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Africa and Asia (excluding India and China) are expected to be the largest importers of the vaccine.
Is the world up to the challenge of mass COVID-19 vaccination? More than 12 billion vaccine doses have been announced by all manufacturers for release in 2021 – in case all vaccine candidates succeed in clinical trials. The first wave of vaccines for the 92 low- to middle-income COVAX countries represents two to three times UNICEF’s yearly routine vaccination program. The magnitude of the task requires bold collective action from multinational organizations, governments, and industries. In a year that has seen a pandemic that has left few unaffected, where consequences resulting from attempts to contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus has seen the lives and livelihoods for millions across the globe impacted, the most dire impacts cannot be overstated. In the worst cases, impacts on the livelihoods of those most vulnerable has led to rising poverty levels, with Oxfam reporting that up to 12,000 people per day are facing starvation in 2020. (continued page 3).
Thousands celebrated the arrival of 2021 in the center of the Chinese city where the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Wuhan welcomes 2021 with a great celebration, while the world welcomes it 1.82 million deaths. In the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the pandemic originated a year ago, large crowds took to the streets this Thursday (12/31/2020) to celebrate the arrival of 2021. The celebration included the concentration of hundreds of people in front of the old Customs from Hankow, where their old clock struck midnight, as they released balloons into the air. Wuhan gained worldwide notoriety for being the city where the epidemic outbreak of coronavirus disease, known as COVID-19, originated, which led to the coronavirus pandemic. The rapid expansion of the outbreak, which began in December 2019 at the Wuhan South China Seafood Wholesale Market, 14 prompted the Chinese authorities to order the confinement of the population of Hubei province on January 23, 2020.
On April 8, Wuhan lifted the confinement measures, and on April 16, the city, which had the highest number of infected and deceased in China, discharged the last patients admitted for the first outbreak of coronavirus. As of December 23, 2020, a total of approximately 1.7 million people have died globally because of COVID-19. While in Asia, the continent where the outbreak originated, the death toll has so far reached 298,000, deaths in Europe exceed that number by more than 200,000 people. Specifically, there have been around 515,000 deaths from the coronavirus in the Old Continent so far. However, it is no longer the continent with the highest number of deaths from COVID-19. The figure recorded in America exceeded 820,000 deaths as of December 23.
EN ESTA EDICIÓN THE WORLD ECONOMIC
THE WORLD, THE WEATHER,
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Pfizer And Biontech To Supply the European Union With 100 Million Additional Doses of Comirnaty® Tuesday, December 29, 2020 - 01:11pm
European Union orders 100 million additional doses of COMIRNATY bringing total doses to 300 million for 27 EU member states ® All 300 million doses expected to be delivered in 2020 and 2021 NEW YORK & MAINZ, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE) -- Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) and BioNTech SE (Nasdaq: BNTX) today announced they will supply an additional 100 million doses of COMIRNATY, the companies’ COVID-19 Vaccine, to the 27 European Union (EU) member states in 2021. This announcement is a result of the European Commission’s decision to exercise its option to purchase an additional 100 million doses under its Advanced Purchase Agreement signed on November 11, 2020. This agreement brings the total number of doses to be delivered to the EU to 300 million. ® This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201229005380/en/ “We remain committed to moving as quickly and safely as possible to bring this vaccine to more people in Europe, as the deadly virus continues to spread at an alarming rate,” said Albert Bourla, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Pfizer. “In partnership with the European Commission, member states and healthcare providers, we will be able to reach a total of 150 million Europeans across the continent.” “The additional 100 million doses will be delivered in 2021 supporting the vaccination campaigns which started two days ago in all 27 member states. Our goal remains to bring a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine to as many people as we can all around the world,” said Ugur Sahin, M.D., CEO and Co-founder of BioNTech.
The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine has not been approved or licensed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but has been authorized for emergency use by FDA under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to prevent Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) for use in individuals 16 years of age and older. The emergency use of this product is only authorized for the duration of the declaration that circumstances exist justifying the authorization of emergency use of the medical product under Section 564 (b) (1) of the FD&C Act unless the declaration is terminated or authorization revoked sooner. Please see Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) Fact Sheet for Healthcare Providers Administering Vaccine (Vaccination Providers) including Full EUA Prescribing Information available at www.cvdvaccine.com. AUTHORIZED USE IN THE U.S.: The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine is authorized for use under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for active immunization to prevent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in individuals 16 years of age and older.
