First vaccine
Edward Jenner was the 18th century scientist who invented the first real vaccine – for smallpox. A student in Indonesia is being injected with a vaccine. PICTURE: Ed Us/Unsplash It really was a remarkably big deal. Smallpox killed 10 to 20 per cent of the population at the time. Many people have stated that because of his […]
Essay: North Korea – how the COVID outbreak is putting pressure on the regime
In an article first published on The Conversation, CHRISTOPH BLUTH, Professor of International Relations and Security at the University of Bradford in the UK, looks at the impact of COVID-19 on one of the world’s most isolated nations…
Coronavirus vaccines: When Africans asked for COVID shots, they didn’t get them. Now they don’t want them
EDWARD MCALLISTER and COOPER INVEEN, of Reuters, report…
WHO lays out plan to emerge from emergency phase of pandemic
Reuters The World Health Organization on Wednesday released an updated plan for COVID-19, laying out key strategies that, if implemented in 2022, would allow the world to end the emergency phase of the pandemic. The plan includes three possible scenarios for how the virus might evolve in the coming year. A worker in a protective […]
US Air Force officers sue over religious exemption denials
Toledo, Ohio, USAP A dozen US Air Force officers have filed a lawsuit against the US Government after the military denied their religious exemptions to the mandatory COVID-19 vaccine. The officers, mostly from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, along with a handful of airmen and reservists, accused the Air Force of using a […]
Essay: We need equity and justice in vaccine distribution. The church can help.
In an article published by Religion News Service, LANRE WILLIAMS-AYEDUN and MYAL GREENE, of World Relief, say faith leaders can advocate for better distribution and lower resistance to getting vaccinated…
Short AstraZeneca shelf life complicates COVID vaccine rollout to world’s poorest
Brussels, Belgium/London, UKReuters The relatively short shelf life of AstraZeneca Plc’s COVID-19 vaccine is complicating the rollout to the world’s poorest nations, according to officials and internal World Health Organization documents reviewed by Reuters. It is the latest headache to plague the COVAX vaccine-sharing project, co-led by the WHO and aimed at getting shots to […]
Vaccine mandates: Many US faith leaders wary of religious exemptions for vaccine
DAVID CRARY and PETER SMITH, of Associated Press, report on how Christian leaders and those of other faiths are responding to vaccine exemption requests…
Former US NIH director Francis Collins on COVID-19 politics: “The culture war is literally killing people”
RNS Former National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins said he is “heartbroken” that more of his fellow white evangelicals have not received the COVID-19 vaccines. “I am just basically heartbroken in a circumstance where, as an answer to prayer, vaccines have been developed that turned out to be much better than we dared to […]
Pope says fake news, disinformation on COVID, is human rights violation
Vatican CityReuters Pope Francis said on Friday that spreading fake news and disinformation on COVID-19 and vaccines, including by Catholic media, is a violation of human rights. It was the second time in less than month that the 85-year-old Pope has spoken out on the subject. Three weeks ago, he condemned “baseless” ideological misinformation about […]