Tag Archives: Pandemic

Thanksgiving air travel set to be busiest since pandemic

By Rajesh Kumar Singh

CHICAGO (Reuters) -Flights and airports across the United States are expected to have one of their busiest days since before the pandemic on Wednesday as millions of people fly to visit their families for the Thanksgiving holiday.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) expects to screen about 20 million air passengers during the Thanksgiving travel period, the most since 2019 when nearly 26 million Americans were on the move at that time, as rising COVID-19 vaccination rates have made people more confident about travel.

The travel demand is also getting a boost from consumers flush with savings as rising wages along with government stimulus have strengthened household balance sheets.

On Tuesday, the TSA screened about 2.21 million U.S. air passengers, the sixth consecutive day with checkpoint volume topping 2 million.

Los Angeles International Airport expects 2 million passengers. Victoria Spilabotte, the airport’s public information officer, said the numbers showed people were willing to travel again and added that passengers should arrive early to allow extra time for security.

The holiday weekend is a test for carriers after a spate of flight cancellations marred travel over the summer. One in five Americans are concerned about delays and cancellations, an American Pecans/YouGov survey found.

Carriers have ramped up staffing and offered bonuses and other incentives to employees.

“We’re staffed and ready to get our customers to where they need to go safely, reliably and enjoyably,” a Delta Air Lines spokesperson said.

Calm weather expected for Thanksgiving should also help to prevent disruption.

Some passengers at the Los Angeles airport said the airport was not as busy as they expected.

“So far, so good,” said Lani Emanuel, who is traveling to Seattle to see her daughter. “It was a little tricky finding parking, but it doesn’t seem too crazy busy just yet.”

U.S. passenger railroad Amtrak is also expecting a jump in passenger volumes. A company spokesperson said some trains are already close to full capacity.

Travel group AAA estimates, in all, 53.4 million people will travel for the Thanksgiving holiday, up 13% from 2020, with air travel recovering to about 91% of pre-pandemic levels.

The biggest concern this holiday season is high fuel prices, the YouGov survey found.

(Reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh; additional reporting by David Shepardson, Alan Devall and Omar Younis; Editing by Stephen Coates, Barbara Lewis and Mark Porter)

Foreign tourists back in New York, long business recovery seen ahead

By Tyler Clifford

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York has launched its largest tourism advertising campaign in history. John F. Kennedy International Airport bustles again with foreign passengers. The holiday season promises peak travel cheer, with more visitors on streets and in stores.

But souvenir shops, horse carriage drivers and small businesses that rely on vacationers said it could take weeks, or longer, to revive their fortunes, especially to robust pre-pandemic levels.

“I’m just pessimistic, that they’re not going to return in the way people think they will,” said Daniel Zambrzycki, the owner of Gifts on the Square in Times Square, one of the world’s most-visited tourist sites. “It’s a snail-pace progression.”

International tourists bring something different to New York than domestic travelers, city tourism officials said. They tend to spend more, stay longer, and bring a mix of cultures, accents and attitudes that reinforce its cosmopolitan feel.

How and when New York tourism emerges from the pandemic after U.S. curbs on foreign travel were eased on Nov. 8 is something that business owners, city officials and other top tourist destinations are closely watching.

Vijay Dandapani, chief executive of the Hotel Association of New York City, sees the country’s most populous city as a litmus test for tourism in the rest of the country.

“New York is the biggest destination,” he said. “Many stop here and go on to other places.”

Current forecasts are not encouraging. This year, NYC & Co, the city’s tourism agency, expects total visitor spending of $24 billion, down from about $47 billion in 2019.

Just 2.8 million foreign visitors are expected this year, a far cry from the record 13.5 million in 2019, when they accounted for 20% of all visitors and half of the spending.

International visitors could triple to 8.5 million next year, NYC & Co spokesman Chris Heywood said. But a rebound to 2019 levels may not come until 2025, two years after domestic travel is expected to recover.

By comparison, it took five years for international tourism in the city to fully recover following the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, according to the agency.

‘IT TAKES TIME’

Some souvenir stores in the Times Square area closed for good after pandemic restrictions shut down discretionary travel from much of the world, making parts of New York feel like a ghost town. While pedestrian traffic has picked up since the summer, shops that remain are operating through uncertainty.

Zambrzycki, for one, worries that spikes in crime and homelessness since the pandemic began in March 2020 will deter some foreign visitors.