COMIRNATY® will be produced in BioNTech’s and Pfizer’s manufacturing sites in Europe. The distribution of COMIRNATY® by the EU member states will continue to be determined according to the populations identified in EU and national guidance. Pfizer and BioNTech announced on November 11, 2020, that they reached an agreement with the European Commission to supply 200 million doses, with an option for the European Commission to request an additional 100 million doses. The companies previously stated their potential to supply up to 1.3 billion doses worldwide by the end of 2021 (subject to manufacturing capacity).
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THE WORLD ECONOMIC How COVID-19 is changing the economy – and what we can do about it, according to Christine Lagarde Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank, outlined the challenges facing the global economy at the World Economic Forum’s Pioneers of Change Summit. Service provision will be hardest hit and could become less local. Businesses are facing increased competition and must boost productivity. Young people are at risk of becoming a lost generation if we don’t get the policy mix right. Recovery from the economic setbacks induced by the pandemic will demand close cooperation between the public and private sectors, says Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank. In conversation with Barge Brende, President of the World Economic Forum, during the Forum’s Pioneers of Change summit, Lagarde outlined the challenges facing the global economy. She also described what kinds of response she would like to see and explained why there might be grounds for cautious optimism. Have you read? Who will be the winners in a post-pandemic economy? The economic consequences of COVID-19: Why no country is immune COVID-19 is likely to increase youth unemployment in Africa, this is how business can mitigate the damage Many rivers to cross “We were stuck,” Lagarde says of the fallout from COVID-19. “We were standing on one side of a massive river of uncertainty and hardship, both from the health and economic point of view. And we couldn't even see the other side of the river. “Thanks to the fantastic hard work put in by some companies in Germany, and in the US and in various corners of the world, we are now seeing the other side of the river because we know that vaccines are on the horizon.” Getting to that other side is where the cooperation between public and private comes in. That means a determination to make sure structural economic changes are positive and that everyone continues to invest in the future.
Ilustración 1Close cooperation between the public and private sectors is vital in the COVID-19 recovery.
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Is the world up to the challenge of mass COVID-19 vaccination? The inclusive and efficient distribution of safe vaccines is imperative for restoring economic recovery protecting lives. And now that the first COVID-19 vaccine has been administered to a 90year-old woman in the UK, the world awaits the roll-out of a mass vaccination program after several pharmaceutical companies announced promising vaccine trial results in recent weeks. The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was authorized for emergency use by the UK’s medicine regulatory authority before decisions by the US and Europe. While the first wave will only vaccinate 400,000 of the highest-risk group, the UK has bought 40 million doses of the vaccine, which was recently shown to have 95% efficacy after the second dose. After been granted Emergency Use Authorization, the US has also begun the rollout of the vaccine, with deliveries arriving in distribution centers this week. As vaccine capacity ramps up, we face a task of unprecedented scale to ensure an inclusive, safe and sustainable distribution to reach frontline healthcare workers, at-risk groups and eventually all people around the world. The logistical planning involved will push any modelling and supply channels previously used to new limits. More than 12 billion vaccine doses have been announced by all manufacturers in total for release in 2021, in the best case of all candidates succeeding in trials. In this ideal scenario, six to seven billion doses will be shipped in the first wave of pre-ordered vaccines, after which many countries are expected to reach the World Health Organization’s minimum target of 20% immunization. We believe that the unprecedented magnitude of the pandemic requires innovative and bold collective action from multinational organizations, governments, and industries to deal with the effects and support the return to a new normal. With lives and livelihoods of millions across the globe depending on our ability to harness the power of such collective action – whether in the field of health delivery, goods delivery, or humanitarian service delivery, we all have to ask ourselves, are we ready to do what it takes? Are we ready to act inclusively to protect the lives of those most vulnerable and in so doing ensure no nation and no vulnerable community is left behind?
