Israel Has Vaccinated Half Its Population; China OKs 2 New Vaccines

Bloomberg: Israel Covid Vaccination Milestone As Half The Population Given At Least 1 Dose
Israel has now vaccinated half its population against Covid-19, another milestone on the way to subduing the pandemic. More than 4.6 million people have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, according to Health Ministry data released Friday. With nearly 8% of the country having recovered from the disease and likely developing some resistance to reinfection, that could bring Israel closer to herd immunity. Vaccinating about 60% to 70% of the population should be enough to rein in infections, illness and death, estimates Raina MacIntyre, a professor of biosecurity at the University of New South Wales, based off the latest data from Israel. (Benmeleh, 2/26)

AP: China Approves Two More COVID-19 Vaccines For Wider Use
China approved two more COVID-19 vaccines for wider use Thursday, adding to its growing arsenal of shots. The National Medical Products Administration gave conditional approval to a vaccine from CanSino Biologics and a second one from state-owned Sinopharm. Both are already being used among select groups of people under an emergency use authorization. China now has four vaccines to immunize its population. (Wu, 2/25)

The New York Times: Germans Clamor For Covid Vaccines, But Shun AstraZeneca’s Offering 
At the start of the year, many Germans were complaining about a shortage of coronavirus vaccines that could free them from onerous lockdowns and limited social lives. Just weeks later, many are now upset that they’re not getting the vaccine they want. As people around the world clamor for inoculations, and many countries have seen severe shortages, a preference for a vaccine developed by the German company BioNTech with Pfizer, is causing a pileup in Germany of the shot developed by AstraZeneca, a British-Swedish company, according to state health officials. (Eddy, 2/25)

NBC News: COVAX: Why Biden's Billions Won't Fix Covid Vaccine Inequality Worldwide
It seemed like a windfall in the campaign to vaccinate the world. President Joe Biden last week announced $4 billion for a humanitarian program called COVAX — short for Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access plan — which aims to fairly distribute vaccines between rich countries and the developing world. (Smith, 2/26)

Also —

Bloomberg: EU Told To Back Vaccine Passports Or Google May Do It Anyway
European Union leaders inched toward establishing bloc-wide vaccine certificates to enable countries to reopen to travel as Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned that unless they hurry Apple Inc. and Google will step into the vacuum. During a five-hour video call, the EU’s 27 leaders focused on how to haul their nations back to a form of normalcy after a pandemic that’s claimed more than 500,000 lives and shut down large parts of their economies. While there was broad support for certificates of some sort, leaders didn’t agree on the type of privileges they would grant. (Wishart, Dendrinou and Delfs, 2/25)

Reuters: Don't Be Selfish - Get A COVID Shot, Says UK's Queen Elizabeth 
Britain’s 94-year-old Queen Elizabeth, who last month had her first COVID-19 vaccination dose, has encouraged the public to follow suit, saying it did not hurt and those who were wary should think of others. The monarch and her 99-year-old husband Prince Philip, who is currently in hospital with a non-COVID infection, received their shots from a household doctor at the queen’s Windsor Castle residence, with their age putting them in the priority group for England’s coronavirus vaccine rollout. (2/26)

AP: Hold It! Belgian Govt Warns Against Using Its Own Free Masks
Ten months after promising free cloth facemasks to protect all Belgians from COVID-19, the country’s government is having second thoughts — warning they could be dangerous and shouldn’t be used. Belgian authorities said the masks contain miniscule traces of silver and a chemical compound that initial studies now show could affect the respiratory system when inhaled deeply. More studies are continuing. (2/25)

The Hill: State Dept Says It 'Never Agreed' To China Giving US Diplomats COVID-19 Anal Tests 
Chinese officials who forced American diplomats to undergo an anal swab for COVID-19 testing did so "in error," the State Department told The Hill on Thursday, as Beijing denies it conducted the tests at all. The Washington Post reported last week that U.S. officials had said some American personnel in China complained that they were being subjected to anal swab tests for coronavirus by Chinese authorities. (Kelly, 2/25)