The admission came from Pfizer chairman Albert Bourla who told US media the pharmaceutical company was “not certain” if the vaccine prevented the coronavirus from being transmitted.
“This is something that needs to be examined,” he told Dateline. “We are not certain about that right now with what we know.”
This week, the UK became the first Western country to approve Pfizer’s vaccine and the first jabs will take place next week.
That decision came after Pfizer announced that its vaccine had been shown to be more than 90 percent effective at preventing COVID-19.
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NSW Health have released an update on Sydney’s new case of COVID-19: a staff member at the city’s quarantine hotels.
According to the department, the woman’s viral genome sequence “does not match the virus strains seen in recent clusters in Australia”.
“The virus may be of United States origin. The source of infection may be international aircrew who were self-isolating in the hotel at the time, however investigations are continuing,” a statement said.
“NSW is working with Commonwealth agencies to identify potential COVID-19 cases among aircrew who stayed at the hotel, who may have since departed Australia.
“Testing of close contacts of the case, and other staff at the hotel complex, is continuing. No further cases have been identified so far.”
Blake Antrobus, NCA NewsWire
NSW health authorities have conducted fewer tests in the last 24 hours despite a new case of coronavirus being announced.
One new case, a female hotel quarantine worker, was disclosed on Thursday.
Picture: NCA NewsWire/James Gourley
Despite the confirmation dominating headlines and causing a push for more testing, health authorities conducted 2178 fewer coronavirus tests than the previous 24 hours.
There were 11,128 tests reported to 8pm on Thursday night compared with 13,306 in the previous 24 hours.
Western Australia’s Premier Mark McGowan has said that while his state’s hard border will finally come down to Victoria on Tuesday, a final decision on NSW has not yet been made.
Mr McGowan said that WA, where two new cases have been recorded in the last 24 hours (returned travellers from the US in hotel quarantine), will now announce the decision on what happens with NSW on Monday.
The state’s initial plan to let NSW residents back in has been thrown into jeopardy by the infected hotel quarantine worker in Sydney.
Victorians will enjoy even greater freedoms when it comes to mask use, the state’s chief health officer Brett Sutton has said.
Residents can expect the announcement on Sunday – when Premier Daniel Andrews will reveal the next round of rule changes across the state.
Professor Sutton hinted they’ll “move to a phase where there is even more limited use of masks in public”.
Changes coming on masks on Sunday@VictorianCHO “we will move to a phase where there is even more limited use of masks in public”
— Rafael Epstein (@Raf_Epstein) December 4, 2020
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Mr Andrews announced on November 22 that for the first time in three months, masks would no longer be mandatory to wear when Victorians were outside.
Currently, residents are only required to wear a mask when indoors or on public transport – or in places outside where social distancing is not possible.
“If you go to Bunnings and you are inside the store, you are not wearing a mask. If you are in the car park, you do not have to wear your mask,” Mr Andrews explained.
“But if you are queueing up for a sausage, and you are with other people, and you are simply not keeping a distance, you are part of a crowd, you need to put the mask on.”
The Premier said earlier this week that his announcement this weekend will be “good news for many people right across Victoria and it’ll mark a really important phase as we lock in a set of rules for a few months for that COVID-safe summer”.
Former US presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton as well as President-elect Joe Biden are volunteering to take a coronavirus vaccine on camera if it will help promote public confidence.
Biden told CNN in an interview that he would be willing to be vaccinated in public after government approval of vaccines, specifically saying he would rely on Fauci to say it was safe.
“It’s important to communicate to the American people it’s safe,” the 78-year-old said. “It’s safe to do this.”
Picture: Chandan Khanna/AFP
Obama, in an interview with SiriusXM radio, said he would be inoculated if top US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci signs off on a Covid-19 vaccine.
“If Anthony Fauci tells me this vaccine is safe, and can vaccinate, you know, immunize you from getting Covid, absolutely, I’m going to take it,” Obama said.
“I promise you that when it’s been made for people who are less at risk, I will be taking it,” he said.
“I may end up taking it on TV or having it filmed, just so that people know that I trust this science, and what I don’t trust is getting Covid,” Obama said.
Freddy Ford, Bush’s chief of staff, told CNN the former president also wanted to help promote vaccination.
“First, the vaccines need to be deemed safe and administered to the priority populations,” Ford told CNN.
