The United States accounts for one-fourth of the coronavirus cases in the world. Looking at the grim scenario President Joe Biden has announced to boost the vaccine supply to 50% for the U.S. But the ongoing tension between European Union and the British-Swedish drug maker AstraZeneca over delay in delivery is not hidden.
According to philanthropist Bill Gates, the developed nations are facing delivery delays, and the developing nations are not going to receive the vaccine for months.
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At the same time, the feud between E.U. and AstraZeneca intensifies on Wednesday as the former accused the drugmaker of withdrawing from the plans to discuss the vaccine delivery.
A spokesperson for European Commission, Dana Spinant, claimed that AstraZeneca canceled the health steering group’s meeting. The company has simply denied the accusation and clarified that they would be attending the E.U. talks.
After the announcement of AstraZeneca, the feud sores that production delays will result in a limited supply of doses to E.U. nations. E.U. then threatened the company of legal actions and strict export controls.
The U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and AstraZeneca, and the German biotech firm BioNTech have developed the coronavirus vaccine. Pfizer and AstraZeneca claimed that reduced production capacity is responsible for disruption in delivery.
The ongoing friction between E.U. and AstraZeneca and the claim of disrupted vaccine deliveries is in stark contrast to President Biden’s promise of an additional 200 billion more doses that will be available by summer.
The vaccine is being administrated to the front-line workers and high-risk groups for now. But the U.S. is hopeful of making the vaccine available to the general public by spring. On the other hand, the States are complaining of not receiving the promised quantity of vaccine doses since the roll-out of the vaccine in December.
Apart from the vaccine delivery issues, the U.S. authorities are also facing challenges regarding misinformation. As per a document obtained by The Washington Post, only about 58% of the total doses are administered to the health staff till now. The situation arises due to online misinformation about vaccines and the age-old mistrust in the vaccination events.
A report from the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention has claimed that schools are not the major center of infection transmission, providing an optimistic route to President Biden’s priority of reopening schools for in-person learning.
The data is also in agreement with the U.S. statics and abroad reviewed by the CDC team. School transmission of the coronavirus infection is almost negligible as compared to nursing homes or high-density work-places. The authorities are hopeful of containing the spread of the diseases through proper precautions and efforts in schools and educational institutions.
As per Biden’s goal, the majority of the schools through eighth grade to reopen within 100 days. For additional measures to make educational institutes safer and working properly, Biden has asked Congress to grant $130 billion for the purpose.
Amidst the rising cases of coronavirus infection, reopening of schools is challenging. Even the teachers are not agreeing to the decision of reopening of schools yet. The teachers’ union members in Chicago have refused the orders of going back to classrooms in mid of the pandemic.
Though in many States, teachers are put on the priority list for vaccine administration. While the U.S. is all set to reopen schools and educational institutes, the rest of the world is sailing in the opposite direction of not opening schools yet.
European nations fear the more contagious virus strain, Russia is relaxing the restrictions to boost the nation’s economy. The U.S. is also hopeful to come back on track through vaccination.
World Health Organization is planning to disburse 25 million doses of vaccine to a broad region like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, etc., by March. WHO is optimistic about delivering the doses to about 355 million people in the region by December.