Tag Archives: Coronavirus

U.S. CDC reports 171,012 deaths from coronavirus

(Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday said the number of deaths due to the new coronavirus had risen by 1,172 to 171,012 and reported 5,460,429 cases, an increase of 39,318 cases from its previous count.

The CDC reported its tally of cases of the respiratory illness known as COVID-19, caused by a new coronavirus, as of 4 pm ET on Aug. 18 versus its previous report a day earlier.

The CDC figures do not necessarily reflect cases reported by individual states.

(Reporting by Dania Nadeem in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)

FDA’s emergency approval of blood plasma as COVID-19 treatment on hold: NYT

(Reuters) – The emergency approval of blood plasma as a potential COVID-19 treatment by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has now been put on hold, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing two senior administration officials.

A group of top federal health officials including Anthony Fauci have argued that the emerging data on the treatment was too weak, the report said, adding that an emergency approval could still be granted in the near future.

The authorization is on hold for now as more data is reviewed, the NYT reported, citing Clifford Lane, the clinical director at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institute of Health.

The FDA and NIH did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

People who survive an infectious disease like COVID-19 are left with blood plasma containing antibodies, or proteins the body’s immune system created, to fight off a virus. This can be transfused into newly infected patients to try to aid recovery.

An FDA emergency-use authorization could allow faster access to a therapy for the pandemic.

(Reporting by Trisha Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)

What you need to know about the coronavirus right now

(Reuters) – Here’s what you need to know about the coronavirus right now:

Pelosi wants COVID-19 deal ‘now’

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that Democrats in Congress are willing to cut their coronavirus relief bill in half to get an agreement on new legislation.

“We have to try to come to that agreement now,” Pelosi said in an online interview with Politico. “We’re willing to cut our bill in half to meet the needs right now.”

A senior House Democratic aide said Pelosi was reiterating a standing call by Democrats for the White House and Republicans to meet them “half way” on coronavirus relief.

The Democratic-led House passed legislation with more than $3 trillion in relief in May. Democrats offered this month to reduce that sum by $1 trillion, but the White House rejected it.

Mass testing in UK

Britain plans to bring in regular, population-wide testing for the novel coronavirus so it can suppress its spread and limit restrictions that have crippled one of the worst-hit countries in the world.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the government was carrying out trials of a range of new, faster tests that can give instant results and hoped to roll them out towards the end of the year.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government has been heavily criticized for its handling of the pandemic, with critics saying it was too slow to go into lockdown and too slow to roll out testing to know how far the virus had spread.

Church outbreaks spread in South Korea

South Korea reported its highest daily rise in novel coronavirus cases since early March as outbreaks from churches around the capital spread, prompting a warning of a nationwide wave of infections.

The 297 new infections mark the sixth straight day of triple-digit increases in a country that has managed to blunt several previous outbreaks.

At least 166 of the new infections are linked to the Sarang Jeil Church, taking the number of cases from it to 623.

Some members of the church, which is run by a radical conservative preacher, are reluctant to come forward and get tested, or to self-isolate, officials have said.

Part of NZ lockdown illegal

A New Zealand court found the first nine days of a hard lockdown put in place by the government this year requiring people to isolate at home was justified, but unlawful, as an order imposing stay-at-home restrictions was not passed until April 3.

“In the end, the measures taken by the government worked to eliminate COVID-19, save lives and minimize damage to our economy,” Attorney General David Parker said after the ruling.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Wednesday she would increase the number of defense personnel at quarantine facilities and borders to beat any spread of the virus, as five new cases in the community were reported.

A warning from the Pope

Rich countries should not hoard a coronavirus vaccine and should only give pandemic-related bailouts to companies committed to protecting the environment, helping the most needy and the “common good”, Pope Francis said on Wednesday.

“It would be sad if the rich are given priority for the COVID-19 vaccine. It would be sad if the vaccine becomes property of this or that nation, if it is not universal and for everyone,” Francis said at his weekly general audience.

The World Health Organization said on Tuesday that any nation that hoards possible vaccines while excluding others would deepen the pandemic.

“The pandemic is a crisis and one never exits from a crisis returning to the way it was before,” Francis said.