He said revenues at his store remained down 65% from 2019. He has no immediate plans to restore store hours or enlarge his four-person staff – half the number in 2019.

Jalal Alif, who manages a shop called I Love NY by Phantom of Broadway, also sees no quick surge in customer traffic.

“It takes time,” Alif said, standing in the middle of the nearly empty store. “It’s not going to be the same like before.”

To jumpstart a rebound, NYC & Co has launched a $30 million tourism campaign, its largest, with $6 million dedicated to key international markets, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and South Korea, Heywood said.

“Our goal really is to create urgency to book now and ensure that New York is at the top of the priority list for international travel.”

About 20 blocks north of Times Square, Kieran Emanus has offered rides through Central Park in his horse-drawn carriage for decades. Like a visit to the Statue of Liberty, the experience is on the bucket list of many out-of-town visitors.

Emanus enjoyed a modest uptick in bookings in the first week after restrictions were lifted. A good day before the pandemic would have had six carriage bookings on weekdays and 12 on weekends, he said. Now, “if you get eight on a weekend day, you are very happy.”

But there are hopeful signs.

Six groups from Britain were among Emanus’ recent customers, he said. “I hadn’t seen an English person since the pandemic.”

(Reporting by Tyler Clifford in New York; Editing by Richard Chang)

Factbox – Latest on the worldwide spread of the coronavirus

(Reuters) – The Americas is facing an impending crisis in routine vaccinations because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pan American Health Organization said, and vaccinations against the coronavirus are behind where they should be.

DEATHS AND INFECTIONS

EUROPE

* France is at the beginning of a fifth wave of the epidemic, Health Minister Olivier Veran said.

* Russia’s deaths hit a record in the previous 24 hours, two days after most of its regions emerged from a week-long workplace shutdown.

* People aged under 30 in Germany should only receive the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine as it causes fewer heart inflammations in younger people than the Moderna shot, an advisory committee said.

AMERICAS

* Over 900,000 U.S. children aged 5 to 11 are expected to have received their first COVID-19 shot by the end of Wednesday, the White House said, as the government ramped up vaccinations of younger children.

* The United States has brokered a deal between Johnson & Johnson and the COVAX vaccine-sharing program for the delivery of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine to people living in conflict zones.

* U.S. National Institutes of Health scientists played “a major role” in developing Moderna’s vaccine and the agency intends to defend its claim as co-owner of patents on the shot, NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins told Reuters.

ASIA-PACIFIC

* South Korea encouraged citizens to take booster shots as more of the elderly fell ill and reported vaccine breakthrough infections, driving serious and critical cases to a record.

* Thailand said it will set aside up to 500,000 doses of vaccines for foreign workers.

* Vietnam will by the end of this month have sufficient vaccines to cover its population, a deputy prime minister said, as the country approved India’s Covaxin vaccine for emergency use.

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

* Israel’s pandemic advisory board backed administering Pfizer’s and BioNTech’s vaccine to children age 5-11, as a fourth wave of infections subsides nationwide.

* Bahrain will cancel working with its coronavirus travel red list from Nov. 14.

MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS

* French vaccines company Valneva won European Commission approval for a deal to supply up to 60 million doses of its vaccine candidate over two years.

* Merck and partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics said Japan will pay about $1.2 billion for 1.6 million courses of their COVID-19 antiviral pill molnupiravir.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

* Wall Street lost ground on Wednesday as surging consumer prices fueled fears of a longer-than-expected wave of heightened inflation dampened investor risk appetite.

* San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Mary Daly said she expects high inflation to moderate once COVID-19 recedes, and repeated that it would be “quite premature” to raise rates now or even to speed up the Fed’s bond-buying taper.

(Compiled by Devika Syamnath and Sarah Morland; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Sriraj Kalluvila)

U.S. government to buy $1 billion more worth of Merck’s COVID-19 pill

By Manas Mishra

(Reuters) – The U.S. government will buy another $1 billion worth of the COVID-19 pill made by Merck & Co Inc and partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, the companies said on Tuesday.

The government in June agreed to buy 1.7 million courses of molnupiravir for $1.2 billion and is now exercising options to buy 1.4 million more.

That brings the total secured courses to 3.1 million and worth $2.2 billion. Merck said the government has the right to buy 2 million more courses as part of the contract.

