Month: March 2021

The European Union will introduce a proposal Wednesday that could allow it to restrict exports of COVID-19 vaccine manufactured within the 27-nation bloc for six weeks.The legislation is aimed at addressing an acute shortage of vaccine across the continent that has slowed the inoculation effort in many EU nations. Many European nations have grown especially frustrated with British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca, which has cut its planned deliveries by more than half in the first quarter of 2021.  Europe is facing a third wave of the coronavirus that is once again overwhelming hospitals and prompting a new round of lockdowns.  The situation threatens to aggravate already tense relations between the EU and its former member, Britain.  The proposed legislation could seriously disrupt supplies of COVID-19 vaccine to Britain, which is a major recipient of EU exports.   EU and Pfizer-BioNTech Sign Deal for 4 Million More DosesAdditional doses to be delivered before the end of MarchMeanwhile, Hong Kong has suspended use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine after it discovered some packaging defects in one shipment.  Hong Kong authorities say they had received a letter from BioNTech, Pfizer’s German-based partner, about problems it discovered with the seal on a batch of individual vials.  The neighboring gambling city of Macau is also suspending the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine due to the packaging issues.  U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center says there are now about 124.2 million total COVID-19 infections, with more than 2.7 million deaths.  The United States leads the way in both categories with 29.9 million total infections and 543,849 deaths.Brazil is second with 12.1 million confirmed coronavirus cases and 298,676 deaths, including a new single-day record of 3,251 deaths.India also posted a record number of COVID-19-related deaths Wednesday with 275, its highest single-day number since December 31, as well as more than 47,000 new coronavirus infections since November 12. 
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When Joe Biden took office as president, the Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei Technologies saw at least a glimmer of hope that the U.S.-led campaign to shut it out of international markets might be eased somewhat. Once a global leader in smartphone sales, Huawei has seen its market share outside China plummet since the Trump administration began choking off its supply of technology key to producing modern 5G handsets. Likewise, the company’s business installing mobile telecommunications infrastructure, and especially new 5G-capable systems, has been severely damaged by a U.S. campaign against it.Biden had not signaled that he would be particularly easy on China — his appointment of China hawk Katherine Tai as U.S. Trade Representative confirmed that. But Huawei and other Chinese firms thought that, if nothing else, the two countries could step back from a Trump-era trade war footing.Huawei Executive Back in Court to Fight US ExtraditionUS wants Meng Wanzhou, daughter of Chinese telecom’s founder and chief financial officer of the company, extradited to face fraud chargesBiden tightens restrictionsEarlier this month, Huawei’s prospects for relief dimmed considerably when the Biden administration announced that it would not only continue some of the Trump administration’s export bans, but would tighten them.“The Biden administration appears to be maintaining the final Trump policy regarding which Huawei-related export licenses to approve or deny, which is more restrictive than the 2020 license policy,” said Kevin Wolf, a former assistant secretary of commerce for export administration in the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security.Now a partner with the law firm Akin Gump in Washington, Wolf added, “In order to make the license policy consistent and level the playing field, it has amended 2020 licenses limiting their scope so that they align with the final Trump license policy. In particular, licenses for shipments for items ‘for use in or with 5G devices’ will be denied or revoked.”Contentious MeetingAdditionally, on the eve of the first high-level meeting between Biden administration officials and representatives of Beijing, the Commerce Department announced that it had issued subpoenas to a number of Chinese companies as part of an investigation into national security threats.  Beijing Slams US Blacklisting of Chinese CompaniesChina’s commerce ministry on Saturday said it ‘firmly opposes’ the move, which will affect the country’s biggest chipmaker, SMIC, and vowed to ‘take necessary measures’ to safeguard Chinese companies’ rightsThe action stemmed from a 2019 executive order by Trump allowing the executive branch to prohibit purchases of technology deemed to present a national security threat. The Commerce Department did not name the companies it is investigating, but many experts assume that Huawei was among them.The next day, in a contentious meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Yang Jiechi, director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Office of the Chinese Communist Party, blasted the U.S, saying, “It abuses so-called notions of national security to obstruct normal trade exchanges, and incite some countries to attack China.”Origins of banBeginning in fits and starts in 2019, a broad swath of export bans eventually cut Huawei off from an array of technologies that had been essential to the company’s operations. The U.S. push began partly in response to then-President Trump’s lengthy trade battle with China, and partly in response to very real national security concerns related to allowing Huawei to become a dominant player in global 5G — the next generation technology standard for broadband cellular networks.U.S. intelligence agencies have long asserted that Huawei is closely connected to the Chinese government. That, combined with the fact that Chinese law specifically requires companies to cooperate with the