Covid: A vaccine gift from India
India said on Wednesday that it was starting to supply its locally manufactured version of the AstraZeneca vaccine to nearby countries, even as the government continues its mammoth effort to inoculate hundreds of millions of people at home.
The first doses were expected to be delivered to Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal and the Seychelles beginning on Wednesday, India’s Foreign Ministry said, adding that the doses sent were being donated. The vaccine was developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University and is manufactured domestically by the Serum Institute of India.
Details: Bangladesh said that it expected to receive a shipment of two million doses of the vaccine, known as Covishield, on Thursday as “a gift of India,” in addition to 30 million doses that it has ordered from the Serum Institute. Bhutan is expected to receive about 150,000 doses in its initial shipment, and the Maldives 100,000.
Here are the latest updates and maps of the pandemic.
In other developments:

■ The global death toll from Covid-19 hit a record in the last week at the same time as the number of new cases declined, the World Health Organization reported. A total of 93,000 people died in the week ending Jan. 17, but the number of new cases dropped 6 percent globally.

■ A study showed that sniff-based coronavirus tests might detect enough cases to substantially drive transmission down. Only a minority of people infected end up spiking a temperature, but measuring whether someone has their sense of smell is a key indicator.
The New York Times
Me: Remember that the first dose is only active from 21 to 28 days and you have to wait another 28 days from your second injection, before full cover takes place and you can’t catch Covid, you have to get Coronavirus first and you won’t know if your vaccine worked, until, after 2 months of preparation, you don’t get Covid = vaccine worked for you or you do get Covid = Vaccine did not work for you.
However, if you kill off Coronavirus in your head with my salt water sniffle, you won’t get Covid, in the first place, will you?