Brazil Covid deaths pass 3,000 for first time; EU to tighten export rules to stop one-way flow of vaccines; new US surgeon general to focus on Covid, opioids
- EU to widen criteria for possible Covid vaccine bans
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- UK and EU may share Netherlands vaccine supplies to ease tensions
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The European Commission will tighten its export guidelines on Wednesday to prevent what it sees as an unfair one-way flow of vaccines, according to a draft seen by AFP.
Brussels has been infuriated that Britain has laid claim to vaccines produced at a plant in the Netherlands by AstraZeneca, while the UK-based firm falls short on deliveries promised to the EU.
On Tuesday, Bolsonaro received a fresh setback when Brazil’s Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal against several states’ measures restricting economic activity to slow contagion, according to a document seen by Reuters.
The country’s federally funded Fiocruz Institute, which is producing the AstraZeneca vaccine that serves as the cornerstone of the government’s vaccine rollout, said on Tuesday it would only deliver 18.8 million shots in April, down from an initial forecast of 30 million. It said it was working as hard as possible to speed up manufacturing and deliver reliable production estimates.
Only 2.6% of Brazilian adults have so far received two vaccines doses, according to a Fiocruz survey, while 7.6% of the population, or 12.1 million people, have received one shot.
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) regional director for the Americas, Carissa Etienne, said on Tuesday that the virus is surging “dangerously” across Brazil, and urged all Brazilians to adopt preventive measures to stop the spread.
