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Expert says COVID vaccine likely won't be available in Africa until Q2 of 2021

26 November 2020
Dan Ackermann

Africa may have to wait until the second quarter of 2021 to roll out vaccines, Africa CDC director John Nkengasong said Thursday, according to the Associated Press.

Why it matters: “I have seen how Africa is neglected when drugs are available,” Nkengasong said.

  • Africa surpassed two million confirmed cases last week. The continent will require around 1.5 billion vaccine doses, Nkengasong said at a press briefing, but only 24% of the 47 sub-Saharan African countries have plans in place for resources and funding, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The big picture: The Africa CDC has explored vaccine options with Russia and China, among others. The goal is to vaccinate 20% of the population by the end of 2021, WHO Africa chief Matshidiso Moeti said in a separate briefing.

  • But vaccinating priority populations alone will require more than $5 billion — even without costs for delivery, according to the WHO.
  • The cold storage necessary for maintaining vaccines is another challenge.
  • In the meantime, authorities have distributed 2.7 million antigen tests to enable faster and easier testing, which Nkengasong said is “perhaps a game-changer.”

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.