The first of five large-scale American trials aimed at finding a vaccine for the coronavirus took place Monday and was hailed as a "historic event'' as researchers continued their pursuit of a counter measure to a disease that has upended the planet.
The Phase 3 study by the Massachusetts biotech firm Moderna will involve 30,000 volunteer participants in collaboration with Operation Warp Speed, the federal program trying to end the crisis by encouraging vaccine candidates from several companies. Four more equally sized trials of other possible vaccines are expected to begin in the next two to three months, with all but one supported by billions in federal funding.
In Miami, the Marlins baseball team had to cancel Monday night's game against the Orioles after 11 Miami players tested positive for COVID-19. The Marlins just played in Philadelphia, which led to the Phillies-Yankees game also being postponed.
In Washington, national security adviser Robert O'Brien has tested positive for COVID-19. And White House officials were working out details for a $1 trillion relief bill Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to bring forward Monday afternoon. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has assailed Republican “disarray” over the new pandemic relief package.
Here are some significant developments:
📈 Today's stats: The U.S. has more than 4.2 million confirmed cases and over 145,000 deaths. Worldwide, there have been more than 16.2 million cases and almost 650,900 deaths, according to data maintained by Johns Hopkins.
📰 What we're reading: The COVID economy, in 6 striking charts.
Our live blog is being updated throughout the day. Refresh for the latest news, and get updates in your inbox with The Daily Briefing.
Moderna kicks off vaccine trial of 30,000
With a shot in the arm of a participant in Savannah, Georgia, the biotech firm Moderna began its Phase 3 trial of 30,000 volunteers in pursuit of a coronavirus vaccine.
Moderna is one of several companies around the world in the final stages of producing a vaccine, although none have yet proven effective among a large population. Several vaccines made by China and by Britain’s Oxford University earlier this month began smaller, final-stage tests in Brazil and around the world. In the U.S., four other large-scale vaccine trials are expected to begin in the coming months.
“This is a truly historic event in the history of vaccinology,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is leading the government’s vaccine development as the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Monderna said it's on track to provide as many as 1 billion doses per year starting in 2021, although the vaccine's effectiveness and safety may not be known for months.
-- Karen Weintraub
Kentucky governor wants school openings delayed
Amid a surge of COVID-19 cases in Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear recommended Monday that schools postpone in-person instruction until the third week of August. Beshear also ordered bars to close again and restaurants to scale back to 25% capacity.
Beshear announced 522 new COVID-19 cases in Kentucky and nine additional virus-related deaths. The state now has seen 27,601 total cases of the coronavirus and 709 total deaths. Beshear said Monday's new cases included 21 children under 5 years old, including one just 11 days old.
"Kids can and do spread the virus," he said. "The level right now is in debate, but there is no question that they can and do spread it."
-- Billy Kobin, Louisville Courier Journal
Miami Marlins postpone baseball game; MLB season in jeopardy
The Miami Marlins, who have had at least 14 players and staff members test positive for the coronavirus, postponed their game Monday in Miami against the Baltimore Orioles. The Marlins remained in Philadelphia to continue undergoing testing after the outbreak spread throughout the clubhouse, and Monday night's Phillies-Yankees game was also nixed. Depending on positive tests, members of the Marlins traveling party will have to self-isolate for 14 days, per MLB and the Players’ Association health and safety protocols. The outbreak took place just as the virus-shortened season was getting underway, and similar outbreaks on other teams could put the season in jeopardy.
"We're taking risks every day,” manager Don Mattingly said after Sunday's game against the Phillies. “(General Manager) Michael Hill told me early on we were going to need to be adjustable, patient."
– Scott Gleeson and Bob Nightengale
National security adviser Robert O'Brien tests positive
President Donald Trump's national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, has tested positive for COVID-19, the White House confirmed. O'Brien, who was named to his job last September, is the highest-ranking administration official to contract the coronavirus. The news came days after the announcement that a Marine assigned to the military unit that flies Marine One tested positive for the virus but did not have direct contact with Trump or his presidential helicopter.
