EU, 화이자 코로나19 백신 사용 승인…영국발 항공기 40여개국 입국금지

The EU has approved the use of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine,... paving the way for a mass vaccination roll out.
With fears over the spread of a new variant of the virus discovered in the U.K., experts say the current vaccines still work against the new strain.
Despite that, more than 40 countries have now banned arrivals from the U.K.
Lee Seung-jae has more.
The European Union on Monday approved use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine,... finalizing the recommendation of the EU drugs regulator who earlier in the day granted it conditional marketing authorization.
The head of the European Commission confirmed the authorization and called it "an important chapter" in the fight against the pandemic.
"Today, we add an important chapter in our fight against Covid-19. We took the decision to make available for European citizens the first Covid-19 vaccine. We granted conditional market authorization to the vaccine produced by BioNTech and Pfizer."
She added that the first batches would be shipped from Pfizer's manufacturing site in Belgium in the coming days,... with vaccinations to begin on Sunday.
As previously announced,... the vaccines will be available for all EU countries at the same time.
As for Moderna's vaccine,... opinion on that will be issued on January 6th.
With fear over a new strain of the COVID-19 virus out of Britain,... German health minister Jens Spahn insisted the approved Pfizer vaccine is still effective against the new variant.
More than 40 countries have now banned arrivals from the U.K. over fears the new strain will spread to their countries.
This includes flights to Canada, India and Spain.
The state of New York has also banned all U.K. arrival flights.
France has shut its borders to the U.K. for 48 hours,... meaning no lorries or ferries can leave from the port of Dover.
The new strain in the U.K. is said to be up to 70-percent more transmissible than the current strain,... but there's no evidence it's more deadly.
Lee Seung-jae, Arirang News.