country’s intelligence services in collecting data, pushed U.S. officials to warn that Huawei components could potentially be used to create “backdoor” access for Beijing into sensitive government and private sector systems.Huawei says, ‘yes’Huawei officials have repeatedly expressed their frustration at being publicly treated as an arm of the Chinese government. Last week Andy Purdy, chief security officer for Huawei Technologies USA, told Bloomberg News that if the Biden administration is concerned about the company, “we hope that the U.S. government will partner with us and not point to the Chinese government, because Huawei speaks for Huawei.” Huawei Running Out of Smartphone Chips under US Sanctions Huawei is at the center of US-Chinese tension over technology and security, and the feud has spread to TikTok and WeChat Many industry experts, though, remain very dubious about the company’s protestations of independence. “The Chinese government may not speak for Huawei,” said Jim Lewis, senior vice president and director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “But when the Chinese government speaks to Huawei, Huawei says, “‘Yes.’”Broad impactThe Trump administration’s assault on Huawei was scattershot at times, but ultimately it was brutally effective.All Huawei phones had used the Android operating system made by Google, but in May of 2019, Google announced that it would comply with the administration’s order and refuse to license its operating system to any new phones made by the Chinese firm.U.S. microchip giants Intel and Qualcomm were likewise banned from selling their most advanced technology to the company, all but eliminating its ability to produce cutting edge handsets. The export restrictions also barred contract chipmakers, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., the world’s largest, from selling advanced chips to Huawei.According to International Data Corporation, a business intelligence firm, as its chip supply dried up, Huawei’s share of the global smartphone market cratered. In the second quarter of 2020, Huawei shipped an industry leading 20.2% of handsets, but by the fourth quarter its share had dropped to just 8.6%.Other analysts predict that before 2021 is over, that number will have been halved again, to around 4% of the market.5G dominance bluntedThe pressure on allies to avoid Huawei’s 5G infrastructure offerings has also been broadly successful.  Huawei to Build First European 5G Factory in France to Soothe Western Nerves Huawei’s new French plant would create 500 jobs; Chinese firm says plans not part of ‘charm offensive’ Most major U.S. allies have barred national telecommunications firms from using Huawei-made equipment in their rollout of 5G services and some, like Britain, have committed to the expensive process of replacing existing Huawei components within their systems.Lewis, of CSIS, agreed that Huawei has been “shut out” of most major U.S. allies’ 5G systems, but said that the U.S. pressure campaign hadn’t been the only factor in making that happen.Over the years, there have been multiple charges leveled against Huawei of shady practices, and not all of them from Washington. A 2019 report revealed that British telecom firm Vodaphone had found hidden “backdoor” vulnerabilities in Huawei’s equipment. The company has also been accused of multiple instances of industrial espionage.“Some of it had to do with just telling people, hey, you need to look closely at Huawei, and it’s their own independent assessment,” Lewis said. “The Europeans have been looking at Huawei as a risk since before the Trump administration. So in some ways, Huawei is caught by its own practices.”
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Research is ongoing, but it’s thought the coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, may be a zoonotic disease that first appeared in bats. A team in the Philippines studies diseases carried by bats in hopes of preventing future pandemics.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.Producer: Arash Arabasadi 
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Press freedom advocate Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is suing Facebook in France, saying the social media platform spreads misinformation. The suit was filed Monday with the Paris public prosecutor.  “Reporters Without Borders accuses Facebook of ‘deceptive commercial practices’ on the grounds that the social media company’s promises to provide a ‘safe’ and ‘error-free’ online environment are contradicted by the large-scale proliferation of hate speech and false information on its networks,” the group said in a press release. Specifically, the group says Facebook allows “hate speech” against the media, as well as misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic. The group said Facebook allowed posts that were insulting and threatening against French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, as well as targeting the TV program “Quotidien” and a regional newspaper, L’Union. Facebook said in a statement that it “has zero tolerance for any harmful content on our platforms,” Bloomberg reported. “Over the last few years, we’ve tripled the size of our safety and security team to 35,000 and built artificial intelligence technology to proactively find and remove harmful content,” the statement continued, according to Bloomberg. “While nobody can eliminate misinformation and hate speech from the internet entirely, we continue using research, experts and technologies to tackle them in the most comprehensive and effective way possible.” Should RSF win its case, the decision could have global repercussions for Facebook, as its terms of service are similar worldwide. Any change in France could trigger changes elsewhere. Facebook and other Big Tech companies have been under intense pressure to stop what some call misinformation. In December, the EU proposed new regulations that could hit companies with fines of up to 6% of their global revenue for not complying with orders to remove content deemed violent hate speech, according to Bloomberg. 