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THE WORLD ECONOMIC How to navigate a stop-and-start pandemic economy Bruce Spear Partner, aviation practice, Oliver Wyman Recurring coronavirus outbreaks are creating an unprecedented stop-and-start economy; Companies successfully navigating this pandemic economy are revamping traditional ways of forecasting, restructuring and partnering; This approach helps them customize their regional responses to economic slowdowns and pickups caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. You can see it in the airlines removing scheduled flights, factories cancelling shifts, restaurants closing again and movie theatres shuttering once more. Recurring coronavirus outbreaks are creating an unprecedented stop-and-start economy that is reordering companies into two divergent camps:
Highly nimble businesses versus those left exposed Forecasting with new leading by vicious, rolling cycles of unpredictability. indicators Millions of companies in the US and Europe at the Companies have experienced economic mercy of these outside forces are now reliant on zigzags before, but this period is government aid to remain solvent. Twice as many different. Conventional notions of what companies globally defaulted on could signal a rise in demand are either their debt payments in July of this year than in all of inadequate or ineffective. Traditional 2019. econometric modelling and time-series analyses often prove useless in the This coronavirus-driven recession is forcing current environment. Managers who companies to adapt to these sudden, jarring fits and look to traditional leading economic starts. Companies who are successfully navigating indicators or estimate expected rises in the current jagged environment are not just disposable income are constantly behind considering how long and deep global and national the curve. recessions might last; they are abandoning traditional ways of forecasting, restructuring, and Companies are having to rely on a new partnering to customize their responses to set of leading indicators. Examples slowdowns and pickups by country and by city. include government-imposed restrictions, the degree to which people Here’s what is working: are wearing masks, sheltering in place (again), mobility (based on mobile phone locations), the availability of coronavirus testing and weather forecasts.
Restructure to improve flexibility To capitalize on these predictions, companies must examine their restructuring programmes through a lens that focuses on increasing flexibility alongside cutting capacity and costs. The typical approach of slashing costs as much as possible can backfire in the current pandemic recession, as it leaves organizations too rigid to respond effectively to unanticipated ups and downs. Instead, sharp cuts need to be both tempered and combined with other restructuring levers like shorter planning cycles. For example, airlines now schedule flights every three to four weeks instead of 12 months ahead to accommodate fleeting spikes and slumps in demand. Banks have started to update loan losses more frequently in response to economic estimates that often change on a weekly basis. Another approach is to make an organization’s cost structure less fixed and more variable. In the current turbulent environment, many companies think it is more important to keep assets available for use in case of a bounce in demand, rather than save money by idling those assets. Transportation companies, for example, which might have continued putting ships and parking aircraft in the desert for long-term storage now prefer to absorb the cost of keeping them available to be brought back into service at short notice. Manufacturers adjust their shifts and production levels to remain efficient at lower volumes while retaining the option to ramp up output again. Experimenting with a broader number of ways to deploy your people can also help avoid redundancies and retraining costs. Consider crosstraining employees so they can take on more responsibilities and expand the responsibilities of employees within functions like finance, human resources and IT across more business units and countries. If all else fails, be open to seconding employees to other companies. Supermarkets and other retailers are temporarily borrowing tens of thousands of furloughed staff from restaurants, hotels and movie theatres to prepare, package and deliver products. OECD sees global GDP return to pre-pandemic levels in 2021
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THE WEATHER The girl comes colder, according to atmospherics studies Although air and sea temperatures around the world have been quite warm in 2020, the eastern and central Pacific Ocean recently grew milder with the return of La Niña, the cooler sister El Niño. La Niña brings cool water from the depths of the eastern tropical Pacific, a pattern that energizes the eastern trade winds and pushes warm surface waters toward Asia and Australia. With this saw the supply of heat and humidity across the Pacific, global atmospheric circulation and jet streams change. During La Niña events, weather patterns tend to grow hotter and drier across the southern United States and northern Mexico, said Josh Willis, a climate scientist and oceanographer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). from NASA. The coldest and stormy conditions are often set in the Pacific Northwest of Canada and clouds in the United States and rainfall becomes more sporadic over the central and eastern Pacific Ocean, which can lead to dry conditions in Brazil, Argentina and other parts of South America. In the western Pacific, rainfall can dramatically increase over Indonesia and Australia. La Niña may also coincide with active hurricane seasons in the Atlantic, as it did this year.
Later in 2021, scientists will have a new tool to observe La Niña and other trends in global sea level. Following the successful launch of the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite in November 2020, scientists first measurements of the new ocean observing satellite. Engineers and scientists are now calibrating instruments and analyzing data to make sure it correlates correctly with longterm records. "Christmas came early this year," said Willis, who is also a NASA project scientist for the mission. "And right away, the data looks great."
