Covid live updates: UN official says adequate supply of vaccines is still a ‘major issue’

The World Health Organization said coronavirus vaccination rollouts using the AstraZeneca-Oxford University shot should continue while it carries out a safety review.

The latest guidance from the global public health body comes after a group of European countries announced that they would suspend use of the shot over concerns that it could be linked to reported cases of blood clots in the region.

WHO’s Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety has been reviewing the available data on the vaccine. On Wednesday, the WHO issued a statement in which it said that “vaccination against COVID-19 will not reduce illness or deaths from other causes.”

“Thromboembolic events are known to occur frequently. Venous thromboembolism is the third most common cardiovascular disease globally,” it said.

The WHO said it will immediately communicate the findings to the public once its review is complete. “At this time, WHO considers that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine outweigh its risks and recommends that vaccinations continue,” it stated.

—Holly Ellyatt

Ed Silverman, Pharmalot Columnist and Senior Writer for STAT News, joined CNBC’s “Worldwide Exchange” to discuss the long-term impact of European countries pausing the rollout of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine.

It’s no secret that Germany has been seeing a sharp rise in coronavirus cases in recent weeks but one leading health expert in the country is now warning of “exponential growth” in the number of infections.

This comes at a time when the country has suspended the use of the AstraZeneca-University of Oxford coronavirus vaccine.

Epidemiologist Dirk Brockmann, an expert at the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases, said that a recent loosening of Covid restrictions has allowed a more virulent variant of the virus — first discovered in the U.K. late last year — to spread rapidly.

“We are exactly on the flank of the third wave. That can no longer be disputed. And, at this point, we have eased the restrictions and that is speeding up the exponential growth,” Brockmann told German broadcaster ARD on Tuesday.

—Holly Ellyatt

Professor Benjamin Cowling from the University of Hong Kong weighs in on how long protection from coronavirus vaccines can last and whether booster shots will be needed.

Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday urged people to get inoculated against Covid-19, the Associated Press reported.

In an interview on Fox News, the former president said he would recommend getting vaccinated to “a lot of people that don’t want to get it, and a lot of those people voted for me,” according to AP.

Trump did say that Americans were free to decide for themselves whether to be vaccinated or not.

“We have our freedoms and we have to live by that and I agree with that also. But it is a great vaccine. It is a safe vaccine and it is something that works,” AP reported.

—Terri Cullen

France and Italy say they are ready to quickly restart inoculation programs with the AstraZeneca vaccine if regulators confirm it’s still safe to use.

The preliminary statement from the European Medicines Agency on Tuesday was “encouraging,” the office of Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said Tuesday in a statement following a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron. It added that in the event of a positive conclusion by the EMA, France and Italy were ready “to promptly restart” inoculations with the vaccine.

The two countries are among more than a dozen that have suspended the AstraZeneca-Oxford University shot after reports of blood clots in a few of the citizens vaccinated.

European health authorities are investigating these reports and will issue a new opinion on Thursday. In the meantime, they are still of the opinion that the shot is good to use in the fight against Covid-19. The EMA said Tuesday that there is “no indication” so far that the reports of blood clots were directly caused by the vaccine.

—Silvia Amaro

Achieving herd immunity in Asia is likely to be “quite a challenge” due to the lack of access to adequate vaccine supply, Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific told CNBC.

Andy Slavitt, White House senior advisor for the Covid response team, is optimistic a growing number of Americans will continue to take the Covid vaccine. 

“In Israel where they’re a little bit ahead of us, 89% of seniors have chosen to take the vaccine,” Slavitt told CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith” Tuesday evening. “We think we can get up to those kinds of numbers, if we just continue to reliably answer people’s questions, because these are very good, safe, effective vaccines.”

Nearly 37% of people in the U.S. over the age of 65 have been fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

—Emily DeCiccio

Covid updates: Vaccination sites added to Apple Maps; millions will receive stimulus checks Wednesday