 
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A new outside report found that Facebook has allowed groups — many tied to QAnon, boogaloo and militia movements — to glorify violence during the 2020 election and in the weeks leading up to the deadly riots on the U.S. Capitol in January.
Avaaz, a nonprofit advocacy group that says it seeks to protect democracies from misinformation, identified 267 pages and groups on Facebook that it says spread violence-glorifying material in the heat of the 2020 election to a combined following of 32 million users.
More than two-thirds of the groups and pages had names that aligned with several domestic extremist movements, the report found. The first, boogaloo, promotes a second U.S. civil war and the breakdown of modern society. The second is the QAnon conspiracy, which claims that Donald Trump is waging a secret battle against the “deep state” and a sect of powerful Satan-worshipping pedophiles who dominate Hollywood, big business, the media and government. The rest are various anti-government militias. All have been largely banned from Facebook since 2020.
But despite what Avaaz called “clear violations” of Facebook’s policies, it found that 119 of these pages and groups were still active on the platform as of March 18 and had just under 27 million followers.
Facebook acknowledged that its policy enforcement “isn’t perfect,” but said the report distorts its work against violent extremism and misinformation.
The company said in a statement that it has done more than any other internet company to stanch the flow of harmful material, citing its bans of “nearly 900 militarized social movements” and the removal of tens of thousands of QAnon pages, groups, and accounts. It added that it is always improving its efforts against misinformation.
On Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai are slated to testify before Congress about extremism and misinformation on their platforms.  
Facebook has tightened its rules against violence, hate and misinformation in the past year. In October, it banned QAnon groups across its platform. Before that, it would remove them only if they expressly supported violence. It has also banned extremist and militia movements and  boogaloo groups with varying degrees of success.  
For instance, while Facebook  banned “Stop the Steal” groups from its platform, Avaaz — like The Associated Press — found that such groups and the #stopthesteal hashtag remained active on the platform after the purge.
 
Facebook’s failures, Avaaz said, “helped sweep America down the path from election to insurrection.”  
According to the report, the social network provided a “fertile ground” for misinformation and toxicity that contributed to radicalizing millions of Americans, helping create the conditions in which the storming of the Capitol became a reality.
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Ahead of World Tuberculosis Day Wednesday, doctors are warning that progress in the global fight against the disease has been set back more than a decade by the coronavirus pandemic. Henry Ridgwell reports.
