As work on potential coronavirus vaccines intensifies, rich countries are placing advance orders for the inevitably limited supply to guarantee their citizens are immunized first. That is leaving significant questions about how long it will take developing countries to get any vaccines.

The chief scientist at the World Health Organization says the agency hopes there will be about 2 billion doses of a vaccine against COVID-19 by the end of next year that would be reserved for “priority populations.”

Dr. Soumya Swaminathan told a press briefing, “It’s a big ‘if’ because we don’t have any vaccine that’s proven.”

She said that because of the numerous vaccine candidates currently being tested, WHO hoped at least some might prove ready for use next year.

Swaminathan said that WHO recommends immunizing people at risk first, including the elderly and those with underlying conditions like diabetes or respiratory disease, as well as key workers.

But Swaminathan noted that there was still no strategy regarding any possible global distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. “WHO will propose these solutions,” she said. “Countries need to agree and come to a consensus. That’s the only way this can work.”

Numerous developed countries including Britain, France, the Netherlands, Germany and the US have already struck deals with pharmaceuticals to secure vaccine supplies for their citizens first.

WHO and partners have called for drugmakers to suspend their patent rights on any effective COVID-19 vaccine and for billions of dollars to buy vaccines for developing countries.

Meanwhile in the world of travel and tourism:• Hong Kong Disneyland officially reopened on Thursday after a major drop in coronavirus cases in the Chinese territory. Advance reservations will be required and only limited attendance will be allowed at the park, one of the pillars of Hong Kong’s crucial tourism industry.

Social distancing measures are being implemented in lines, at restaurants, on rides and at shops, while cleaning and disinfecting will be increased. Visitors will have their temperatures checked at the entrance and will be required to wear masks at all times inside the park, except when eating and drinking. Disney is planning to reopen its parks in California and Florida next month.

• Delta Air Lines says more than 40,000 of its 91,000 employees have agreed to take unpaid leave of up to a year, which along with a “moderate” increase in ticket sales is helping the airline cut its cash burn rate to $30 million a day by the end of this month. That is US $10 million a day less than Delta forecast a week ago.

Delta has raised more than $14 billion in financing and expects to have $10 billion in available funds by year end. US airlines face layoffs when federal payroll aid runs out in October unless air travel rebounds.

• Carnival’s revenue nosedived in the second quarter as it was unable to sail any cruises. The company hasn’t sailed any cruises since mid-March. For the quarter, the cruise operator reported an adjusted loss of US$2.38 billion on revenue of US$700 million. A year earlier it had an adjusted profit of US$457 million on revenue of US $4.8 billion.

Carnival anticipates a phased resumption of its cruises, but doesn’t have a specific start date. The company expects that initial sailings will be from a select number of easily accessible homeports.

Carnival says it’s seeing growing demand for new bookings for next year. For the six weeks ended May 31, approximately two-thirds of 2021 bookings were new bookings. The remaining 2021 booking volumes was from guests applying future cruise credits to specific cruises.

• The virus outbreak has officially ended the long run of job growth at US airlines. The Transportation Department said Thursday that employment at the nation’s largest 23 passenger airlines fell 6.7% from mid-March to mid-April, and dropped 4% or 18,000 jobs, from a year earlier. It was the first time in seven years that airline jobs fell compared with a year earlier. And the figures are likely to get much worse. Airlines are slashing costs because of a sharp drop in passengers. Thousands of employees are taking early-retirement offers, and widespread layoffs are expected in October, when nearly $25 billion in federal payroll aid runs out.

• Consumers are increasingly moving away from cash and opting for contact-free and digital payment experiences, according to a study by Mastercard.

Globally, almost seven in 10 consumers say the shift to digital payments will likely be permanent, and nearly half of consumers plan to use cash less, even after the pandemic subsides, according to a Mastercard weekly survey launched April 27.

Online spending in the US grew by 93% year-over-year in May, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, which measures retail sales across all payment types including cash and check.

