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Regulators in EU bring forward vaccine ruling
The announcement came after Germany’s health ministry publicly demanded that the agency move quicker than its previously planned December 29 meeting at which it was to discuss approving the vaccine.
The European Union’s medicines agency said on Tuesday it has moved up a meeting to assess the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for provisional approval in the 27-nation bloc to December 21. The agency said it made the decision after receiving additional data from the vaccine makers.
The announcement came after Germany’s health ministry publicly demanded that the agency move quicker than its previously planned December 29 meeting at which it was to discuss approving the vaccine.
Meanwhile, British authorities are set to hold talks on Christmas coronavirus rules after a surge in infections fuelled demands from medical experts to stop households mixing over the holiday. Cabinet office minister Michael Gove was expected discuss the issue with his counterparts from the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland later on Tuesday.
Unemployment in the UK surged in the three months through October, exposing the brutal impact of the pandemic on the economy. The number of people looking for work surged by 241,000 in the period, taking the jobless rate to 4.9%, the highest since 2016, the Office for National Statistics has said.
Also, the 1.5 million-strong Indian community in the UK has been the group most affected by the pandemic among non-whites in the UK, according to new figures released on Tuesday. The data shows that their mental health was particularly affected, and in England alone, 1,105 people of Indian origin have died.
An 89-year-old resident of a care home in Quebec became the first Canadian to receive a Covid-19 vaccine shot as the country is among the first to roll out its vaccination programme. Gisèle Lévesque received the Pfizer-BioNTech jab in Quebec City.