The White House also conducted contact tracing last week after an employee for a cafeteria vendor at the two eateries inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building tested positive for the coronavirus.
– David Jackson
WHO: Pandemic 'most severe' health emergency ever declared
Six months after the World Health Organization declared the pandemic, the impact of the outbreak is being felt far beyond the suffering caused by the virus itself, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday. Economies are struggling, wide swaths of people are going hungry and essential health services have been disrupted, he said. The pandemic is “easily the most severe” emergency ever declared by the agency, he said. Tedros said the pandemic continues to accelerate as the number of global cases doubled in the last six weeks.
"As we mark six months," Tedros said, "the COVID-19 pandemic is illustrating that health is not a reward for development, it’s the foundation of social, economic and political stability."
Google employees to work from home until July
Technology giant Google on Monday told most of its 200,000 employees and contractors to work from home until at least next July, extending by six months the company's plan to keep the majority of its offices closed for the rest of 2020.
The remote-work order issued by Google CEO Sundar Pichai also affects other companies owned by its corporate parent, Alphabet Inc., and represents the most extensive such decision by a major corporation in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Other companies are likely to follow suit.
“I hope this will offer the flexibility you need to balance work with taking care of yourselves and your loved ones over the next 12 months,” Pichai wrote in an e-mail to employees.
Hair loss linked to coronavirus
Maybe this will scare carefree young people into taking the coronavirus seriously: More than 27 percent of at least 1,100 respondents in a Facebook poll reported hair loss that may have been a consequence of contracting the virus.
Dr. Michele S. Green, a dermatologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said there’s been an influx of patients seeking treatment for hair loss during quarantine and after she reopened her office.
“Patients have literally come in with bags of hair looking like a full head of hair was in the bag,” she said. “They all have similar stories. That they were extremely sick with high fevers and have never been that sick in their entire lives.”
Doctors say hair loss may not be caused by the virus itself but by the physical shock patients’ bodies experience as they battle high fevers and other intense symptoms.
-- Adrianna Rodriguez
Fauci a hit despite wild pitch
A wayward first pitch does not appear to have diminished Dr. Anthony Fauci's public standing. The Topps NOW limited edition baseball trading card featuring Fauci, regarded as the nation's leading expert in infectious diseases, set an all-time print record run for the company by selling 51,512 cards in just 24 hours.
The card features Fauci, wearing a face mask and a Nationals' jersey, throwing out the first pitch during last Thursday's MLB season-opening game between Washington and the Yankees. Fauci's pitch was well off the mark and hurtled short and to the left of the home plate circle.
"Topps prides itself on capturing the unique moments of the MLB season, one baseball card at a time, and Dr. Fauci’s inclusion in this year’s Topps NOW cards is just one way in which we are highlighting the uniqueness of the 2020 season," communications manager Emily Kless said in an email.
-- Lorenzo Reyes
Summer of COVID-19 putting heat on beach businesses
Restaurants and stores across the U.S. are fighting to stay in business amid COVID-19 spikes and sharply reduced sales as many patrons shy away out of contagion fears or capacity limits. But few merchants are under fire like those in America’s beach towns, which earn the vast majority of their annual sales from Memorial Day to Labor Day. The stakes are higher, the losses amplified.
“Our businesses have 12 weeks to make money to survive the rest of the year,” says Lauren Weaver, executive director of the Bethany-Fenwick Chamber of Commerce, who says sales for the Delaware town’s 75 or so beach-district merchants are down 40% to 70% compared with a year ago. Some of those merchants won't survive, she said.
