The world needs about 22 bn doses of mRNA vaccines to slow the pandemic’s spread, which means that we need to produce an additional 15 bn doses this year, according to a report from public health advocates and scientists titled ‘22 bn in the hole’ (pdf). Increased demand from wealthy nations for booster shots will make harder for poorer nations to get their hands on enough doses — and as long as so many in the developing world remain unjabbed, there's a chance the virus will continue to mutate, bringing us more variants, according to experts cited by the Washington Post.

Kazakhstan just pledged to give us 5 mn doses of its homemade vaccine: Kazakhstan will donate 5 mn shots of its QazVac covid vaccine to Egypt as soon as our regulators approve it, the country’s ambassador to Egypt told interim health minister Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, the Health Ministry said yesterday. The two-shot vaccine has been used in Kazakhstan since April, but the World Health Organization is yet to approve its use, and only one other country — Kyrgyzstan — has given it the green light. The results from last year’s phase 3 trials are expected to be published early this year.

The Health Ministry reported 830 new covid-19 infections yesterday, up from 821 the day before. Egypt has now disclosed a total of 391,945 confirmed cases of covid-19. The ministry also reported 29 new deaths, bringing the country’s total death toll to 21,938.

Omicron may be an easy come, easy go variant: While omicron caused a spike in cases worldwide, countries who were hit by the variant early on are now indicating that the spread might have “peaked,” writes CNBC. Nationwide case numbers in South Africa — where the strain was first discovered — began to decrease in the final week of 2021, while experts say London may also now be seeing cases plateau.

ALSO- Hong Kong has banned incoming flights from eight countries including the US and UK for two weeks and tightened restrictions as authorities look to ward off a fifth, omicron-fuelled wave of the virus, Reuters says.