This is VOA News. Reporting by remote, I'm Joe Ramsey. British health officials said Friday the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in Britain has prevented daily 12,000 deaths and more than 30,000 hospitalizations in older people. Britain has given two-thirds of its adult population at least one shot of COVID-19 vaccine, helping Prime Minister Boris Johnson in his efforts to reopen the economy by the summer. The analysis by government agency Public Health England says the estimate accounts only for the direct effects of vaccines and evidence that vaccines help reduce transmission means the numbers of deaths and hospitalizations is likely higher. There have been 127,000 deaths in Britain from COVID-19 - the sixth highest death toll globally, according to a Reuters analysis.
More teenagers in the United States began receiving COVID-19 vaccines on Thursday. U.S. regulators authorized Pfizer's vaccines for use in children as young as 12 earlier in the week, the first coronavirus shot to be approved in the United States for ages 12 to 15. Thursday was the first day the shots went into the arms of the age group in some U.S. states. Vaccinating younger ages is considered an important step for getting children back into school safely.
Pfizer repeatedly offered to sell its COVID-19 vaccine to Brazil's Health Ministry between August and November last year but got no answer from the government, Pfizer's chief executive for Latin America told lawmakers on Thursday. A Senate commission is investigating whether President Jair Bolsonaro's government mishandled the pandemic by failing to secure vaccines in time to curb a surge that has killed more than 430,000 Brazilians - the worst COVID-19 death toll outside the United States. The letter went unanswered for two months, the parliamentary commission has established. The Brazilian government eventually negotiated with Pfizer for 100 million doses in a contract signed in March, with the first one million doses arriving in late April. Reporting remotely,