The drug has been closely watched since data last month showed that when given early in the illness it could halve the chances of dying or being hospitalized for those most at risk of developing severe COVID-19.

“Molnupiravir, if authorized, will be among the vaccines and medicines available to fight COVID-19 as part of our collective efforts to bring this pandemic to an end,” said Frank Clyburn, president of Merck’s human health business.

President Joe Biden said on Friday that the United States had also secured millions of doses of Pfizer Inc’s rival antiviral drug, which was shown to cut by 89% the chance of hospitalization or death for adults at risk of severe disease.

The Pfizer negotiations were for a deal similar to the one with Merck – 1.7 million courses of the treatment upfront with an additional option for 3.3 million, a senior U.S. health official said on Tuesday, confirming a New York Times report.

Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Alfred Bourla said on Friday that the company plans to sell its treatment for around the same price for high-income countries as Merck, at roughly $700 for a course of therapy.

Merck expects to produce 10 million courses of the treatment by the end of this year, with at least 20 million set to be manufactured in 2022.

(Reporting by Manas Mishra and Leroy Leo in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Jeff Mason in Washington; Editing by Anil D’Silva, Arun Koyyur and Sriraj Kalluvila)

U.S. credit card use returning to pre-pandemic patterns, NY Fed report finds

By Jonnelle Marte

(Reuters) – U.S. consumers are spending more and ramping up credit card balances, reversing a shift during the COVID-19 crisis, when they scaled back spending and substantially paid down debt, a Federal Reserve Bank of New York report showed on Tuesday.

After rising by $17 billion in both the second and third quarters, credit card use appears to be returning to pre-pandemic patterns, the researchers said. However, balances were still $123 billion lower than at the end of 2019, according to the quarterly report on household debt and credit.

“As pandemic relief efforts wind down, we are beginning to see the reversal of some of the credit card balance trends seen during the pandemic, namely reduced consumption and the paying down of balances,” Donghoon Lee, a research officer at the New York Fed, said in a statement. “At the same time, as pandemic restrictions are lifted and consumption normalizes, credit card usage and balances are resuming their pre-pandemic trends, although from lower levels.”

Credit cards typically follow a seasonal pattern, in which balances show “modest” increases in the second and third quarters, followed by a more substantial increase in the fourth quarter, researchers said. Consumers then usually reduce those balances in the first quarter as they pay off holiday spending, the report said.

During the pandemic, however, households supported by direct cash payments and forbearance programs that paused payments on mortgages and student loans largely reduced their credit card debt.

With forbearance programs winding down, some of those consumers may be able to use some of their available credit to make ends meet, the Fed researchers said.

The report also found that total household debt increased by $286 billion in the third quarter to $15.24 trillion, driven mostly by a $230 billion increase in mortgage balances. Total debt balances are now $1.1 trillion above where they were at the end of 2019, the report showed.

Auto debt increased by $28 billion in the third quarter and student loan balances grew by $14 billion.

Originations of new mortgage loans, at $1.1 trillion, and auto loans, at $199 billion, both remained near series highs. Rising car prices contributed to the high volume for new auto loans by leading to a higher origination amount per loan, researchers said. The authors did not do a similar breakdown for mortgages but said rising home prices could be having a similar effect on mortgage debt.

Lenders may be offering more credit to borrowers with lower credit scores after clamping down at the start of the pandemic, the report showed. For example, credit card issuance for lower credit score borrowers is back to pre-pandemic levels after declining at the start of the crisis. The median credit score for new mortgages and auto loans declined slightly in the third quarter, but was still high by historic standards, researchers said.

The findings showed that consumer debt delinquencies remain low, thanks in part to forbearance programs and other federal aid.

(Reporting by Jonnelle Marte; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Dan Grebler)

Gasoline, auto retailing boost U.S. producer prices

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. producer prices increased solidly in October, driven by surging costs for gasoline and motor vehicle retailing, suggesting that high inflation could persist for a while amid tight global supply chains related to the pandemic.

The Federal Reserve last week restated its belief that current high inflation is “expected to be transitory.” A tightening labor market as millions remain at home is adding to price pressures, which together with shortages of goods sharply restrained economic growth in the third quarter.

The Fed this month started reducing the amount of money it is injecting into the economy through monthly bond purchases.

“The acceleration in inflation may not fade as quickly as previously thought, particularly for businesses because of the global supply-chain issues,” said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “Elevated inflation is turning up the heat on the Fed but they haven’t shown signs of buckling as they will stomach higher inflation to get the labor market back to full employment quickly.”

