Page 30 - bon-dia-aruba-20210412

A30 world news
Dialuna 12 aPRil 2021

Official: Chinese vaccines' effectiveness low

mRNA-based vaccines. Turkey. “Everyone should consider
the benefits mRNA vaccines
Gao did not respond to a The effectiveness of a Sino- can bring for humanity,” Gao
phone call requesting further vac vaccine at preventing said. “We must follow it care-
comment. symptomatic infections was fully and not ignore it just be-
found to be as low as 50.4% cause we already have several
“The mRNA vaccines de- by researchers in Brazil, near types of vaccines already.”
veloped in our country have the 50% threshold at which Gao previously questioned
also entered the clinical trial health experts say a vaccine the safety of mRNA vaccines.
stage,” said the official, Wang is useful. By comparison, the He was quoted by the official
Huaqing. He gave no time- Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has Xinhua News Agency as say-
line for possible use. been found to be 97% effec- ing in December he couldn’t
Experts say mixing vaccines, tive. rule out negative side effects
or sequential immunization, because they were being used
might boost effectiveness. Health experts say Chinese for the first time on healthy
Researchers in Britain are vaccines are unlikely to be people.
(AP) — In a rare admis- mote doubt about the ef- studying a possible combina- sold to the United States,
sion of the weakness of fectiveness of the Pfizer-Bi- tion of Pfizer-BioNTech and Western Europe and Japan Chinese state media and pop-
Chinese coronavirus vac- oNTech vaccine made using the traditional AstraZeneca due to the complexity of the ular health and science blogs
cines, the country's top the previously experimental vaccine. approval process. also have questioned the
disease control official messenger RNA, or mRNA, safety and effectiveness of the
says their effectiveness is process. The coronavirus pandemic, A Sinovac spokesman, Liu Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
low and the government is which began in central China Peicheng, acknowledged
considering mixing them “It’s now under formal con- in late 2019, marks the first varying levels of effectiveness As of April 2, some 34 mil-
to get a boost. sideration whether we should time the Chinese drug in- have been found but said lion people in China have re-
use different vaccines from dustry has played a role in that can be due to the age of ceived both of the two doses
Chinese vaccines “don’t have different technical lines for responding to a global health people in a study, the strain of required for Chinese vaccines
very high protection rates,” the immunization process,” emergency. virus and other factors. and about 65 million received
said the director of the China Gao said. one, according to Gao.
Centers for Disease Control, Vaccines made by Sinovac, a Beijing has yet to approve
Gao Fu, at a conference Sat- Officials at a news confer- private company, and Sino- any foreign vaccines for use The Sinovac spokesman, Liu,
urday in the southwestern ence Sunday didn’t respond pharm, a state-owned firm, in China. said studies find protection
city of Chengdu. directly to questions about have made up the majority of "may be better” if time be-
Gao’s comment or possible Chinese vaccines distributed Gao gave no details of pos- tween vaccinations is longer
Beijing has distributed hun- changes in official plans. But to several dozen countries in- sible changes in strategy but than the current 14 days but
dreds of millions of doses another CDC official said cluding Mexico, Turkey, In- cited mRNA as a possibility. gave no indication that might
abroad while trying to pro- developers are working on donesia, Hungary, Brazil and be made standard practice.

2 German state governors want to be center-right candidate

(AP) — Two German state porters after a meeting of the party CSU.
governors on Sunday de- leaders of the parliamentary The center-right Union bloc,
clared their willingness to party factions of the Union which is made up by the two
become the center-right bloc. “We both have declared parties but dominated by the
candidate for the coun- our willingness to run for the CDU, hasn’t yet decided on
try's Sept. 26 national candidacy for the chancel- its candidate for the parlia-
election. lery.” mentary election. However,
a decision is expected in the
German Chancellor Angela Armin Laschet, who is the coming days.
Merkel isn’t seeking a fifth governor of Germany’s most
term after 16 years in power. populous state North Rhine- “There's a big expectation to
Her center-right Union bloc Westphalia, won the leader- come to a solution together,
has yet to choose its candidate ship of Merkel’s Christian rather sooner than later, re-
between two state governors, Democratic Union, or CDU, garding the question of the
Armin Laschet and Markus in January. He hopes to suc- candidacy for chancellery,”
Soeder. ceed Merkel as chancellor as Soeder said. “We determined grant respect for each other.” who is leaving office, to cre-
does Soeder, who is Bavaria's that both of us are capable "It is our goal, in this situ- ate as much unity as possible
“Markus Soeder and I had a governor and the head of the and both are ready, which is ation in which the country between the CDU and the
long talk,” Laschet told re- CDU's Bavaria-only sister important, and that we both finds itself, with a chancellor, CSU," Laschet said.

German president: Buchenwald a reminder of Nazi 'barbarism'

(AP) — Germany’s presi- ated at Buchenwald. Jews, dictatorship on the inside, ceremony online. Large-scale liberation on April 11, 1945.
dent on Sunday marked Sinti and Roma were brought and a racist way of thinking,” commemorations for last “It was a dictatorship, a Nazi
the 76th anniversary of the here and murdered,” Presi- Steinmeier said. “Buchen- year’s 75th anniversary were leadership that was respon-
liberation of the Buchen- dent Frank-Walter Stein- wald stands for racial fanati- put on hold due to social dis- sible for the cruelest crimes
wald concentration camp meier said during a speech in cism, torture, murder and tancing requirements. and the genocide," Steinmei-
by reminding his compa- the nearby German town of elimination.” The Buchenwald concentra- er said. “But it was human
triots of the inconceivable Weimar, 76 years to the day Holocaust survivors and tion camp was established beings, Germans, who did
atrocities the Nazis com- after U.S. forces liberated the their families weren't allowed in 1937. More than 56,000 this to other human beings.”
mitted there during the camp. to gather for anniversary ob- of the 280,000 inmates held After his speech in Weimar,
Third Reich. “With its diversity of victims' servances this year because at Buchenwald and its satel- Steinmeier went to the site
groups, Buchenwald repre- of the coronavirus pandem- lite camps were killed by the of the former concentration
“Communists and demo- sents the entire barbarism of ic. Survivors from different Nazis or died as a result of camp, where he laid a wreath
crats, homosexuals and so- the Nazis, its aggressive na- parts of the world instead hunger, illness or medical ex- with yellow and red flowers
called asocials were incarcer- tionalism to the outside, it's attended Sunday's memorial periments before the camp's for the victims.