Pfizer, COVID vaccine

The United States authorized the use of Pfizer Inc’s Covid-19 vaccine on Dec. 11, with the first inoculations expected within days, marking a turning point in a country where the pandemic has killed more than 295,000 people.

The chief executive of Germany’s BioNTech SE said the biggest challenge facing the company and partner Pfizer Inc. now that their Covid-19 vaccine is authorized for use in the United States will be to scale up manufacturing to meet huge demand.

Five key genes are linked with the most severe form of Covid-19, scientists said, in research that also pointed to several existing drugs that could be repurposed to treat people who risk getting critically ill with the pandemic disease.

A panel of outside advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is meeting on Dec. 10 to weigh whether to recommend that the regulatory agency authorize Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine for emergency use, one of the last steps before vaccinations could begin.

UK regulators stated that they received two reports of potential allergic reactions linked to the Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech, according to the Associated Press.

U.S. coronavirus cases crossed the 15 million mark on Dec. 8 as regulators moved a step closer to approving a Covid-19 vaccine and Britain started inoculating people, offering hope of slowing a pandemic that killed 15,000 Americans in the previous week.

A 90-year-old grandmother became the world’s first person to receive a fully tested Covid-19 shot on Dec. 8, as Britain began mass-vaccinating its people in a global drive that poses one of the biggest logistical challenges in peacetime history.

Airlines battered by Covid-19 are prepping for key roles in the mass vaccine rollout that promises to unlock an immediate boost for the sector – and beyond that, its own recovery and survival.

U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said he was reacting to gloating by a British television interviewer when he criticized the country’s quick approval of the first coronavirus vaccine.

AstraZeneca is likely to run an additional global trial to assess the efficacy of the company’s Covid-19 vaccine using a lower dosage, the British drugmaker’s chief executive was quoted as saying amid questions over the results of a late-stage study.