World Coronavirus Dispatch: Russia has a vaccine for animals

IMF calls for tax hikes on wealthy, Pakistan to allow commercial sale of vaccines, Can vaccinated people spread the virus, and other pandemic-related news across the globe.

Can vaccinated people spread the virus?

Do vaccinated people still need to follow all the coronavirus guidelines like wearing masks and limited gatherings with social distancing? Scientists say even though it is much harder and highly unlikely that those vaccinated can get infected with the virus, one cannot completely rule out the possibility. However, the evidence isn’t clear whether they can spread it to others. They say that "vaccines are very substantially effective against infection as there is more and more data on that — but nothing is 100 percent.” Read more 

Let's look at the global statistics

Global infections: 129,634,035

Global deaths: 2,827,504

Nations with most cases: US (30,539,175), Brazil (12,839,844), India (12,303,131), France (4,755,779), Russia (4,503,291).

Source: John Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center 

Pakistan will allow residents to buy a vaccine dose rather than wait in line

Pakistan says it would allow Covid-19 vaccine doses to be sold commercially to patients, starting with the vaccine developed in China and Russia's Sputnik, officials said. The policy will allow rich Pakistanis to pay to get the shots at large private hospitals whenever they want, while most people wait their turn for a state-supplied vaccination. The government said that it will provide free vaccine to 98 percent of the people but to the affluent 2 percent of the population who don’t wish to wait in a line, it has decided to allow the sale of private vaccine. Read more

IMF calls for tax hikes on wealthy to reduce income gap

Moving to cut the gap between the rich and poor, that has been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, the international monetary fund (IMF) has urged nations to increase taxes on wealthy. In a warning that the economic shock triggered by the pandemic could undermine public attitudes to the fairness of taxation and welfare systems and lead to social unrest, the Washington-based organisation said surveys showed governments would have the support of the public if they shifted the burden of taxation away from low and middle earners to better-off members of society. Read more

Russia registers world's first Covid vaccine for animals

Having already developed vaccines against coronavirus for humans, Russia went a step further and registered the world's first vaccine, exclusively for animals and mass production could start as early as April. The country currently has three vaccines for humans, the most well known of which is Sputnik V. Moscow has also given emergency approval to two others, EpiVacCorona and CoviVac. The vaccine for animals was named Carnivac-Cov. The clinical trials have started last October, involving dogs, cats, Arctic foxes, minks, foxes and other animals. The results showed that the vaccinated animals have developed antibodies and the shot is well tolerated, according to the officals overseeing the trial. Read more