– Paul Davidson
80,000 tourist evacuated from Vietnamese city
About 80,000 tourists are being evacuated from the Vietnamese beach city of Da Nang after more than a dozen people there were confirmed to have COVID-19, the government announced Monday. Vietnam, widely seen as a success in dealing with the coronavirus, reimposed a social distancing order in Da Nang following confirmation of the cases. A 57-year-old man was confirmed to be infected by the coronavirus on Saturday, the country’s first local case since April. The Ministry of Health says 14 additional cases have been confirmed since then.
More state records fall as COVID-19's havoc continues unabated
A USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins data through late Sunday shows 13 states set weekly records for new cases while seven states had a weekly record number of deaths. New case records were set in Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Record numbers of deaths were reported in Alabama, Idaho, Mississippi, Nevada, Oregon, South Carolina and Texas.
In Louisiana, new coronavirus cases per week leaped to 15,868, up almost 45% from the state's worst week in the spring.
– Michael Stucka
Coin shortage spurs freebies from Virginia Chick-fil-A
If you have at least $10 in spare change, a Chick-fil-A in Virginia will offer you free food for them. Amid the nation's coronavirus-caused coin shortage, franchise owners in the city of Lynchburg are running a special on Wednesday. The chicken restaurant is offering a free entree voucher to customers who exchange $10 of rolled coins for $10 in paper cash. Medical experts have encouraged people to cut back on using physical money because it can transport germs, prompting localized coin shortages. Select 7-Eleven stores have started offering a free Slurpee to those who trade $5 in change for $5 in paper money.
"We need coins and you can help!" the Chick-fil-A restaurant said on its Facebook page. The promotion will run until its coin need is met. Coin toters are limited to 10 coupons.
– Dalvin Brown
Scores of worshipers infected after Alabama Baptist revival
More than 40 people became infected with the coronavirus after a week-long revival at a small north Alabama Baptist church last week, pastor Daryl Ross said. Ross told al.com that two male members of the Warrior Creek Missionary Baptist Church in Strawberry suffered relatively serious cases. The services were shut down by Friday after one of the attendees tested positive for the virus. The person had no symptoms but was tested after several of his coworkers tested positive, Ross said.
“The whole church has got it, just about,” Ross said. Ross said he also tested positive but has few symptoms. "We shut down revival and, by Friday night, I’ve got church members sick everywhere.”
Diabetes a killer when combined with COVID-19
Americans with diabetes and related health conditions are 12 times more likely to die of COVID-19 than those without such conditions. Tracey Brown, CEO of the American Diabetes Association, said roughly 90% of Americans who die of COVID-19 have diabetes or other underlying conditions. And people of color are over-represented among the very sick and the dead. People with diabetes are more vulnerable to many types of infections because their white blood cells don't work as well when blood sugar levels are high.
"In a test tube, you can see the infection-fighting cells working less well if the sugars are higher," said Dr. Anne Peters, director of the USC Clinical Diabetes Programs.
– Karen Weintraub
Minnesota duo banned from Walmarts for wearing swastika masks
A Minnesota man and woman who wore swastika masks into a Walmart were issued no-trespass notices but were not cited or arrested, authorities said. The duo have been banned from Walmart stores nationwide for at least a year. The video, posted to Facebook on Saturday by Raphaela Mueller, shows a man and woman in a Walmart in the southwestern Minnesota town of Marshall wearing the swastikas as the woman flips off the camera while the man checks out groceries.
"You can't be American and wear that mask" a person can be heard saying. "We literally had a war about this." The masked woman can be heard saying, "If you vote for Biden you're gonna be in Nazi Germany. That's what it's going to be like." Joe Biden is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.
– Jordan Culver
Florida now has second-most confirmed COVID-19 cases
More than 9,300 new cases were reported in Florida on Sunday, along with 78 deaths. The state has recorded more than 5,000 new cases per day for 33 consecutive days. Florida’s nearly 424,000 coronavirus cases as of Sunday are surpassed only by California, which has more than 450,000. With 39.5 million residents, California has almost double Florida’s population of 21.4 million.
