• Vaccines, Biden administration supports patent revocation

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  • Boris Johnson: restrictions in Great Britain relaxed from 12 April.

    But it's early for overseas travel

  • Use: yes to travel for the vaccinated, but with masks and precautions

  • Travel to the EU, on return to a buffer and a mandatory 5-day quarantine

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May 06, 2021 "A few kilometers from Florence there is a small village, Barbiana, where Don Milani wrote 'I Care' in English on the school wall. He told the students that those were the most important words to learn. ' Care 'means assuming responsibility. Europeans have demonstrated with their actions what it means. This must be Europe's motto. We Care "



Thus the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, during the" The State of the Union ", an annual event organized in Florence by the European University Institute.



"There could be no better place than Florence to celebrate Europe Day this year" said von der Leyen in Italian, to underline the passage within a speech delivered in English, participating in videoconference in the tenth edition of the event .



"Florence is the city of the Renaissance, the place where it all began, a new beginning for the arts and science after the great plague epidemic of the late Middle Ages. And from Florence the spirit of the Renaissance spread to the rest of Europe" . "The history of Europe is a history of Renaissance". "After every crisis there was a Renaissance and this is what Europe now needs. Europe is capable of overcoming crises". "Today I am here to say that Europe has shown that the Union of Democracies can achieve goals for European citizens and the rest of the world".



"Italy was right"


"The European Union was not designed to fight a pandemic", but "I remember very well the first days of the pandemic and the call to Europe that came from Italy. The Italian people asked Europe to intervene" and "had reason".



Vaccine, EU success, deliveries on the rise


"It is clear that the European vaccination campaign is a success, because 'what matters are neither the confused headlines from certain foreign countries nor the claims on social media about the so-called vaccine diplomacy" . "What matters is the daily delivery of ever-increasing doses" for "our people and the whole world." 



We vaccinate 30 people per second


"So far some 200 million doses have been distributed in the European Union", which is enough "to vaccinate half of Europe's adult population at least once" and "we are currently vaccinating 30 Europeans per second" and "three million per day" . "Neither China nor Russia comes close to these numbers," he added. The president then said she was "confident" that the Union "will be able to supply doses for at least 70% of the EU adult population by July".



Available on US proposal for patents


"We are open to discussing how the US proposal for a waiver of intellectual rights protection for Covid vaccines that can help" counter the pandemic globally. "But in the short term we ask the countries that produce vaccines to allow exports and avoid measures that put the production chain in crisis". 



UK and US faster, EU open to the world


In the vaccination campaign "Countries like the US and the UK were faster at the start", but "Europe has achieved this success by remaining open to the rest of the world" and today "it is the leading exporter of doses globally" with "over 200 million doses shipped to the rest of the world". 



1,8 billion Pfizer doses to avoid new wave


"I am happy to announce that we are close to signing a new contract with BioNTech and Pfizer that will allow the delivery of 1.8 billion doses until 2023 and other contracts will follow." "Vaccines are our insurance policy against the next wave of Covid-19".