The producer price index for final demand rose 0.6% last month after climbing 0.5% in September, the Labor Department said on Tuesday. That reversed the slowing trend in the monthly PPI since spring. In the 12 months through October, the PPI increased 8.6% after a similar gain in September.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the PPI advancing 0.6% on a monthly basis and rising 8.7% year-on-year.

More than 60% of the increase in the PPI last month was due to a 1.2% rise in the prices of goods, which followed a 1.3% jump in September. A 6.7% surge in gasoline prices accounted for a third of the rise in goods prices. There were increases in the prices of diesel, gas and jet fuel as well as plastic resins.

Wholesale food prices dipped 0.1% as the cost of beef and veal tumbled 10.3%. Prices for light motor trucks fell as the government introduced new-model-year passenger cars and light motor trucks into the PPI.

Exorbitant motor vehicle prices have accounted for much of the surge in inflation as a global semiconductor shortage linked to the nearly two-year long COVID-19 pandemic has forced manufactures to cut production, leaving virtually no inventory.

Services gained 0.2% last month after a similar rise in September. An 8.9% jump in margins for automobiles and parts retailing accounted for more than 80% of the increase in services. The cost of transportation and warehousing services jumped 1.7%, also reflecting snarled supply chains.

Surveys from the Institute for Supply Management this month showed measures of prices paid by manufacturers and services industries accelerating in October. Manufacturers complained about “record-long raw materials lead times, continued shortages of critical materials, rising commodities prices and difficulties in transporting products.”

Data on Wednesday is expected to showed strong gains in consumer prices in October, according to a Reuters survey of economists. Stocks on Wall Street retreated from record highs. The dollar was steady against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury prices rose.

PORT CONGESTION

There is congestion at ports and widespread shortages of workers at docks and warehouses. There were 10.4 million job openings as of the end of August. The workforce is down 3 million from its pre-pandemic level.

Worker shortages were underscored by a report from the NFIB on Tuesday showing almost 50% of small businesses reported job openings they could not fill in October.

Also on Tuesday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell emphasized the U.S. central bank’s commitment to maximum employment, telling a virtual conference on diversity and inclusion in economics, finance and central banking that “an economy is healthier and stronger when as many people as possible are able to work.”

Wholesale prices of apparel, footwear and truck transportation of freight also rose last month as did the costs of food and alcohol retailing, hospital outpatient care as well as machinery, equipment parts and supplies.

Excluding the volatile food, energy and trade services components, producer prices shot up 0.4%. The so-called core PPI gained 0.1% in September. In the 12 months through October, the core PPI rose 6.2%. That followed a 5.9% advance in September.

Construction prices surged 6.6%, the largest gain since the series was incorporated into the PPI data in 2009.

“As companies feel the squeeze from higher energy and labor costs, as well as persistent logistics issues, producer price increases should be robust in the coming months,” said Will Compernolle, a senior economist at FHN Financial in New York.

Details of the PPI components, which feed into the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, excluding the volatile food and energy component, were mixed. The core PCE price index is the Fed’s preferred measure for its flexible 2% target. Healthcare costs increased 0.4%. Airline tickets rebounded 0.3%, but portfolio management fees dropped 2.2%.

Though the October CPI data is still pending, economists believed that the core PCE price index moved higher last month after increasing 3.6% year-on-year in September.

“For now, we think the core PCE price index will be up 3.8% year-on-year in October,” said Daniel Silver, an economist at JPMorgan in New York.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

U.S.-Mexico border reopens after 20 months of COVID disruption

By Lizbeth Diaz and Jose Luis Gonzalez

TIJUANA/CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) -There were fewer crossings at the Mexico-United States border than expected on Monday as it reopened to non-essential travel following a 20-month closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with many residents staying home to avoid potential chaos.

Officials in the Mexican border city of Tijuana said people did not make the most of restrictions being lifted along the 2,000-mile (3,200-km) border lest they get caught in traffic.

“In the morning, there was no line,” Tijuana resident Claudia Hernandez said as she prepared to enter the United States to go shopping ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday next week.

“Next week we’ll see the massive lines that always form.”

Javier Delgado, a Tijuana transport official, said there were was about 35% less traffic than expected on the city’s border with San Diego, one of the busiest in the world.

