The Biden administration is planning to commit billions of dollars to build up vaccine manufacturing in the US to produce at least one billion doses each year. This is aimed to shore up global Covid-19 supply for poorer countries while also pre-empting future pandemics. As a public-private partnership, the government will employ knowledge from companies that already use mRNA technology to make vaccines.

Last Tuesday, the giant pharmaceutical Pfizer announced it signed an agreement to allow global access to its experimental Covid-19 pill, Paxlovid. The deal was made with the Medicines Patent Pool, a United Nations-backed health organisation, granting generic manufacturers to make the pill widely available in 95 low- and middle-income countries, reaching 53% of the world population.

The US Food and Drug Administration FDA approved this Friday Pfizer and Moderna vaccines as booster shots for all adults. This move expands the previous approval for elderly and those at high risk. Under this scenario, any adult who received a second dose of the vaccine at least six months earlier would be officially eligible to get a booster as soon as this weekend.

Even though 65% of the Austrian population is fully vaccinated against Covid, authorities announced a lockdown for those who are not. The Chancellor declared that this measure will come into effect next Monday 15 in an effort to deal with a surge in infections. The Austrian health minister said the action would initially last 10 days.

Last year, many countries were slow in placing orders to get the vaccines against Covid from Pfizer, Moderna or Astra-Zeneca. This, of course, caused a delay in their vaccination efforts. A sign of hope is on the horizon… an anti-Covid pill produced by Merck. The name of the pill – Molnupiravir.

The tablet hasn’t been authorised yet… Merck is seeking emergency authorisation from The Food and Drug Administration FDA.

The arrival of the Delta variant has shifted the course of the pandemic since it’s more transmissible than the previous variants and has become the dominant one across the world. New research from ZOE COVID Study shows that Delta has changed the symptoms of the infection.