(Compiled by Linda Noakes and Karishma Singh; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Drug costs for COVID-19 patients plunge at U.S. hospitals, but may rise

By Chad Terhune

(Reuters) – Medication costs for COVID-19 patients hospitalized in the United States have dropped sharply since May, reflecting advances in treatment, shorter stays and use of cheaper generic drugs.

But costs may rise again as hospitals start to pay for Gilead Sciences Inc’s remdesivir.

Research by the health data firm IllumiCare and exclusively shared with Reuters found that hospitals spent $1,090 per COVID-19 patient on medication in July. That was down from $3,011 in May among more than 50 hospitals in 10 states that were analyzed.

Several factors drove down the number. The average length of stay for COVID-19 patients declined by nearly 30%, from 9.6 days in April to 6.8 days in July, the hospital data show. And the number of medications used dropped by 22%, from nearly 20 individual drugs in April to 15.4 drugs in July.

Pharmacists say some of the decrease in medications may stem from reduced use of ventilators, which require painkillers for sedation.

“We were throwing the kitchen sink at these patients and now hospitals are getting better at treating these infections,” said G.T. LaBorde, chief executive of IllumiCare, a Birmingham, Alabama-based firm that works with hospitals and analyzes their electronic medical records.

Remdesivir, which helped speed up patients’ recovery in a U.S. trial, won emergency-use authorization in May from U.S. regulators. Gilead donated early doses but has begun charging. It has said the price for commercially insured patients is $3,120 per treatment course and $2,340 for patients on Medicare.

Michael Ganio, senior director of pharmacy practice and quality at the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, said many of the medications being used on COVID-19 patients are not “budget busters” and drug shortages have often been a bigger problem than cost.

But Ganio said pharmacy costs could increase significantly in the months ahead because of remdesivir.

Overall, many U.S. hospitals continue to face significant financial pressure from the pandemic as new infections remain high across much of the country, including in California, Florida and Texas. And health officials have warned that the upcoming flu season could further stress the healthcare system.

“As healthcare professionals, we are holding our breath for what fall will bring with flu season and COVID,” Ganio said.

In addition to remdesivir, hospital costs also may rise because of the increased use of tocilizumab, an anti-inflammatory drug widely used to treat arthritis. Hospital use jumped 29% among COVID-19 patients during July compared with the month earlier.

Tocilizumab costs more than $2,200 per patient, and is one of a class of drugs that includes Roche’s Actemra.

The most frequently prescribed drug for COVID-19 patients was the anticoagulant enoxaparin. It was given to 50% of inpatients last month at a cost of $322 per patient, the data show.

Another treatment recently found to reduce mortality for some COVID-19 patients, the steroid dexamethasone, costs $8.78 per patient, according to IllumiCare, and it was given to 35.1% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients reviewed in July.

Overall, IllumiCare said it looked at data from March through July at health systems in 10 states, including California, Texas and Alabama. It found more than 4,000 patients who were hospitalized and under treatment primarily for a coronavirus infection, drawing on medical billing codes for respiratory infection, sepsis and related conditions.

The firm excluded some COVID-positive patients, such as pregnant women, who were hospitalized for other reasons.

(Reporting by Chad Terhune. Editing by Peter Henderson and Gerry Doyle)

U.S. postal chaos prompts Democrats to reassess mail-ballot plan

By Jarrett Renshaw and Andy Sullivan

(Reuters) – Turmoil at the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is causing some Democrats and local election officials to rethink their vote-by-mail strategies for November’s presidential election, shifting emphasis to drop boxes and early voting that bypass the post office.

The 2020 contest promises to be the nation’s largest test of voting by mail. But U.S. President Donald Trump’s relentless, unsubstantiated attacks on mail balloting, along with cost-cutting that has delayed mail service nationwide, have sown worry and confusion among many voters.

Democratic officials who just weeks ago were touting their dominance in mail balloting during a recent rash of primaries are now cautioning supporters of presidential challenger Joe Biden to be wary. Operatives in battleground states, including Pennsylvania, are particularly concerned about ballots arriving too late to count for the Nov. 3 election.

“We are considering telling voters that if they haven’t mailed out their complete ballot by Oct. 15, don’t bother. Instead, vote in person or drop off the ballot” at an elections office, said Joe Foster, the chairman of the Democratic Party in Montgomery County, the most populous of Philadelphia’s suburban counties. “We want to make sure every vote counts.”

