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Cruise Line Threatens to Skip Florida Ports Over Proof-of-Vaccination Ban

Cruise Line Threatens to Skip Florida Ports Over Proof-of-Vaccination Ban

Norwegian Cruise Line threatens to keep its ships out of Florida ports after the state enacted laws prohibiting companies from requesting proof of Covid-19 vaccination in exchange for services.

The company, which plans to launch its first cruises to the Caribbean and Europe in the summer and fall, offers limited capacity trips and requires all guests and crew to be vaccinated for bookings by at least the end of October.

During a quarterly earnings call Thursday, Frank Del Rio, managing director of Norwegian Cruise Line, said the issue had been discussed with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican. Mr Del Rio said if the cruise line had to skip the ports of Florida, it could operate from other states or the Caribbean.

“We definitely hope it doesn’t come to that,” said Mr Del Rio. “Everyone wants to operate from Florida. It’s a very lucrative market. “

The conflict between Norwegian Cruise Line and Florida is one of the many that is likely to surface when it comes to how states and companies go about whether or not proof of vaccination is required. While some states are not yet taking a position on companies that require vaccines, others are already using such protocols.

At many New York events, such as Major League Baseball and National Basketball Association games, state health and safety guidelines require fans to provide a vaccination certificate or negative coronavirus test within 72 hours of attending.

“We hope this has not become legal or political football,” said Del Rio on the conference call.

Norwegian Cruise Line is headquartered in Florida, along with Royal Caribbean Cruises and Carnival Corporation. According to an economic analysis prepared for the Cruise Lines International Association last year, around 60 percent of all US cruise ships in 2019 came from ports in Florida.

In a business update on Thursday, Norwegian Cruise Line announced that bookings for the first half of 2022 were seeing “robust future demand” that was “well ahead” of 2019 bookings. By the end of the first quarter of 2021, the company announced a pre-sale of $ 1.3 billion in tickets.

Florida law not only prohibits companies from providing evidence of vaccination, but also prevents state and local authorities from closing personal learning companies or schools unless there is a hurricane emergency.

Updated

May 8, 2021, 2:21 p.m. ET

“I have refused to take the same approach as other lockdown governors,” DeSantis said in a statement on Monday when he signed the bill. “Florida protects your personal choice about vaccinations and no company or government agency can deny you services based on your choice.”

His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday and Norwegian Cruise Line could not be reached for comment.

“We hope everyone is pushing in the same direction, which means we want to safely resume the cruise, especially at the beginning,” said Del Rio on the call for winners. “In six months or a year, things could be different.”

The latest guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention allow cruise lines to conduct “simulated voyages” with volunteer passengers to see how cruise lines can safely resume operations with measures such as testing and potential quarantines.

The CDC requires cruise ships to complete test runs before they can be cleared for sailing with passengers this summer.

“It is not possible for cruises to be an activity without risk for the spread of Covid-19,” the CDC said this week. “While cruises always pose some risk to the transmission of Covid-19, CDC is committed to ensuring that cruise ship passenger operations are carried out in a way that protects crew, passengers and port personnel.”

The latest guidelines recommend but do not require that cruise ship travelers and crew members receive a vaccine when it is available to them.

Speaking at this week’s call for a prize, Mr. Del Rio said Norwegian Cruise Line had submitted a proposal to the CDC requiring vaccine detection from all crew members and passengers.

It’s unclear how much business Norwegian Cruise Line could lose by avoiding Florida ports. Of the dozen of ports listed on its website, Norwegian Cruise Line has Florida ports in Tampa, Miami, and Key West.

Mr Del Rio said “pent-up demand” helped fill bookings quickly.

“I believe it’s the # 1 destination for Americans in the Caribbean,” said Del Rio. “Who knows? This ship could prove so profitable there that it will never return to US waters.”

