U.S. President to Call for Summit on Global Vaccine Supplies
Joe Biden is expected to call for a world summit on speeding up the international supplies of coronavirus vaccines
According to news agencies, Joe Biden, the United States President, expected to call for a conference on speeding up the international supplies of coronavirus vaccines. The officials are trying to hold the summit during the United Nations General Assembly later this month. Moreover, the Washington Post reports the subjects that will include coordination among the global leaders to mutually combat the health crisis and deal with discrimination, including the slow rate of vaccinations in developing countries.
America and other rich nations have been under growing pressure to donate their extra coronavirus vaccines to developing and emerging nations as the pandemic cause havoc across the world with the emergence of more contagious variants such as Delta, which causes coronavirus. On Wednesday, the director-general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, pleaded with wealthy countries to forgo coronavirus booster doses for the remaining 2021 to ensure that poorer nations have more access to the vaccine. He previously asked rich nations not to provide booster shots until September.
As we fight COVID-19 here at home, we need to continue our efforts overseas.
We are proud to have donated nearly 140 million vaccines and have started to ship an additional 500 million — more than all other countries combined.
COVAX, the global vaccine sharing initiative, also announced recently that it expects to receive around 1.4b shots of coronavirus vaccines by the year-end instead of the plan of 1.9b shots it made in June. However, the Los Angeles Board of Education is likely to approve a move that would obligate vaccination against the virus for all students twelve years old and older. Students would require to receive their initial shot by 21st November, followed by a second shot by 19th December to be count as fully vaccinated by the next semester.
U.S. President Biden to Call for Summit on Global Vaccine Supplies Source: Web
Japan will Extend Current COVID-19 State of Emergency to Other Areas
On Thursday, Japan announced that it will extend its current COVID state of emergency for the capital Tokyo and eighteen other regions until 30th September. In addition, it will shift two regions from full emergency status to more targeted restrictions. A couple of weeks before the Tokyo Olympics, the government announced the state of emergency for the city and some other regions under the rise of new coronavirus infection amid delta variant and a sluggish vaccination campaign.
According to the Johns Hopkins COVID Resource Center, at present, Japan has over 1.6 million confirmed coronavirus infections, including sixteen thousand and six hundred deaths, with approximately fifty percent of its population fully vaccinated.
