Coronavirus live news: Trump will ‘absolutely’ encourage Americans to take Covid vaccine, says press secretary | World news

Nearly one in four people may not get Covid-19 vaccines until at least 2022 because rich countries with less than 15% of the global population have reserved 51% of the doses of the most promising vaccines, researchers said.

Low- and middle-income countries – home to more than 85% of the world’s population – would have to share the remainder, said researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the US.

An effective response to the pandemic requires high-income countries “to share in an equitable distribution of Covid-19 vaccines across the world”, they wrote.

“The uncertainty over global access to Covid-19 vaccines traces not only to ongoing clinical testing, but also from the failure of governments and vaccine manufacturers to be more transparent and accountable over these arrangements,” they added.

As of 15 November, high-income nations had pre-ordered nearly 7.5bn doses of vaccines from 13 manufacturers, the paper said.

This included Japan, Australia and Canada who collectively have more than 1bn doses but accounted for less than 1% of current Covid-19 cases, it said.

Even if leading manufacturers’ vaccines reach their projected maximum production capacity, nearly 25% of the world’s population may not get the vaccines for another year or more, according to the paper.

The US president, Donald Trump, will “absolutely” encourage Americans to take Covid-19 vaccines and will receive a vaccine himself as soon as his medical team determines it’s best, the White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has said.

But the Republican president also wanted to show that vulnerable Americans are the top priority to receive the vaccines, she told reporters at a White House briefing.

McEnany said some career national security staff would have access to vaccines to ensure a continuity of government, along with a “very small group” of senior administration officials for the purpose of instilling public confidence.

Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest developments for the next few hours.

As always, you can find me on Twitter @helenrsullivan.

US president, Donald Trump, will “absolutely” encourage Americans to take Covid-19 vaccines and will receive a vaccine himself as soon as his medical team determines it’s best, the White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has said.

But the Republican president also wanted to show that vulnerable Americans are the top priority to receive the vaccines, she told reporters at a White House briefing.

Nearly one in four people may not get Covid-19 vaccines until at least 2022 because rich countries with less than 15% of the global population have reserved 51% of the doses of the most promising vaccines, researchers said.

Here are the other key developments:

• EU countries could begin inoculations as soon as this year, the head of the European commission said. This followed the decision by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to bring forward its possible approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine by eight days to 21 December.
• The US Food and Drug Administration raised no new concerns over data on Moderna vaccine in documents made public on Tuesday. It prepared the way for US authorisation of a second, easier-to-handle vaccine.
• Germany, France, Italy and five other European states will coordinate the start of their Covid-19 vaccination campaigns, the countries’ health ministers said. The countries will promote “the coordination of the launch of the vaccination campaigns” and will rapidly share information on how it is proceeding, the statement said, along with other commitments on areas such as transparency.
• Turkey has recorded 235 more deaths – its highest one-day tally since the pandemic began – bringing its total death toll to 16,881. According to the health ministry, Turkey also recorded 32,102 new cases, including asymptomatic ones, in the last 24 hours. For four months, Ankara only reported daily symptomatic cases but has reported all cases since 25 November.
• The US president, Donald Trump, will “absolutely” encourage Americans to take Covid-19 vaccines and will receive a vaccine himself as soon as his medical team determines it’s best. The White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the Republican president also wanted to show that vulnerable Americans are the top priority to receive the vaccines.
• Germany had reportedly been pressuring EU authorities to speed up the approval of a vaccine. The chancellor Angela Merkel’s office and Germany’s health ministry want the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to bring forward the approval date for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to 23 December from 29 December, the German newspaper Bild said, citing unnamed sources.