“Then, president Bush will get in line for his, and will gladly do so on camera.”
Angel Urena, Clinton’s press secretary, told CNN the former president would also be up for getting a vaccine in public on television.
-AFP
Though the source of Sydney’s new COVID-19 infection is yet to be officially determined, NSW’s health minister said it is “highly likely” the hotel quarantine staff member caught it at work.
Health Minister Brad Hazzard said the woman likely caught the virus from overseas travellers or aircrew that stayed at the hotels she was working at.
“The virus is not part of our locally transmitted viruses, it appears it has come from overseas,” he said.
“We have more work to do to work out where it has come from, but highly likely it came from the hotel or possibly aircrew that of course can stay overnight, stay for a few days, before they turn around and go back overseas.”
Mr Hazzard said the case was “definitely not” locally transmitted, labelling it “extremely good news” for NSW Health and the wider community.
“It is a massive relief, massive relief my point of view as Health Minister. But we still have work to do, we still have work to determine which aircrew or person from overseas, possibly in the hotel, managed to transmit it and how stop so I will work on that,” he said.
Mr Hazzard said NSW was the “gold standard” of contact tracing but there was always risk with returning overseas travellers.
“When we are having returning travellers coming in from some of the most virus infested countries in the world, you have do expect that on occasions we might have some challenges,” he said.
“But as long as we can trace, we can track, we can isolate, that is what our gold standard health teams do. It removes our worries.”
NSW authorities are still scrambling to find the source of infection for a hotel quarantine worker who was diagnosed with the virus yesterday.
The case, which was included in today’s numbers, is a woman who worked at the Ibis Hotel in Darling Harbour and the Novotel.
Five infections were also recorded in overseas travellers undergoing hotel quarantine.
Health authorities are struggling to figure out how the hotel worker contracted the virus.
“The source of the case in the hotel quarantine worker remains under investigation,” NSW Health said.
“Urgent genome sequencing is underway to help determine whether this infection was acquired through work at the hotel quarantine facility or from elsewhere in the community.
“Results are expected in the next 24 hours.”
Close contacts of the case are still being tested, with no positive results recorded so far.
After further investigation, some staff at the Novotel Hotel who worked on November 27 are being tested and placed in isolation.
This is in addition those who have already been identified as working on November 28, 29 and 30.
Queensland has recorded no new locally acquired cases of COVID-19.
The state recorded two new cases detected in overseas travellers in hotel quarantine.
Friday, December 4 – coronavirus cases in Queensland:
• 2 new case acquired overseas
• 10 active cases
• 1,208 total confirmed cases
• 1,368,667 tests conductedSadly, six Queenslanders with COVID-19 have died. 1,190 patients have recovered.#covid19 pic.twitter.com/EOahzcgkaG
— Annastacia Palaszczuk (@AnnastaciaMP) December 3, 2020
South Australia has eased some of the state’s COVID-19 restrictions as the state continues to control it’s latest coronavirus outbreak.
Police commissioner Grant Stevens said effective immediately hospitality venues would be allowed one person per two square metres.
“Other activities are still restricted to one person per four square metres but given the economic implications, the impact on employment, the current time of the year, our current performance with the Parafield cluster and the new measures we have in place to enhance contact tracing, my decision has been that we will endorse a one person per two square metre rule for hospitality,” Commissioner Stevens said.
“All of the other restrictions that are currently in place that we are dealing with will remain and be reassessed during the course of next week, but we’re still hopeful that other restrictions will be lifted and we will go back to where we were in mid-November on the 14 December.”
Other venues will stick to the one person per four square metres rule until further notice.
South Australia recorded no new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours.
Italy on Thursday recorded its highest daily death toll from coronavirus with 993 fatalities in the last 24 hours, despite a downward trend in infection rates.
The previous grim record of 969 deaths was set on March 27, when Italy was under national lockdown after becoming the first European country to be hit by the global pandemic.
The country’s Covid-19 death toll now stands at 58,038.
The daily number of deaths reported had been below 800 for the past five days, while the number of new infections is falling.
The health ministry reported 23,225 new cases on Thursday, compared to 40,902 on November 13.
The number of people currently infected has also been falling since the end of November.
“The situation is still very serious,” Health Minister Roberto Speranza told parliament, adding that it was difficult to track the spread of the virus to possible new clusters.
-AFP
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