Indonesia begins vaccinating people over 60
The first vaccinations of people over 60 began on Monday, a reversal after officials initially excluded the age group, citing a lack of safety data.
The drug regulator reversed course last week, granting emergency authorization of the Chinese-made Sinovac vaccine for use among older people after analyzing new clinical trial results from China and Brazil that showed it was safe.
The government had been criticized for initially excluding people over 60 — the age group has accounted for half of the number of deaths from the virus in Indonesia. Recipients in that age group will receive their second shots four weeks after the first, instead of two.
The numbers: Indonesia, the world’s fourth most-populous nation, with 270 million people, has recorded more than 1.1 million infections and more than 31,000 deaths, making it the worst outbreak in Southeast Asia.
Here are the latest updates and maps of the pandemic.
In other developments:
■ China on Monday reported zero locally transmitted coronavirus cases for the first time since mid-December. In recent weeks, the government has been battling new outbreaks in northern provinces with lockdowns on millions of people.
■ Representative Ron Wright, Republican of Texas, who died on Sunday, is the first seated U.S. member of Congress to die after battling the coronavirus. He was 67.
■ Facebook said it would remove posts with false claims about vaccines. “Building trust and confidence in these vaccines is critical,” the company said in a blog post.
The New York Times
