Reuters: COVID-19 vaccine may be ready by year-end, says WHO’s Tedros
“A vaccine against COVID-19 may be ready by year-end, the head of the World Health Organization said on Tuesday. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for solidarity and political commitment by all leaders to ensure equal distribution of vaccines when they become available…” (Nebehay, 10/6).

STAT: Race for Covid-19 vaccine slows as regulators, top Warp Speed official tap the brakes
“The race for a Covid-19 vaccine slowed on Tuesday, as both U.S. regulators and the head of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed initiative tapped ever so softly on the brakes. The Food and Drug Administration released strengthened rules for authorizing any Covid-19 vaccine on an emergency basis. And Moncef Slaoui, co-chair of Operation Warp Speed, revealed that the government’s vaccine fast-tracking effort has urged manufacturers not to apply for emergency use authorization until they have significant amounts of vaccines to deploy. That could push back even the first such authorization — expected to be for a vaccine being made by Pfizer and BioNTech, if it proves to be effective — into sometime in mid- to late November…” (Branswell/Herper, 10/6).

AP: Australia expects COVID-19 vaccination is still a year away (McGuirk, 10/7).

Reuters: China in talks with WHO over assessing its COVID-19 vaccines for global use (Geddie/Aravindan, 10/6).

Reuters: U.S. vaccine program head Slaoui expects Pfizer, Moderna vaccine data readouts in November-December (Maddipatla, 10/6).

Reuters: Exclusive: Moderna vaccine trial contractors fail to enroll enough minorities, prompting slowdown — sources (Steenhuysen, 10/6).

STAT: As AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine trial remains on hold in U.S., participants waiting on a second dose are in limbo (Robbins, 10/6).