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Added on the 10/06/2021 14:00:00 - Copyright : EFE Inglés
The EU is to donate another 200 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to low-income countries, more than doubling its present pledge, the bloc's chief Ursula von der Leyen announces. SOUNDBITE
The United States commits to donating 80 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine abroad by the end of the month, White House Covid-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients says during a news briefing. "We will continue to donate additional doses across the summer months as supply becomes available," Zients says. SOUNDBITE
Starting in two weeks, states with the speediest vaccine rollouts will be prioritized. The prioritization will be for additional doses, US officials announced Tuesday. The new system is meant to incentivize states to promptly record vaccinations. It will also prevent doses from sitting in freezers, says Business Insider. But it could also punish states that lack the funding or resources to accelerate vaccine administration. The strategy is set to take effect after President-elect Joe Biden takes office.
California biotech company Vaxart is under federal investigation and is being sued by a number of investors. According to CNN, Vaxart was served with a grand jury subpoena in July from the US District Court for the Northern District of California. It's under fire for exaggerating its involvement in the US government's Operation Warp Speed program for developing COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. Vaxart issued a June press release saying 'Vaxart's Covid-19 Vaccine Selected for the US Government's Operation Warp Speed.' The news pumped Vaxart's stock price from $3 to $17. Hedge fund Armistice Capital, which partly controlled Vaxart, sold its shares, profiting more than $200m. A few weeks before it announced its supposed inclusion in the Operation Warp Speed program, Vaxart granted amendments to its warrants agreements. That allowed Armistice to sell almost all of their stock, which they did once the stock price skyrocketed. In July, the HHS said it had neither entered into a funding agreement nor negotiations with Vaxart.
The Nobel Prize for Medicine is awarded jointly to Hungarian biochemist Katalin Kariko and American physician Drew Weissman for their work on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology that led to the creation of Covid-19 vaccinations. SOUNDBITE