UK to start vaccine jab rollout as south California locks down

LONDON: Britain geared up to become the first country to roll out the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine on Monday, as southern California locked down 20 million people to ease the burden on hospitals struggling with record cases.

UK health officials warned the nation’s biggest-ever inoculation drive would be a "marathon" stretching well into next year. Health Secretary Matt Hancock has volunteered to have a jab live on television on "V-Day" to counter public doubts over the rapid approval.

California’s lockdown will see most offices close and gatherings from different households banned. Bars and services such as hair salons will be closed and restaurants only allowed to serve takeaways.

"We are at a tipping point in our fight against the virus and we need to take decisive action now to prevent California’s hospital system from being overwhelmed in the coming weeks," said state governor Gavin Newsom.

He said introducing stay-at-home orders when spare capacity in intensive care units falls below 15 percent would help flatten the curve of infections. The state is suffering record new cases with two days last week in which 113 deaths were registered, up from around 14 daily fatalities in early November.

The United States as a whole is seeing record infections, with the illness once again reaching President Donald Trump’s inner circle -- his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani the latest to test positive.

White House coronavirus task force coordinator Deborah Birx pleaded with people to wear masks -- advice often disregarded by the president’s aides and most ardent supporters. "This is not just the worst public health event. This is the worst event that this country will face," Birx told NBC on Sunday.

In Europe, Chancellor Angela Merkel was also urging people to follow the rules and said German regions with high infection rates should tighten social contact curbs before Christmas, as the country struggles to tamp down its second wave.

Further south, Greece extended its restrictions until January 7 but Austrians got a boost when the government lifting its measures.

"We couldn’t wait with the shopping, even if it might be a bit crowded today," Robert Bauer told AFP as he shopped in Vienna. As Britain has faced down controversy over its rapid approval of the vaccine, Indonesia has received 1.2 million doses of a vaccine by Chinese firm Sinovac that is yet to clear the final regulatory hurdles.

China has, however, approved advanced candidates such as the Sinovac drug for emergency use. China, which has largely brought the virus under control, has promised to make its vaccines available as a "global public good" after global criticism of its early handling of the pandemic.

The scramble to secure vaccines comes at an awkward time for the UK, with Brexit negotiations heading into the home straight with no deal still a looming possibility. The government has reportedly put military flights on standby to transport more doses in case Brexit talks collapse and new rules cause border chaos from January 1.

At one hospital in Croydon, south of London, medical workers were carefully dealing with the first doses, which have to be kept at -70 degrees Celsius (-94 degrees Fahrenheit).

"To know that they are here, and we are amongst the first in the country to actually receive the vaccine and therefore the first in the world, is just amazing, I’m so proud," said Louise Coughlan, a pharmacist at the hospital.

The Pfizer-BioNTech jab will be administered in two doses, three weeks apart. So Britain’s initial batch will cover 400,000 people, and the government has 40 million doses on order in total.

Senior health service official Stephen Powis said Britain’s rollout would be a "marathon not a sprint". "Despite the huge complexities, hospitals will kickstart the first phase of the largest-scale vaccination campaign in our country’s history from Tuesday," Powis said. Queen Elizabeth II, 94, and her 99-year-old husband Prince Philip are reportedly in line to get the jab early because of their age.

The coronavirus has killed more than 1.5 million people since the outbreak emerged in China last December.Denmark will close middle and high schools, bars, cafes and restaurants in 38 municipalities this week in new shutdown measures set to affect almost half of the country’s population, the government said on Monday.

The spread of the infection "is too high and the situation is too worrying. As a result, we have to adopt measures to control the infection and the epidemic," Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told reporters.

She also urged Danes to limit their Christmas and New Year’s gatherings to 10 people. As in the first wave at the start of the year, middle and high schools will return to distance learning from Wednesday, when bars, cafes and restaurants also have to close for eat-in diners, though takeaway will be allowed.

Libraries, gyms, cinemas and theatres also have to shut down. Denmark avoided shutdowns in October and November when many other European economies closed shops and restaurants to stem the spread of Covid-19.

The restrictions will be in place until January 3, with Health Minister Magnus Heunicke qualifying the rising infection rate as "exponential". Public health officials on Monday registered a daily record of 2,046 cases in 24 hours, expressing concern that they could rise to 4,000 a day by Christmas in the country of 5.8 million, public television DR reported.

The new measures will be introduced in Denmark’s most affected areas, including the capital Copenhagen and its suburbs, the western city of Aarhus and the central town of Odense, which together are home to almost half of the Danish population.

The Scandinavian country, which is struggling to contain the virus, had already last week reduced the limit on children’s extra-curricular activities from 50 to 10 and urged people in Copenhagen to increasingly work from home.