LONDON: A vaccine for COVID-19 might not be available until the end of next year, a leading British scientist has warned, despite positive results in research on antibody immunity and steroid use against the virus.
“I’d obviously be delighted if it came earlier rather than later, but I’d be quite surprised if we had a highly effective vaccine ready for mass use in a large percentage of the population before the end of winter, certainly before this side of Christmas,” said Prof. Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer and a senior UK government adviser.
“I think there’s a reasonable chance that we’ll have vaccines, not a certainty, in the period before the following winter of 2021-22.”
There are over 170 candidate vaccines in development worldwide that are being officially monitored by the World Health Organization.
The UK is home to two of the world’s leading trials of COVID-19 vaccines, with one being developed by a team at Oxford University in partnership with pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, and the other by scientists at Imperial College London. But despite unprecedented efforts to develop a successful vaccine, Whitty remains cautious.
“A lot of people are doing a huge amount scientifically, logistically to … try and see if we can get a vaccine at extraordinarily fast speed,” he said.
“But we have to check it works and we have to make sure it’s safe, and these things do take time,” he added.
“We should plan on the basis we won’t have a vaccine, and then if one does prove to be effective and safe and available, then we’re in a strong position to be able to use it, and that will be great, but we should be planning on the basis of what we currently have.”
Whitty did, however, air positive views on the use of other treatments, such as the steroid Dexamethasone, which has been shown to significantly reduce mortality rates in severe cases of COVID-19.
“Those studies are ongoing, and I’m hoping for more results like that in the next months. I’m confident in the ability of science to get us out of this hole,” he said.
Whitty’s comments came amid news that various international studies into the virus have shown heightened rates of natural immunity among people who have contracted COVID-19.
Scientists in the US, Sweden and elsewhere have all reported finding strong antibody responses in asymptomatic or mild COVID-19 cases, which could prevent reinfection for months or even years.
Peter Openshaw, professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London, hailed the findings as “good news.”
But he told the Sunday Times: “My very strong feeling is that we need to maintain a degree of caution and low levels of infection, because as we enter autumn and winter there is every prospect that we are going to get a big bounce back of the coronavirus and I think we’re all very afraid that it’s not over yet.”
Prof. Sir John Bell, professor of medicine at Oxford University, said a vaccine remains essential to solving the issue of COVID-19.
He expressed his belief that a global second wave will occur, and “the vaccines won’t get here in time to stop the second wave.”
He did, however, agree that the antibody findings are positive. “If lots of us have got T-cell immunity that largely protects us from the disease, we may be closer to herd immunity than we originally thought,” he said.
Top UK scientist: COVID-19 vaccine ‘unlikely’ before late 2021
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Top UK scientist: COVID-19 vaccine ‘unlikely’ before late 2021
- The UK is home to two of the world’s leading trials of COVID-19 vaccines
- Whitty’s comments came amid news that various international studies into the virus have shown heightened rates of natural immunity among people who have contracted COVID-19
G7 to ‘maximize pressure’ on Russia if it resists Ukraine ceasefire
- Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict have stepped up in recent weeks
- The Kremlin said Thursday that new peace talks with Ukraine had “yet to be agreed“
BANFF, Canada: G7 finance ministers agreed Thursday to “maximize pressure” on Russia, including through further sanctions, if it resists efforts toward a ceasefire in Ukraine.
“If such a ceasefire is not agreed, we will continue to explore all possible options, including options to maximize pressure such as further ramping up sanctions,” a final communique following the group’s meeting in Canada said.
Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict have stepped up in recent weeks, with Russian and Ukrainian officials holding their first face-to-face talks in more than three years last week in Istanbul.
But the Kremlin said Thursday that new peace talks with Ukraine had “yet to be agreed,” disputing reports the two nations would soon hold negotiations at the Vatican.
US President Donald Trump spoke with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Monday in a call aimed at ending the “bloodbath,” but neither his contact nor the earlier talks in Istanbul resulted in Russia offering any concessions.
The communique from the Group of Seven advanced economies condemned “Russia’s continued brutal war against Ukraine” and said any entity that supported Russia during the conflict would be barred from Ukrainian reconstruction contracts.
“We agree to work together with Ukraine to ensure that no countries or entities, or entities from those countries that financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be eligible to profit from Ukraine’s reconstruction,” it said.
Federal judge blocks immigration authorities from revoking international students’ legal status
- Students could still be arrested for other reasons and their legal status can still be revoked
- Most courts hearing these types of cases have granted protections to the person suing
SAN FRANCISCO: A judge in California blocked the Trump administration Thursday from terminating the legal status of international students nationwide while a court case challenging previous terminations is pending.
