic status and conducting actions harmful to Poland, according to the Polish Foreign Ministry.
“Jointly made … decisions of allies are the most appropriate response to Russia’s hostile actions,” the ministry said in a statement.
A diversified funding strategy was created to ensure that the ember states of the bloc would receive loans under the package known as the NextGenerationEU …reports Asian Lite News
The European Commission announced that it would borrow 800 billion euros from the capital market in current prices until 2026 to fund the European Union’s (EU) massive plan to bail out its Covid-stricken economy.
A diversified funding strategy was created to ensure that the ember states of the bloc would receive loans under the package known as the NextGenerationEU at an advantageous rate, reports Xinhua news agency.
The EU has set December 2058 as a deadline for itself to fulfil all the repayment, and plans to generate new own resources to strengthen the repayment capability.
Making the announcement at a press conference on Wednesday, European Commissioner for Budget and Administration Johannes Hahn also urged EU member states which have not ratified the Own Resources Decision to do so as soon as possible.
EU’s ‘Green Certificate’ for safe travel
“The message is clear: as soon as the Commission has been legally enabled to borrow, we are ready to get going,” said Hahn.
So far, Germany, Estonia, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Finland, Romania, the Netherlands, Ireland and Lithuania have not ratified the Decision.
All other 17 have ratified it, according to Hahn.
The EU has decided to release a historic stimulus package worth 1.8 trillion euros in 2018 prices, or over two trillion euros in current prices, to help the bloc tackle the economic fallout of the pandemic and achieve a greener and more digital recovery.
A health worker looks at a vial of AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine at a vaccination centre
Denmark first suspended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine on March 11, citing “very rare but severe side effects” discovered during the jab’s safety monitoring….reports Asian Lite News
Denmark has decided to entirely cease administering the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, the country’s health authority confirmed.
“Based on the scientific findings, our overall assessment is there is a real risk of severe side effects associated with using the Covid-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca. We have, therefore, decided to remove the vaccine from our vaccination program,” Xinhua news agency quoted Soren Brostrom, director general of the Danish Health Authority, as saying to the media on Wednesday.
In a statement, the authority also claimed that the pandemic was “currently under control” in Denmark, adding that this had contributed to the decision.
Denmark first suspended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine on March 11, citing “very rare but severe side effects” discovered during the jab’s safety monitoring.
Denmark’s decision on Wednesday came in the wake of the European Medical Agency’s (EMA) recent verdict that “the benefits of using the Covid-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca continue to outweigh the risks for people who receive it”.
The Danish Health Authority agrees with the EMA’s general findings, Brostrom said, adding that “in the midst of an epidemic, it has been a difficult decision to continue our vaccination program without an effective and readily available vaccine against Covid-19”.
However, the authority referred to further comments by the EMA that the “use of the vaccine during vaccination campaigns at the national level should also consider the pandemic situation and vaccine availability in each individual country”.
“We are basically in agreement with the EMA’s assessment regarding the AstraZeneca vaccine. That is why it is important to emphasize that it is still an approved vaccine,” said Brostrom.
For Danica Angela Marcos, the weirdest yet saddest scenario was to watch her grandfather’s funeral live on Zoom, seeing her cousins crying on the screen but not able to give them a hug because of the lockdown.
“It’s not like we can do (it) all over again when the pandemic is over … I cannot re-attend my grandpa’s funeral,” mumbled the black-hair Londoner in her 20s, rolling eyes to hold back tears, whose grandfather passed away in California, the United States, towards the end of last year.
Many Europeans, like Marcos, have undergone similar human sorrows and pains, as the nightmare of Covid-19, which has shrouded the continent since more than one year ago, is still hovering around, Xinhua news agecy reported on Friday.
On Friday, the Copenhagen-based World Health Organization (WHO) Europe Office announced that the European region has recorded more than 1 million Covid-19-related deaths.
Since breaking out in late 2019, Covid-19 has been causing infections and deaths at an accelerated pace across Europe. One after another, governments of different countries were woken up to the danger, announcing partial or full lockdowns, and even night curfews, moves rarely seen since the end of World War II.
Schools closed, flights grounded, hairdressers and restaurants shutdown, only grocery and shops selling essential goods, in most countries, were among the few that were allowed to open, while the customers were required to wear masks and keep social distance of more than one meter.
