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A pharmacist prepares a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine on Wednesday, December 16, 2020 at the UCI Medical Center in Orange, California, United States.

Bing Guan | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The global alliance, which aims to provide coronavirus vaccines to poor nations, announced Friday that it has supply agreements to provide nearly 2 billion doses and could ship them in the first quarter of its approval.

There are 190 countries and territories participating in COVAX, which is jointly managed by the World Health Organization Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation. The facility said it could secure the cans through additional supply agreements with AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.

COVAX plans to begin first shipments in the first quarter of 2021, when the drugs are approved. Enough doses should be given in the first half of next year to protect health and social workers in participating economies, the Alliance said. COVAX plans to ship at least 1.3 billion doses to 92 low and middle-income countries that will participate in the facility sometime next year.

“The arrival of vaccines gives us all a glimpse into the light at the end of the tunnel,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, in a statement. “But we will only really end the pandemic if we end it everywhere at the same time. That means that it is important to vaccinate some people in all countries, rather than all people in some countries.”

UNICEF announced on Friday that up to 850 tons of Covid-19 vaccines per month could be shipped to middle- to low-income countries over the next year. Commercial airlines will be able to deliver the vaccines to almost all of the 92 countries participating in COVAX, a UNICEF statement said.

The United Nations Children’s Fund is a United Nations agency that provides humanitarian aid to children around the world. UNICEF will work with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to coordinate vaccine procurement and support dispensing of the doses, said Gavi.

The humanitarian organization said the shots will likely be shipped primarily via existing passenger and cargo flights, although some charter flights or alternative modes of transportation will be required for hard-to-reach countries.

However, the world’s poorest countries are still facing a budget gap of $ 133 million for the distribution and storage of the cans, UNICEF said. According to the organization, which assesses global air cargo capacity and routes, the airline’s deliveries would cost the airline up to an estimated $ 70 million.

Countries will face additional challenges once the cans arrive, UNICEF said.

The temperature requirements for the vaccines being developed are range and require cold chain supply lines, trained medical staff and stronger contact efforts, said Henrietta Fore, executive director at UNICEF, in a statement released Friday.

“This is a mammoth and historic endeavor,” Fore said in a statement. “The scale of the task is huge and the stakes have never been higher, but we are ready to take on this.”

UNICEF said it would take $ 410 million to help countries deliver the vaccines and purchase therapeutic drugs and diagnostic tools over the next year. Funding has been a problem for the COVAX facility, which according to a Reuters report on Wednesday, citing internal documents, faces a “very high” risk of default due to lack of funds, delivery risks and complex contractual arrangements.

We all need vacation after 2020.

And with vaccines shipping across the country, now may be a good time to start planning your much-needed vacation in 2021.

According to Nisreene Atassi, Global Head of Communications at Brand Expedia, flexibility is the most important part of any trip you plan during Covid-19.

Americans have got used to paying for the cheapest flights and hotel rooms, but you should pay extra to make sure your vacation is fully refundable, Atassi said.

Spending money on travel insurance should also be a priority, but you need to read the fine print. Almost all directives now consider Covid a known event, and this will affect what is covered, according to Atassi.

“Travel insurance is unlikely to cover cancellation due to lockdown in a particular market or similar area,” Atassi said.

Watch this video to learn about other unexpected travel expenses that you may encounter when planning your next vacation.

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Gal Gadot plays Wonder Woman in “Wonder Woman 1984”.

Warner Bros.

“Wonder Woman 1984 is not great and it is not terrible,” writes Stephanie Zacharek of Time Magazine.

This seems to be the general consensus of the critics, as the follow-up film will be released in international theaters this weekend.

The much-anticipated follow-up to “Wonder Woman” from 2017 was due to be released in June, but the ongoing global pandemic has postponed the film until Christmas Day in the US. The outbreak also resulted in Warner Bros. parent company AT&T will be showing the film in theaters and on streaming service HBO Max that same day.

“Wonder Woman 1984” takes place seven decades after the events of the first film. Diana Prince, the Wonder Woman of the same name, played by Gal Gadot, lives in Washington, DC and works at the Smithsonian. In her spare time, Diana dons her Amazonian armor and plays the role of a superhero to save the people of the city.

Diana’s life is interrupted when the would-be oil magnate Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) receives a magical stone called the Dream Stone. The artifact grants wishes, but there is a cost.

For Diana, the stone brings back Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), her love interest from the first movie, who died and sacrificed his life to save others. Unfortunately, in order to keep Steve in her life, Diana will eventually lose her powers.

Diana’s friend and colleague Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig), a wallflower who envies Diana for her self-confidence and beauty, receives these characteristics and, as seen in the trailer, transforms into the vicious cheetah. Lord absorbs the magic of the stone and gives himself the ability to grant other people’s wishes, something he uses to gain power and prestige.

When Barbara and Lord team up, Diana must fight the two villains to save the world.

“Woman Woman 1984” currently holds an 88% “Fresh” rating from Rotten Tomatoes out of 92 reviews. If more reviews are received, this review may change.