Video editor: Rod James
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Just hours after AstraZeneca said late-stage trials of its COVID-19 vaccine prove it has “100% efficacy against severe or critical disease and hospitalization,” a key U.S. government oversight group expressed concern about the drugmaker’s information.  The Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB), an advisory arm of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, issued a statement early Tuesday that the British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant “may have included outdated information” from the late-stage clinical trial, “which may have provided an incomplete view of the efficacy data.”AstraZeneca said Monday that its analysis of the safety and efficacy of its vaccine, developed jointly with Britain’s University of Oxford, was based on more than 30,000 participants in U.S. trials. Researchers at Oxford also said the vaccine is 79% effective against preventing symptomatic coronavirus.FILE – Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson receives the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine administered by nurse and Clinical Pod Lead, Lily Harrington at St.Thomas’ Hospital in London, March 19, 2021.The DSMB urged AstraZeneca to work with it to review the data and “ensure the most accurate, up-to-date efficacy data be made public as quickly as possible.”The statement from the independent board of experts is the latest setback for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which has had a troubled rollout.  Several European countries recently stopped its use because of reports that it was associated with blood clots in recipients. And South Africa stopped using the shot due to concerns about its efficacy against a local variant of the coronavirus. The country sold at least a million doses of its AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to the African Union.  But the European Medicines Agency, the drug approval body for the European Union, said the vaccine is safe and does not raise the overall risk of blood clots. The World Health Organization has subsequently recommended the use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine against variants of the coronavirus, and that it considers its benefits to outweigh its risks.FILE – Dr. Ngong Cyprian, left, is the first Nigerian to receive the first dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine at the National Hospital Abuja, Nigeria, March 5, 2021.The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has been the leading choice among the developing world because of its low cost and simple storage requirements. South Korean President Moon Jae-in was inoculated with the vaccine on Tuesday.Much better news about a COVID-19 treatment came Tuesday from Britain.  A study by the NHS (National Health Service) England says that the steroid Dexamethasone has saved the lives of an estimated one million people around the world, including 22,000 in Britain.   Researchers found that the inexpensive and widely available drug reduced the risk of death by a third for coronavirus patients on ventilators, while deaths fell nearly a fifth for those on oxygen, according to the results of a clinical trial dubbed Recovery.    Germany extend lockdownMeanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday the government is extending the country’s lockdown until April 18, citing the steady rise of new infections. The extended restrictions include a total lockdown between April 1-5 during the upcoming Easter holiday, with a request for all Germans to stay home during the period. German Chancellor Angela Merkel attends a news conference after a meeting with state leaders to discuss options beyond the end of the pandemic lockdown, amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Berlin, Germany, March 23, 2021.Merkel and all of the country’s 16 state governors had recently crafted a plan to gradually lift the coronavirus restrictions by March 28. But Germany has been plagued by a spike in new infections due to the more infectious B.1.1.7 variant, along with the slow pace of vaccinations, with only 9% of the population having received at least one shot of the vaccine.  “We basically have a new pandemic,” Merkel told reporters in Berlin Tuesday.  The B.1.1.7 variant was first detected in the United Kingdom and it is easily transmitted and more deadly, Dr. Anthony Fauci warned during a White House press conference on Friday.
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Campaigners against tuberculosis, a bacterial disease that mainly affects the lungs, say the coronavirus pandemic has rolled back years of progress in treating TB.  But Nigeria — one of the countries hardest hit by the disease — has managed to maintain its progress, as Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja.
Camera: Emekas Gibson
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Australian authorities said Tuesday that more evacuation orders may be issued as relentless rains pummeled the country’s east coast, with several regions in Sydney’s west facing the worst floods in half a century. The wild weather system pounding New South Wales (NSW) over the last three days was expected to gather more strength in the next 24 hours thanks to the combination of a tropical low over northern Western Australia and a coastal trough off the east. “Overnight, unfortunately, some weather conditions have worsened, and those weather conditions are likely to worsen during the day so many communities will experience increasing heavy rainfall,” NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters. Berejiklian said 15,000 more residents may need to be evacuated soon after authorities moved 18,000 to safe zones Monday.Severe flooding in Sydney, March 22, 2021.With 38 disaster areas declared in the state, authorities Tuesday described the next 24 hours as critical, as fast-moving flood waters overflowed riverbanks and inundated houses, farms and bridges across large swathes of the state. Though the weather system is likely to start easing starting late Wednesday, officials warned that residents may not be able to return to their homes immediately as incessant rains dump more water in river catchment areas. “Some of you may be wondering why you can’t go back home because it’s a sunny day. It’s because conditions are unsafe for that to occur,” Berejiklian said. Neighboring Queensland was also bracing for heavy showers Tuesday in the southern parts of the state, with the weather system expected to shift south to parts of Victoria and the island state of Tasmania over the next few days. About 10 million people in all states and territories except Western Australia will be affected by the extreme weather, the weather bureau said, with NSW and Queensland expected to bear the brunt of the system. 