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What to know earlier than your shot

What to know before your shot

Jason Wallace (C), Director of the Fathers, Men, and Boys Commission for the District of Columbia receives some emotional support from the director of the DC Office of Nightlife and Culture, Shawn Townsend (L), and Deputy Mayor John Falcicchio (R) a shot of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine by DC Health Nurse Kendria Brown during a walk-in clinic at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Outdoor Performing Arts on May 6, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images

More than half of adults in the United States have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. Many wonder if it is safe to celebrate their Covid shot with an alcohol shot when second doses come in and millions more are vaccinated soon.

Marijuana smokers who use the plant as a pain and anxiety reliever may also turn to the herb for treatment of side effects.

Bars across the country offer free beer if guests provide proof of vaccination. Some bars in New Jersey even offer a beer on-site during the vaccination.

“A glass of wine or beer is fine, but heavy drinking can suppress your immune system and should generally be avoided. As always, moderation is key,” Katherine Yang, clinical professor of pharmacy at the University of California at San Francisco told CNBC .

Dr. Anne Liu, an infectious disease doctor at Stanford Health, told CNBC that a celebratory drink or two is perfectly fine and it makes no difference whether you drink on the day of the vaccine or a week later.

“When people drink enough to affect their livers, it can affect their immune systems,” Liu said. “The liver is a very important organ for a normal immune response and people who have poor liver function for a variety of reasons may not respond well to the vaccine and are generally at greater risk of complications from Covid,” she said .

Marijuana depends on the type of consumption. Marijuana can be consumed in a variety of ways, from food to steam to smoke and much more. Cigarette smokers are particularly at risk for complications with Covid-19.

“Smoking has specific effects on blood vessels and the cardiovascular system,” said Liu. “What is not necessarily the case with other respiratory viruses, and was clearly the case with Covid, is that people with disorders of the blood vessels and the cardiovascular system are at a much higher risk of complications with Covid, which is why smokers are high priority in some cases had places to get the vaccine, “she said.

Consuming marijuana in ways other than smoking is probably okay: “While there are no studies on the effects of marijuana and Covid vaccines, it is unlikely to affect the immune response to vaccines,” Yang said. “However, it is possible that marijuana or wine could make side effects of the vaccine such as headache, nausea, or pain worse, so be careful.”

Regarding harder drugs like cocaine or ecstasy, Liu said we probably don’t know enough to be able to tell whether or not it’s safe.

“It is unlikely that anything in modest amounts of these substances will significantly affect your immune system … but it becomes a lot less predictable. If it’s something you use recreationally, maybe just skip it that day for a vaccine getting is celebration enough, “she said.

Experts generally agree that moderation is key when using marijuana or alcohol. If a person is already consuming these substances on a regular basis, it is probably okay to pour them out or roll them up on the day of your vaccination.

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Covid Pandemic Forces Households to Rethink Nursing Dwelling Care

Covid Pandemic Forces Families to Rethink Nursing Home Care

Even before the pandemic began 14 months ago, nursing homes had become the source of rampant, antibiotic-resistant infections. The facilities also faced systemic problems, such as the high turnover of nursing home staff and the game of the federal government’s rating system, which made it difficult for families to judge the quality of the homes.

For years, federal health officials and some insurers have been trying to encourage more home care, and the pandemic has created a sense of urgency.

“It really changed the paradigm of how older adults want to live,” said Dr. Sarita Mohanty, the executive director of the SCAN Foundation, a nonprofit group that addresses issues older adults face. The vast majority of these adults would prefer to stay home in old age, she said.

“What happened is a welcome kind of market correction for nursing homes,” said Tony Chicotel, an attorney for California Attorneys for San Francisco Nursing Home Reform. Some families, he said, “eventually agreed to a nursing home without thinking too much about it.” But after many families tried to provide home care during the pandemic, they found that leaving an elderly relative at home was a viable alternative.

Nursing homes grew out of the poor houses in England and America caring for the poor. In the United States, the passage of the Social Security Act in 1935 provided money to states that care for the elderly. Thirty years later, the Medicaid program expanded funding and made nursing homes a central part of elderly care, said Terry Fulmer, president of the John A. Hartford Foundation, an advocacy group for older adults. “If you pay the nursing homes, go there,” said Dr. Fulmer.