On Sunday, hundreds of cars had formed lines stretching back kilometers from Tijuana, fueling fears the reopening could become a problem. But traffic advanced steadily.

In the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez opposite El Paso, Texas, about 20 people lined up early on Monday before crossing and embracing family on the other side of the border.

“We thought they were going to tell us again they had decided not to open it,” said Lorena Hernandez, stroking her grown-up daughter’s hair and smiling broadly after they were reunited in El Paso for the first time since March 2020. “I said: If they don’t reopen, I’m going to take a plane.”

Still, differing rules over coronavirus vaccines threaten to hold up other family reunions, while the prospect of some curbs easing has also encouraged migrants to try their luck seeking U.S. asylum, posing a new test for the Biden administration.

Some inoculated Mexicans will not be able to enter the United States immediately if they received vaccines in Mexico that have not been approved by the World Health Organization, such as China’s CanSino and Russia’s Sputnik V.

“I never imagined that because I got the CanSino vaccine I wouldn’t be able to cross,” lamented Donato Suarez, a driver at a private university in Tijuana who had hoped to visit relatives in the United States he has not seen for nearly two years.

“We even had plans to do something when the border reopened,” he added, noting around 300 people where he works are in the same predicament. “We’ll have to wait.”

(Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz; Editing by Michael Perry and Jonathan Oatis)

German coronavirus infection rate hits highest since pandemic began

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Germany’s coronavirus infection rate has risen to its highest level since the start of the pandemic, public health figures showed on Monday, and doctors warned they will need to postpone scheduled operations in coming weeks to cope.

The seven-day incidence rate – the number of people per 100,000 to be infected over the last week – rose to 201.1, higher than a previous record of 197.6 in December last year, the figures from the Robert Koch Institute showed on Monday.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases rose to 4,782,546 from 4,767,033 a day earlier. The number of deaths increased by 33 to a total of 96,558.

Christian Karagiannidis, scientific director at the DIVI association for intensive and emergency medicine, said an expected rise in coronavirus cases in coming weeks meant some scheduled operations would have to be postponed.

“We will only be able to cope with the burden of all emergencies if savings are made somewhere else, though definitely not with surgical cancer treatments,” he told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper.

Germany has already had to relocate some patients from regions with overburdened hospitals.

The three German parties in talks to form a coalition government by early December have agreed not to extend a nationwide state of emergency.

Instead, they presented a draft law late on Monday that would amend existing legislation to allow for measures such as compulsory face masks and social distancing in public spaces to continue to be enforced until March next year.

The draft law is due to be presented to the Bundestag lower house of parliament on Thursday and voted on in a special session a week later.

Bavaria state premier Markus Soeder earlier called for more decisive action in view of the new peak in the incidence rate. More needs to be done “than a little compulsory testing in old people’s homes,” he told Deutschlandfunk radio.

He called for tests to be offered free of charge again, vaccination centers to be reactivated and for states and the federal government to coordinate their strategies. Germany has abolished free testing to incentivize people to get vaccinated.

(Writing by Vera Eckert, Paul Carrel and Sarah Marsh, Additional Reporting by Alexander Ratz; editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Mark Heinrich and Alex Richardson)

Factbox – Latest on the worldwide spread of the coronavirus

(Reuters) – New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared his coronavirus vaccination order for emergency responders a success, with no disruption to city services, despite a sickout by some firefighters who officials said were protesting the mandate.

DEATHS AND INFECTIONS

EUROPE

* Leaders of the world’s 20 biggest economies endorsed in Rome a global minimum tax aimed at stopping big business from hiding profits in tax havens, and also agreed to get more COVID vaccines to poorer nations.

* Britain will send 20 million vaccine doses to developing countries by the end of this year in what Prime Minister Boris Johnson will tell other world leaders is a much needed step to speed up the post-pandemic economic recovery.

* President Vladimir Putin said Russia may need the army’s help to build field hospitals for COVID-19 patients as the country battles a surge in infections that has led to a nationwide workplace shutdown.

* The Netherlands will impose new coronavirus restrictions this week in a bid to curb a recent surge in infections.

* Latvia has received shipments of emergency medical equipment from the Netherlands, Finland, Hungary and Sweden as it fights the worst surge in new COVID-19 cases in the European Union amid a low take-up of vaccinations.