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced Monday it will be upgrading its Global Forecast System, one of the primary computer models used to predict weather across North America and the world.The update went live early Monday and is designed to predict more accurate forecasts as far out as two weeks into the future. NOAA says the update will lead to better predictions of hurricanes and other extreme weather events, ocean waves, and weather systems up high in the atmosphere.“This substantial upgrade to the GFS, along with ongoing upgrades to our supercomputing capacity, demonstrates our commitment to advancing weather forecasting to fulfill our mission of protecting life and property,” said Louis Uccellini, director of NOAA’s National Wether Service, in a media teleconference Monday.The upgrade focuses on underlying physics and adjusts how current weather information is inputted and processed by the model while integrating other sources of data from satellites and ordinary aircraft.The Global Forecasting System will now be combined with a global wave model called WaveWatch III, which will extend current wave forecasts to 16 days and improve predictions of ocean waves forced by the atmosphere.“These upgrades are part of the Next Generation Global Prediction System within the Unified Forecast System (UFS) framework, which is an ongoing effort to leverage the expertise of the broader weather community and expedite the research to operations pathway,” said Vijay Tallapragada, chief of the Modeling and Data Assimilation Branch at NOAA’s Environmental Modeling Center (EMC). 
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The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday she is concerned the United States could be headed for an avoidable surge in coronavirus cases as more states relax prevention measures and more people travel around the country. During a virtual White House COVID-19 Response Team briefing, Rochelle Walensky said the U.S. saw the seven-day average of new daily cases climb to 53,800 over the past week, while the two-week average has wavered between 50,000 to 60,000 cases per day.  FILE – Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 18, 2021.Meanwhile, the CDC director said U.S. states are seeing an increasing number of new cases attributed to variant strains of the virus, particularly in California — the nation’s most populous state — where a new variant accounts for 52 percent of new infections. Walensky said, taken together, these statistics should be a warning sign to all Americans that the pandemic is not over.  “I get it. We all want to return to our everyday activities and spend time with our family, friends and loved ones,” she said. Walensky said the U.S. is at a critical point in the pandemic and is worried if the nation does not take the correct actions, it is headed for an “avoidable surge, just as we are seeing in Europe right now, and just as we are so aggressively scaling up vaccinations.” The coronavirus causes the COVID-19 disease. The White House task force reported 81 million people in the United States — nearly 25 percent — have received at least one vaccination and another 41 million people, about 13 percent, are fully vaccinated. Walensky said among those over 65 years of age, 69 percent have received at least one shot, while 42 percent are fully vaccinated.  FILE – A woman receives a coronavirus vaccination at Jordan Downs in Los Angeles, California, March 10, 2021.She said the statistics are showing the vaccines are working, as, for the first time since early in the pandemic began, a higher percentage of people under the age of 65 are showing up at emergency rooms. Also at the briefing, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said he viewed the recent U.S. trials of the AstraZeneca vaccine as good news. Those trials showed the vaccine to be at least 79 percent effective among all adults, with no test subjects developing any serious side effects or any of the health effects reported elsewhere.  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has yet to approve the AstraZeneca vaccine for use in the U.S. The company says it plans to seek clearance in the United States “in the coming weeks.” 
 
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AstraZeneca said Monday that the results of its COVID-19 vaccine trials provide evidence that its shot provides “100% efficacy against severe or critical disease and hospitalization.”  AstraZeneca said in a statement that the safety and efficacy analysis was based on 32,449 participants in U.S. trials. “Vaccine efficacy was consistent across ethnicity and age. Notably, in participants aged 65 years and over, vaccine efficacy was 80%,” the statement said.  “The vaccine was well tolerated, and the independent data safety monitoring board (DSMB) identified no safety concerns related to the vaccine,” AstraZeneca said.  The U.S. trials also show the AstraZeneca COVID shot is safe and 79% effective against preventing symptomatic coronavirus, according to Britain’s University of Oxford, the developers of the pharmaceutical company’s vaccine.  Several European countries had recently stopped use of the AstraZeneca vaccine because of reports that it was associated with blood clots in recipients. The European Medicines Agency (EMA), however, said the vaccine is safe and does not raise the overall risk of blood clots.Last week, France, Germany and Italy resumed use of the vaccine.FILE – A member of the medical staff holds a vial of the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine at the South Ile-de-France Hospital Group in Melun, in the outskirts of Paris, Feb. 8, 2021.The World Health Organization (WHO) has subsequently recommended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine against variants of the coronavirus. It has also said it considers that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine outweigh its risks.South Africa stopped using the shot due to concerns about its efficacy against a local variant of the virus. The country sold at least a million of its AstraZeneca COVID vaccines to the African Union.   The doses sold to the AU will be distributed among 14 African countries. South Africa is now using the Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson products.The AstraZeneca vaccine has been the leading choice for the developing world.According to the Associated Press, the AstraZeneca vaccine has been authorized in more than 50 countries. In the United States, vaccines by Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson are in use.The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center has recorded more than 123.2 million worldwide coronavirus infections and 2.7 million deaths. The U.S. has the most infections with more than 29 million confirmed cases and 542,000 deaths.
