The Dutch government came under heavy criticism from lawmakers Tuesday over a COVID-19 vaccination plan that has the first shots set to be administered on Wednesday, making the Netherlands the last European Union nation to begin vaccinations. Prime Minister Mark Rutte conceded that his government had focused in its preparations on the easy-to-handle AstraZeneca vaccine, which has not yet been cleared for use in the EU, and not the vaccine produced by U.S. drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech, which is the only shot so far given the green light by the EU’s medicines agency. “This is outrageous,” Geert Wilders, leader of the largest Dutch opposition party, said during a debate that was arranged during Parliament’s winter recess.

The head of the World Health Organization said Tuesday that he is “disappointed” Chinese officials haven’t finalized the permissions to allow a team of experts into China to examine the origins of COVID-19. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in a rare critique of Beijing, said members of the international scientific team began departing from their home countries over the last 24 hours as part of an arrangement between WHO and the Chinese government. “Today, we learned that Chinese officials have not yet finalized the necessary permissions for the team’s arrival in China,” Tedros said during a news conference in Geneva.

A Wisconsin pharmacist told police he tried to ruin hundreds of doses of coronavirus vaccine because he felt the shots weren’t safe, a prosecutor said Monday. Police in Grafton, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Milwaukee, arrested Advocate Aurora Health pharmacist Steven Brandenburg last week following an investigation into the 57 spoiled vials of the Moderna vaccine, which officials say contained enough doses to inoculate more than 500 people. “He’d formed this belief they were unsafe,” Ozaukee County District Attorney Adam Gerol said during a virtual hearing. He added that Brandenburg was upset because he was in the midst of divorcing his wife, and an Aurora employee said Brandenburg had taken a gun to work twice.

Coronavirus czar Prof. Nachman Ash told Ynet on Tuesday morning that any delay in implementing a strict lockdown will result in a loss of lives. For now, he recommended that parents living in high infection areas should keep their children home. “A child who brings the disease home infects others,” he said. “We have seen quite a few such cases in recent days.” Yamina leader Naftali Bennett also recommended that parents keep their children home from school, saying that he kept his children at home on Tuesday for the first time. Former Health Ministry Director-General Moshe Bar Siman-Tov already kept his children home on Sunday. “Many friends have been asking me what to do about school,” Bar Siman-Tov wrote on Twitter on Sunday.

Veteran talk show host Larry King, suffering from COVID-19, has been moved out of the intensive care unit at a Los Angeles hospital and is breathing on his own, a spokesman said on Monday. King was moved to the ICU on New Year’s Eve and was receiving oxygen but is now breathing on his own, said David Theall, a spokesman for Ora Media, a production company formed by King. The 87-year-old broadcasting legend shared a video phone call with his three sons, Theall said. King, who spent many years as an overnight radio DJ, is best known as host of the “Larry King Live” interview show that ran in prime time on CNN from 1985 to 2010. (AP)

Israel’s Health Ministry approved the coronavirus vaccine of US biotech company Moderna, the company stated overnight Monday. There have been differing reports about when the Moderna vaccines will be shipped to Israel, with the company and some health officials saying that the first shipment will arrive in approximately two weeks, two months ahead of the scheduled delivery in March. Other reports said that the vaccines won’t arrive until March with the exception of about 100,000 doses. Health Minister Yuli Edelstein confirmed the latter report on Tuesday afternoon, saying that the ministry has no indication that the Moderna vaccines will arrive earlier than March.

Mexico approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine for emergency use Monday, hoping to spur a halting vaccination effort that has only given about 44,000 shots since the third week of December, about 82% of the doses the country has received. The Pfizer vaccine had been the only one approved for use in Mexico, until Mexican regulators approved the AstraZeneca shot Monday. Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard wrote in his Twitter account Monday that “the emergency approval for the AstraZeneca vaccine is very good news … with this, production will begin very soon in Mexico!” A Mexican firm has arranged to do part of the finishing and packaging of the vaccine.

The European Commission defended its coronavirus vaccination strategy Monday amid growing criticism in member states about the slow rollout of COVID-19 shots across the region of 450 million inhabitants. Vaccination programs in the 27 nation-bloc have gotten off to a slow start and some EU members have been quick to blame the EU’s executive arm for a perceived failure of delivering the right amount of doses. In Finland, health authorities are reportedly unhappy that the country only received about 40,000 doses in December, instead of the 300,000 that were expected.

Health Ministry data on Tuesday illustrates a frightening reality of the infection rate in the Chareidi sector in Israel, with infections at a record high, and the positivity rate in the sector at 19.5%, as compared to 7.7% in the general sector. The highest infection in the country rate is in Beitar Illit, with a 25.80% positivity rate, and Modiin Illit, with a 17.69 positivity rate, followed by Elad, Telzstone, Bnei Brak and Rechasim. A senior health official told Kikar H’Shabbos on Tuesday that “the British variant is spreading at a dizzying rate. We’re at the height of a wave worse than the first and second waves. We see this in the number of seriously ill patients and fatalities.

Health Minister Yuli Edelstein told other ministers on Monday that if Israel doesn’t take severe steps immediately, Israel will become “like Italy” soon. Israel’s Health Ministry confirmed 8,308 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday morning, the highest number of new cases since September, with tests showing a positivity rate of 7.7%. There are currently 56,223 active virus cases, including 837 seriously ill patients, of whom 183 are ventilated – a number that now surpasses Israel’s red flag number of 800 seriously ill patients that its health system can adequately treat without undue strain. A total of 98 fatalities were recorded in the past four days alone, an average of 25 deaths a day – raising the death toll to 3,448.