• Globally, more than 37.5 million coronavirus vaccine doses have been administered. Source
• Pakistan grants emergency use authorization for the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine. Source
• Nepal grants emergency approval for Astra/Zeneca’s coronavirus vaccine; it has ordered vaccines to cover 20 percent of its population from India’s Serum Institute and expects to begin vaccinations in March. Source
• India begins its 1.3 billion-person vaccination campaign with Covishield (the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine produced by the country’s Serum Institute) and Covaxin, a locally made product without published data to support its safety and efficacy. The Covaxin consent form includes a note from the vaccine’s manufacturer saying that clinical efficacy was “yet to be established.” Source
• Anvisa, Brazil’s regulatory agency, denies emergency use authorization for the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine (which is approved in Argentina, Belarus, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Serbia) due to lack of data from phase III trials. Sources 1,2
• Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vucic, thanks President Xi Jinping and Chinese leadership for sending one million doses of Sinopharm’s coronavirus vaccine to the country. Source
• Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Sweden are getting far fewer doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine than anticipated; their health ministers called the shortfall – which arose from an upgrade to Pfizer’s production plant – “unacceptable.”
• The B.1.1.7 coronavirus variant has now been detected in over 50 countries, as three variants (two originally found in Brazil and one initially identified in South Africa) continue to spread. Source
• As it enters a three-week lockdown, Denmark reports its first case of a coronavirus variant originally detected in South Africa; the country has already identified 25 cases of the B.1.1.7 variant. Source
• China reports 130 new coronavirus cases. Source
• As coronavirus cases increase in the EU, France imposes a 6pm curfew; Scotland bans outdoor drinking and prohibits takeaway customers from entering restaurants and cafes; schools close in Britain and Germany. Source
