PITTSBURGH (KDKA) Its day one of the Moderna Phase 3 trial and in other parts of the country, some volunteers are already being injected.
In the next few weeks, 60,000 people, including 750 Pittsburghers, will be injected as well with either the vaccine or a placebo and then be tracked and monitored over time to see if it is effective in preventing infection from the virus.
We are hugely excited to be a part of this and be able to be able to offer it to the people of Pittsburgh to try to make a difference to try to end this a pandemic, said Dr. Judy Martin, head of UPMCs clinical trials.
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So far, 2,300 local people have volunteered and from those UPMC will pick people likely to suffer serious outcomes from the virus older people and people with underlying medical conditions such as diabetes as well as frontline workers at risk of contracting the virus.
Health professionals, bus drivers, school, teachers. Anyone who is out in the public now, she said.
But registration remains is open. UPMC is part of a nationwide effort called Operation Warp Speed to develop the first successful vaccine. Going forward it will be a test site for vaccines under development by other pharmaceutical companies.
This will be just hat we hope will be just the first of several vaccine studies so we dont want people to be discouraged if theyre not contracted, Martin said.
Pat Benatar's 1980 hit song "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" could have a very different meaning today. People around the world anxiously anticipate a new kind of "best shot" -- a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine.
There are currently 166 novel coronavirus vaccine candidates in development, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Twenty-four of those candidates are being evaluated in clinical trials in humans. Most of those are in early-stage clinical studies. However, five COVID-19 vaccine candidates are either currently in late-stage clinical testing or are scheduled to begin a phase 3 study in the next few days.
Sinopharm Groupis developing two of the five late-stage candidates, one with Wuhan Institute ofBiological Products and another with Beijing Institute of Biological Products. Another Chinese drugmaker, Sinovac Biotech, also claims a COVID-19 vaccine candidate in phase 3 testing.
AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN) teamed up with the University of Oxford to develop COVID-19 vaccine candidate AZD1222. WHO chief scientistSoumya Swaminathan stated publicly in June that AZD1222 was "probably the leading candidate."
There's also one COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by a U.S. biotech that will soon begin phase 3 testing.Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) plans to start its late-stage study of mRNA-1273 on July 27.
Which of these five late-stage COVID-19 vaccine candidates is likely to be the biggest winner? It's complicated.
Images source: Getty Images.
As you might expect, all five of the COVID-19 vaccine candidates that have made it to phase 3 performed well in previous clinical studies. Unfortunately, there's not a good way to differentiate which experimental vaccine seems to be more safe and effective than others.
Sinopharm and Sinovac reported preliminary results in June from earlier clinical studies. Sinopharm stated that all participants in phase 1/2 studies for its two late-stage vaccine candidates had neutralizing antibodies (which hold the potential for preventing infection by the novel coronavirus). Sinovac said that more than 90% of participants had neutralizing antibodies 14 days after receiving the second injection of its vaccine candidate, CoronaVac. Both Chinese drugmakers also indicated that their respective COVID-19 vaccine candidates didn't cause severe side effects.
AstraZeneca announced interim results from a phase 1/2 clinical study of AZD1222 last week. Those results, published in medical journal The Lancet, revealed that 91% of participants demonstrated neutralizing antibodies after the first injection of the vaccine candidate. All participants who received a second dose of AZD1222 produced neutralizing antibodies. In addition, the vaccine candidate induced a T-cell response in all participants, which could be key in providing longer-lasting immunity to SARS-CoV-2. AstraZeneca reported that were no severe side effects in patients receiving AZD1222.
Moderna also reported encouraging interim results from a phase 1 study of mRNA-1273 in May and followed up with more detailed data on July 14. Neutralizing antibodies and strong T-cell responses were found in all of the participants receiving two doses of the experimental vaccine. Moderna also said that "mRNA-1273 was generally safe and well-tolerated."
Image source: Getty Images.
There are other ways to get an idea of which COVID-19 vaccine candidates might be the biggest winners if they win regulatory approvals. We can evaluate the manufacturing capacity each company has. We can also look at the supply contracts the companies have in hand so far.
Sinopharm expects to be able to produce 200 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccines annually with its manufacturing facilities in Beijing and Wuhan. The company is owned by the Chinese government, so Sinopharm is assured of a large market if its vaccine candidates prove to be safe and effective in late-stage clinical studies.
Sinovac is building a manufacturing facility in China that could make up to 100 million doses of CoronaVac annually. The Chinese government is providing financial backing for this facility. The company hasn't announced any supply deals. However, it seems likely that Sinovac would win contracts in China if CoronaVac wins regulatory approval.
AstraZeneca publicly stated in June that its "total manufacturing capacity currently stands at 2 billion doses." This capacity includes collaborations with external parties to produce AZD1222. And the big pharma company so far has commitments with the U.S., the United Kingdom, and other nations and non-profit organizations to supply more than 2 billion doses of AZD1222 if it wins approval.