Critics praised Gadot for this role. Once again, Gadot portrays Diana with effortless grace and cool confidence as he adds depth to an immortal woman who drifted and drifted in a mortal world.

However, reviewers called the plot “chaotic” and “confused” and were disappointed with the CGI creature form “Cheetah” that appears in the film’s third act.

Here’s a rundown of what critics said about Wonder Woman 1984 before her Christmas debut:

Peter Debruge, diversity

“Almost two hours of its 151-minute running time, ‘Wonder Woman 1984′ does what we expect from Hollywood tent poles: it takes our worries away and erases them with sheer escape,” said Peter Debruge, author of Variety in his review of the Films. “For those old enough to remember the 80s, it’s like going home for Christmas and discovering a box of children’s toys in your parents’ attic.”

Where the film falls short are its special effects, he said.

“A lot of the effects are hokey,” wrote Debruge. “Some are downright embarrassing (like Wonder Woman interrupting a well-choreographed desert chase to dangerously save two children).”

Debruge was one of many critics to mention the disappointing computer-generated rendering of Cheetah in its final form. The creature design is a “lame cat-level misjudgment,” he said.

Read the full review from Variety.

Gal Gadot plays Wonder Woman in “Wonder Woman 1984”.

Warner Bros.

Angelica Jade Bastien, vulture

For Angelica Jade Bastien, a vulture writer, Diana Prince’s attraction is her femininity and maternal instinct. Her strength shows not only in fight scenes, but also in subtle emotional moments.

Bastien believed that Diana’s character was “poorly developed in this utter jumble of conspiracy”.

She said the dream stone was “trite” and found faults in Diana’s longing for the late lover Steve decades after his death.

“Sure, Gadot and Pine have charming chemistry again, but his character’s return from the dead – in which he basically takes over the body of a poor man – raises more questions about the loopholes in logic,” she wrote in hers Review. “And then there’s their total lack of sex, a particularly damned reminder of how this genre ignores one of the most beautiful aspects of being human.”

Bastien wondered why this longing for Steve had become central to Diana’s identity almost 70 years later.

“Why? She no longer misses her Amazon sisters, whom she can never see again?” She asked. “It’s been about 70 years and she still hasn’t moved away from Steve? It’s deeply sad and predictable when a superhero becomes so attached to a single man that she’s ready to lose her powers for him.”

Bastien called the romance “claustrophobic” with an ending “ripped out of a Hallmark movie”.

Read the full review from Vulture.

Stephanie Zacharek, time

For Zacharek, Gadot shines when she is Diana Prince, a woman with human weaknesses and complexities.

“But being just one woman is not enough for anyone,” she wrote. “Diana-as-Wonder Woman not only saves the world, but is also often tasked with saving little girls from danger. She brings them to safety with a wink, and they beam her appreciatively, so grateful that she finally has one Superheroes have their own. “

“Why do we always need to be reminded of the purpose of Wonder Woman? Why can’t it just be?” Asked Zacharek.

She noted that when Wonder Woman arrived in 2017, there was a promise that Hollywood would see a new generation of superhero films made by women, starring women who may be less formulaic than such that revolve around men.

“Wonder Woman 1984 is perfect as a treat to distract the world from its problems for a few hours,” she wrote. “But it’s also okay to wish for less noise and more amazement, especially in a world filled with the former and in dire need of the latter.”

Read the full report from Time.

Gal Gadot plays Wonder Woman in Warner Bros. “Wonder Woman 1984”.

Warner Bros.

Esther Zuckerman, thrillist

“Wonder Woman 1984” is “a fun but chaotic sequel to the 2017 reintroduction of the Amazon superhero,” wrote Esther Zuckerman in her review of the film for Thrillist. “There’s a lot to love in” WW84 “: bold performances by a delightful cast, fantastic costumes, [Patty] Jenkins’ rapid direction. But it serves a plot that loses sight of what makes the character so great in the first place. “

Zuckerman noted that filmmakers had a hard time replicating the success of the first film. After all, so much of it focused on Diana’s naivete and her wonder of discovering a whole new world.

Decades later, Diana is exhausted and isolated, her mind numbed, wrote Zuckerman.

“What makes up for that in Act One is Barbara Minerva,” she said. “Wiig is hilarious yet grounded, both as the ignored nerd she starts out as and the butterfly suddenly able to walk in heels and take off a mini dress.”

Read the full review from Thrillist.

Disclosure: Comcast, the parent company of CNBC, owns Rotten Tomatoes.

A panel of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted 13: 1 Sunday to bring “Frontline Essential Workers” and people 75 and over to get a vaccine against Covid-19.

This so-called Phase 1b group comprises an estimated 49 million people, or nearly 15% of Americans, according to the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The committee included key frontline personnel such as firefighters, police officers, teachers, proofreaders, and others in the phase 1b group, but removed “other key personnel” from phase 1c.

The full list of key frontline workers, as per the list provided by ACIP, also includes all education workers, including daycare, grocery and farm workers, manufacturing workers, U.S. postal workers, public transit workers, and grocery store workers. These workers “are in sectors that are essential to the functioning of society and are at much higher risk of exposure,” ACIP told Covid.