Other local Democratic leaders, from states like Florida and North Carolina, told Reuters they also are weighing urging voters to submit mail ballots weeks ahead of the election or else vote in person.

On Tuesday, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced he was suspending cost-cutting measures he had put in place in recent weeks that had led to widespread service disruptions. Those changes included limits on employee overtime, orders for trucks to depart on schedule even if there was mail still to be loaded, and the removal of some mail sorting machines.

“The Postal Service is ready today to handle whatever volume of election mail it receives this fall,” DeJoy said in a statement. He also promised to deploy “standby resources” beginning Oct. 1 to satisfy any unforeseen demand.

But some Democrats said the damage is already done. Many don’t trust DeJoy – who was a major Trump campaign donor before becoming postal chief – to restore service at the independent government agency amid a presidential race that polls say Biden is leading.

“Return the mailboxes you removed,” Rep. David Cicilline of Rhode Island said on Twitter. “Return the sorting machines you took out. Restore the regular hours of post offices you cut short. Return postal vehicles you took. The list goes on.”

A USPS spokesman declined to comment. DeJoy is expected to provide more detail on his plans in testimony before the Senate on Friday and the House of Representatives on Monday.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said Tuesday that Trump never told the Postal Service to change its operations.

Democrats asked for $25 billion to shore up the balance sheet of the USPS in a massive virus aid package that passed the House of Representatives in May. Republicans have balked at that figure, and Trump last week said he opposed that funding because it might be used to encourage mail voting. But administration officials in recent days have said they are open to additional funding as public outrage over the USPS drama has grown.

Local Democratic officials, operatives and campaign workers said they are not waiting for a Washington solution.

In the competitive state of Michigan, Democratic voter outreach volunteer Karen McJimpson, 64, is phoning voters to encourage them to hand-deliver their absentee ballots directly to specified drop boxes or elections offices in light of concerns about mail delivery. She said Tuesday’s news about restored service gave her no comfort.“I don’t trust it,” said McJimpson, who volunteers with a nonprofit called Michigan United. “There has been too much noise around this, and someone is clearly pulling the strings. We are going to proceed as planned: drop the ballots off.”

Upheaval at the USPS has reshuffled some Democrats’ plans for other types of election mail as well.

Brad Crone, a Democratic strategist in North Carolina, plans to send up to two million mailers between now and Election Day supporting various state and congressional candidates. The campaign flyers are mailed directly from his printer, who last week sent him a notice: If Crone wants to mail anything beyond Oct. 19, he must sign a waiver acknowledging that it might not get there before Election Day.

Crone said he will now stop his mailings by Oct. 4, three weeks earlier than he had originally planned.

“It’s alarming,” Crone said. “Americans are witnessing major system breakdowns, whether it’s the postal system, COVID testing or their local schools. The average voter is seeing this and is just floored.”

DROP BOX BATTLE

Mail voting has grown steadily since the turn of the century. In the 2016 presidential election, mail ballots accounted for 23.6% of all ballots cast, up from 19.2% in 2008, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

Interest has exploded this year as voters have sought to avoid crowded polling places due to the coronavirus pandemic. Mail ballots accounted for 80% of all votes cast in 16 state primaries this year, including Wisconsin, Nevada and Pennsylvania, according to an estimate by Charles Stewart III, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Some states, such as New York, have struggled to handle the crush.

The surge has sparked a slew of litigation. Republicans in Texas, for example, fended off a recent Democratic effort to make it easier for its citizens to vote by mail in the pandemic. The vast majority of Texans will be required to vote in person in November.

Democrats have prevailed elsewhere. In South Carolina, officials have agreed to provide prepaid postage for absentee ballots, easing a barrier for those who otherwise would have to provide their own stamps. In Minnesota, the state agreed to suspend a requirement that absentee voters get a witness to sign their ballots and to count ballots that are postmarked by Election Day.

The Democratic Party currently has ongoing litigation on mail voting in 14 states, according to Marc Elias, the lawyer overseeing the effort.

