AstraZeneca

Top of The World: Germany has joined France, Italy and Spain in suspending its use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine over concerns of blood clots in some recipients. And, with a rise in the number of migrants getting apprehended at the US-Mexico border, US President Joe Biden — once critical of Trump-era deterrence policies — is now facing criticism from all sides.

Europe is facing a dangerous, new surge of COVID-19 cases, just as Italy, France and Germany suspend use of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Dr. Barry Bloom, former dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, talks with The World’s Marco Werman about what lessons the surge might offer US scientists and public health officials devising strategies to beat the new variants.

Late-stage studies of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate are on temporary hold while the company investigates whether a recipient’s “potentially unexplained” illness is a side effect of the shot.

European Union leaders’ negotiations extended into a fourth day on Monday as they try to hammer out a deal to revive economies battered by the coronavirus pandemic. Also, a potential coronavirus vaccine being developed by scientists at Oxford University shows strong immune response and no early safety concerns. And in Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro said that lockdown measures used to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus “kill” and have “suffocated” the country’s economy.

Scientists at Oxford University say their experimental coronavirus vaccine has been shown in an early trial to prompt a protective immune response in hundreds of people who got the shot.