Moderna says that it's on track to produce around 500 million doses of mRNA-1273 per year beginning in 2021. But the biotech could boost that number to 1 billion annual doses. Moderna hasn't announced any supply agreements with the U.S. or other countries yet, but those deals will almost certainly be on the way if mRNA-1273 succeeds in late-stage testing.
There's no way to know at this point which COVID-19 vaccines will sail through phase 3 studies and which will run into problems.My view is that any late-stage candidate that proves to be safe and effective will be a big winner.
However, I think that AstraZeneca probably has the best chances of becoming the biggest winner from a commercial standpoint (assuming AZD1222 secures key regulatory approvals). Why?
The greatest commercial winners will almost certainly be the vaccines that are marketed in the U.S. and major European countries because the price tags will likely be higher in developed nations. China isn't going to pay nearly as much per dose to Sinopharm or SinoVac as AstraZeneca (and Moderna) would be able to charge for their vaccines.
AstraZeneca has more supply commitments lined up and much greater production capacity than Moderna does. In my view, that gives the big drugmaker a significant advantage. Moderna is a lot smaller than AstraZeneca, though. The biotech stock could be the biggest winner for investors if mRNA-1273 performs well in late-stage studies.
Keep in mind that other COVID-19 vaccine candidates could also advance to phase 3 testing in the near future. Some of the companies making these vaccines, especially Pfizerand BioNTech, already have large supply agreements lined up. It's quite possible that the "best shot" of all won't be any of the current late-stage candidates.
EXCLUSIVE: The search for a vaccine for COVID-19 is one of the biggest news stories around the world right now. HBO is turning this hunt into a limited series with Succession exec producer Adam McKay.
Deadline understands that the premium cable network has optioned The First Shot, a non-fiction narrative book by The Atlantic and New York Times writer Brendan Borrell.
McKays Hyperobject Industries will produce the Untitled Vaccine Project and he will exec produce alongside Todd Schulman and Borrell.
The book, which was sold at auction to publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for Sugar23 Books, tells the story of the global coronavirus vaccine race. It will explore the companies and individuals putting everything on the line to save lives, the science that it is based on, and the challenges playing out around politics, access, and safety.
Borrell has been closely covering the vaccine search, writing pieces including The Dire Diplomacy of the Global Race for a Vaccine for Wired and articles for National Geographic magazine and Science Magazine. His other work includes coverage of rare genetic diseases for NYT and Australias flesh-eating bacteria problem for The Atlantic.
McKay has been busy since launching Hyperobject Industries last year and striking a five-year, first-look television deal with HBO in October. His first project under the deal was set as a limited series based on Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie K. Browns upcoming book aboutJeffrey Epstein.
His LA Lakers drama project, previously known as Showtime, and based on Jeff Pearlmans non-fiction book Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s, was ordered to series in December with John C. Reilly as Jerry Buss.
He is also working with Bong Joon Ho to adapt Oscar-winning film Parasite into a television series, while HBO sister streamer HBO Max gave a green light to The Uninhabitable Earth,a climate change anthology series inspired by David Wallace-Wells global best-selling book and New York Magazine article, in January.
CAA represented the television sale of Borrells The First Shot on behalf of the Waxman Agency. Hyperobject Industries is represented by WME and Ziffren Brittenham.
Lewis Hamilton has been forced to clarify that he is not against a vaccine for Covid-19, after inadvertently sharing an anti-vaxxer post on his Instagram account.
The 35-year-old Formula One star shared a post by internet personality King Bach which suggested Bill Gates was lying when talking about coronavirus vaccine trials.
The video clip, which Hamilton shared with his 18.3 million followers, shows a CBSN interview with Gates where he offers reassurance over potential vaccine side effects and refutes a conspiracy theory that the vaccine will be used to implant microchips in people.
The clip is captioned I remember when I told my first lie.
The post attracted criticism online, with one Twitter user saying: Sir, I applaud your climate and social activism, but please dont spread dangerous disinformation.
Hamilton has since deleted the video and published a statement saying he hadnt seen the comment attached to the clip, but wanted to show there is uncertainty around side effects of vaccines.
Ive noticed some comments on my earlier post about the coronavirus vaccine, and want to clarify my thoughts on it, as I understand why they might have been misinterpreted, he said.
Firstly I hadnt actually seen the comment attached so that is totally my fault and I have a lot of respect for the charity work Bill Gates does.
I also want to be clear that I am not against a vaccine and no doubt it will be important in the fight against coronavirus, and Im hopeful for its development to save lives.
However after watching the video, I felt it showed that there is still a lot of uncertainty about the side effects most importantly and how it is going to be funded. I may not always get my posting right. Im only human but Im learning as we go.
You won't have a very difficult time identifying ways thatJohnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) is a leader. It's the largest healthcare company in the world with a market cap of close to $400 billion. J&J ranks near the top of three different healthcare segments -- pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and consumer health.