Before the reopening of schools, online courses were offered to students who were forced to stay home during the pandemic in many European countries. Many schools sent assignments to parents via e-mail or other digital tools, or shared free online resources.
However, not all students are self-disciplined. In France, about 5 to 8 per cent of students were “lost,” or unreachable by their teachers, estimated the French Ministry of Education in April 2020.
“This virus has imposed limitations on all of us. I have practically no social life and can’t hug the people I love. My personal life has turned completely around. Few things remain from my previous life. And as a person, I feel exhausted, restless, and uncertain,” Abigail Mora Sanz, a psychotherapist in Spain, told Xinhua.
Besides the continent’s aging population and the overwhelmed healthcare systems, some experts attributed the bleakness in Europe to frequent policy changes, which have swung between lockdowns and relaxations for several rounds.
One of the major challenges for European countries is “the temptation of too fast reopening, which is politically popular but can cause another wave of epidemics before proper vaccination,” said Miklos Hargitai, an editorialist of Hungary’s daily Nepszava.
“In addition, Europe has not adopted the practice of the most successful countries in curbing the virus,” Hargitai told Xinhua.
Another factor behind Europe’s current COVID-19 resurgence is the alarming and explosive spread of the highly contagious virus variants, which increases the risk of hospitalization.
The slow rollout of vaccination may also prolong the pandemic. According to WHO Europe Office, only 10 percent of the region’s total population has received at least one vaccine dose and 4 percent has received both, as of April 1.
“Vaccines present our best way out of this pandemic… However, the rollout of these vaccines is unacceptably slow,” said Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge, the WHO’s regional director for Europe.
On April 1, Kluge called upon governments in the region to “scale up both vaccine production and vaccination.”
German photographer Ulrich Hufnagel was diagnosed with COVID-19 last September, with so-called mild case symptoms and was quarantined for more than 20 days.
“It is very annoying that some people in Germany and Europe do not take the virus seriously. My hope now rests on quick vaccination. I think this is the only possibility to get our normal life back,” Hufnagel said.
Due to what appears to be an acute shortage of vaccine doses earlier this year, tensions once remained high between the European Union, Britain, and some central-eastern European countries like the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Austria.
The connection between blood clots and the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, which has been purchased and administrated in large amounts by many European countries, also raised concern among people.
The European Medicines Agency confirmed on Wednesday that the occurrence of blood clots with low blood platelets are strongly associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Faced with such dire challenges, some governments in the region have started to look for the alternatives. Serbia and Hungary have granted permission for the use of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by China. Some other countries, like Poland and the Czech Republic, also voiced interest in Chinese-made vaccines.
“We fully support the Chinese idea of establishing a global anti-pandemic community of cooperation and help,” said Sylwester Szafarz, former consul general of Poland in the Chinese city of Shanghai.
However, vaccines themselves are not a panacea for the pandemic, until people are inoculated in huge numbers, WHO Europe Office warned, noting that it can give a false sense of security, inducing the public to stop wearing masks and taking other precautions.
Besides measures to accelerate the vaccination, several governments and health care experts deem social restrictions a key tool for containing the disease and reducing deaths.
“Now is not the time to relax measures. We can’t afford not to heed the danger. We have all made sacrifices, but we cannot let exhaustion win. We must keep reining in the virus,” Kluge said.
With their life being changed amid the pandemic, many people in Europe have been eventually getting used to wearing face masks outside, working and studying from home.
To some people, the future seems less gloomy and confidence is growing.
Once worried that the lockdowns could totally ruin his business, Remi Boute, director of a bookstore in southeast France’s Saint-Etienne, feels relieved as his shop reopens.
“When the stores reopened, we had the satisfaction of seeing people tell us they were happy to see our stores open. They returned in large numbers,” he said.
“We faced something that we’d never seen and so what we tried to do was to understand it, to better treat our patients and save or try to solve the problem in the most cases we could,” said Pere Domingo, senior infectious disease consultant and coordinator of COVID-19 at Barcelona’s Sant Pau Hospital.
“This intellectual component … has been something that has stimulated us, and helped us overcome all these negative feelings that at one time or another we have all had,” said the Spanish professor, who has been devoted to the research of infectious diseases since 1989.
