The Washington Post. Some more stuff about vaccines.

Important developments in the pandemic.

By Ben Guarino  Email The Post's coronavirus coverage linked in this newsletter is free to access from this email.   The latest Months after the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization to Pfizer-BioNTech for its coronavirus vaccine – a special designation that reflected the severity of the pandemic – Pfizer has asked the FDA for full approval for the vaccine for people 16 and older. If Friday's submission for a biologics license application is approved, Pfizer could market the drug directly and offer booster shots without additional emergency authorization from regulators.  A high-level Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official, the first U.S. official to warn Americans about community spread of the coronavirus and the disruption it would bring, is resigning. National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases director Nancy Messonnier infuriated then-President Donald Trump when she deflated the White House's rosier messaging in an announcement in February 2020. Messonnier, who will join a philanthropic health organization, was largely absent from public briefings after those comments. This week, the Biden administration announced it would support a petition to waive patent protections for coronavirus vaccines. But policy analysts told The Post it make take months or more for vaccine supply to increase as a result of relaxed intellectual property protections. Potentially significant hurdles include building the factories and hiring workers able to manufacture mRNA vaccines. The pharmaceutical companies that own the patents, who have warned that waiving such protections will damage future innovation, won't be readily joining the Biden administration on this point. Post business reporter Christopher Rowland writes the drug industry is gearing up for a “protracted battle before the World Trade Organization over how much of their proprietary vaccine technology they will be forced to share.”  The World Health Organization decided Friday to authorize the Chinese vaccine Sinopharm in an emergency capacity. This is the first time the WHO has granted emergency use authorization for a vaccine made in China. Sinopharm is now eligible to be used in WHO-backed vaccine campaigns such as Covax. Other important news More borrowers are behind on their mortgages now than at any point since 2008's Great Recession, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reports. Even the base of Mount Everest is not free from the coronavirus. To help prevent further spread, some expeditions have employed doctors at base camps to give climbers rapid tests. An extreme form of lockdown in Cambodia means some residents, unable to leave their homes, are desperate for food. The owner of a bar in California was arrested and charged with felonies related to the sale of false coronavirus vaccination cards.