Nations wait for first shots

Despite the growing deployment of coronavirus vaccine boosters in many wealthy countries, many poorer nations are unlikely to see extra shots in the near future as they struggle to administer initial doses, according to one of the architects of Covax, a World Health Organisation-backed initiative to share doses around the globe.

Seth Berkley, an American medical epidemiologist who serves as chief executive of the GAVI vaccine alliance and helped to set up Covax, said he expected some extra doses to eventually be given out through Covax, but that supply problems limited any near-term possibilities.

Many low- and lower-middleincome nations have relied on Covax for substantial portions of their vaccine supplies.

US federal regulators yesterday authorised PfizerBioNTech and Moderna vaccine boosters for all adults in the United States. Booster shots are also available for part or all of the population in a number of countries, including the United Kingdom, Israel and China.

The WHO, under DirectorGeneral Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has called for a moratorium on booster shots in wealthy countries, saying they are using most of the doses that manufacturers are able to produce, and are being given even to those at comparatively low risk, as poor countries struggle to vaccinate even their most vulnerable people.

Six times more booster shots were being given worldwide than the number of first doses

being given in low-income countries, Ghebreyesus said last week, calling the inequality ‘‘a scandal that must stop now’’.

Berkley said governments should prioritise a health worker who had not been vaccinated over ‘‘an 18-year-old or 15-yearold that has very little risk of severe disease if they do get [Covid-19]’’.

Covax was set up to pool money from nations to buy doses, effectively ensuring that wealthy nations helped to subsidise doses for poorer nations. But the programme has struggled, initially with funding

and the fact that wealthy nations had stepped in with enormous pre-orders, but later with delivery problems and an export ban in India, where many Covax doses were being manufactured.

The Covid Global Accountability Platform issued a new analysis this week that indicated that nearly all lowincome countries, including most African countries, were at high risk of not reaching a 40 percent vaccination target by the end of 2021.

■ A Victorian child under 10 became Australia’s youngest person to die with Covid-19 as

large crowds gathered at proand anti-vaccination rallies in Melbourne yesterday.

The state reported 1166 new infections yesterday as active cases dived to 9581, down by about 30 per cent from Friday.

Previously, a 15-year-old from southwest Sydney was the youngest known person in Australia to die with the virus.

Organiser Nahui Jimenez said the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism rallies in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth yesterday were designed to draw public attention to the ‘‘growth of conspiratorial, anti-human and fascistic politics’’.

‘‘Hostility to vaccines has become a gateway to the far Right globally,’’ she said. Figures associated with the neo-Nazi movement have joined antivaccination and anti-lockdown protests, and a crowd staged a mock execution of Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews on Monday.

Austria yesterday announced a national lockdown and a plan to mandate vaccinations as coronavirus infections hit a record high, forcing the government to walk back promises that strict shutdowns were a thing of the past.

A blanket requirement would be a first for a Western country. Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg said those who didn’t comply were likely to be fined, but gave no other details.

Vaccinations in Austria have plateaued at one of the lowest rates in Western Europe, and as hospitals in heavily hit states have warned that their intensive care units are reaching capacity. Average daily deaths have tripled in recent weeks.

Earlier this month, Schallenberg indicated that a full lockdown would not be needed, and instead imposed the restrictions only on those not vaccinated.

The lockdown will start tomorrow and initially will last for 10 days, when it will be reevaluated.

Starting on February 1, Austria will also make vaccinations mandatory. Just under 66 per cent of the country’s 8.9 million people are fully vaccinated, according to government figures.