LIVE | ‘EMA approves Janssen vaccine on 11 March’ | Inland

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12.46 p.m. ‘EMA approves corona vaccine Janssen on 11 March’

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) will approve the corona vaccine from Leiden pharmaceutical company Janssen on 11 March, sources within the European Union tell Bloomberg news agency. According to one of the EU employees, the EMA is also in talks about approving the Russian vaccine Sputnik-V.

The European Commission announced on Thursday that Janssen’s vaccine will be delivered in the EU from April. The EU has agreements with the pharmaceutical company to buy 200 million doses, with an option for another 200 million.

The United States will probably approve Janssen’s drug on Friday. For both the EU and the US, this would be the fourth corona vaccine approved, after Pfizer / BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca.

09.45 Inspection: GP is wrong

General practitioner Rob Elens in Meijel refuses to vaccinate his patients against corona if they do not sign a letter pointing out the effects and risks of the AstraZeneca vaccine. That writes the Eindhovens Dagblad. The Health and Youth Care Inspectorate (IGJ) states that a doctor is not allowed to do this.

Elens says he does not want to be responsible if things go wrong after a vaccination. The doctor was frequently in the news over the past year because of his controversial approach to corona. He says he has successfully treated patients with the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), in combination with zinc. It did not take long before the Inspectorate forbade him to do so. The scientific literature is not unambiguous about HCQ, some researchers claim great health benefits, others minimal or no effect.

The ‘vaccination letter’ that he now has patients sign for vaccination, has two A4s and breathes the vision of Elens. He opposes vaccination against corona and writes, among other things, that the vaccine is still ‘in the research phase’. He points out that, according to the RIVM, an infection with corona is harmless for 98 percent of the population and that the risk of the virus is significantly reduced by taking vitamins, zinc and selenium.

09.40 Half of Israelis received first corona prick

At least half of the Israeli population has received the first shot of the corona vaccine. That’s about 4.65 million people. More than a third of the population has already been fully vaccinated against the corona virus, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein reports.

Israel began inoculating the population on December 19 and wants to get it over with so that the corona measures can be lifted. People who have received two injections will receive a green card showing that they have been vaccinated. They are then allowed to do things that were prohibited by the corona measures.

6.68 am – Contaminated waste test lanes not properly disposed of

Commercial corona test locations still regularly dispose of waste that may be contaminated with Covid-19 as industrial waste. This also sometimes goes wrong at GGD locations. The Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT) reports this after a new round of inspections.

The ILT also carried out inspections in December. It then turned out that of the 39 corona test sites checked, 22 did not package and dispose of the waste properly. The protective clothing of the employees and the used cotton swabs were disposed of with the company waste, while this must be put in special drums or special plastic bags, the inspection stated at the time, among other things.

Re-inspections at ten previously visited locations recently showed that incorrect disposal of potentially infectious waste no longer occurs, according to the ILT. The ILT also carried out 77 new inspections, 32 at GGD locations and 35 at commercial locations, and this shows that things are now going better, but that things still go wrong regularly. Of the commercial test locations, 14 disposed of waste possibly contaminated with Covid-19 as regular industrial waste, of the GGD test locations this was not yet successful at 4.

Furthermore, at 1 GGD location and at 6 commercial test locations, the throat and nose samples were not packaged and transported in accordance with legal regulations. For example, absorption material was missing between the packages. Once the ILT found sample material in a seal bag between the front seats of a vehicle.

The ILT remains extra vigilant in commercial test lanes. “Many large and small violations are still being committed here,” said the inspection. A minor mistake, for example, is the lack of hazard labels on bulk containers or waste packaging.

No test lanes were shut down after violations were found, due to the social necessity of testing for corona. The locations had to resolve violations immediately. The ILT warns that if violations are found again during re-inspections, administrative or criminal action will be taken.

6.46 a.m. – Confidence in corona policy hits new low

Confidence in Dutch corona policy has never been so low. Only four in ten Dutch people are still satisfied with Rutte’s approach. Unclear course, and unfair for those who bear the burden of the policy and who do not yet receive a vaccine, is the devastating opinion of the majority of the Dutch about Rutte’s approach. According to de Volkskrant, this is evident from the latest figures from an ongoing questionnaire survey that the RIVM regularly conducts to gauge the mood in the country.

Remarkably enough, most Dutch people, grumbling and well, still adhere to the rules. Take the curfew: a minority say they see the point of it, but 94 percent are now adhering to it, according to the figures collected when the curfew was in force for more than two weeks.

6:35 am – Nearly 10,000 new corona infections in Germany

In Germany, another 9997 new coronavirus infections have been identified in the past 24 hours, reports the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the German counterpart of the RIVM. This means a decrease of almost 2000 cases compared to Thursday.

With Friday’s figure, after two days of increase, there is again a decrease in the number of new corona cases in Germany. Since the start of the corona pandemic, the lung virus has been diagnosed there in 2,424,684 people.

In the past 24 hours, at least 394 people died in Germany from the effects of Covid-19, slightly more than the number reported on Thursday. the coronavirus has already fatalized at least nearly 70,000 people in Germany.

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