A US panel of independent experts voted unanimously Friday in favor of recommending Johnson & Johnson's one-dose Covid-19 shot for emergency approval, clearing the way for a third vaccine to soon begin shipping in the world's hardest hit country.

The US House passed an enormous, $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package early Saturday, hailed by Democrats as a critical step in funneling new funding toward vaccinations, overburdened local governments, and millions of families devastated by the pandemic.

The U.N. Security Council gave unanimous approval Friday to a resolution calling for improved access to Covid-19 vaccines in conflict-hit or impoverished countries, diplomats said.

A U.S. panel of independent experts was meeting Friday to discuss whether to grant Johnson & Johnson's Covid-19 shot emergency approval, likely paving the way for a third vaccine to start shipping in the world's hardest-hit country.

Ecuador's health minister Juan Carlos Zevallos resigned Friday in the latest scandal to hit a South American government over well-connected citizens jumping the queue for coronavirus vaccines.

The administration of the American University of Beirut Medical Center issued a statement Friday clarifying information attributed to the state-run Central Inspection bureau, which claimed that 1,600 people who had not registered on the Health Ministry’s electronic platform have received the Covid-19 vaccine at AUBMC.

G20 finance ministers and central bankers were meeting Friday to align plans to relaunch the global economy after the coronavirus pandemic and to limit the harm to the worst-off nations shut out of the race for vaccines.

Another mutated version of the coronavirus has popped up in New York City, and experts reacted to the the news with a mixture of caution and concern.

The new variant first appeared in the New York area in late November, and has since cropped up in neighboring states, according to researchers at the California Institute of Technology, one of two teams to share their work this week.

Violet light bathed the club stage as 300 people, masked and socially distanced, erupted in gentle applause. For the first time since the pandemic began, Israeli musician Aviv Geffen stepped to his electric piano and began to play for an audience seated right in front of him.

"A miracle is happening here tonight," Geffen told the crowd.

South Korea administered its first available shots of coronavirus vaccines to people at long-term care facilities Friday, launching a mass immunization campaign that health authorities hope will restore some level of normalcy by the end of the year.

The rollout of vaccines come at a critical time for the country, which has seen its hard-won gains against the virus get wiped out by a winter surge and is struggling to mitigate the pandemic's economic shock that decimated service sector jobs.