UK To Fund Research Project That Will Infect Healthy Volunteers With Covid

Fox News: UK Aims To Infect Healthy Volunteers With COVID-19 For Medical Research
In a move seen as pushing the limits of medical ethics, the United Kingdom announced Wednesday that it will fund a project that will intentionally infect young and healthy volunteers with COVID-19 in the name of research. Reuters reported that the government will invest $43.5 million into the trials that still need the final approval by an ethics committee. The hope is that scientists will learn a great deal about the virus in a controlled setting, leading to new breakthroughs in treatment and vaccines. About 90 volunteers, between the ages of 18 and 30, are expected to take part in the "human challenge."  The study was set to take place in the high-level isolation unit of the Royal Free Hospital in London, according to the Lancet. (DeMarche, 2/16)

Reuters: Great Escape? UK To Return To Work By July, Daily Mail Says 
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is considering a staged exit from COVID-19 lockdown that would see the United Kingdom’s battered economy fully returning to work in July, the Daily Mail reported, citing government plans. ... The Mail said a limited escape from lockdown would begin in April with holiday lets and larger hotels reopening, though pubs, bars and restaurants would have to wait until May. Some sports such as golf and tennis could resume. (Faulconbridge, 2/17)

AP: Pfizer-BioNTech To Get EU 200 Million More COVID-19 Shots
Pfizer and BioNTech said Wednesday they have finalized an agreement to supply the European Union with another 200 million doses of their COVID-19 vaccine. The U.S. and German companies said in a statement that the doses come on top of the 300 million vaccine doses initially ordered. The EU’s executive Commission has an option to request a further 100 million doses. (2/17)

The Washington Post: Spread Of S. African Variant In Eastern France Triggers Calls To Suspend AstraZeneca Vaccine Rollout To Health Workers
Concern about the spread of coronavirus variants in eastern France has prompted an acceleration of vaccination in that region, as well as calls to suspend the rollout of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to the health-care workers there who had been first in line to get it. AstraZeneca vaccinations in France began only Feb. 6. But the French government’s top vaccine adviser, Alain Fischer, suggested in a weekend interview with the Journal du Dimanche newspaper that health workers in Moselle — where variants first detected in South Africa and in Brazil are suspected to be particularly widespread — should not receive that particular vaccine, one of three authorized in the European Union. (Noack, 2/16)

Reuters: Japan Begins COVID-19 Vaccination In 'First Major Step' To Halt Pandemic 
Japan launched its COVID-19 inoculation drive on Wednesday, administering the Pfizer-BionTech vaccine to Tokyo hospital workers, as Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga attempts to beat the odds and host the Olympics this summer. Workers at Tokyo Medical Center were among the first of some 40,000 medical professionals targeted to receive the initial shipments of the vaccine. They will be followed by 3.7 million more medical personnel, then 36 million people aged 65 and over. (Takenaka, 2/16)

In other global developments —

The Wall Street Journal: Canada Weighs Buybacks Of AR-15 Style Rifles Used In U.S. Shootings 
Canada is introducing new gun-control legislation that would make it possible for individual cities to ban handguns at a local level and says it will create a buyback program for military-style semiautomatic weapons that were banned from use by the country’s Liberal government last year. The planned legislation will also create new offenses for altering a magazine to allow more shots to be fired without reloading, and develop a system that would allow concerned friends or family members to apply to a court and request the immediate, temporary removal of an individual’s firearms. (Mackrael, 2/16)