International policy updates

Vaccines update

• Africa’s largest drug maker, Aspen Pharmacare, announced a deal this week to manufacture 300 million doses a year of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine currently in development.  
• Could a nasal spray act in place of a vaccine? A small study at Colombia university suggests that using a daily spritz up the nose would act like a vaccine, the trial has yet to extend to human participants but the study is encouraging.
• AstraZeneca is to begin mid-stage clinical trials in China. If the trials are successful, then Shenzhen Kangtai, a large drug manufacturer in Beijin, has signed a deal to manufacture 100 million doses.
• Hungary to import small quantities of the Russian made Sputnik V vaccine from January 2021. Russia has already agreed to supply the vaccine to Brazil and Argentina. Argentina will receive 10 million doses initially, but has signed a deal for 25 million.
• The UK has approved plans to use artificial intelligence to track and report ‘adverse events’ and side effects of a coronavirus vaccine. The MHRA has procured a £1.96 million contract to Genpact to design a machine learning system that can decipher reports of side effects and pick up on safety concerns.
• Canada has released preliminary guidance for populations to be prioritised for early immunisation, which includes those at high risk (including advanced age) and workers essential to maintaining the COVID-19 response.
• Bahrain has granted emergency approval for the use of a Chinese vaccine candidate currently in phase III trials on frontline workers, state news agency BNA said. Reports say that 7,700 frontline workers have signed up for the vaccine so far.

Europe

• Denmark will cull it’s mink population, after the country finds 214 people with mink related coronavirus infections since June. Culling begun late in October, and the government plan to cull 15 million minks “as soon as possible”.
• France ordered large retailers to stop selling ‘non-essential’ goods and the Economic Ministry has published a definitive list of items that are allowed to be sold.
• Italy will lock down six regions, and will prevent people from crossing between them.
• Slovakia launched a huge logistical operation to test the entire country for coronavirus. More than 40,000 doctors, and support teams of soldiers, administrative workers and volunteers staffed around 5,000 sites. Only 1% of those tested gave a positive result, and a second round of tests is planned for next weekend.
• Cyprus announces curfew as COVID-19 cases rise, the curfew on movement from 11pm to 5am will remain in force until 30 November.

North America

• Ontario, Canada, has brought in colour coded virus system that has five levels ranging from the ‘prevent’ tier (green) to the most restrictive ‘lockdown’.
• Speaking at a session of the weeklong  51st Union World Conference on Lung Health, Dr. Anthony Fauci said that he is 'cautiously optimistic' that at least one COVID-19 vaccine will be available by December.

Middle East

• Bahrain has granted emergency approval for the use of a Chinese vaccine candidate currently in phase III trials on frontline workers, state news agency BNA said. Reports say that 7,700 frontline workers have signed up for the vaccine so far.
• A team from LSHTM used very high resolution satellite imagery to quantify burial activity across all identifiable cemeteries in the Aden governate, Yemen. The study estimated that there are 2,100 excess deaths in the region.
• Lebanon’s daily COVID-19 cases rise above 2,000 per day for the first time.

Asia

• China has temporarily stopped those arriving from Bangladesh, Belgium, Britain, India or the Philippines from entering the country. Additional new travel rules include requiring travellers to obtain both a nucleic acid test for the coronavirus and a blood test for antibodies.

International COVID-19 analysis

Below is the latest international comparison of COVID-19 data using WHO published figures. As mentioned before, country to country comparison has some limitations because of the variation in approach, data collection and testing.

Data from 05/11/2020:

• Worldwide, there have now been 47,930,397 confirmed cases and 1,221,781 COVID-19 deaths, an increase of 8.1% for cases (3,578,880 more cases) and 4.3% for deaths (50,526 more) since last week. This suggest that the worldwide cases and deaths continue to rise at a steady rate.
• This week, the UK passed the 1 million mark with 1,099,063 cases, accounting for 2.3% of world cases. The number of UK deaths accounts for 3.9% of world deaths (47,742). The UK remains ranked at 9^th this week and remains the country with the highest death toll in Europe. Globally, the UK has the fifth highest number of deaths.
• Overall, cases in Europe continue to rise. Cases in the UK increased by 16.6% (down from 19.4% last week, 156,784 more cases). Italy continues to experience a significant rise in cases as cases increased by 34% to 790,377 (up from 31.2% last week). Cases in France increased by 25.5% since last week (down from 29.8% last week, 306,247 more cases). Similar to the previous week, Spain experienced a 13% increase in cases in the past week (13.1% last week, 147,905 more cases).
• The USA remains the country with the most cases and deaths in the world, accounting for 19.4% of world cases (9,281,928) and 18.9% of total deaths (231,034 deaths). India remains the country with the second highest number of cases in the world. Cases in India increased by 4% to 8,364,086 (down from 4.3% but 323,883 more cases) and deaths increased by 3.2% to 124,315.
• Cases in Latin America also continue to rise. Argentina experienced a 7.1% increase in cases in the past week, bringing their total number of cases to 1,196,412. Although Brazil remains the country with the third highest number of cases, cases appear to be slowing down (2.3% or 126,408 more cases since last week). Columbia experienced a 6.4% increase in cases in the past week, bringing their total number of cases to 1,099,392.
• South Africa remains the worst affected country in Africa with 730,548 recorded cases and 19,585 deaths.
• Currently England has 14 times more cases than Scotland (69,660 cases), 17 times more cases than Wales (56,927 cases) and 23 more cases than Northern Ireland (41,374 cases) (PHE data).