The order by US District Judge Jeffrey S. White in Oakland bars the government from arresting, incarcerating or moving students elsewhere based on their legal status until the case is resolved.
Students could still be arrested for other reasons and their legal status can still be revoked if they are convicted of a violent crime carrying a prison term of more than a year.
Most courts hearing these types of cases have granted protections to the person suing, but White said the government’s actions “wreaked havoc” not only on the lives of plaintiffs but other nonimmigrants in the US on student visas.
White, who was nominated by President George W. Bush, a Republican, issued the nationwide injunction sought by attorneys for about two dozen students who sued after their legal status was abruptly terminated in early April by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
More than 4,700 international students had their permission to study in the US canceled this spring, with little notice or explanation, as part of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigrants and foreign nationals. In court hearings, Department of Homeland Security officials said they ran the names of student visa holders through an FBI-run database that contains the names of suspects and people who have been arrested, even if the charges were dropped or they were never charged with a crime.
Some students left the US rather than risk being deported to a third country.
Government lawyers say the administration is exercising its prerogative to administer the Immigration and Nationality Act. They say students do not need the court’s protections because ICE reinstated legal status and was mailing status reactivation letters to affected students.
But White found those actions insufficient. He said that the erroneous revocation remained in the students’ record, impacting their ability to obtain a new visa or change their nonimmigrant status. Some students are still dealing with fallout from the previous terminations and there is no guarantee they won’t have their legal status revoked again on a whim.
He also chastised the administration for unveiling new policies or new actions in an apparent attempt to satisfy the courts’ concerns.
“It is unclear how this game of whack-a-mole will end unless Defendants are enjoined from skirting their own mandatory regulations,” White wrote.
A survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs research found that even the visa revocations for students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests are more unpopular than popular. About half of US adults oppose this policy, and only 3 in 10 are in support.
Among college educated adults, 6 in 10 strongly oppose, compared with 4 in 10 who aren’t college graduates.
Panama resumes flights to Venezuela, allowing for migrant returns
- Venezuela suspended air links with Panama in July 2024
- The resumption of flights is expected to facilitate the repatriation from Panama of Venezuelan migrants deported from the US
PANAMA CITY: Panama’s civil aviation authority on Thursday announced that it would resume flights with Venezuela after nearly a year, facilitating the repatriation of Venezuelan migrants expelled from the United States.
Venezuela suspended air links with Panama in July 2024 over its refusal to recognize Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s victory in presidential elections.
The two countries at the time also suspended diplomatic relations.
The resumption of flights is expected to facilitate the repatriation from Panama of Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States.
Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino said earlier he had received a proposal from Caracas to resume flights between the two countries.
“I will evaluate it very carefully right away,” he told his weekly press conference, adding “it is in Panama’s best interest to open commercial flights to Venezuela.”
Mulino however ruled out restoring diplomatic relations with the Caribbean nation.
Panama is one of a handful of countries that has agreed to act as a stopover for migrants expelled from the United States by President Donald Trump’s administration.
Under the plan, Panama holds the migrants in closed shelters while waiting for them to be repatriated to their homelands.
Many of those expelled so far have been from Venezuela and other South American countries.
Panama has also been grappling with a reverse flow of thousands of migrants returning home through Central America after failing to gain entry to the Untied States.
In the absence of flights between Panama and Venezuela, many of the migrants were left to organize their own transport home, either by boat or overland through the treacherous Darien jungle on Panama’s border with Colombia.
Homeland Security blocking Harvard’s ability to enroll international students
- Kristi Noem: ‘This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus’
- Harvard: ‘We are fully committed to maintaining Harvard’s ability to host international students and scholars, who hail from more than 140 countries and enrich the University’
US President Donald Trump’s administration has revoked Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students, and will force existing students to transfer to other schools or lose their legal status, the Department of Homeland Security said on Thursday.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ordered the department to terminate Harvard University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification, the department said in a statement.
Harvard called the action illegal.
The move comes after Harvard refused to provide information Noem had previously demanded about some foreign student visa holders who attend the university, the department said.
“This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus,” Noem said.
“It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments.”
Harvard said the move a retaliatory action that threatens serious harm to the university.
“The government’s action is unlawful. We are fully committed to maintaining Harvard’s ability to host international students and scholars, who hail from more than 140 countries and enrich the University – and this nation – immeasurably,” the university said in a statement.
The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The move marks a significant escalation of the Trump administration’s campaign against the elite Ivy League university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which has emerged as one of Trump’s most prominent institutional targets.
The Republican president has undertaken an extraordinary effort to revamp private colleges and schools across the US that he says foster anti-American, Marxist and “radical left” ideologies.
