- Pfizer’s Covid-19 Vaccine Gives Hope to the World Fighting the Pandemic
- China’s Anti-trust Regulation Pressure
- Latest News About the Pandemic in the World
Pfizer’s Covid-19 Vaccine Gives Hope to the World Fighting the Pandemic
The positive results coming from the third phase of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by the US company Pfizer with the BioNTech created a wave of excitement in public, which announced to provide 90% protection. The results, which are considered as a milestone in the vaccine studied against the pandemic that caused the death of more than 1 million 250 thousand people, gave hope to the whole world.
However, scientists have expressed their concern about the vaccine’s complex and super-cold storage requirements, which is as hard as developing the vaccine. Scientists estimate that it will take a long process to ensure the use of the vaccine, which should be stored at a minimum of -70 degrees. Experts announced that even in the most prestigious hospitals, cold storage capacity is insufficient and the general use of the vaccine can take years.
“The cold chain will be one of the most challenging aspects of administering this vaccine. This will create a challenge in all settings because even hospitals in large cities do not have storage facilities for this ultra-low temperature vaccine,” said Amesh Adalja from Johns Hopkins University.
As a matter of fact, Mayo Clinic, one of the most prestigious hospitals in the USA, announced that it does not have this capacity at the moment. Dr. Gregory Poland, virologist and vaccine researcher at Mayo Clinic, said, “We are talking about a vaccine that needs to be stored at minus 70 or minus 80 degrees. This is a huge logistical problem not only in the USA but also outside the Western world. We are a large medical center and such a “We do not have storage capacity. This is how you can infer how insufficient the situation is in hospitals on the other side of the world.”
On the other hand, according to scientists, at least 10 billion doses of vaccine must be distributed around the world to defeat the Covid-19 pandemic on a global scale. In the statement made by Pfizer, it was stated that 1.3 billion doses were targeted to be distributed by the end of 2021.
According to the data and graphics shared by Pfizer, the coronavirus vaccine will be transported in specially developed containers. There will be 5 rows of shelves in these containers and 1,000 doses of vaccine can be carried on each shelf. In total, a single container will be able to carry 5,000 vaccines.
However, Gagandeep Kang, professor of microbiology at the Vellore, India-based Christian Medical College and a member of the WHO’s Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety asked the world that: “If we were to wait an extra year and have something that’s feasible for us to deliver to as many people as possible in this country, would that be a bad trade-off?”
“Based on the cost of the Pfizer vaccine, the logistics of an ultra-cold storage — I don’t think we are ready and I think this is something that we need to weigh the benefits and the costs very, very carefully,” she said.
China’s Anti-trust Regulation Pressure
China’s market regulator has taken the first big step in order to hold back its tech giants’ monopoly power by drawing up anti-trust laws that have sent shares of companies such as Alibaba, Tencent, and the Meituan down in Hong Kong.
Meituan’s shares have fallen more than 11%, meanwhile, Alibaba’s share dropped by 5%, and Tencent by 4%.
Scott Yu, an antitrust expert said that: ‘’ “It signals the end of an era — it will fundamentally change the competitive landscape in China for internet companies.”
The regulations developed by the Chinese regulators include provisions to limit competition and treating customers differently based on their spending habits.
Over these two days Chinese tech companies already have lost nearly 254 billion dollars in their market value, as there are new anti-trust rules for the sector.
“Looking at the proposed guidelines, we believe if some of these were to be passed and implemented, it could affect the development of the industry,” mentioned managing director and head of pan-Asia internet research at Citi, Alicia yap.
A trader at one Chinese brokerage said that: “This is just a way of saying, to all the big companies: ‘You have to play ball by our rules even if you are a giant like Ant Group — you all need to fall in line with directions from the authorities.’’
Here we have to mention that, last week, after issuing new draft rules for online lending, Chinese regulators suspended Ant Group’s $37bn public offering.
Latest News About the Pandemic in the World
A global epidemic was declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, after the first Covid-19 case was detected on December 1 last year in Wuhan, China’s Hubei province. Since March, the Covid-19 outbreak continues to increase its impact all over the world.
October 2020 was recorded as the worst month for the world in the epidemic. In the last 7 days, the average number of global daily cases was more than 540 thousand. It took 32 days for the global number of cases to reach from 30 million to 40 million, and only 21 days from 40 million to 50 million cases.
Europe is the most affected region after Asia and Latin America with 12 million cases. The region accounts for 24 percent of the global loss of life with 292 thousand 496 casualties. While approximately 1 million new cases are detected every 3 days in Europe, this number corresponds to 51 percent of the global cases detected in the same period. While many countries in Europe started to go back quarantine regime again, announcing partial and full curfews.
While an average of 54 thousand 440 new cases was detected per day in France compared to the last 7-day period, this number of cases was recorded at a higher rate than even India, one of the world’s most crowded countries.
In Denmark, after the detection of a Covid-19 species that passed from animals to humans, it was decided to cull 17 million minks.
The USA, which has approximately 20 percent of global cases, became the first country in the world to exceed 100 thousand cases in one day. According to the average of the last 7 days in the USA, the number of daily cases has exceeded 100 thousand. With more than 130 thousand new cases detected in the country on Saturday, a record was broken in the number of daily cases.
According to research conducted by Stanford University, it was claimed that the rallies held by US President Donald Trump for the presidential elections on November 3 caused nearly 30 thousand new cases and more than 700 casualties.