New York, slightly less populous than Florida with 19.4 million residents, has close to 412,000 cases and was once the epicenter of the virus in the U.S. Texas, the only state besides California with more people than Florida, has about 390,000 cases.
– Rachael Thomas, Florida Today; Associated Press
North Korean border city put on lockdown amid virus fears
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un placed the city of Kaesong near the border with South Korea under total lockdown after a person was found there with suspected COVID-19 symptoms, saying “the vicious virus” may have entered the country, state media reported Sunday. If the person is officially declared a coronavirus patient, he or she would reportedly be North Korea’s first confirmed case. The North has steadfastly said it has had no cases of the virus, a claim questioned by outside experts.
The lockdown was declared Friday afternoon. The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said the suspected virus patient is a runaway who fled to South Korea three years ago before illegally crossing the border into the North early last week.
Plandemic segment pulled from Sinclair TV stations
The Sinclair Broadcast Group said this weekend that it is pulling an edition of its "America This Week" program that discusses a conspiracy theory involving Dr. Anthony Fauci and the coronavirus. The company said Sinclair hopes to add context and other viewpoints and still air the controversial segment next week.
"America This Week" is hosted by Eric Bolling, a former Fox News Channel personality, and sent to stations in 81 markets. The show it initially distributed for this weekend’s show featured an interview with Judy Mikovits, maker of the widely discredited "Plandemic" video, and her lawyer, Larry Klayman.
Mikovits, an anti-vaccine activist, said she believed that Fauci manufactured the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 and shipped it to China. There has been no evidence that the virus was produced in a lab, much less any of Fauci’s involvement.
Viral 'Plandemic' video: Claim 'could lead to imminent harm,' Facebook says
Home test for coronavirus may not be far away
A quick, inexpensive and readily available home test to detect the coronavirus would be a critical tool in helping curb its spread, and it might be getting closer to reality. With support from the National Institutes of Health, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are collaborating with a team at 3M to develop and scale such a test. The diagnostic exam would work similarly to an early pregnancy test, using an individual's body fluids to reveal on a specially made piece of paper whether the virus is present in that person.
"That could be one of our most important interventions as we come into the fall to prevent large outbreaks from happening," said Stephen Kissler, a research fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
– Karen Weintraub
COVID-19 group testing saves resources, not time
With results from COVID-19 tests routinely taking one week or longer to complete, some labs are trying a new approach called sample pooling.
The idea is labs can save coveted supplies if they test samples from multiple patients at once. If the test finds no signs that a pooled sample contains the coronavirus, the group of people tested are considered negative. A positive result requires each sample to be tested individually.
The testing method is a new option; however, it won't deliver results more quickly. That's a hurdle for labs struggling to keep pace in hot spot communities. Read more here.
– Ken Alltucker
More COVID-19 resources from USA TODAY
On Facebook: There's still a lot unknown about the coronavirus. But what we do know, we're sharing with you. Join our Facebook group, "Coronavirus Watch," to receive daily updates in your feed and chat with others in the community about COVID-19.
In your inbox: Stay up-to-date with the latest news on the coronavirus pandemic from the USA TODAY Network. Sign up for the daily Coronavirus Watch newsletter here.
Tips for coping: Every Saturday and Tuesday we'll be in your inbox, offering you a virtual hug and a little bit of solace in these difficult times. Sign up for Staying Apart, Together here.
Contributing: The Associated Press
Business - Latest - Google News
July 28, 2020 at 02:01AM
https://ift.tt/2Db3X26
Coronavirus live updates: Moderna could provide 1 billion vaccine doses in 2021; Miami Marlins, others forced to cancel games after outbreak - USA TODAY
Business - Latest - Google News
https://ift.tt/2Rx7A4Y
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Coronavirus live updates: Moderna could provide 1 billion vaccine doses in 2021; Miami Marlins, others forced to cancel games after outbreak - USA TODAY"
Post a Comment