More than 100,000 vaccinated on India’s first day of Covid-19 vaccination drive

India started its nation-wide vaccination drive for Covid-19 on Saturday.

According to the country’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, a total of 165,714 health care workers were vaccinated as of 5:30 p.m. local time Saturday.

A total of 16,755 trained vaccinators were involved at 3,351 sessions nationwide, the ministry added.

Two vaccines: The Indian government issued emergency approval for two vaccines earlier this month, one from Oxford/AstraZeneca and the other from Covaxin, which was developed locally by Indian biotech company Bharat Biotech and a government-run institute.

India has reported the second-most coronavirus cases in the world after the United States, with more than 10.5 million confirmed cases and more than 152,000 related deaths.

A total of 47 tennis players are required to quarantine for 14 days after others tested positive for Covid-19 on two separate charter flights into Melbourne for the Australian Open.

Twenty-four players on a charter flight from the United States to Melbourne are required to quarantine for two weeks after a member of the flight crew and a passenger — not a player — returned positive Covid-19 tests. Both had tested negative within 72 hours of boarding the flight, which carried a total of 79 people.

Another 23 players are required to quarantine following a charter flight carrying 64 people from Abu Dhabi to Melbourne. One person — not a player — tested positive after the flight, despite presenting documentation of a negative Covid-19 test prior to takeoff.

All 47 players affected will not be able to leave their hotel rooms for the 14-day period and until they are medically cleared. They will not be eligible to practice.

When the UK Prime Minister addressed the nation on December 20, the news was bad enough: Christmas was canceled.

Boris Johnson plunged the country into harsh new restrictions, blaming a new variant of the disease that had been spreading in London and the southeast of England since September.

But suddenly, things got even worse. Country after country closed their borders to flights from the UK, in a bid to keep the new variant confined to “plague island,” as the New York Times dubbed it.

With ferry routes across the Channel blocked, lorries carrying goods to the continent backed up for miles along the motorways. Eventually, a local airport in Kent was turned into a parking lot for 4,000 lorries. Nothing could get into the UK, either. It was, said the wags, a taster of what a no-deal Brexit would be like.

That no-deal was averted — the government signed an agreement with the EU on December 24. But the crisis is far from over.

UK travelers are still banned from much of the world — including EU countries — because of the homegrown variant.

And although the UK was the first country in the world to start a vaccine rollout, its good news was marred by the report on January 13 that the death tally from Covid-19 had passed 100,000. Two days later, the government announced that it was axing their last remaining “travel corridors.”

Inbound travel is a lucrative business for the UK — pre-Covid, Visit Britain forecast that 2020 would see 32.3 million visitors pumping £24.7 billion ($33.6 billion) into the economy.

In the end, 2020 saw a 76% decline in visitors and an 80% drop. The tourist board is forecasting 16.9 million visits and £9 billion ($12.2 billion) spending for 2021: a mere 41% and 32% of the 2019 figures respectively. But that is, of course, if people come. After all, who’d want to vacation on “plague island”?

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Turkey has inoculated more than 650,000 people since it started its mass rollout of China’s Sinovac Biotech vaccine on Thursday, according to the Turkish health ministry’s online vaccine counter.  

Each dose of the vaccine in Turkey is given by appointment with a barcode matched to the patient’s identifying information and scanned into a centralized database.

Vaccination campaign underway: Turkey began its vaccination effort across all 81 provinces on Thursday starting with frontline workers.

Turkey received 3 million doses of Sinovac in December and approved the vaccine for use on Wednesday evening. 

Phase 3 trial results for the Sinovac vaccine have still not been published.

The Turkish drug and medical device administration did not release details about the data used to determine the vaccine’s safety and efficacy. Advanced Phase 3 trials are ongoing in Turkey, but the vaccine is also being tested in other countries, including Brazil.

Medics call for transparency: Turkey’s main medical union called on the government for more transparency to ensure public trust in vaccines.

“We stand by all vaccines that are scientifically proven to be effective and safe…when we evaluate a vaccine the data we are not looking at its origin, which country it was produced in, or which production technique was used but rather phase 3 trial reports and scientifically published data,” the Turkish Medical Association said in a statement. 

