Fears of a new wave of "Corona" amid the spread of mutated strains

America licenses the Johnson & Johnson vaccine ... and Biden confirms continued caution

An elderly woman expresses her joy after being vaccinated in Colombia.

A.F.B.

The United States granted an emergency license to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine against the emerging corona virus (Covid-19), in a move welcomed by President Joe Biden, calling at the same time to continue caution in the face of the pandemic, and federal officials in America expressed their concern about A new wave of "Corona" occurs amid the spread of mutated strains.

The Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine, which can be stored at refrigerator temperatures, joined the vaccines of Pfizer-Biontech and Moderna, with the massive vaccination campaign in the United States, where the pandemic killed more than 500 thousand people.

After a detailed study of clinical trial data, conducted on more than 43,000 people, a panel of experts recommended, on Friday, the marketing of the American Johnson & Johnson vaccine, and the US government announced that there are at least three million doses of the vaccine ready for distribution as of next week. The company pledged to supply 100 million doses to the United States by the end of June.

Biden said in a statement: "This is good news for all Americans, and an encouraging step in our efforts to end the crisis, but we cannot now give up caution or consider victory as inevitable."

With the order of 600 million doses from "Pfizer" and "Moderna", the United States will have, by the end of next July, enough vaccines to vaccinate almost the entire population, but giving the green light to the "Johnson & Johnson" vaccine would accelerate the vaccination campaign further. .

In addition, federal officials in the United States expressed their concern that the decline in daily cases of Corona virus at the national level began to flatten with the increase of one of the strains, which is the strain that appeared in Britain, throughout the country.

Officials warned that some states should ease restrictions imposed to prevent "Covid-19", saying that the nation is still in a precarious situation and may turn into a fourth wave before more residents are vaccinated, "Los Angeles Times" reported.

"We are in this precarious situation, which we were in right before the increase in cases in the fall," said the chief infectious disease expert in the United States, Anthony Fauci, in a press release.

He added, "We do not want to be people who always look at the dark side of things, but you must be realistic, so we have to look carefully at what will happen during the next week before the restrictions are eased."

Andy Slavitt, chief adviser for the White House team to confront "Covid-19", said: "We cannot say this in stronger terms. We think it is wrong to ease restrictions too early, especially in light of the speeding up of our vaccination efforts now."

South Africa, the country most affected by the virus in the continent, received a second shipment of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, as the country works to accelerate the vaccination campaign.

According to local media, about 80,000 vaccines arrived from Brussels by plane, and according to the Ministry of Health, more than 64,600 health workers in the public and private sectors have been vaccinated, since the launch of the national vaccination campaign 11 days ago.

The Corona virus has caused the death of two million 526 thousand, and 75 people in the world, since the outbreak of the epidemic in December 2019, according to a census conducted by Agence France-Presse, according to official sources.

More than 113 million and 758 thousand and 510 people have been infected with the virus since its emergence, and at least 69 million and 695 thousand and 100 people have been cured, and the day before yesterday, 8,713 additional deaths, 395,666 new infections were recorded in the world.

The United States tops the list of countries most affected by the epidemic, with 511,998 deaths, followed by Brazil, which recorded 254,221 deaths, then Mexico, where the number of deaths reached 185,257 cases.

• America will have enough vaccines to vaccinate its population by July.

• Two million 526 thousand deaths from the Coronavirus around the world.

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