NEW YORK: US regulators moved a step closer to approving a COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday (Dec 8) as Britain started inoculating people, offering hope of slowing a pandemic that killed 15,000 Americans in the last week alone.

Pfizer Inc cleared another hurdle on Tuesday when the US Food and Drug Administration released documents that raised no new red flags over the safety or efficacy of the vaccine it developed with Germany's BioNTech SE.