The union also called for Turkey to immediately start the process to obtain other vaccines.

Ankara has previously said the deal with Sinovac Biotech is for 50 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine. 

States are racing to get Covid-19 vaccine supplies and distribution in order as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned Friday of more contagious variants of coronavirus potentially exacerbating the spread.

CDC officials implored Americans to continue with preventative measures against the coronavirus, while highlighting the variant first identified in Britain known as B.1.1.7.

The B.1.1.7 variant appears to more readily infect human cells and one CDC simulation of its transmissibility raised concerns that it could become the most dominant form of coronavirus in March.

The CDC called for continued and aggressive vaccine distribution to try and stem the tide. “Higher vaccination coverage might need to be achieved to protect the public,” CDC researchers warned.

Deaths approach 400,000: On Friday, 3,258 people died of Covid-19 in the US, as the total number of deaths from the pandemic edged closer to 400,000. The nation also recorded its 11th consecutive day of more than 200,000 infections, per Johns Hopkins University data.

Some states were upset by news from Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who said there is no “reserve stockpile” of vaccines available to release.

“We now have enough confidence that our ongoing production will be quality and available to provide the second dose for people, so we’re not sitting on a reserve anymore,” Azar told NBC News’ Lester Holt in an interview. “We’ve made that available to the states to order.”

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A total of 24 tennis players will enter isolation after two positive Covid-19 tests results were returned from a charter flight carrying players into Melbourne for the Australian Open, according to the tournament’s official Twitter account.

The Australian Open tennis grand slam will begin on February 8 2021.

The ATP — the governing body of the men’s professional tennis circuits — has previously announced that players arriving for the tournament would be forced to quarantine for 14 days on arrival in Melbourne, per Australian rules, but a “controlled environment” will allow players to prepare for their matches while quarantining. 

All passengers from the flight are in quarantine hotels, the tournament organizers said, with the 24 players unable to leave their rooms for 14 days and until medically cleared. They will be ineligible to practice.

The United States has reported at least 23,524,081 coronavirus cases, including at least 391,955 related deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tally.

On Friday, Johns Hopkins University reported 209,560 new cases and 3,258 additional deaths. 

At least 31,161,075 vaccine doses have been distributed across the country, with at least 12,279,180 shots administered, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases.  

About 300,000 people are set to be vaccinated in India Saturday as the country launches what Prime Minister Narendra Modi is calling the largest immunization drive in the world.

Indian officials are preparing to administer the first round of Covid-19 vaccinations on Saturday morning at more than 3,000 sites set up across the country, which is home to more than 1.3 billion people. Each site is expected to vaccinate about 100 people.

The vaccines will be rolled out in phases, with health care workers getting the vaccine first, Modi announced Saturday.

Modi addressed the nation via video conference to officially launch the first phase of the national rollout, which the government says will ultimately see 30 million health care and frontline workers vaccinated for free.

He asked the public to avoid rumors around the vaccines’ efficacy, and to continue being cautious even after they had received a shot.

Two vaccines: The Indian government issued emergency approval to two vaccines earlier this month — one from Oxford University/AstraZeneca and the other from Covaxin, which was developed locally by Indian biotech company Bharat Biotech and a government-run institute.

Recipients will not be able to choose which vaccine they receive.  

Batches of both vaccines were prepared and shipped across the country this week. India has conducted multiple dry runs for the vaccination drive since December to ensure smooth delivery. 

India has reported the second-most coronavirus cases in the world after the United States, with more than 10.5 million confirmed cases and more than 152,000 related deaths.

It’s as if 10 of the world’s largest commercial jets fell out of the sky, every day for an entire year.

The official global death toll from the coronavirus pandemic surpassed 2 million on Friday, according to Johns Hopkins University. The tragic milestone came just over a year after the first Covid-19 death was reported in Wuhan, China.

While the 2 million figure is horrifying, experts say the real death toll is likely much higher. Only confirmed Covid-19 deaths are included in the tally, which means people who die without a firm diagnosis may not be included.

With testing still inadequate in many countries, there might be hundreds of thousands of additional deaths.

Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle, said an analysis of excess mortality rates suggests that as many as one-fifth of coronavirus deaths might not be recorded.