New U.S. European Satellite Tracking Sea Level Rise
NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens, using multiscale Ultra-High Resolution (MUR) data and sea surface height analysis courtesy of Akiko Hayashi / NASA / JPL-Caltech. Story by Michael Carlowicz.
The maps above show conditions across the central and eastern Pacific Ocean, as observed on November 25, 2020 and analyzed by scientists at JPL. The globe on the left represents sea surface height anomalies measured by the Jason-3 Satellite. Shades of blue indicate sea levels that were below average; normal sea level conditions appear white; and reds indicate areas where the ocean was higher than normal. The expansion and contraction of the surface is a good proxy for ocean temperatures because warmer water expands to fill more volume, while cooler water contracts. The second globe displays Sea Surface Temperature (SST) data. Multiscale UltraHigh Resolution Sea Surface Temperature (MUR SST). MUR SST combines sea surface temperature measurements from multiple satellites from NASA, NOAA, and international satellites, as well as observations from ships and buoys. (Scientists also use instruments floating in the sea for underwater temperatures.) "This 2020 La Niña appears to be peaking," said Bill Patzert, a retired oceanographer and climatologist at JPL. "It was a surprise because it evolved rapidly and unlike many previous La Niña events, it was not preceded by its warm brother, El Niño." This La Niña fits into a larger weather pattern that has been going on for nearly two decades, a Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) phase. During most of the 1980s and 1990s, the Pacific was locked in a warm phase of the PDO, which coincided with several strong El Niño events. But since 1999, a fresh phase has dominated. "With a few notable exceptions, the PDO has been negative for most of the last 20 years, and that is favorable for La Niña," Willis said. "Drought patterns throughout the southwestern United States over the past two decades fit this trend." "The resurgence of this large-scale DOP pattern tells us that there is much more than an isolated La Niña that occurs in the Pacific Ocean," added Patzert. "These changes can trigger droughts of decades or more in some regions and damage floods in other places." In recent reports released by NOAA's Center for Climate Prediction and the World Meteorological Organization, climatologists predicted that the current La Niña should last through the northern hemisphere winter 2020-21. At the end of November, water temperatures in the central Pacific Ocean were about 1.4 degrees Celsius below the long-term average. A La Niña event is declared when average surface water temperatures remain at least 0.5o Celsius below normal in the Niño 3.4 region of the tropical Pacific (170o to 120o west longitude) for three months.
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THE WORLD BREXIT Boris Johnson signed post-Brexit trade agreement with the European Union The text that inscribes the trade agreement in British legislation was approved by 521 votes to 73 in the House of Commons before going to the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday signed the post-Brexit House of Lords, who must also vote during the afternoon. Any eventual trade agreement reached last week with the European Union, hailing it as amendment by these must be confirmed by the deputies before being the beginning of a "wonderful relationship" between the two banks of the signed by Queen Elizabeth II. English Channel. "With this law we are going to be a friendly neighbor, the best friend and "It is an excellent agreement for this country, but also for our friends and ally that the EU can have," said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in partners," he said during the signing in Downing Street, after the presidents front of the deputies. of the European Commission and the European Council, Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel, had signed this treatise of more than 1,200 Reached in extremis on December 24, one week before the end of the postBrexit transition period, the free trade agreement between the United pages. Kingdom and the 27 will enter into force on December 31 at 11:00 p.m. "By signing this agreement, we fulfill the sovereign desire of the British GMT (midnight in continental Europe). people to live under their own laws, made by their own elected Parliament," The day before, the presidents of the European Commission, Ursula von the prime minister added on Twitter. der Leyen, and the European Council, Charles Michel, signed this text of After approval in the British Parliament by an overwhelming majority, the more than 1,200 pages in a short ceremony in Brussels. pact was sealed, which was also signed hours before by the leaders of the continental bloc. The historic separation ends a period of almost 50 years. With this economic and trade partnership, the European Union gives the British a duty-free and quota-free access to its market of 450 million consumers but provides penalties and compensatory measures in case of British MPs overwhelmingly approved the London-Brussels trade treaty, non-compliance with its rules on state aid, environment, labor law and signed hours earlier by European leaders on the eve of a historic separation taxation. that ends almost 50 years of relationship.
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