AMERICAS

* The Biden administration said a planned rule requiring private-sector employers with 100 or more employees to mandate COVID-19 vaccines or regular testing will be published in the coming days.

* The United States is rolling out Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines for children aged 5 to 11 this week, but most of the 15 million shots being shipped initially are unlikely to be available before next week.

* U.S. states with the highest adult vaccination rates against COVID-19 are planning a big push to get children inoculated compared to states where hesitancy remains strong, potentially widening the gaps in protection nationwide, public health officials and experts said.

ASIA-PACIFIC

* Thailand, Australia and Israel eased international border restrictions significantly Monday for the first time in 18 months, offering a broad test of demand for travel worldwide amid the pandemic.

* New Zealand will extend coronavirus curbs for another week in its largest city of Auckland but ease some after that, with the country logging another day of record new infections.

* A declassified U.S. intelligence report saying it was plausible that the COVID-19 pandemic originated in a laboratory is unscientific and has no credibility, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said.

* Indonesia has approved the Sinovac Biotech vaccine for children aged 6-11, its food and drug agency said, following the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for younger children.

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

* The United Arab Emirates has approved for emergency use the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine for children aged 5-11, the health ministry said in a statement carried by state media.

MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS

* Novavax Inc expects regulators in India, the Philippines and elsewhere to make a decision on its COVID-19 vaccine within “weeks,” its chief executive told Reuters, after the shot received its first emergency use authorization from Indonesia.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

* Global equity markets rose at the start of a big week for central bank meetings, helped by bets of fiscal stimulus in Japan and undeterred by concerns of future interest rate hikes that have tempered bonds.

(Compiled by Aditya Soni and Federico Maccioni; Edited by Angus MacSwan and Arun Koyyur)

G20 wants 70% of world vaccinated by mid-2022, sets up pandemic task force

By Jan Strupczewski and Andrea Shalal

ROME (Reuters) -Finance and health ministers from the world’s 20 biggest economies (G20) said on Friday they would take steps to ensure 70% of the world’s population is vaccinated against COVID-19 by mid-2022 and created a task force to fight future pandemics.

They could not reach agreement on a separate financing facility proposed by the United States and Indonesia, but said the task force would explore options for mobilizing funds to boost pandemic preparedness, prevention and response.

“To help advance toward the global goals of vaccinating at least 40 percent of the population in all countries by the end of 2021 and 70 percent by mid-2022 … we will take steps to help boost the supply of vaccines and essential medical products and inputs in developing countries and remove relevant supply and financing constraints,” the G20 ministers said in a statement.

The previous goal had eyed vaccinating 70% of the world’s population by the autumn of 2022.

“We establish a G20 Joint Finance-Health Task Force aimed at enhancing dialogue and global cooperation on issues relating to pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, promoting the exchange of experiences and best practices, developing coordination arrangements between Finance and Health Ministries, promoting collective action, assessing and addressing health emergencies with cross-border impact and encouraging effective stewardship of resources,” the statement said.

The ministers said they were setting up the new body because the COVID-19 pandemic had exposed significant shortcomings in the world’s ability to coordinate its response.

They pledged to support “all collaborative efforts” to provide access to safe, affordable, quality and effective vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and personal protective equipment, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.

To reach the vaccination goals, they said they would work to boost the supply of vaccines and essential medical products and inputs in developing countries, while removing constraints on supply and financing, but gave no specific details.

Global Citizen, an international advocacy group, welcomed the earlier target date, but said the world needed “a battle plan” that mapped out how to get there, greater transparency how many doses were being produced where, when and for whom, and a clear understanding of where there were gaps.

“It’s no longer the time for statements of intentions. Now is the time for our leaders to act,” said the group’s vice president, Friederike Roder.

The ministers also called for boosting the resilience of supply chains through voluntary technology transfer hubs, such as newly established mRNA Hubs in South Africa, Argentina and Brazil, and through joint production and processing agreements.

The call for a voluntary mRNA technology transfer means that talks on the idea of a temporary waiver of intellectual property rights on COVID-19 vaccines and therapies – originally proposed by South Africa and India and now championed by the United States – remain stuck at the World Trade Organization.

German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said the G20 had not discussed patents.

“We have a lot of vaccines available worldwide but the reality is there are still areas in the world where the share of those vaccinated is very low,” Scholz told journalists on the sidelines of the summit.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Jan Strupczewski; Editing by Nick Macfie and Alistair Bell)