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bne October 2020 Companies & Markets I 13
announced it has halted trials of its vaccine after one of the test subjects became ill.
“Sputnik is a human vaccine, while AstroZeneca’s is a monkey vaccine,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on September 8 on a conference call. “Our scientists believe that the human vaccine is much more reliable in this regard.”
Even though the Phase III trials have only begun, the RDIF has already started manufacturing the vaccine in bulk, with the first deliveries due to be dispatched in November and December, the Russian Healthcare Minister Mikhail Murashko said on September 7 during a working visit to Arkhangelsk.
The minister noted that now it is also important to begin inoculation against the flu and that the Arkhangelsk Region has already received batches of this vaccine.
The ministry's announcement follows a flurry of reports saying that several high-level Russian government officials have received the Sputnik V vaccine and have made public appearances in good health.
Poland plans to curb electricity sales via power exchange to help coal industry
bne IntelliNews
Poland wants to reduce power companies’ obligation to sell electricity via the power exchange TGE in order to curb energy imports that are hurting the domestic coal industry, the government has hinted.
Poland’s coal is the main source of electricity in Poland, dominating the country’s energy mix with a share of nearly 75%. At the same time, Poland’s huge mining sector – employing close to 100,000 people – is inefficient and loss- making while EU climate regulations and the rise of renewable power are limiting demand for coal year by year.
State-controlled Polish power companies have long turned
to cheaper imported coal as they are themselves squeezed by the rising price of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, which the EU has a plan to all but eliminate by 2050.
Polish mining companies – which are mostly state-run as well – have also long demanded the state does something to curb
The state-run Gamaleya epidemiology and microbiology research centre that developed Sputnik V has estimated that it would need to produce 80mn doses to achieve mass immunity in Russia.
Russia has officially reported more than 1mn coronavirus infections and almost 18,000 deaths since recording its first case in March.
If mass vaccination goes to plan, Russia will see an end to COVID-19 by next summer, Alexander Gintsburg, the director of Moscow's Gamaleya Centre, said on September 8.
Gintsburg believes the world will only be able to defeat the pandemic after mass vaccination, which he thinks can happen within a year. Until then, he predicts that society will be engaged in "constant battles" with the virus.
"We'll only be able to say that the pandemic has receded when we've produced the required amount of vaccine and vaccinated the entire population of our country and part of the globe," he said as cited by RT.
coal imports so as to improve demand for domestic coal.
The mining unions are negotiating with the government a reform of the mining industry that would save jobs and at least slow down the decline of coal as Poland’s staple fuel.
The idea to limit power sales through TGE came up last Friday after another round of talks. “The withdrawal from obligatory energy sales through the power exchange ... will limit imports and increase its production in domestic power plants,” the state assets ministry said in a statement.
Experts are saying, however, that limiting power trading
on the TGE can do little to limit energy imports to Poland as long as the Polish market is more expensive than neighbouring ones. Wholesale power prices were at PLN250 (€57) per megawatt-hour (MWh) in late 2019, compared to just PLN160 per MWh in Germany for example.
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