Johnson & Johnson announced in March that it would invest more than $1 billion to develop a COVID-19 vaccine candidate. That amount is greater than the market caps earlier this year of some drugmakers that set out to develop novel coronavirus vaccines. But could giant Johnson & Johnson actually be an underdog in the COVID-19 vaccine race?
Image source: Getty Images.
Johnson & Johnson originally planned to begin phase 1/2a clinical studies for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate Ad26.COV2-S in September. However, the company announced in June that it would be able to accelerate the schedule and instead start the early stage study in late July.
This was great news. And it resulted from strong preclinical data as well as lots of discussions with regulatory agencies. So where did that put J&J in the race to begin clinical trials for a coronavirus vaccine candidate? Certainly not in first place, but maybe second or third? Fourth, perhaps? Nope.
Assuming no other drugmaker starts its clinical testing ahead of J&J, the big healthcare company will be the 25th drugmaker to initiate clinical testing in humans of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate. That's right, 24 other vaccine candidates are ahead of J&J's Ad26.COV2-S.
Some of the leaders in front of J&J are big pharma companies that quickly established partnerships to develop COVID-19 vaccines, including AstraZenecaand Pfizer. Others are smaller biotechs such asModernaand Novavax. All of them outmaneuvered the largest healthcare company in the world to advance to clinical testing sooner.
This relatively sluggish start didn't prevent Johnson & Johnson from staying in the spotlight, though. When President Trump invited seven drugmakers to the White House to discuss the threat presented by COVID-19 in March, J&J was at the table.
In June, reports surfaced that Operation Warp Speed, the federal initiative established to accelerate COVID-19 vaccine development, had selected five experimental coronavirus vaccines to support. Again, Johnson & Johnson's vaccine candidate made the cut. J&J was picked by Operation Warp Speed while some smaller companies that already had candidates in clinical testing were left out.
It's not too surprising that J&J has been favored by the White House. As already mentioned, the company is the biggest in the business. Johnson & Johnson's brand and products are household names. There are advantages to being big and famous.
Johnson & Johnson could make up lost ground pretty quickly. Chief scientific officer Paul Stoffels said in the company's Q2 conference call earlier this month that talks are already under way with the National Institute of Health to start a phase 3 study ahead of the original schedule. He added that this late-stage study could begin in late September. That would put J&J only two months behind Moderna.
The company definitely has ample resources to scale up rapidly, too. J&J is aggressively expanding its manufacturing capacity with the goal to deliver more than 1 billion doses of its COVID-19 vaccine by the end of next year.
That might not be as lucrative as it sounds. J&J has committed to selling its COVID-19 vaccine at cost during the global pandemic if it wins approval. The big healthcare stock probably wouldn't experience nearly as big of a jump as others if they win approval for their COVID-19 vaccines.
Also, many people probably don't realize how much of a relative newbie Johnson & Johnson is in the world of vaccine development. While the company has researched vaccines for years, it won its first major regulatory approval of a vaccine only a few weeks ago with European Commission approval for its Ebola vaccine.
It might be something of a stretch to view Johnson & Johnson as a true underdog in the race to develop COVID-19 vaccines. However, it's also a stretch to view the company as a leader in the race.
The Newport Beach Fire Department is feeling the effect of the coronavirus among its own ranks.
Ten firefighters and 11 lifeguards had tested positive for the virus, Fire Chief Jeff Boyles confirmed Friday.
Boyles said the virus apparently broke through to his crews through community spread and not while directly treating coronavirus patients. He said all fire stations and trucks remain staffed, and cleaning protocols have been tweaked. Newport Beach Fire is not sending crews to out-of-county wildland fires.
We have been very vigilant when we go on calls with what we know to be sick people, but people have lives outside of work, Boyles told the City Council at its last meeting on July 14.
An additional 30 firefighters and 21 lifeguards have quarantined at some point in July, Boyles said Friday. Going into this weekend, 11 lifeguards four positive and seven in quarantine were off duty. Four firefighters all recovering after testing positive, none left in quarantine were away from work.
Fortunately, not all of them were off at the same time so we were able to maintain our staffing levels in the fire stations, lifeguard towers and junior lifeguard program, Boyles said. It was a balancing act for a small window of time in order to accomplish that.
Overall, Orange County reported more than 33,900 coronavirus cases and 560 related deaths as of Saturday, with 685 COVID-19 patients in county hospitals.
Coronavirus among the countys lifeguard ranks was a key part of Newports decision to make the unprecedented decision to close beaches on the Fourth of July, historically the summer peak for visitors. Leading up to the holiday, two lifeguards had tested positive and more than 20 were being quarantined.
Fire and lifeguard officials said they had enough staff for the big weekend, but a cautious City Council voted for the hard closure to keep the remaining guards from having to do more with less.
Boyles said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and county health officials say first responders can work until they are symptomatic if they have been exposed, but Newport has been aggressive with its contact tracing and quarantining.
The majority of those who tested positive were already identified as exposed and were in quarantine when their test results came back positive, Boyles said. That tells us that we theoretically prevented them from working and causing an even greater outbreak.
The infected individuals come from a corps of about 120 firefighters, 50 lifeguard reservists, 55 junior guards and 95 in lifeguard operations.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan arrives for a coronavirus briefing in front of the Maryland State House on April 17. Hogan's book Still Standing is out Tuesday. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan arrives for a coronavirus briefing in front of the Maryland State House on April 17. Hogan's book Still Standing is out Tuesday.
Larry Hogan defeated non-Hodgkin's lymphoma five years ago, a fight that he says has colored many of his decisions as the Republican governor of Maryland, from criticizing President Trump to navigating the coronavirus pandemic.
"It changed me as a person and the way I look at life and what's important. And maybe that's one of the reasons I'm not afraid to stand up and say what I think," Hogan told NPR's All Things Considered. "Cancer is pretty scary. Nothing else really is going to scare me away from anything."
Maryland is currently experiencing an uptick in COVID-19 cases and has seen more than 83,000 cases and 3,300 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the state's database. And cases are increasing. On Saturday, the state had 1,288 new cases, the largest single-day increase since May 19, according to The Baltimore Sun.
"I do have a lot of empathy for people going through those kinds of things," Hogan said, adding that while his experience governing during the pandemic has differed greatly from his personal experience fighting cancer, there are parallels between the two. "It perhaps made me more intensely focused on trying to protect the health of everybody. It probably didn't just impact my decisions on the coronavirus, but probably everything I do as a governor."
Hogan recently had his five-year checkup and he remains cancer-free. "When the pandemic's over, I can go back and hug some people," he said.
But he still has to deal with a climbing health crisis in his state. Despite the increase in cases, Hogan said Tuesday that he will not change the state's reopening plan now, but added that he would consider doing so in the future if rates of deaths, new infections and hospitalizations continue to rise, The Washington Post reported.
"But as soon as we start to see numbers that don't look good, it's going to cause us to take whatever actions that are necessary," he said on C-SPAN on Tuesday. "My goal is to try to keep the economy safely open, because the economic crisis is nearly as bad as or just as bad as the health crisis."
Hogan dives into the pandemic, his cancer diagnosis, the protests for racial justice that flooded his state following the death of Freddie Gray in police custody and working in politics in 2020 in his book Still Standing: Surviving Cancer, Riots, a Global Pandemic, and the Toxic Politics that Divide America out Tuesday.
Gemma Watters and Tinbete Ermyas edited and produced the audio version of this story.
Editors note:This is a live account of COVID-19 updates from Saturday, July 25 as the day unfolded. It is no longer being updated. Clickhereto see all the most recent news about the pandemic, andclick hereto find additional resources.
The coronavirus pandemic continues to cripple Americans whose families have experienced layoffs in the past several months, and a new poll shows nearly half of those families believe those jobs are lost forever. But negotiations over a new COVID-19 rescue bill were still in flux Friday after the White House floated cutting an unemployment benefits boost to as little as $100.
In King County, the top health official warned residents Friday that the current seven-day average of new coronavirus cases has reached the highest its been since the beginning of April, and urged community members to start making long-term fundamental changes.
Throughout Saturday, on this page, well be posting updates on the pandemic and its effects on the Seattle area, the Pacific Northwest and the world. Updates from Friday can be foundhere, and all our coronavirus coverage can be foundhere.
After facing intense scrutiny for planning to air a baseless conspiracy theory that infectious-disease expert Anthony Fauci helped to create the coronavirus, conservative TV broadcaster Sinclair Broadcast Group announced Saturday that it will delay the segment to edit the context of the claims.
Sinclair, which has 191 stations across the country, received backlash this week after America This Week host Eric Bolling interviewed Judy Mikovits, a former medical researcher featured in the debunked Plandemic conspiracy online film.
In the Sinclair interview, Mikovits claimed that Fauci manufactured the coronavirus and shipped it to Wuhan, China, where the outbreak originated. A chyron during the segment reads, DID DR. FAUCI CREATE COVID-19?
Mikovits and her lawyer Larry Klayman dropped other unfounded allegations during the show, including President Donald Trump soft-pedaling relations with China because he has evidence of the countrys involvement with the inception of the virus.
The show was released online earlier this week before it was to be aired on local news channels. The segment was first reported by Media Matters, a left-leaning media watchdog. As of Saturday afternoon, the show was pulled from Sinclair websites.
Read the full story here.
The Washington Post
If your town is partly closed or youre wary of travel during the COVID-19 pandemic, it might feel as if your phones map app is just sitting there gathering digital dust. But even if youre not tappingApples MapsorGoogle Mapsto explore an exotic vacation spot or to belt out turn-by-turn directions on a long road trip this summer, your interactive travel aid can be useful. Here are a few things you can do.
Find whats open or closed
Major U.S. cities have been in varying stages of closure for months, and it may be hard to remember which businesses are open. While a local governments website should have general guidelines posted, both the iOS Maps app from Apple and Google Maps (forAndroidandiOS) have been updating their map labels and listings pages for specific businesses to note adjusted hours, any curbside pickup service and temporary closures.
But what if you find outdated details? In Apples Maps app, tap the name of the business on the map and, when its information page opens, scroll down and tap Report an Issue; you canreport other cartographic issues by tapping the encircled i in the top-right corner of the map itself. In Google Maps, select a business and scroll down on its information page to the Suggest an edit option.
Find restaurants
Many dining establishments have struggled during the pandemic, as some have stayed open with reduced service while others have been forced to close. Apples Maps app often notes temporary or permanent closures and operating hours on its Yelp-assisted restaurant listings pages. As part of itsCOVID-19 updates, Google now adds a line on a restaurants info page that lists the status of dine-in, takeout and delivery service.
Like Google Maps, Apples Maps includes the restaurants phone number and website for details straight from the source. Use this contact information to confirm current delivery and takeout services along with any outdoor-dining options.
Find a COVID-19 testing site
State and local health departments manage testing, but if you have coronavirussymptomsor your medical provider advises you toget tested, find a facility. Apple and Google now include the locations of COVID-19 testing sites in their maps apps using data gleaned from government agencies, public-health departments and health care institutions.
Read the full story here.
The New York Times
After a Mexican orchard worker died earlier this month from COVID 19 complications, the state Department of Labor & Industries is demanding changes in the farm labor camps of a major eastern Washington fruit grower that employed the man in Okanogan County.
The order and notice of restraint results from several site visits in an investigation of a Gebbers Farms labor camp where the worker, who died July 8, was lodged. The notice requires Gebbers to either remove bunk beds in this and other company labor camps, or comply with a state rule that requires camp workers to be in groups that live, travel and labor together.
We take this very seriously. The choice is pretty simple. Stop using bunk beds or follow all the requirements, said Tim Church, a Labor & Industries spokesman who added that the unusual action reflects the risks of the disease spreading to other workers.
Failure to comply with the order carries the risk of criminal penalties.
In a statement, the family-own companys chief executive officer, Cass Gebbers, disputed the Labor departments description of their COVID-19 protocols, which he said were reviewed by a consultant who also serves as a program officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The accusations are simply false, Gebbers said in the statement that declared workers already are properly separated into distinct groups that live and work together, although the company cannot dictate what happens during off-duty hours.
Read the full story here.
Hal Bernton
A Puyallup skilled nursing and rehabilitation center has confirmed 61 cases of COVID-19, and one death.
The outbreak occurred at the Life Care Center of South Hill as of July 21, company spokesperson Timothy Killian told the Tacoma News Tribune. The death occurred three weeks ago.
Twenty-eight patients and 33 staff members have tested positive at the center as of July 24.
The test results were received in the past week.
Of 31 patients, only three have not been infected with the coronavirus.
Killian said Life Care staff at the South Hill facility have worked at only the one building since early March.
Read the full story here.
Tacoma News Tribune
State health officials reported 1,025 new COVID-19 cases in Washington as of Friday night, but the number of deaths dropped by one, from 1,495 to 1,494, when the state removed one death from its official tally.
State Department of Health spokesman Frank Ameduri was checking with state epidemiologists about the reason for the lower number, but said that over time, some causes of death are found to be unrelated to COVID-19.
The update brings the states totals to 51,849 cases and 1,494 deaths, meaning that 2.9% of people diagnosed in Washington have died, according to the state Department of Health (DOH). The data is as of 11:59 p.m. Friday.
So far, 903.674 tests for the novel coronavirus have been conducted in the state, per DOH. Of those, 5.7% have come back positive.
In King County, the state most populous, state health officials have confirmed 14,249 diagnoses and 644 deaths in King County, accounting for a little less than half of the states COVID-19 death toll.
Nicole Brodeur
Washington'sstatewide face covering order expands Saturday to require face coverings in any indoor setting outside of people's residence and not just in public buildings.
The order expands the outdoor requirement to nonpublic settings when people can't maintain at least 6 feet of distance from nonhousehold members, including common areas in apartment buildings, condos, Greek houses and assisted living facilities.
"The current orders about face coverings are intended to increase the use of face coverings and emphasize their critical importance to our overall strategy to slow the spread of COVID-19," the state Department of Health (DOH) said in a statement released Saturday.
As many as 30 to 50% of infections occur before people have symptoms, according to DOH.
"You could be infected and not know it, but a cloth face covering greatly reduces the distance respiratory droplets travel, and that protects everyone."
The department asked people to keep staying home even if it's hard and said hanging out and socializing in close proximity to others "is one of the worst things we can do right now."
Christine Clarridge
The tallies for people hospitalized in New York with the coronavirus are continuing to drop to the lowest levels since the pandemic began, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Saturday.
There were at least 646 people hospitalized in the state on Friday, a new low since March 18 and down slightly from the previous day, the Democratic governor said in a statement. The number of reported deaths in the state rose by one, to 10.
Daily statewide statistics show New York with more than 750 newly confirmed cases, representing only about 1% of all tests performed. The true number of cases is likely higher because many people have not been tested, and studies suggest people can be infected and not feel sick.
New York, once a pandemic hot spot, has so far avoided a surge in new cases like those plaguing other states in the South and West. But Cuomo has repeatedly warned New Yorkers could be at risk if they abandon social distancing, face coverings and other practices adopted to stop the spread of the virus.
The Associated Press
The governor of Lombardy, Italys hardest-hit region in the pandemic, acknowledged Saturday that he is being investigated by Milan prosecutors over a lucrative contract to obtain protective medical gowns from his brother-in-laws company.
The contract for 75,000 gowns reportedly was awarded without public bidding in April, when the coronavirus outbreak was devastating Italy, Italian news reports said.
Gov. Attilio Fontana said in a Facebook post about the probe that he represents the region responsibly and was confident about the correctness of Lombardys actions.
The governor insisted that the region never paid for the gowns, which were reportedly eventually donated to Lombardy.
Fontanas wife has a minor stake in the company, according to Italian media.
Read the story here.
The Associated Press
Frances coronavirus infection rate crept higher Saturday and Spain cracked down on nightlife but German authorities were confident enough to send a cruise ship out to sea with 1,200 passengers for a weekend test of how the cruise industry can begin to resume.
French health authorities said the closely watched R gauge is now up to 1.3, suggesting that infected people are contaminating 1.3 other people on average. That means the virus still has enough victims to keep on going instead of petering out.
Frances daily new infections are also rising up to 1,130 on Friday.
We have thus erased much of the progress that wed achieved in the first weeks of lockdown-easing, health authorities said, adding that the French appear to be letting down their guard during their summer vacations and those testing positive are making less of an effort to self-isolate.
In Spain, Catalonia became the latest region to crack down on nightlife, trying to tamp down on new infection clusters.
India, which has the worlds third-highest infections behind the United States and Brazil, reported its death toll rose by 740 to 30,601. It saw a surge of more than 49,000 new cases, raising its total to over 1.2 million.
South Africa, Africas hardest-hit country, reported more than 13,000 new cases, raising its total to over 408,000.
Read the story here.
The Associated Press
What if these are the good old days?
Depressing as that might seem after the coronavirus pandemic has claimed well over 630,000 lives worldwide, cost tens of millions their jobs and inflicted untold misery across the planet, its entirely possible increasingly likely, some say that things will get worse before they get better.
Americans in particular have been optimists by nature for the better part of four centuries. But even here, a bleak dystopian vision is emerging in some corners. Its not pretty.
It imagines a not-too-distant future where well all look back with nostalgia at 2020 as a time when most of us had plenty of food and wine, could get many of the goods and services we needed, and could work from home at jobs that still paid us.
This could be as good as it gets, so lets take pleasure in what we have now, Katherine Tallman, the CEO of the Coolidge Corner Theatre, an indie cinema in Brookline, Massachusetts, told a recent Zoom roundtable.
The pandemic continues to buffet the planet economically, dashing hopes that the worst of the joblessness might be behind us.
For 18 consecutive weeks now, more than a million Americans have sought unemployment benefits. New infections have been surging in states like Florida and California that power the economy, threatening peoples health and livelihoods for the foreseeable future.
Thats bad. But in online forums and on social media, futurists see the potential for worse. Much worse. Their musings arent for the faint of heart.
Read the story here.
William J. Kole, The Associated Press
A skilled nursing and rehabilitation center in Puyallup is in the middle of a COVID-19 outbreak,with 61 confirmed cases. All 61 cases are still positive, company spokesperson Timothy Killian said.
Life Care Center of South Hill has reported the death of at least one client from COVID-19 as of July 21, The News Tribune of Tacoma reported.The death occurred three weeks ago.
Killian said 28 patients and 33 staff members have tested positive as of Friday at the center on 7th Street Southeast. The test results were received in the past week.
Of 31 patients, only three have not been infected with the coronavirus.
Killian said Life Care staff at the South Hill facility have worked at only the one building since early March.
Josephine Peterson, The News Tribune
By his estimation, Stephen Santa took Pennsylvanias coronavirus lockdown seriously: He pretty much went only to grocery stores and picked up takeout once a week to help Pittsburghs restaurants.
Whatever Santa and everyone else in Pittsburgh did, it seemed to work: The city racked up a fraction of the coronavirus cases during the spring shutdown, while the other side of Pennsylvania flared up into a hot spot.
With a state-mandated masking order in place, Pittsburghs gyms, salons, bars and restaurants got permission to reopen in early June, ahead of many parts of Pennsylvania, as part of the so-called green phase in Gov. Tom Wolfs three-step stoplight-colored reopening plan.
Santa promptly went to a nearby Italian restaurant for a meal in its outdoor courtyard with a couple relatives.
When they got there, around 5 p.m. on a Tuesday, it was practically empty. When they left, it was packed inside: every table full, no masks and nobody keeping 3 feet (1 meter) apart, never mind 6 feet (2 meters) apart.
I think partly a lot of people saw the word green and it meant go and were going back how things were,' Santa said.
Barely three weeks later, officials in Allegheny County home to Pittsburgh and 1.2 million residents raised the alarm over a spike in COVID-19 cases.
The culprit? Primarily, people in their 20s, 30s and 40s who told contact tracers that they had been visiting bars and restaurants or working in them, county officials said.
Read the story here.
The Associated Press
If Black, Hispanic and Native Americans are hospitalized and killed by the coronavirus at far higher rates than others, shouldnt the government count them as high risk for serious illness?
People walk the boardwalk in early July in Wildwood, N.J., after some coronavirus restrictions were lifted. There's concern that case counts could push back up in Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern states. Mark Makela/Getty Images hide caption
People walk the boardwalk in early July in Wildwood, N.J., after some coronavirus restrictions were lifted. There's concern that case counts could push back up in Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern states.
For weeks the U.S. coronavirus pandemic has largely been driven by spiraling outbreaks in the South and West. But some forecasters say Mid-Atlantic and Northeast states could soon be in deep trouble again, too.
The warning comes from researchers at the PolicyLab at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, which has built a model to provide four-week forecasts for every U.S. county. NPR spoke to David Rubin, PolicyLab's director, an epidemiologist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Here are five takeaways:
The virus is marching up the East Coast
Rubin says in recent weeks there's been a noticeable trend of rising cases moving northward from Florida "up travel corridors like I-95."
"We have watched this epidemic marching right up the East Coast," Rubin says. "It's not just Florida. It's not just South Carolina. It's not just North Carolina. But the beach areas of Virginia and Rehoboth Beach in Delaware."
Over the last two weeks, he notes, "the highest infection rate of case growths we've seen in a major city in this country have been in Baltimore."
And, he adds, "we are now seeing a clear resurgence in the Philadelphia area and [surrounding] counties. We're starting to see upticks in the shore regions of New Jersey. And we're actually seeing some elevated [transmission rates] every week in the New York City boroughs."
New England is also at risk: "[Transmission rates in] New Haven [in Connecticut] are clearly increasing. The state of Rhode Island broadly has increasing transmission. And in the Boston area, we're seeing the same patterns we saw a couple of weeks ago in Philadelphia. We even now have an outbreak on Cape Cod. And we're seeing [more of the virus] in New Hampshire."
The Eastern Seaboard isn't Rubin's only concern. He's "extremely worried" about a number of Northern and Midwestern cities such as Indianapolis, Detroit and Milwaukee that "no one is talking about now but [for which] our models very clearly are detecting elevated risk for the next few weeks, not just in the cities but in their suburban counties."
The current low case numbers are obscuring the looming problem
Rubin says in many instances, these incipient outbreaks haven't attracted much attention yet because while the rate of growth in cases is rising, the number of daily new cases is still relatively low especially compared with the current outbreaks in the South as well as to some of the outbreaks in these same Mid-Atlantic and especially Northern states in the spring.
"When your case counts have been degraded for a while, a doubling [of the numbers] doesn't look as impressive," Rubin says. "But those doublings are there."
"What worries me most about areas like New York and Philadelphia and Boston," he adds, "is they're at much higher levels of population density. Even though it may have taken three or four weeks for some of these other areas down South to see exponential growth, our models don't know exactly how well an area like the Bronx or Queens is going to be able to contain transmission if it becomes widespread there."
The South appears to have reseeded the virus in the North
The prospect of a blowup in New York seems all the more poignant given how devastating the spring outbreak was there and how successfully the subsequent shelter-in-place strategy proved in bringing the caseload down.
"I give all the credit to the leaders throughout the Northeast region who really handled this crisis the way it needed to be handled," Rubin says. Not only did they institute strict social distancing, he notes, they kept it in place long enough to bring daily new infections to manageable levels and eased up on social distancing slowly.
"I saw areas in the Northeast wait an extra week or two to great frustration of residents because they weren't satisfied they had degraded their counts enough," Rubin says. "So it was reopening later but also [doing so] more cautiously and slowly that helped these areas."
Unfortunately, he says, much of the South followed the opposite pattern. He says that these areas failed to keep social distancing in place long enough, and then "they pushed very quickly through the gates and they ignored clear warning signs. As their resurgence was really starting to grow, they continued to go through the reopening plans."
This absence of a unified national approach is what is now threatening the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. "This virus doesn't know state lines," Rubin says. "People are traveling that's what we do as Americans. We travel. We go on family vacations. And I've privately heard officials [in Northern counties] express some level of resignation that, 'We could even go back into sheltering in place. But if families are traveling outside the area and coming back, as soon as we lift those restrictions, the transmission will return.' "
Summer travel is making things worse
The surge of cases in the South has also coincided with the summer travel season. At first the impact of this was most noticeable in Southern localities, Rubin says.
"What you saw was major traffic going to some of these vacation destinations like Galveston, Texas. And you could very clearly see within a couple of weeks, the conferred risk not just to Galveston but back up to Houston as people came and went between these major metro areas to their vacation destinations."
Then, "in the Carolinas, you saw similar things," Rubin says. "When you look at Hilton Head and Myrtle Beach, they really took off in a similar fashion." (Rubin adds that the sheer number of meat and poultry processing plants in the Carolinas also played a role in fueling local outbreaks.)
In recent weeks the trend "has just continued to evolve to Virginia Beach, the eastern and western shores of Maryland, the entire Lake Michigan coastline." Many of those vacation destinations are starting to have some of the highest rates of transmission nationwide, Rubin says. "So very clearly travel is playing a significant role here. People have been penned up in their houses for a long time and are blowing off steam and getting out there."
Interestingly, efforts by Northern vacationers to avoid destinations in the South have only created new problems. "People made logical decisions to try to seek areas where they thought there was less transmission," Rubin says. "We saw the greatest amount of traffic on the July Fourth weekend in New Jersey shore locations as I think people looked at the South and said, 'We're going to go North.' " But Rubin says, "This is now conferring new risks to regions that weren't as impacted before."
Rubin says he's seen it firsthand. "I spent a lot of time in upstate New York, and the campsites throughout the Adirondack region are packed right now because there's nothing to do in the cities. So there's a lot of spreading out going on this summer, and that is just increasing the amount of mixing that people are doing."
It's even creating a noticeable spike in infections in certain rural areas that lie between major population centers and vacation spots. Normally such rural areas are more insulated. But "people are traveling through, and when they go to the convenience store or the gas station, that's where these infections are occurring," Rubin says. "And so we're seeing even rural areas really blow up." These include ones, he adds, "without the health care resources that are necessary to respond to this challenge."
It's not too late
As grim as all this sounds, there is still hope.
For one thing, it's worth keeping in mind that the forecast from Rubin's team is one of many models. According to Nicholas Reich, a biostatistician at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who has created a system to compare many of the most prominent forecasts, there's fairly broad agreement among those that forecast the county level that coronavirus infections will increase in Virginia Beach, Baltimore, Detroit, Milwaukee and Indianapolis. But for some other areas such as Philadelphia, Rehoboth Beach in Delaware and New York City, Rubin's model is noticeably more pessimistic.
Even if Rubin's predictions are correct, he notes that the Mid-Atlantic and Northern counties that are at risk have an advantage: Because their case numbers are low, if they act now they can bend the curve of infections before large numbers of people contract the virus.
"That's why we do these forecasts," he says. "We're making assumptions [about what could happen two to three weeks in advance] so that people could hopefully calibrate their routines."
A return to a full shelter-in-place strategy is not necessary, but people will need to ramp back up their social distancing and step up mask wearing ideally as part of a nationwide strategy to get case numbers under control across the country by Labor Day.
"We need to be a little bit more proactive in terms of our response and talk about a sacrifice right now," Rubin says, "for the good of having those school reopenings and getting us back to work in the fall so that we don't squander all that we have achieved."
The pandemic alone is a call to our elected officials for the type of leadership and vision we expect at a moment of crisis, says the report, which grew out of interviews conducted by Leonard Steinhorn, a professor of communication at American University, and Mark Sobol, an author and expert on organizational development and executive leadership. But we are also facing another reckoning, one over our nations original sin and the racial inequities that have beset our country since its founding.
The study ticks through familiar themes when it comes to assessing the sorry state of Congress: the lack of any real across-the-aisle relationships, a schedule that limits opportunities for interaction, too much power concentrated in leadership, constant fund-raising demands, discouragement of bipartisanship, the negative influence of round-the-clock media, the fact that the most important election for lawmakers is often their primary, and the shutting out of minority-party voices.
It also warns that the shifts toward a more virtual Congress as a result of the pandemic, such as a new system of proxy voting in the House that allows lawmakers to cast their votes without traveling to Washington, could exacerbate the existing problems. If the idea of a remote Congress takes hold, the report suggests, it would be a serious setback to efforts to enhance bipartisan interaction.
Because of the pandemic, Congress was forced to conduct much of its business virtually, and we certainly understand why, the report said. But as much as that may have been a necessity, it should not be interpreted as a virtue.
The document says Congress needs more and not less in-person interaction among members of Congress. They need to learn more about each others districts, hold civil conversations aimed at finding common ground, build relationships of trust that can lead understanding and solutions.
In a week when Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, was verbally assaulted without provocation by Representative Ted Yoho, Republican of Florida, and fellow Republicans ganged up on Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, in a hostile confrontation, the call for civility rang especially true.
