Covid vaccine won’t be ready by US polls

US biotech firm Moderna won't seek an emergency use authorization for its coronavirus vaccine before November 25, its CEO told the Financial Times on Wednesday.

The news deals a blow to President Donald Trump's hopes of having an injection ready before the election to give his campaign a much-needed boost.

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Stephane Bancel told the newspaper: "November 25 is the time we will have enough safety data to be able to put into an EUA file that we would send to the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) — assuming that the safety data is good, i.e. a vaccine is deemed to be safe."

Moderna's vaccine is one of 11 experimental vaccines in final stage trials. The coronavirus pandemic has killed at least 1,018,634 people around the world since emerging in China in late 2019, according to an AFP tally based on official sources. More than 34 million cases globally have been officially diagnosed.

Spain's government published a decree extending drastic restrictions across the capital yesterday, with partial lockdown measures to come into play within 48 hours, despite fierce opposition from Madrid's regional authorities.

Meanwhile, the UN's International Labour Organization said Wednesday that at least 34 million jobs have been lost in Latin America due to the pandemic. 

The ILO urged countries in the region to adopt "immediate strategies" to deal with the problem. The organisation's Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Vinícius Pinheiro, called it "an unprecedented challenge."