Now 'real hope' to end Covid-19 with vaccines: World Health Organization chief

Johnson said that although the "scientific cavalry" was arriving, he warned "Christmas can not be normal and there's a long road to spring".

"The ACT Accelerator has supported the fastest, most coordinated and successful global effort in history to develop vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics", he said.

In light of "encouraging developments" in clinical trials and the expected regulatory approval of a COVID-19 vaccine, vaccination centers across Germany would be operational by mid-December, Minister of Health Jens Spahn said in a press conference here on Monday.

French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to do so later on Tuesday when he addresses the nation - now under lockdown.

Hundreds of millions of doses of the candidate vaccine have been secured on behalf of the COVAX facility, per agreements, the Geneva-based GAVI alliance that leads the initiative along with the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a statement.

"Every government rightly wants to do everything it can to protect its people", Tedros said.

Most recently, given the alarming rate of new infections among men who have sex with men (MSM), he has focused on HIV prevention trials including being a co-principal investigator on a Yale CIRA funded project, which has supported the formation of a cohort of men who have sex with men, who are at high risk for HIV and are engaged in HIV PrEP services in order to study the impact of substance use on retention in care and adherence to PrEP. With the coronavirus vaccine becoming the most wanted commodity yet to arrive in 2020, the world is bursting with enthusiasm and anticipation.

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said the his airline would make it obligatory to have a vaccination certificate to be able to fly once a vaccine was made available to the public.

"Whether you need that domestically, we will have to see what happens with Covid-19 in the market but certainly, for worldwide visitors coming out (to Australia) and people leaving the country, we think that is a necessity." he told Channel Nine.

Australia passed a major milestone on Tuesday when Victoria state - the epicentre of the country's second wave - announced its last coronavirus patient had been cleared of Covid-19.

Almost 258,000 people have died nationwide and the caseload is edging towards 12.4 million, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The coronavirus pandemic has changed the way we shop and today, the product most in demand across the world market is the coronavirus vaccine.

"Our pleas for help have fallen on selfish deaf ears", tweeted Cleavon Gilman, an emergency doctor in Arizona, where he said hospitals were "overwhelmed" with Covid patients.