Australia Hits 80% Vaccination; China Jabs Kids: Virus Update
(Bloomberg) --
Australia hit its target of having 80% of people aged 16 and older fully vaccinated against Covid-19, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said, as the country shifts from a strict containment policy to living with the virus.
Drugmaker Pfizer Inc. said that its Covid-19 pill reduced hospitalizations and deaths in high-risk patients by 89%, a result that carries the potential to transform treatment. Separately, Merck & Co. said it is working with Chinese regulators to explore bringing its Covid-19 pill to the Asian nation.
Apple Inc. will drop its mask requirement for customers at many of its U.S. retail stores starting Friday on declining cases and increased vaccinations.
Key Developments:
- Virus Tracker: Cases surpass 249 million; deaths top 5 million
- Vaccine Tracker: More than 7.2 billion shots given
- This is how long experts think China will stick with Covid Zero
- Why a new pill to treat Covid could be a game changer: QuickTake
- Covid-19 Impact: Best of Bloomberg Intelligence
China Needs More Targeted Approach, Gao Says (3:37 p.m. HK)
China’s will see community transmission set off by imported Covid-19 infections as a “new normal” and that requires its response to change from total suppression to mitigation, according to Gao Fu, director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
“With frequent community spread caused by imported infections becoming the new normal, we need to be more targeted in suppressing the virus” Gao said at a forum in Shanghai on Saturday, “Everybody should be prepared.”
Gao said that the country has done a good job in suppressing nearly 50 flareups since it quashed the initial deadly outbreak in Wuhan, and called for the response to be more scientific and targeted.
China Pushes Jabs for Kids, CCTV Says (2:57 p.m. HK)
China aims to fully vaccinate those aged 3 to 11-years-old by the end of this year, according to CCTV.com. So far, more than 3.53 million doses have been given to children in this age group, the state-owned station reported on its website, citing data from the National Health Commission. Asia’s largest economy has been battling a series of delta variant outbreaks.
Xinhua Commentary Takes Aim at U.S. (11:33 a.m. HK)
China’s official news agency issued a lengthy commentary accusing the U.S. of “vicious slanders” against Beijing over the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. Among them, the Xinhua News Agency piece cited the notion that the earliest cluster arose in Wuhan in December 2019. However, there was a “growing number of clues, reports and studies” indicating that cases had emerged in many places around the world as early as the second half of 2019, it said.
Merck & Co. in Pill Talks With China (11:12 a.m. HK)
Merck & Co. is working with Chinese regulators to explore bringing its Covid-19 pill to China. The company, responding in an email to questions from Bloomberg News, didn’t give further details. The drug, molnupiravir, received its first approval in the U.K. earlier this week after studies showed that it prevented hospitalization by half among mild and moderate patients.
Australia Hits 80% Vaccine Rate (10:05 a.m. HK)
Australia hit its target of having 80% of people aged 16 and older fully vaccinated against Covid-19, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said, as the country shifts from a strict containment policy to living with the virus as endemic.
“We did it!” Morrison wrote in a Facebook post. “It’s going to help us to continue to safely reopen and stay safely open.”
Australia’s two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, eased their tough lockdown measures in recent weeks after hitting a 70% inoculation threshold, allowing residents to eat at restaurants and re-opening schools. Roughly half of the country’s population spent months under stay-at-home orders this year as authorities battled the spread of the highly-contagious delta variant.
First Hyenas Diagnosed With Covid (7:05 a.m. HK)
The first known Covid-19 infections worldwide among hyenas have been found at Denver Zoo, the U.S. National Veterinary Services Laboratories reported. In addition to the two hyenas, 11 lions and two tigers also tested positive.
N.Z. Wants Aucklanders to Be Able to Leave City for Christmas (6:34 a.m. HK)
New Zealand doubled down on a commitment to ensuring Auckland residents are able to leave the city for Christmas and the summer holiday, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern telling Newshub Nation on Saturday that her government wasn’t going to keep people “trapped over Christmas.”
Still, she said no decisions have been made on how or when people would be allowed to come and go from the locked-down city, adding that a challenge was figuring out how to manage the land border for tens of thousands of people.
“No system will be perfect, and it will be challenging, but we are looking at how we can use tools like vaccine certificates and testing to achieve these goals,” Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said this week.
Biden Aide Tests Negative (5:21 p.m. NY)
A White House aide who initially tested positive for coronavirus infection after accompanying President Joe Biden to international summits in Europe has subsequently tested negative, Press Secretary Jen Psaki said.
The aide and some of Biden’s other traveling staff remained in Scotland after the president attended the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow because of concern about transmission, according to a White House official.
Rodgers Has Covid But No Regrets (4:03 p.m. NY)
Aaron Rodgers has no regrets about not being vaccinated.
In a Friday appearance on the Pat McAfee Show, two days after testing positive for Covid-19, the Green Bay Packers quarterback said not getting vaccinated was the best choice for his body.
“I’m not some sort of anti-vax, flat-Earther, I am somebody who is a critical thinker,” Rodgers said.
The three-time MVP said he is allergic to an ingredient that’s in mRNA vaccines and that he had “heard of multiple people who had had adverse events” around getting the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. He said that instead he is taking monoclonal antibodies, ivermectin and zinc, among other things.
Pfizer to Submit Covid Pill by Thanksgiving (3:41 p.m. NY)
Pfizer Inc. is aiming aim to submit data from its experimental Covid-19 pill to U.S. regulators by Thanksgiving, potentially clearing the way for an emergency-use authorization, Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said.
Speaking in an interview with Bloomberg Television, Bourla said Pfizer was preparing to submit the data to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In the meantime, the CEO urged countries to secure supply agreements.
U.S. Clears At-Home Covid Test (3:09 p.m. NY)
U.S. regulators cleared a new over-the-counter Covid-19 test Friday that could add millions of tests per month to the market for rapid Covid diagnostics that have sometimes been in short supply, according to federal health authorities.
The Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization to the at-home test from iHealth Labs Inc., a closely held Sunnyvale, California company. The company can produce a million tests a day, capacity that will grow to 5 million daily and eventually up to 200 million tests per month, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Health and Human Services department.
A single test can be used for people with symptoms, or a series of two tests can be used for asymptomatic people. The nasal swab test can be used for people as young as two years old if an adult collects the sample.
Apple Drops Mask Rules in Many U.S. Stores (3:02 p.m. NY)
Apple Inc. will drop its mask requirement for customers at many of its U.S. retail stores starting Friday on declining Covid-19 cases and increased vaccinations.
The change will take place beginning at more than 100 of the company’s about 270 stores across the U.S. before gradually expanding to additional stores in the coming days. The mandate will be removed at some stores in states including California, Florida, Arizona, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
The new mask policy was announced in an internal memo to Apple retail employees Thursday that was obtained by Bloomberg News
Pfizer to Seek U.S. Nod for Covid Pill (6:45 a.m. NY)
Pfizer Inc. said its Covid-19 pill reduced hospitalizations and deaths in high-risk patients by 89%.
The drugmaker said in a statement on Friday that it was no longer taking new patients in a clinical trial of the treatment “due to the overwhelming efficacy” and planned to submit the findings to U.S. regulatory authorities for emergency authorization as soon as possible.
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.