8 September 2020

• The general secretary of China’s Communist Party, Xi Jinping, says that the country passed “ an extraordinary and historic test,” noting the country’s economic recovery and control of coronavirus as he handed out awards to four doctors. Dr Li Wenliang, the whistleblower who died from COVID-19, was not mentioned during the ceremony. Source
• Spain, home to the continent’s fastest-spreading coronavirus epidemic, becomes the first country in Western Europe to surpass 500,000 cases. Source
• Japan approved spending more than $6 billion of its emergency budget on 240 million coronavirus vaccine doses (120 million each from AstraZeneca and Pfizer to be delivered by early and mid-2021, respectively), and is in negotiations with Moderna for an additional 40 million doses. Source
• The chief executives of 9 pharmaceutical corporations (AstraZeneca, J & J, Johnson, Merck, Moderna, Novavax, Pfizer [and partners BioNTech], Sanofi [and partners GlaxoSmithKline]) release a joint pledge not to release a coronavirus vaccine until phase III trials have established their safety and efficacy. Source

Return to the timeline