Originally posted by the Voice of America.
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Russia Begins COVID Inoculations

VOA News

   Russia has begun its COVID-19 vaccination program. Seventy clinics in
   Moscow began inoculating people Saturday with the Sputnik-V COVID-19
   shot, the city's coronavirus task force said.

   The vaccine is being made available to health care workers, social
   workers and people who work in schools because they run the highest
   risk of exposure to the coronavirus. People over 60 are excluded from
   receiving the shot, media reports say.

   Russia's vaccine is administered in two injections, with the second
   injection scheduled for three weeks after the first.

   Thousands of people have registered to receive the vaccine. It was not
   immediately clear, however, how much of the vaccine has been produced.

   Some scientists have questioned the efficacy of the
   Russian-manufactured vaccine because of its speedy appearance on the
   market.

   Russia has 2.4 million COVID infections and more than 42,000 deaths,
   according to Johns Hopkins.

   The California city of San Francisco and several Bay Area counties said
   Friday that they will begin imposing stay-at-home orders this weekend
   as part of their battle against the coronavirus.

   California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that the state was on the
   verge of imposing stay-at-home orders on a regional basis once
   intensive care units in the state's five regions reached more than 85%
   capacity.

   San Francisco and the Bay Area counties, however, are not waiting for
   the hospital capacity threshold and are instead voluntarily opting into
   the state's regional stay-at-home order.

   "We are in our worst surge yet of COVID-19. It is stressing health care
   systems across the state of California and taxing our health care
   workers," Dr. Grant Colfax, San Francisco's director of health, said
   Friday. "We need urgent intervention now if we want to be able to care
   for the sick in mid-to-late December. We do not want your parent, your
   spouse, your child, your grandparent or any loved one to be in need of
   help and our hospitals too overwhelmed to properly care for them."

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