He has criticized Harvard in particular for hiring prominent Democrats to teaching or leadership positions.
No new direct Russia-Ukraine peace talks are scheduled, Kremlin says
- “There is no concrete agreement about the next meetings,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said
- The major prisoner swap is a “quite laborious process” that “requires some time”
MOSCOW: Russia and Ukraine have no direct peace talks scheduled, the Kremlin said Thursday, nearly a week after their first face-to-face session since shortly after Moscow’s invasion in 2022 and days after US President Donald Trump said they would start ceasefire negotiations “immediately.”
“There is no concrete agreement about the next meetings,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “They are yet to be agreed upon.”
During two hours of talks in Istanbul on May 16, Kyiv and Moscow agreed to exchange 1,000 prisoners of war each, in what would be their biggest such swap. Apart from that step, the meeting delivered no significant breakthrough.
Several months of intensified US and European pressure on the two sides to accept a ceasefire and negotiate a settlement have yielded little progress. Meanwhile, Russia is readying a summer offensive to capture more Ukrainian land, Ukrainian government and military analysts say.
Putin’s proposals
Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier this week that Moscow would “propose and is ready to work with” Ukraine on a “memorandum” outlining the framework for “a possible future peace treaty.”
Putin has effectively rejected a 30-day ceasefire proposal that Ukraine has accepted. He has linked the possibility to a halt in Ukraine’s mobilization effort and a freeze on Western arms shipments to Kyiv as part of a comprehensive settlement.
European leaders have accused Putin of dragging his feet in peace efforts while he tries to press his bigger army’s battlefield initiative and capture more Ukrainian land.
The major prisoner swap is a “quite laborious process” that “requires some time,” Peskov said.
But he added: “The work is continuing at a quick pace, everybody is interested in doing it quickly.”
Peskov told Russia’s Interfax news agency that Moscow had provided Kyiv with a list of prisoners it wants released. “We have not yet received a counter list from Kyiv. We are waiting,” he told Interfax.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday that preparations are underway for the potential prisoner exchange, which he described as “perhaps the only real result” of the talks in Turkiye.
Peskov disputed a report Thursday in The Wall Street Journal that Trump told European leaders after his phone call with Putin on Monday that the Russian leader wasn’t interested in talks because he thinks that Moscow is winning.
“We know what Trump told Putin, we don’t know what Trump told the Europeans. We know President Trump’s official statement,” Peskov said. “What we know contrasts with what was written in the article you mentioned.”
Russian capital targeted by drones for the second night
Apart from the continuing war of attrition along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, which has killed tens of thousands of troops on both sides, Russia and Ukraine have been firing dozens of long-range drones at each other’s territory almost daily.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said it shot down 105 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 35 over the Moscow region. It was the second straight night that Kyiv’s forces have targeted the Russian capital.
More than 160 flights were delayed at three of Moscow’s four main airports, the city’s transport prosecutor said, as officials grounded planes citing concerns for passenger safety.
The attack prompted some regions to turn off mobile Internet signals, including the Oryol region southwest of Moscow, which was targeted heavily Wednesday.
The Defense Ministry claimed it downed 485 Ukrainian drones over several regions and the Black Sea between late Tuesday and early Thursday, including 63 over the Moscow region, in one of the biggest drone attacks.
It was not possible to verify the numbers.
Russia seeks a buffer zone on the border
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian air force said Russia launched 128 drones overnight. Among the targets were Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, damaging an industrial facility, power lines, and several private homes, regional Gov. Serhii Lysak said on Telegram.
In Kyiv, debris from a Russian drone fell onto the grounds of a school in the capital’s Darnytskyi district, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration. No injuries were reported.
Ukrainian shelling in Russia’s Kursk region killed a 50-year-old man and injured two others, acting regional Gov. Alexander Khinshtein said Thursday.
Putin visited the Kursk region on Tuesday for the first time since Moscow claimed that it drove Ukrainian forces out of the area last month. Kyiv officials denied the claim.
“Despite the liberation of our territory, the border region is still subject to enemy attacks,” Khinshtein warned residents on Telegram. “It is still dangerous to be there.”
Putin has said Russian forces have orders to create a “security buffer zone” along the border.
That would help prevent Ukraine from striking areas inside Russia with artillery, Putin told a government meeting, but he gave no details of where the proposed buffer zone would be or how far it would stretch.
Putin said a year ago that a Russian offensive at the time aimed to create a buffer zone in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region. That could have helped protect Russia’s Belgorod border region, where frequent Ukrainian attacks have embarrassed the Kremlin.