It wasn’t until the 1970s that some programs to fund home care began, and nursing home residents across the country slowly began to decline, with occupancy falling to about 80 percent in recent years, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

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Pope Francis backs Biden name to waive Covid vaccine patents

Pope Francis backs Biden call to waive Covid vaccine patents

Pope Francis, wearing a face mask, attends an interfaith prayer service for peace with other religious representatives at the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, a church on the Capitoline Hill of Rome in Rome, Italy, on October 20, 2020.

Guglielmo Mangiapane | Reuters

Pope Francis advocated a waiver of intellectual property rights for coronavirus vaccines on Saturday, reiterating the U.S. government’s comments earlier this week.

World Trade Organization leaders recently called on member states to reach an agreement on possible vaccine patent waivers in hopes of removing barriers to increased vaccine production in developing countries.

President Joe Biden’s team approved the idea on Wednesday. Sales representative Katherine Tai said in a statement that she “supports the lifting of this protection for COVID-19 vaccines.”

At a global fundraiser on Saturday, Pope Francis said the world was infected with the “virus of individualism”.

“A variant of this virus is closed nationalism, which prevents vaccines from internationalism, for example,” he said in comments translated by Reuters.

“Another variant is when we put the laws of the market or the intellectual market or intellectual property above the laws of love and the health of mankind,” added the Pope.

Vaccine makers, whose share prices were affected by the comments earlier this week, have spoken out against the idea. Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, warned on Friday of unleashing a global race for raw materials that threatens the safe and efficient manufacture of vaccines.

Germany and Chancellor Angela Merkel have also spoken out against the waiver, with the country’s BioNTech being a key partner for Pfizer in developing its vaccine. Germans and other European officials argue that making and distributing vaccines faster is critical to ending the pandemic.

“The limiting factor in the manufacture of vaccines is the production capacity and high quality standards, not the patents,” a Merkel spokeswoman said in a statement.

PhRMA, a pharmaceutical industry advocacy group, has called the waiver proposal “an unprecedented move that will undermine our global response to the pandemic and put safety at risk”.

To date, there have been nearly 157 million coronavirus infections and over 3.2 million deaths worldwide, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

—CNBC’s Rich Mendez and Kevin Breuninger contributed to this article.

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Reaching ‘Herd Immunity’ Is Unlikely within the U.S., Specialists Now Consider

Reaching ‘Herd Immunity’ Is Unlikely in the U.S., Experts Now Believe

The skepticism of many Americans about the vaccines and the lack of access in some groups – homeless, migrant workers, or some color communities – make it a challenge to achieve this goal. Vaccine mandates only make this attitude worse, some experts believe.

A better approach would be to have a trustworthy person address the root cause of hesitation – fear, suspicion, misunderstanding, easy access, or a desire for more information, said Mary Politi, an expert on health decisions and communication at Washington University in St. Louis.

People often need to see others in their social circle accept something before they’re ready to try, said Dr. Politi. Highlighting the life benefits of vaccination, like seeing a family member or sending their children to school, might be more motivating than the nebulous idea of ​​herd immunity.

“That would resonate more with people than that somewhat elusive concept that experts are still trying to figure out,” she added.

Although children spread the virus less efficiently than adults, all experts agreed that vaccinating children would also be important in keeping the number of Covid cases down. In the long term, the public health system must also take into account babies and children and adults who fall into a higher risk group.

Annoying scenarios remain on the way to this long-term vision.

If enough people are not protected over time, highly contagious variants can develop that can breach vaccine protection, bring people to the hospital, and put them at risk of death.

“This is the nightmare scenario,” said Jeffrey Shaman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University.

How common and how severe these breakthrough infections are may determine whether the United States can keep hospital stays and deaths down, or whether the country is in “maddening turmoil” every few years, he said.

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WHO chief urges world to observe U.S., waive Covid vaccine patent protections

WHO chief urges world to follow U.S., waive Covid vaccine patent protections

World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a press conference organized by the United Nations Union of Geneva Correspondents Association (ACANU) during the COVID-19 outbreak on July 3, 2020 at WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland has been.