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European Union solidarity is breaking down amid a vaccine debacle that analysts say may have long-lasting repercussions for the future of European political integration.Member states are divided over the wisdom of imposing a vaccine export ban threatened by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The ban is mainly focused on Britain, a bid to secure more vaccines for the EU, but critics warn it could backfire on the bloc and tarnish its much vaunted commitment to free trade and internationalism.And there is also an emerging dispute on whether the vaccines the bloc is receiving are being distributed fairly by the European Commission among the EU’s 27 member states.Five central European and Baltic countries, led by Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, have complained of unequal treatment and plan to raise more forcefully their objections over the apportionment at a summit Thursday of EU heads of state and government.“The last few weeks have shown that deliveries are currently not being made according to population keys and that this is set to intensify in the coming months,” reads a complaint signed by Kurz and four other national leaders.The disgruntled national leaders added: “This approach clearly contradicts the political goal of the European Union — the equal distribution of vaccine doses to all member states. If the distribution were to continue in this way, it would result in significant unequal treatment — which we must prevent.”Cases and frustration growingThe mood in European capitals is turning sour. Locals complain they can’t see the light at then of the pandemic tunnel. Coronavirus infections are rising rapidly across the continent, in contrast to Britain and America, where much quicker and nimbler vaccine rollouts are seeing a significant falloff in the rate of confirmed cases.Much of the frustration among member states is being directed at von der Leyen, who was the driving force behind persuading member states to sign on to a vaccine procurement and distribution program managed by the authorities in Brussels.Medical workers prepare doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination center in Antwerp, Belgium, March 18, 2021.She and EC commissioners argued a bloc-wide approach would alleviate the risk of vaccine rivalry between member states as they scrambled to place procurement orders and would advertise the strengths of the EU, which in turn would help garner more public support for greater political integration.But it hasn’t turned out that way and Europe is lagging behind on inoculation as a third wave of the pandemic hits the continent. EU countries are short overall on vaccines — but are also sitting at the same time on millions of doses of the British-developed AstraZeneca vaccine because of public doubts about its safety.Seventeen states, including France and Germany, paused administering Astra jabs last week because of worries that the vaccine caused blood-clots, but then reversed the halt, leaving behind however residual public fear about Astra and increasing incidents of Europeans refusing Astra jabs.Vaccine fightVon der Leyen on Sunday raised the vaccine war stakes with London, threatening again to block AstraZeneca from exporting jabs manufactured in the EU to Britain if the Anglo-Swedish company doesn’t first meet its supply obligations to EU countries. Brussels says Britain has grabbed more than its “fair share” of vaccines and hasn’t been sending to Europe any Astra vaccines produced in Britain. The British argue their contract pre-dates the EU’s by several months and because the EU was late in ordering, it is suffering the consequences.“We have the possibility to forbid planned exports,” Von der Leyen told German newspapers. “That is the message to AstraZeneca, ‘You fulfill your contract with Europe before you start delivering to other countries.’” An export ban would likely target not just the Astra vaccines manufactured in the EU but also the export of Pfizer-BioNTech doses, which are produced in Belgium.Privately, British officials say they would consider retaliating if a ban is imposed by blocking crucial ingredients shipped from Yorkshire needed for the manufacture in Belgium of the Pfizer vaccine. The U.S. drug maker has warned Brussels that production at its main vaccine plant in Belgium would “grind to a halt,” if Britain opted to retaliate.The threat of an export ban is causing alarm among several member states, with Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden all against the proposal to block vaccine exports. They have warned it would tarnish the bloc’s reputation as a champion of free trade and the rule of law. Belgian officials say they’re worried that export bans would impair supply chains that rely on international trade.British Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke with Alexander De Croo, the Belgian Prime Minister. “We discussed our efforts to tackle COVID-19. We also touched on the importance of global supply chains and on common efforts to speed up vaccine production,” De Croo said after the conversation. British officials say they are hopeful about shaping an alliance against Brussels on the issue of an export ban and remain confident German Chancellor Angela Merkel would also oppose such a drastic step.EC commissioners place some of the blame for the slow pace of inoculations largely on member states. EU countries have vaccinated barely 10% of the bloc’s population compared to Britain which has inoculated more than 50%. EU officials say they are being scapegoated by member