US has damaged international cooperation on COVID-19: China

People celebrate the Lunar New Year holiday in Chinatown in New York City. Pic/AFP

China fired back on Sunday at the US over allegations from the White House that Beijing withheld some information about the Coronavirus outbreak from World Health Organization (WHO) investigators.

In a statement on Friday, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington had "deep concerns about the way in which the early findings of the COVID-19 investigation were communicated and questions about the process used to reach them." "It is imperative that this report be independent, with expert findings free from intervention or alteration by the Chinese government," he said, referring to the WHO mission probing the origins of the pandemic.

"To better understand this pandemic and prepare for the next one, China must make available its data from the earliest days of the outbreak." Sullivan's statement said. China responded with a statement from its Washington embassy on Sunday, saying the US had already "gravely damaged international cooperation on COVID-19 and was now "pointing fingers at other countries who have been faithfully supporting the WHO and at the WHO itself."

While it welcomed President Joe Biden's decision to reverse the Trump administration's move to leave the WHO, China hopes the US will "hold itself to the highest standards, take a serious, earnest, transparent and responsible attitude, shoulder its rightful responsibility, support the WHO's work with real actions and make due contribution to the international cooperation on COVID-19," the statement said.

Japan approves its first COVID-19 vaccine
Japan on Sunday formally approved its first COVID-19 vaccine and said it would start nationwide inoculations within days. Japan's health ministry said it had approved the vaccine co-developed and supplied by Pfizer Inc. The announcement comes after a government panel on Friday confirmed that final results of clinical testing done in Japan showed that the vaccine had an efficacy similar to what overseas tests showed. Many countries began vaccinating their citizens late last year, and Pfizer's vaccine has been used elsewhere since December.

UK to start inoculation of all over-65s
The United Kingdom's vaccination programme will officially expand further from Monday as the National Health Service (NHS) invites all over-65s and clinically vulnerable groups to receive their jabs to protect against COVID-19. So far, more than 14.5 million people in the designated top four priority groups of over-70s and frontline health and care workers have been protected by at least one of the two-dose Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines.

Canada health experts warn of third wave
Health experts in Canada have warned of a third wave of the pandemic after variants of the virus were reported across nine provinces. As of February 13, Canada reported 429 cases of the UK B.1.1.7 variant, 28 cases of the South African B.1.351 variant, and one of the P.1 Brazilian strain.

Auckland to go into three-day lockdown
New Zealand is imposing first lockdown restrictions since October on the city of Auckland - its most populous city - for three days after three COVID-19 community cases were reported, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said.

1,68,426
No. of new cases reported globally in the past 24 hours

10,86,12,975
Total no. of cases worldwide

2,395,288
Total no. of deaths worldwide