Fabrice Coffrini | Pool | Reuters

The Director General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, on Friday called on other countries, in particular the Group of the Seven Industrialized Nations, to follow the example of the US and support a request by the World Trade Organization to temporarily waive patent protection for Covid-19 vaccines .

“The US announcement on Wednesday to support a temporary waiver of intellectual property protection for Covid-19 vaccines is an important declaration of solidarity and support for vaccine justice,” Tedros said at a press conference. “I know that this is not easy politically, so I really appreciate the US leadership and we urge other countries to follow suit.”

The USA, which is strongly committed to the enforcement of intellectual property rights around the world, has previously spoken out against the waiver of patent protection for Covid vaccines.

President Joe Biden personally made the decision to change the US stance, White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One on Thursday. As a presidential candidate, Biden had supported the abandonment of the intellectual property of Covid vaccines.

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, whose members include vaccine manufacturers AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson, firmly oppose the Biden government’s decision.

WHO chief Tedros on Friday also called on the G7 industrialized nations – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Great Britain, as well as the USA – to do more to facilitate the equitable distribution of Covid vaccines worldwide.

“For G-7, vaccines and vaccine equity are now the most important and immediate support we need,” said Tedros. “I think everyone knows what we should do to increase production capacity and then increase vaccination rates in all countries.”

According to the WHO chief, more than 80% of the more than 1 billion Covid vaccine doses distributed worldwide went to high-income countries, while low-income countries received 0.3%.

“That kind of gap is unacceptable,” said Tedros. “It is not only unacceptable on moral grounds, but also because we will not defeat the virus in a divided world.”

“It is in the interests of every country in this world to exchange vaccines and to contribute in every possible way to ensure the justice of the vaccines,” said the WHO chief. “Vaccine equity is not a charity. Vaccine equity is in everyone’s interest.”

The demand for the revocation of patent protection proposed by India and South Africa last October is facing an uphill battle at the WTO, which takes decisions by consensus among its 164 member states.

Germany, Europe’s largest economy, has spoken out against the attempt to temporarily forego vaccination patents. BioNTech, which developed a Covid vaccine in collaboration with Pfizer, is based in Germany.

“The US proposal to lift patent protection for Covid-19 vaccines has a significant impact on vaccine production as a whole,” said a spokesman for the federal government on Thursday. “The limiting factor in vaccine production is the production capacity and high quality standards, not the patents.”

After the US reversal, the governments of Canada, Italy, Japan and Great Britain did not take any clear public positions for or against the renunciation of the protection of intellectual property. French President Emmanuel Macron supported the US position.

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who heads the executive body of the European Union, did not accept the waiver plan and declared in a speech that she was “ready to discuss proposals for effective and pragmatic management of the crisis”.

Russia, which developed the Sputnik vaccine, has expressed support for the move and China is open to further discussion. The WHO announced on Friday that it has approved the emergency vaccine developed by China’s Sinopharm.

According to The Associated Press, which quoted a Geneva-based trade official, around 80 WTO countries, mostly developing countries, have expressed support for the proposal.

“It’s also important to remember that abandoning intellectual property must go hand-in-hand with a transfer of technology and expertise for these elusive vaccines,” said Tedros.

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In Covid-19 Vaccine Information, LGBTQ Folks Worry Invisibility

In Covid-19 Vaccine Data, LGBTQ People Fear Invisibility

Even if some people are reluctant to reveal such data, research shows that clinicians overestimate how many patients would refuse to self-report. A 2017 study found that around 80 percent of doctors felt that patients would be reluctant to provide this data, but only 10 percent of patients said they would refuse to do so.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have also stated that it should be optional for patients to report their gender identity. The ability to report yourself is key, according to proponents. “It’s important that people identify like any other demographic,” said Chris Grasso, vice president of information technology and data services at the Fenway Institute. “We want to normalize data collection – just like we ask people questions about their age, race, or ethnicity.”

LGBTQ advocates have been raising alarm bells throughout the pandemic, writing letters to health organizations and the new government, and asking authorities to report on coronavirus testing, care outcomes and vaccine intake in their communities.