• US Vice-President Mike Pence says the US response to the coronavirus pandemic is “a cause for celebration,” but that astounding statement conflicts with a new poll which finds more than half of Americans calling it fair or poor. Of course he works for a man who claims, “If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any.”  Think of the celebration then!

The Gallup and West Health survey out Thursday shows that 57% of US adults rate the national response to COVID-19 as fair or poor, particularly because America has the world’s most expensive health care.

• Commissioners in Monroe County, in the Florida Keys, have voted to make facial coverings mandatory, effective immediately, to help stop the spread of the coronavirus. An ordinance now requires facial covering over the nose and mouth for all employees and customers in business and other public places where there is a roof overhead. Patrons in restaurants and bars are permitted to remove their masks to eat and drink.

Commissioners recommend that anyone 6 and older should carry a mask when they leave home, and to wear it “whenever they come within six feet of another person.”

The order applies to throughout the county and the city of Key West. Other municipalities may adopt ordinances with different requirements. Violation of the mask order is punishable by fines, but not jail time, the commission said in a news release.

• Dozens of people have gathered outside the prime minister’s office complex in Thailand to demand that the government scrap an emergency decree it enacted in March to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak.

The protesters believe Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha’s government no longer needs emergency powers to control the coronavirus, and instead is using them to harass its political opponents. Authoritarian leaders using the coronavirus crisis as an excuse to increase their power and quash dissent have become a concern in several countries, most notably in Hungary in Europe and the Philippines in Southeast Asia.

• Britain’s government is scrapping its existing coronavirus tracing smartphone app and switching to a model based on technology supplied by Apple and Google, the BBC reports.

The government’s app is being trialled on the Isle of Wight, and was expected to be rolled out in the rest of the country later. But the program, previously hailed as a fundamental pillar of the U.K. response to the pandemic, has been delayed. The app may not be ready until the winter and is not the “priority” at the moment.

The data gathered by the Apple-Google design is expected to be less centralized but it is said to have less privacy concerns than the government version.

• After Montenegro and Slovenia, Croatia is also reporting a spike in new coronavirus infections following the reopening of its borders. Croatian health authorities said Thursday that 11 new cases have been recorded in the past 24 hours after weeks of very low results. In the northern Istria peninsula, a resurgence came after two months of no cases at all.

Authorities say most of the new cases have been imported. Croatia has reopened for visitors in hopes of salvaging its crucial summer tourism season along the Adriatic Sea coast. Officials urged the citizens to respect protective anti-virus measures like social distancing and wearing masks. Croatia has had nearly 2,300 cases and 107 virus-related deaths.

• Greece’s government has announced a new system of fines and penalties for businesses that are found to be violating regulations imposed to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

Under details published Thursday in the government gazette, fines for violations will range from €1,000 to €50,000 ($1,522 to $76,100). For bars and restaurants, offending businesses will be shut down for 15 days for the first violation, 30 days for the second violation and 60 days for the third if all three violations occur within three months. Other retail businesses face similar penalties.

Regulations include limits on the number of people allowed into a business depending on its physical size, distances to be maintained between tables at cafes, bars, restaurants and outdoor movie theatres, and mandatory masks to be work by staff handling fresh food.

Greece imposed a lockdown early in its outbreak, a move credited with keeping overall numbers of deaths and seriously ill people low.

• Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday that Japan is discussing possible resumption of mutual visits with four countries – Thailand, Vietnam, Australia and New Zealand – where the coronavirus infections have been largely taken under control.

Japan has imposed entry bans from more than 110 countries to keep out the infections. Japan is trying to gradually resume business trips and tourism starting with the four countries as exceptions. Visits are expected to restart with ample precautions, including virus tests, Abe said, though he did not give further details such as timing.

Abe said Japan is also lifting domestic travel restrictions, allowing residents to travel outside of their own prefectures. Domestic tourism will gradually restart, and events of up to 1,000 people can also resume, Abe said.

Business restrictions for host and hostess clubs and other night entertainment deemed high risk of infections can also reopen under disease prevention guidelines worked out jointly by the health ministry and operators.