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|Articles|February 15, 2021

Australia Receives First Doses of COVID-19 Vaccine

Author(s)Killian Meara

Case numbers trend downward in Germany as UK implements new border policies.

Today, Australia has received its first doses of vaccines for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The rollout will begin next week on Monday, with the first 1.4 million recipients being frontline healthcare workers, quarantine and border workers, and aged care and disability staff and residents. The country acquired 142,000 doses of Pfizer’s BNT162b2, with the first shipment of 62,000 being set aside for second doses.

Late last week, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave Moderna the okay to increase the amount of vaccine they put in their vials by 40%. This allows the company to up the doses in each vial from 10 to 14, increasing the US stock much faster than anticipated. However, the FDA did state that they would need the company to submit more data showing an immediate 20% increase would not compromise the vials.

Additionally, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently announced its guidance for the reopening of schools safely. The agency laid out a mitigation strategy involving 5 key steps. The strategies include: required masking, physical distancing, handwashing and respiratory etiquette, cleaning and maintaining healthy facilities, and contact tracing in combination with isolation and quarantine, in collaboration with the health department.

United States
52.88 million
15.81 per 100
China
40.52 million
2.82 per 100
United Kingdom
15.6 million
22.98 per 100
India
8.29 million
0.6 per 100
Israel
6.44 million
74.43 per 100
Brazil
5.24 million
2.46 per 100
United Arab Emirates
5.06 million
51.11 per 100
Germany
4.15 million
4.95 per 100
Russia
3.9 million
2.67 per 100
Turkey
3.83 million
4.54 per 100

Data Table per Our World in Data (Feb 14, 2021, 12 AM EST)

The US saw another 64,000 new cases of COVID-19 this past Sunday alone, with 1,084 pandemic-related deaths. This comes as investigators have identified several troubling new variants of the virus that have been spreading across the country.

California
5,820,388
14.82 per 100
Texas
4,133,747
14.07 per 100
Florida
3,467,856
15.95 per 100
New York
2,925,186
15.12 per 100
Illinois
1,854,228
14.63 per 100
Pennsylvania
1,822,327
14.23 per 100
Ohio
1,691,925
14.47 per 100
North Carolina
1,617,435
15.42 per 100
Michigan
1,604,973
16.23 per 100
Georgia
1,437,718
13.54 per 100

Data Table per CDC COVID-19 Tracker (Feb 14, 2021, 6 AM EST)

For more information on COVID-19 vaccination research, distribution, and assessment, check out some of these recent Contagion stories:

AstraZeneca Vaccine Preprint Does Not Bode Well for COVID-19 Variant Response

Experimental Antiviral Effective at Treating and Preventing COVID-19

Establishing a Successful Global Immunization Strategy Against COVID-19

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