Some states and jurisdictions have started moving forward: Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Washington, DC are collecting and reporting some of this data in their Covid-19 monitoring systems. And in September, the Governor of California signed a bill requiring healthcare providers to collect the data for all communicable diseases.

But it wasn’t until March that the California Department of Health hadn’t released its sexual orientation and gender identity statistics. And other officials raising concerns from those trying to keep their sexuality private have expressed concern about the gathering of this information. For example, Colorado Governor Jared Polis, who is gay, said in a discussion with other elected officials in April 2020, “There are a lot of people in Colorado who don’t want this information out there.”

Despite the lack of data, the CDC notes that LGBTQ people may have more severe Covid-19 results than heterosexual people, in part due to a higher prevalence of pre-existing conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, asthma, cancer, obesity and smoking .

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Biden-backed Covid vaccine patent waiver will trigger issues

Biden-backed Covid vaccine patent waiver will cause problems

Sergeant Jennifer Callender (L) of the Illinois Air National Guard administers a vaccine for Pfizer Covid-19 to Virginia Persha on February 3, 2021 at a vaccination center at Triton College in River Grove, Ill.

Kamil Krzaczynski | AFP | Getty Images

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla warned on Friday that waiving patent protection for Covid vaccines – a proposal just endorsed by President Joe Biden – would spark a global race for raw materials that would allow the safe and efficient manufacture of Covid- Shots at risk.

The Biden government said Wednesday it supports the limited intellectual property rule waiver in the service of expanding vaccine distribution to the lower-income countries currently hit by the pandemic.

But Bourla, whose company makes one of three vaccines approved for use in the United States, “categorically” believes the waiver will “cause more problems.”

“Right now, the infrastructure is not the bottleneck for us to produce faster,” wrote Bourla in a letter from a dear colleague published on LinkedIn. “The limitation is the lack of highly specialized raw materials needed to make our vaccine.”

Pfizer’s vaccine requires 280 different materials and components, sourced from 19 countries around the world, Bourla said. He claimed that companies with much less experience than Pfizer would compete for the same ingredients in making vaccines without patent protection.

“Currently, virtually every gram of the raw material produced is immediately delivered to our manufacturing facilities and is instantly and reliably switched to vaccines that are immediately shipped around the world,” wrote Bourla.

He predicted that the proposed waiver “threatens to disrupt the flow of raw materials”.

Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, speaks after attending a press conference to monitor the production of the Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine at the factory of the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer in Puurs, Belgium, on April 23, 2021.

John Thys | Pool | Reuters

“It will create a mess for the critical inputs we need to make a safe and effective vaccine,” wrote Bourla.

“Companies with little or no vaccine manufacturing experience are likely hunting the very raw materials we need to scale our production, putting everyone’s safety at risk,” the CEO wrote.

The White House referred CNBC’s reach to Bourla’s post to the US sales representative’s office, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The leaders of the World Trade Organization recently called on member states to reach an agreement on possible waivers for vaccination patents. But even with the support of the US, an agreement is hardly guaranteed, since the decisions of the WTO are based on consensus and require the consent of all 164 members.

Germany, a WTO member and the largest economy in Europe, spoke out against the waiver proposal on Thursday. BioNTech, which worked with Pfizer to develop the vaccine, is based in Germany.

Bourla on LinkedIn also expressed concern that potential vaccination waivers “will discourage others from taking great risks”.

“The latest rhetoric isn’t going to stop us from continuing to invest in science. However, I’m not sure if the same is true of the thousands of tiny biotech innovators who are totally dependent on access to capital from investors who just do investing provided their intellectual property is protected, “wrote the CEO.

PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry advocacy group that includes Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, another US vaccine company, described the waiver as “an unprecedented move that will undermine our global response to the pandemic and put safety at risk”.

Meanwhile, Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel, maker of the other U.S.-approved Covid shot, said he wasn’t concerned about the possible exemptions.

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Airborne Coronavirus Is a Risk, the C.D.C. Acknowledges

Airborne Coronavirus Is a Threat, the C.D.C. Acknowledges

The federal health authorities updated the public guidelines on the spread of the coronavirus on Friday, emphasizing that the transmission occurs through inhalation of very fine respiratory droplets and aerosolized particles, as well as through contact with sprayed droplets or by touching contaminated hands with the mouth, nose or eyes.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now explicitly state – in large, bold letters – that airborne viruses can be breathed even if you are more than three feet from an infected person. The new language, released online, is a change from the agency’s previous position that most infections were acquired through “close contact, not airborne transmission”.

As the pandemic played out last year, infectious disease experts warned for months that both the CDC and the World Health Organization were overlooking research that strongly suggested the coronavirus was floating in the air in small particles. Several scientists on Friday welcomed the agency’s abolition of the term “close contact”, which they criticized as vague and which did not necessarily capture the nuances of aerosol transfer.

“Now the CDC has caught up with the latest science, got rid of some old problematic terms and thought about how the transmission happens,” said Linsey Marr, aerosol expert at Virginia Tech.

The new focus underscores the need for the federal agency for occupational safety and health to issue standards for employers to address potential hazards in the workplace, some experts said.

“They hadn’t talked much about aerosols and focused more on droplets,” said David Michaels, an epidemiologist at the George Washington School of Public Health and head of OSHA in the Obama administration.

He and other researchers expressed concern that the CDC has not yet reaffirmed its recommendations on preventing exposure to aerosolized viruses.

The new information has a significant impact on the indoor climate and especially on the workplaces, said Dr. Michaels. Virus-laden particles “retain their properties in the air for hours and accumulate in a room that is not well ventilated.”

“There’s more exposure closer,” said Dr. Michaels. “But if you are further away there is still a risk, and those particles are still in the air.”

Donald Milton, an aerosol scientist at the University of Maryland, agreed that federal officials should come up with better guidelines for workplace safety.

“We need to better focus on good breathing apparatus for people who have to be around other people for long periods of time,” said Dr. Milton. “A surgical mask, even if it’s hidden around the edges, still doesn’t give you enough protection when you’re elbow-to-elbow with other people in a meat packing facility.”

Health care workers, bus drivers, and other workers may also need respirators, said Dr. Michaels. Customers in retail stores should continue to keep their distance and wear masks, he added. Good ventilation is of the utmost importance with these settings.

Dr. Marr pointed out that an updated page on the CDC website entitled “How Covid-19 Spreads” states that inhaling the virus when people are far apart is “unusual”. The statement is “misleading and potentially harmful,” said Dr. Marr.

“If you are in a poorly ventilated area, a virus will build up in the air and everyone in that room will be exposed.”

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WHO approves Covid vaccine made by China’s Sinopharm for emergency use

WHO approves Covid vaccine made by China's Sinopharm for emergency use

On April 24, 2021, workers at Damascus International Airport in the Syrian capital unloaded boxes of the Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine donated by China.

Loua Beshara | AFP | Getty Images

The World Health Organization announced on Friday that it had approved an emergency coronavirus vaccine developed by the Chinese state-owned pharmaceutical company Sinopharm.

Beijing’s Covid vaccine is recommended for adults aged 18 and over with a double dose, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference.

The new addition to the list of usable vaccine options could accelerate efforts to control the spread of Covid-19 and its variant forms, which are causing new infections in many parts of the world.

“To solve the vaccine crisis, we have to pull out all the stops,” said Tedros.

Sinopharm’s shot is the sixth to receive WHO approval for “safety, efficacy and quality,” he said.

“Vaccines remain an important tool. However, at the moment, the volume and distribution of vaccines is insufficient to end the pandemic without the sustained and tailored application of public health measures that we know work,” said Tedros.

“The pandemic has shown that everything is at risk when health is at risk. When health is protected and promoted, individuals, families, communities, economies and nations can thrive,” he said.

The state-owned drug manufacturer’s two-dose Covid shot has already been approved for emergencies in China, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

Another Chinese shot by the private company Sinovac has not yet been approved by the WHO.

In the US, vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson have received emergency approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

WHO has granted emergency validation for these three shots as well as vaccines made by Astrazeneca-SK BIO and the Serum Institute of India.