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Australian regulator approved AstraZeneca vaccine as second COVID-19 vaccine
CANBERRA, Australia – The Australian regulator on Tuesday approved the AstraZeneca vaccine as a second vaccine against COVID-19.
Pfizer’s product will be available in Australia next week. It will be given in two doses three weeks apart, while AstraZeneca will be given as two doses 12 weeks apart.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the Therapeutic Goods Administration, the regulatory body, had concluded that the AstraZeneca vaccine was safe and effective.
Health Minister Greg Hunt said the AstraZeneca vaccine would prevent serious COVID-19 disease.
Morrison will be vaccinated with the Pfizer product and Hunt with AstraZeneca in a demonstration of confidence in both vaccines.
Australia has contracted 53.8 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, of which 50 million will be manufactured in Australia.
The government has also obtained 20 million Pfizer vaccines for a population of 26 million.
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THE VIRUS EPIDEMIC:
– Hospitals still have to ration N95 medical masks even as stocks swell by millions
– Vaccination delays leave grocery store workers feeling exhausted
– Dramatic drop in virus cases in India leaves experts perplexed
– Explain the United Nations vaccination plan for poor countries as it approaches its deployment
– Mardi Gras muted: bars closed, rue Bourbon barricaded
– Follow all of AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic, https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
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HERE’S WHAT ELSE HAPPENS:
WELLINGTON, New Zealand – New Zealand has not reported any new cases of the virus in the community for a second day, raising hopes that a lockdown in Auckland will be lifted on Wednesday.
The three-day lockdown on New Zealand’s largest city was the country’s first in six months.
Lawmakers say their final decision on whether to lift the lockdown will depend on any new information or cases that arise the next day.
The lockdown was triggered by the diagnoses of three family members, but how they got it remains a mystery.
The mother works at a catering company that does laundry for airlines, and a possible link to infected passengers is being investigated. So far, other people at his workplace have tested negative, officials said.
Health officials stepped up testing, administering more than 15,000 tests on Monday and processing the results of nearly 6,000.
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TEL AVIV, Israel – Dr Anthony Fauci has won the Dan David million dollar award for ‘defending the science’ and advocating for the vaccines currently being given to protect people from the coronavirus.
The Israel-based Dan David Foundation on Monday named President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser as the recipient of one of three awards. He said he had gained recognition during his lifetime of leadership in HIV research and AIDS relief, as well as his advocacy for COVID-19 vaccines.
In its statement, the private foundation did not mention former President Donald Trump, who undermined Fauci’s scientific follow-up approach to the pandemic. But he credited Fauci with “courageously defending science in the face of uninformed opposition during the difficult COVID crisis”.
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