states.But major EU powers, including Germany and Italy, are pointing the finger at Brussels, and their leaders are tiring of what they say are severe shortages in EU supplies. A German official told VOA the EU commissioners are proving to be “the gang that can’t shoot straight.”The Sputnik optionJens Spahn, the German health minister, told reporters “there is not yet enough vaccine in Europe to stop the third wave through vaccination alone. Even if the deliveries from EU orders now come reliably, it will still take several weeks until the risk groups are fully vaccinated.” He has warned Germany might decide to buy Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine even before the EU medicines regulator has authorized it. “I am very much in favor of us doing it nationally, if the EU does not do something,” he said Saturday.German Chancellor Angela Merkel, center, looks on as Health Minister Jens Spahn, left, and Interior Minister Horst Seehofer talk prior to the weekly cabinet meeting in Berlin, March 17, 2021.Mario Draghi, the Italian Prime Minister and a former head of the European Central Bank, has also raised the prospects of ignoring the EU and purchasing the Russian vaccine. With case numbers spiraling out of control in Italy, there are fears that the third wave could be as deadly as the first wave, and Draghi says his priority is “giving the greatest number of vaccinations in the shortest time possible.”“If European coordination works, fine,” the Italian leader said at a press conference when asked about buying Sputnik “Otherwise on health, you have to be ready to do it yourself. This is what Merkel said and this is what I am saying here,” he added.Hungary and Slovakia have already purchased Sputnik doses.Frustrations over the vaccine program and the reimposition of lockdown restrictions in many European countries is boiling over in parts of the continent. Thousands of anti-lockdown protesters took to the street in Germany and Switzerland in protests organized by activists by both far-left and far-right groups.Police officers remove demonstrators from a square during a protest against the government’s COVID-19 restrictions in Kassel, Germany, March 20, 2021.There are also signs voters mean to make their feelings clear in upcoming elections about their frustrations with the vaccine rollout as well as re-tightened lockdowns. German Chancellor Angela Merkel Christian Democrats suffered last week historic defeats in state elections, seen as a test of voter opinion before September’s nationwide German federal ballot. French President Emmanuel Macron has also seen his polls numbers drop.Guy Verhofstadt, an EU lawmaker and the former Belgium prime minister, admits the vaccine campaign has been “ a fiasco,” but says, “in these troubled times, European integration is the only sensible way forward for our continent.” He maintains it proves the EU needs a proper “health union.”However, voters might not see it that way. Some analysts question whether the EU will come out of the pandemic stronger than it went into it with some suggesting that Brussels’ handling of the pandemic will undermine the appetite for further political integration.“With its disastrous vaccine procurement policy, the EU committed the ultimate mistake: it has given people a rational reason to oppose European integration,” argues Wolfgang Münchau, director of Eurointelligence, a specialist news service. 
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Trials in the United States show the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine is safe and 79% effective against the coronavirus, according to Britain’s Oxford University, the developers of the pharmaceutical company’s vaccine.  Oxford said in a press release Monday that the AstraZeneca vaccine is “safe and highly effective, adding to previous trial data from the United Kingdom, Brazil and South Africa, as well as real-world impact data from the United Kingdom.” AstraZeneca said in a statement that the safety and efficacy analysis was based on 32,449 participants in the U.S. trials. “Vaccine efficacy was consistent across ethnicity and age. Notably, in participants aged 65 years and over, vaccine efficacy was 80%,” the statement said.  “The vaccine was well tolerated, and the independent data safety monitoring board (DSMB) identified no safety concerns related to the vaccine,” AstraZeneca said.  Several European countries had recently stopped using the AstraZeneca because of reports that the vaccine was associated with blood clots in vaccine recipients. The European Medicines Agency (EMA), however, had recently found that the vaccine was safe and effective in the battle against the coronavirus.  The European Union is now moving to block exports of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Britain from a plant in the Netherlands.FILE – A member of the medical staff holds a vial of the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine at the South Ile-de-France Hospital Group in Melun, in the outskirts of Paris, Feb. 8, 2021.The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center has recorded 123.2 million worldwide COVID-19 infections. The U.S. has more infections than any place else with 123.2 million cases, followed by Brazil with almost 12 million and India with 11.6 million.  Germany will likely institute another lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus, which would make it the latest European country enacting fresh restrictions. A draft of recommendations to be presented to German Chancellor Angela Merkel will push for lockdowns to be extended until April 18, Reuters reported Sunday. In Poland, which is seeing the highest number of daily cases since November, new measures have forced nonessential shops and other facilities to close for three weeks. Poland recorded more than 26,000 new cases Sunday and more than 350 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.  