White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the U.S. plans to share 2.5 million doses of the vaccines with Mexico and 1.5 million with Canada.
Tens of millions of doses of the vaccine have been stored on US manufacturing sites. The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has been approved for use in dozens of countries, including Mexico and Canada, but US drug regulators have not yet approved the shot. Psaki said the doses to be sent to the two countries are a loan, and that the US will receive vaccinations in the future.
The deal could be finalized as soon as Friday, CNN has learned. Mexico’s foreign minister said on Tuesday that an announcement could be made by the end of the week.
The Biden government has committed to having enough vaccines for all Americans before sharing doses, and if this agreement comes together, it will be the first time the U.S. has shared vaccines directly with another country. It is also likely to give a major boost to vaccination efforts in Canada and Mexico, which are struggling with their vaccination against the US.
On the pace of implementation Thursday, Biden said Americans still need to be vigilant to prevent the spread of the virus. The cases are still increasing in several states.
“It’s a time for optimism, but it’s not a time for relaxation,” warns Biden. “I need you all to do your part. Wash your hands, stay socially past, continue your masking as recommended by the CDC and be vaccinated if it’s your turn.”
More than 115 million Americans have been vaccinated since the first Covid-19 shot was approved in December, according to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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YOU ASKED. WE ANSWER.
Q: When can Americans return to normal life?
A: States are pushing for the expansion of Covid-19 access to vaccines and the restriction of restrictions on business and big events, as the United States wants a return to normal.
“We neglect the large number of people in the middle who need it, who want to get the vaccine, but may have concerns or just do not have time to take time off or get a job,” the dr. Dr. Leana Wen told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Thursday. “We need to make vaccination easy for those individuals and also clearly demonstrate what the benefit of vaccination is, and make the messages clear that vaccines are the way to pre-pandemic life.”
WHAT IS IMPORTANT TODAY
AstraZeneca vaccine is ‘safe and effective’
A large part of Western Europe is now in danger of a third wave of the virus. France on Thursday announced a limited Covid-19 exclusion for Paris and several other regions to combat outraged cases. And the pandemic is moving “eastward”, said dr. Kluge said, with infection rates and deaths in Central Europe, the Balkans and the Baltic states among the highest in the world.
As Covid-19 deaths rise in Brazil, Bolsonaro says there is a ‘war’ against him
“Here it has become a war against the president. It looks like people are just dying for Covid,” Bolsonaro, who was not wearing a mask, told supporters outside the presidential palace on Thursday. “The hospitals are 90% occupied. But we have to determine how much of Covid is and how much of other diseases,” he said.
In the coastal city of Rio de Janeiro, intensive care units are 95% full. Fifteen other capitals are also collapsing, with an occupancy rate of more than 90% on the ICU – an avalanche of hospitalizations accompanied by a sharp increase in Covid-19 cases in the country. While Covid-19 cases in many countries are starting to flatten or decline, Brazil is reporting daily records. In the past month alone, more than 45,000 people have died in Brazil, and the country recorded 90,303 new cases in one day on Wednesday.
Cubans embark on treacherous voyages as economic crisis worsens
When Beatriz Jimenez closes her eyes, she sees her daughter Lisbethy and two young grandchildren – and they are alive. Jimenez’s family left the small coastal town of Cabarién, on the north coast of Cuba, on March 4, aboard a packed smuggler’s boat.
Jimenez said her daughter Lisbethy undertook the trip because she had been in Florida for more than a year from her husband, after the pandemic forced Cuba to reduce most international flights. Lisbethy was afraid to leave her daughter Kenna Mariana, 6 years old, and Luis Nesto (4) in Cuba and risk the long-term divorce. According to the Cuban Foreign Ministry, their boat capsized in Bahamian waters. About twelve survivors and one body were found by a Royal Bahamian Defense ship, but Lisbethy and her children were not among them.
ON OUR RADAR
- Transplant surgeons at Northwestern Medicine in Illinois say they successfully performed one of the first known double lung transplants on a Covid-19 patient using organs from a donor who had previously tested positive for the virus.
- Researchers who are showing when and how the virus first originated in China calculate that it probably did not infect the first human in early October 2019. And their models showed something different: it hardly made it as a pandemic virus.
- The coronavirus spread on an international flight, in a hotel corridor and then to domestic contacts, despite efforts to isolate patients and place them in quarantine, New Zealand researchers reported on Thursday.
- Covid-19 restrictions at the first Super Nintendo world in Japan include temperature controls, mandatory mask wear, everywhere disinfectant, social distance in the queue and signs in front of roller coasters asking riders to shout.
- Officials in the South Korean capital, Seoul, have turned their backs on controversial plans to have all foreign workers undergo Covid-19 testing after receiving a shower of criticism from diplomatic missions and international companies.
TOP TIPS
Do you get more nightmares? You might like ‘quaradream’
The phenomenon was noticed by doctors about a year ago, not long after roadblocks began around the world. Frontline workers were hit hard – a study of 100 Chinese nurses in June 2020 found that 45% experienced nightmares, coupled with varying degrees of anxiety and depression. But nightmares continued as quarantines and barriers expanded, experts say. One reason: an increase in ‘night owls’.
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“There is even evidence that social isolation and loneliness affect your susceptibility to viruses and the ability to respond to a vaccine.” – Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah