Another pharmaceutical giant announced a vaccine deal with the United States Wednesday, while Joe Biden and the rest of the Democratic celebrities said goodbye to the Milwaukee political conference before the coronation exercise hit the city.
Johnson & Johnson said it has a $1 billion agreement to supply 100 million doses of its vaccine candidate to the U.S. government. Also Wednesday, Moderna said it expects to fully enroll 30,000 people for a trial of its vaccine candidate next month. And a day earlier, Novavax released promising results of an early trial.
Milwaukee’s 2020 Democratic National Convention suffers the same fate as Charlotte, where plans for a full-blown GOP convention have been whittled down to a few small gatherings later this month.
While the country expects a vaccine that can absolutely reopen schools and businesses, the University of Connecticut has the first high-level school program to cancel its football season. And cruise lines have voluntarily prolonged their moratorium on U.S. waters crossings for one more month, until October.
Here are some significant developments:
Figures Figures today: The United States has recorded more than 157,000 deaths and only about 4.8 million instances of COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University. Globally, there have been more than 702,000 deaths and 18.6 million cases.
? What we read: children are less likely to die of coronavirus. But some experts say that the lack of data on how COVID-19 contracts and transmits will leave the country unprepared when schools are reopened.
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Two suburban Atlanta school districts that started Monday’s face-to-face categories with optional mask policies face more questions about COVID-19 safety protocols after on-campus footage showed academics shoulder to shoulder.
In Cherokee County, dozens of seniors joined in two of the district’s top six schools to take classic photographs of seniors on the first day of school, with students crammed in in combination with black suits. In Paulding County, photographs of students taken Monday and Tuesday show crowded hallways at North Paulding High School in Dallas. Less than part of the scholars depicted wear masks.
In Columbia County, the school district has already confirmed its first COVID-19 case.
– Miguel Legoas, The Augusta Chronicle; The Associated Press
Virginia became wednesday the first state to implement a smartphone app to automatically inform others if they might have been exposed to the coronavirus. The new generation of pandemics, created through Apple and Google, will be available at Apple and Android app outlets starting Wednesday. The app relies on wireless Bluetooth generation to stumble when someone who downloaded the app spent time close to some other user of the app who then tested positive for the virus. State officials said the app did not track the user’s location or collect non-public telegraphy.
“We’re using every possible approach to fight this virus and keep Virginians healthy,” Virginia Gov. Northam said in a statement.
When Milwaukee landed the 2020 Democratic National Convention more than a year ago, city leaders hoped 50,000 people would flood into town for four non-stop days and nights of politics. Now even the party’s nominee isn’t going.
Officials announced that Joe Biden would settle for the party’s nod from his home in Delaware, and the other speakers at the conference would not either in Wisconsin. Organizers cited “the aggravation of the coronavirus pandemic.”
“This conference will be different from any past conference in history,” said Joe Solmonese, general manager of the conference. “It will succeed in more people than ever before and, in fact, it will be a conference across america for all Americans, regardless of the party to which it belongs. Who voted in the past election.”
– Bill Glauber, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
When the Trump administration abandoned maximum inspections of federal hospitals and suspended notification of hospital infections in March due to the coronavirus pandemic, advocates for patient protection warned that this can also lead to a strong buildup of hospital-acquired infections. The jumps in infections at two hospitals in New York and St. Louis, up to five times higher, recommend that they may have been right.
“Many establishments will gain benefits from these exemptions” because their infection prevention staff have been unable to pleasantly monitor patients for serious infections, Kathleen McMullen and her co-authors wrote in an observation in the American Journal of Infection Control. Control of the spread of COVID-19 in hospitals, the authors wrote, took the maximum time from infection prevention personnel.
– Jayne O’Donnell
Florida is the time to verify more than 500,000 COVID-19 instances. The State Department of Health reported 5,409 new instances on Wednesday, bringing the state total to 502,739. California leads the country with more than 526,000 instances, according to knowledge collected through Johns Hopkins University.
Florida also announced 225 more deaths, bringing the state’s seven-day moving average for reported deaths to a record 184.86. The death toll in the state is now 7627.
– Cheryl McCloud, Treasure Coast Newspapers
Chicago Public Schools are joining a lengthening line of major school systems that will start the academic year fully online. The district, which had initially planned to launch a hybrid online and in-person model starting Sept. 8, said Wednesday the continued uptick in coronavirus cases and concerns from parents urged them to adjust the plan.
Tens of thousands of families said in a district survey that they did not aim to send their children to school. And the city’s teachers’ union has threatened to go on strike because of considerations about the face-to-face classes. The district said it would switch to a hybrid learning style in the quarter, which will begin on November 9.
Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and Miami are among other major cities starting the school year online-only.
– Grace Hauck
The cruise industry has voluntarily extended its hiatus in operations in U.S. waters to “at least” on October 31, one month after the expiration date of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s non-navigation order. CLIA member lines bring 95% of the world’s ocean cruises. The new order will apply to all CLIA member ships capable of carrying 250 or more passengers.
“It is prudent at this time to voluntarily expand the suspension of ocean cruise operations in the United States until October 31,” the International Cruise Line Association, the industry’s leading ocean cruise line organization, said in a statement.
– Morgan Hines
As many school districts prepare to reopen campuses, some experts are concerned that exam rooms are just the next incubators for primary coronavirus outbreaks. Supporters of consistently resuming school, adding to President Donald Trump, have consistently said that young people are less likely to broadcast COVID-19 and that the benefits outweigh the risks. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 6 out of 100,000 school-age youth are hospitalized for COVID-19, compared to an overall rate of another 130 people in line with another 100,000 people. However, a recent review estimated that the closure of schools in March reduced the rate of new COVID-19 instances by 66%.
“We show that it has made a difference in cases and deaths,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Katherine Auger, an associate professor at the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine. “It was a very vital thing the company did.”
– Jayme Fraser and Dan Keemahill
The University of Connecticut football team became the first bowl-level program to cancel its 2020 season Wednesday, citing an “unacceptable risk level” faced by the student athletes. UConn, which plays as an independent, had games against Illinois, Indiana, Maine and Mississippi dropped from the schedule due to “conference-only” schedules being played by those schools. Games against North Carolina and Virginia might have faced the same fate. The players released a joint statement through the school citing “full support of the decision to not compete in 2020.”
Several schools in college football’s lower divisions, including the entire Ivy League, also have canceled their seasons.
– Chris Bumbaca
One of the first cruises to resume night sailing in U.S. waters since the end of the pandemic, the cruise industry reported a case of COVID-19. Passengers are quarantined aboard the UnCruise Adventures Wild Adventurer “until the state of Alaska believes it is safe to return home,” according to an alert posted on the cruise line website. The ship was able to circumvent the federal order not to board because its capacity is less than 250 passengers and team members.
“The guest shows no symptoms and no other visitor or team member shows external symptoms of any kind,” the cruise line said. “All visitors have been informed and will be quarantined until the state of Alaska believes they should return to their homes.”
– Hannah Yasharoff and Morgan Hines
Johnson-Johnson has announced an agreement with the U.S. government. For one hundred million doses of your SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate, Ad26.COV2.S, for use in the United States, as long as the vaccine gets approval from Food and Drug Administration. The government can also buy another two hundred million doses, the company said in delivering the $1 billion deal. A clinical trial is underway and the company has stated that it is comparing one- and two-dose regimens. The plan is to supply more than one billion international non-profit doses by 2021.
“We are expanding production in the United States and around the world to provide a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine for emergency use,” said Dr. Paul Stoffels, Chief Scientific Officer of Johnson and Johnson.
More than 500 inmates in the Tucson Whetstone Unit in the state of Arizona have tested positive for COVID-19, the government said. The 517 inmates, nearly a portion of the unit’s 1,066 population, are accommodated in a combination in separate spaces and receive medical care, according to a statement from the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Rehabilitation. The branch did not respond without delay to the questions, adding when the tests were conducted and whether all inmates were evaluated there. Tests took up position after inmates in the Whetstone unit staged a nonviolent march last week due to virus problems.
– Audrey Jensen, Republic of Arizona
The modern biotechnology giant said Wednesday that it planned to fully enroll 30,000 volunteers in the Phase 3 exam of its COVID-19 vaccine next month. Last week, The Modern vaccine candidate, subsidized by nearly $1 billion in federal funds, has become the first in the country to start such a giant trial. It is being tested at many sites in the United States, and effects are expected in early October.
“We have started talks with several countries for agreements for mNR-1273 (vaccine candidate) and as of July 31, we have earned approximately $400 million in visitor deposits for a potential matrix,” Moderna said in a statement.
The announcement came a day after Novavax launched the promising effects of a small initial trial. AstraZeneca, Pfizer and an organization of Chinese researchers have launched promising initial test effects, and China has begun offering its candidate vaccine to members of its armed forces.
Major Democratic and White House negotiators expressed optimism Tuesday that an agreement on the coronavirus stimulus package could be reached until the end of the week. The motion followed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat. And, assembly for the day with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
“While there are still a number of unresolved issues, I would describe the conversations as productive and a step in the right direction,” Meadows said after the assembly. “Probably the maximum production production had.”
Christal Hayes
A USA TODAY research into Johns Hopkins’s knowledge through Tuesday night shows that a state set records for new instances in a week, while three states recorded a record number of deaths in a week. New case records have been established in Hawaii as well as Puerto Rico. A record number of deaths have been reported in California, Florida and Georgia. The United States reported 4,771,080 cases and 156,801 deaths.
– Mike Stucka
Although Clorox officials said in May that they expected retail shelves to be stocked by this summer, they now anticipate it will take longer.
Linda Rfinishle, president and elected CEO of The Clorox Co., says it would take until the end of the year to succeed in the “we want to be” source grades. Rfinishle and Clorox CEO and president Benno Dorer said the company’s call for disinfectant wipes had exceeded expectations and is not expected to decline.
“In fact, we are not at all satisfied with our degrees of service for our retail consumers on many products, as the request for our products has exceeded our own expectations in the face of this persistent pandemic,” Dorer said. “We have a wonderful sense of urgency about it with all our hands on the deck.”
– Kelly Tyko
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Contributing: The Associated Press