Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Logistics Complicating Some US Vaccine Donations Overseas
The Biden administration says some foreign countries haven鈥檛 been able to accept their full allocation of vaccine donations from the U.S., as they increasingly grapple with logistical barriers and vaccine hesitancy. 鈥淭here have been moments, yes, where countries are not able to receive the doses that we鈥檙e able to provide,鈥 White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said at a briefing Tuesday. She didn鈥檛 identify the countries.聽The U.S. has donated and shipped 437 million doses abroad so far, more than any other nation, and pledged a total of at least 1.2 billion. President Joe Biden held a virtual summit in September to muster a more coordinated global response, though advocates say that鈥檚 still lacking. (Wingrove, 2/15)
The relatively short shelf life of AstraZeneca Plc's COVID-19 vaccine is complicating the rollout to the world's poorest nations, according to officials and internal World Health Organization documents reviewed by Reuters. It is the latest headache to plague the COVAX vaccine-sharing project, co-led by the WHO and aimed at getting shots to the world's neediest people. (Guarascio and Rigby, 2/16)
In other global developments 鈥
Canada will be easing restrictions for fully vaccinated travelers beginning next month as the peak in new cases fueled by the COVID-19 omicron variant is believed to have passed. Beginning on Feb. 28, fully vaccinated travelers arriving into Canada will be allowed to use a rapid antigen test instead of a molecular test. Vaccinated travelers will also now be randomly selected for testing upon arrival and will not be required to quarantine while they wait for their results. (Choi, 2/15)
The head of the World Health Organization鈥檚 Europe office said Tuesday that health officials are turning their attention to growing rates of COVID-19 infection in Eastern Europe, where six countries 鈥 including Russia and Ukraine 鈥 have seen a doubling in case counts over the last two weeks. (2/15)
A Japanese government delay in rolling out COVID-19 booster shots left it more vulnerable than other rich countries when the Omicron variant brought a surge of deaths, say experts, local governments and a former vaccine czar. The issue could mean political trouble for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida as nearly 30% of the population is aged 65 or older, and so at greater risk from the coronavirus without the protection of the booster. (Swift and Lies, 2/16)