“I’d like to point out that those aged 75 and over make up 8% of the population, 25% of hospital stays, and a very high mortality rate. Basic frontline workers are highly exposed. They comprise a disproportionate proportion of racial and ethnic people who have too a disproportionate share of hospital stays, “said Dr. Katherine Poehling, a member of the committee, after the vote.

Phase 1c should include people between 65 and 74 years of age, people between 16 and 64 years of age with underlying medical conditions, and the remaining essential workers. ACIP also recommended Sunday. That’s 129 million Americans, or more than a third of the country, according to ACIP.

The remaining essential workforce includes transportation and logistics workers, food service workers, construction workers, finance workers, IT and communications workers, energy workers, media workers, lawyers, engineers and sewage workers, ACIP said. Underlying conditions for prioritization purposes include obesity, cancer, smoking and more per ACIP.

The committee’s recommendations now go to CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield, who usually accepts the committee’s recommendations and sets federal guidelines on how states should implement the distribution of the scarce doses. But state officials have the final say in the distribution. The CDC earlier this month recommended that states give priority to health workers and residents of long-term care facilities when first introducing vaccines.

Deciding which groups to take precedence over others is intolerable, many voting committee members said Sunday, but there is a need to ensure that justice and the plans of the newest science leader in the states are included. The committee was asked to pull the needle between competing values ​​of the need to prioritize critical workers who keep society going and the need to protect the most vulnerable members of society, the elderly.

Dr. However, Kathleen Dooling of the CDC noted that the order in which these groups are vaccinated will ultimately have little impact on the dynamics of the outbreak, based on the latest models.

“The differences between the strategies are minimal,” she said. “Vaccinating older adults prevents a little more deaths at first, while vaccinating younger adults, essential workers and younger high-risk adults prevents a little more infections.”

She added that the most important factor “is actually the timing of vaccine introduction related to the increase in Covid-19 cases”. She further stressed the need to practice social distancing and wearing masks to reduce the spread while scarce doses of vaccines are being distributed.

“We are faced with the situation, at least in the short term, that we have only a limited vaccine available,” said Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases of the CDC, on Sunday for the opening of the vaccine all-day meeting. “That means there will be tough decisions to be made about who gets this vaccine first.”

The U.S. is currently planning to have enough vaccine doses for 20 million people in December, 30 million in January and 50 million in February, Messonnier said. Phase 1a will include at least 24 million people, Phase 1b will add an additional 49 million people, and Phase 1c will expand eligibility to an additional 129 million.

Dr. The CDC’s Amanda Cohn noted that projections should not be considered accurate and that many factors could alter vaccine availability.

While older adults are more likely to die from Covid, they are also more likely to isolate and protect themselves from infection than key frontline workers, some committee members said. Dr. Peter Szilagyi of the University of California at Los Angeles said one reason key workers were prioritized was because minority communities were disproportionately represented among key workers. The color communities in the US were hit disproportionately by Covid and died much more often than white Americans.

However, the committee found that racial and ethnic minorities are less represented in the foremost sub-group of essential workers than in the broader group. However, the broader group of the essential workforce includes an additional 57 million people, and inclusion in Phase 1b would mean that the demand for vaccines would far exceed supply, passing the tough prioritization decisions down to stressed state and local officials.

Dr. Jeff Duchin, Seattle and King Counties, Washington health officer, stressed the need to properly fund the local health departments that actually convert vaccines into vaccinations.

“Public health vaccination clinics need resources to ensure equitable access to vaccines in all communities and populations,” he said. “There is a critical and immediate need for adequate funding and resources to implement the vaccination program.”

Several committee members said they don’t expect all states to absolutely adhere to federal guidelines and that they should actually be adjusted to the state of the local outbreak. For example, while proofreaders have priority in Phase 1b, Dr. Kathleen Dooling of the CDC that depending on local outbreaks, it might make sense to vaccinate inmates at the same time.

Dr. Christine Hahn, of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, said local and state officials will no doubt deviate from federal guidelines. The most important thing, Hahn said, is that the CDC provide enough guidance to avoid “paralysis through analysis” at the local level.

“There is no way we will all be able to stay in step and we have to say clearly that there will be local decisions because the worst that can happen is we leave vaccines in the freezer because we are scared have before. ” Go to the next group and move on, “she said.” We have to have faith in our local health and state health departments to do the right thing. “

“This is not black and white,” added Dr. Amanda Cohn of the CDC added. “They will be absolutely different depending on the local context.”

The committee can review the recommended prioritization at any time. Dr. Grace Lee of Stanford University School of Medicine said the committee may need to be flexible if, for example, vaccine manufacturers are exposed to interruptions and unable to deliver as many doses as planned.

“I hope we will have enough doses by stage 1c but I wanted to think about it if for some reason we don’t have enough doses,” said Lee, “I think we need to be ready to adjust in future stages as we don’t know where we’ll be in another month when these phases are introduced. “