Nonessential stores have also been closed in Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv, where only food markets are allowed to stay open. It recorded more than 15,000 new cases Sunday and nearly 270 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. About one-third of France’s population is under lockdown after measures were imposed Friday in Paris and several regions in northern and southern parts of the country. More than 4,300 people were in intensive care units in France Saturday, the health ministry said, the most this year. About 6.1 million people in France have received their first COVID-19 shot, or just less than 12% of the adult population. But in Marseille, in the south of France, thousands of people took to the streets Sunday to celebrate carnival in defiance of pandemic restrictions.  In the United States, officials in the popular Florida tourist destination of Miami Beach extended an emergency curfew of 8 p.m. for up to three weeks after dozens were arrested Saturday. Officials say 1,000 people have been arrested in the beach town since March 1.  On Saturday, crowds of Spring Break partiers were met with pepper spray balls and SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) teams in the beachfront city as they defied the highly unusual 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew. On February 26, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said the state is an “oasis of freedom” from coronavirus restrictions.  South Africa has sold at least a million of its AstraZeneca COVID vaccines to the African Union. The African country stopped using the AstraZeneca shots due to concerns about its efficacy against a local variant of the coronavirus.  The World Health Organization (WHO) has subsequently recommended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine against variants.  The doses sold to the African Union will be distributed among 14 African countries.  Brazil is in talks with the United States to import excess doses of coronavirus vaccines, its Foreign Ministry tweeted Saturday. On Sunday, Brazil reversed a decision that required local authorities to save half their COVID-19 vaccine stockpiles for second doses, instead opting to get the first shots in as many Brazilians as possible. The U.S. has millions of doses of vaccine developed by Britain’s University of Oxford and the pharmaceutical giant that have been approved by the WHO and the EMA but not for use in the U.S. yet. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who famously told his country to “stop whining” about the country’s death from “a little flu,” has signed three measures to speed the purchase of vaccines, including those from Pfizer-BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson. 
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Widespread flooding is disrupting the rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations in Australia as thousands of people are forced to leave their homes.Emergency crews in eastern Australia have responded to thousands of calls for help.  The rain in many areas has been unrelenting. For the first time in years, Sydney’s main reservoir is overflowing, putting suburbs at risk of flooding. Authorities are reporting once-in-a-century downpours north of Sydney, and thousands of people have been told to leave their homes.     Near the town of Taree, a house occupied by a young couple was washed away down a river by floodwaters on what was supposed to have been their wedding day.    The bride, Sarah Soars, told Australian television the property was swept away within minutes.  “I am lost for words. I do not know even what to say, like, everything that we owned, everything that we worked hard for (has) gone within ten minutes and it was out of our sight,” Soars said.Campaign group Greenpeace has linked the severe storms in eastern Australia to climate change, and the burning of coal, oil and gas.   The wild weather is disrupting Australia’s mass coronavirus inoculation program. More than six million Australians are now eligible for an injection in the next phase of the vaccination rollout. Australia’s medical regulator has approved domestic production of the AstraZeneca vaccine.   Federal health minister Greg Hunt says the drug is safe.    “This is a fundamental decision which locks in for Australia access to 50 million units of domestically produced vaccines. It means that the manufacturing process has been approved. It is safe, effective (and) meets all of the requirements from one of the toughest regulators in the world,” Hunt said.Vaccines made by AstraZeneca and Pfizer are approved for use in Australia. One of Australia’s most senior medical officials, Federal Health Department secretary Brendan Murphy, has said international travel into and out of Australia would be severely restricted for the rest of the year until global COVID-19 vaccinations are more widely administered.   Australia closed its international borders a year ago to foreign travelers because of the pandemic.   Murphy said life in Australia would get back to normal, but it would take time and patience was needed. Australia has recorded 29,196 coronavirus cases since the pandemic began. 909 people have died, according to the Health Department. 
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