Trump has spent the last few weeks making unsupported allegations that mail voting is vulnerable to tampering and would result in Democrats stealing the election. He has sought to distinguish between states that provide mail ballots only to voters who request them – including Florida, where Trump himself votes absentee – and those that are moving to conduct their elections entirely by mail, which he claims could lead to widespread cheating.

Election experts say mail voting is as secure as any other method.

Trump’s attacks have forced state and local Republicans to engage in some damage control. Many of their most reliable supporters, particularly elderly voters, have long used mail balloting. Some Republicans fear the president’s broadsides will depress turnout.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll released on Monday found that nearly half of Biden supporters plan to vote by mail in November, while just 11% of Trump supporters plan to do so.

The latest front in the voting battle is the dedicated election drop box, a sealed, sturdily built receptacle that has been a popular option for voters who prefer mail ballots but don’t want to return them via the USPS. Election officials collect those ballots and take them to polling locations for counting.

Election officials in South Carolina, Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania and elsewhere are seeking to expand drop-off locations or ease requirements such as those mandating that voters show identification to use them.

Those changes have met resistance from Republicans over concerns about fraud. On Monday, Trump turned his fire on drop boxes.

“Some states use ‘drop boxes’ for the collection of Universal Mail-In Ballots. So who is going to ‘collect’ the Ballots, and what might be done to them prior to tabulation?” he wrote on Twitter. “A Rigged Election? So bad for our Country.”

Rob Daniel, chairman of the Charleston County Democratic Party in South Carolina, said there is just one election drop box in the county of roughly 400,0000 people. He said some voters must drive 45 minutes to reach it because of the county’s odd shape.

Daniel said the county board of elections is seeking permission from the state to add more boxes, but that is no certainty. As a backup, the party is urging voters to request their mail ballots early and return them via the USPS as soon as possible.

“Even Trump can’t screw up the Postal Service so much that it can’t deliver mail across town in 30 days,” Daniel said.

Still, Democrats see a bigger worry: Trump has already raised the possibility that he might not accept the results of an election whose outcome could take days to decide because of the quantity of mail ballots that will need to be counted.

“That is absolutely our biggest threat,” Michigan’s Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist said.

(Reporting By Jarrett Renshaw in Pennsylvania and Andy Sullivan in Washington; Additional reporting by Michael Martina in Detroit and David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Marla Dickerson)

U.S. CDC reports 169,870 deaths from coronavirus

(Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Tuesday said the number of deaths due to the new coronavirus had risen by 520 to 169,870 and reported 5,422,242 cases, an increase of 40,117 cases from its previous count.

The CDC reported its tally of cases of the respiratory illness known as COVID-19, caused by a new coronavirus, as of 4 pm ET on Aug. 17 compared with its previous report a day earlier.

The CDC figures do not necessarily reflect cases reported by individual states.

(Reporting by Dania Nadeem in Bengaluru; Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)

Pelosi: Democrats willing to cut COVID-19 bill in half to get a deal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Tuesday that Democrats in Congress are willing to cut their coronavirus relief bill in half to get an agreement on new legislation with the White House and Republicans.

“We have to try to come to that agreement now,” Pelosi said in an online interview with Politico. “We’re willing to cut our bill in half to meet the needs right now. We’ll take it up again in January. We’ll see them again in January. But for now, we can cut the bill in half.”

But her remarks did not signal a new position for Democrats, according to a senior aide.

The Democratic-led House passed legislation with over $3 trillion in relief in May. This month, Democrats offered to reduce that sum by $1 trillion, but the White House rejected it.

The two sides remain about $2 trillion apart, with wide gaps on funding for schools, aid to state and local governments, and enhanced unemployment benefits.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Chris Reese and Chizu Nomiyama)

Brazil approves human trials for potential Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s health regulator Anvisa on Tuesday said it had approved human clinical trials for a potential COVID-19 vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson’s pharmaceutical subsidiary Janssen.

Brazil is the second-worst hit country for coronavirus cases and deaths after the United States, leading many vaccine developers to seek out clinical trials here.

Brazil had registered 3.4 million cases of the disease and more than 108,000 related deaths as of Monday.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine candidate is the fourth to be approved for human trials in Brazil, Anvisa said in its statement.

Brazil has already approved phase 3 human trials of potential vaccines developed by AstraZeneca in partnership with the University of Oxford, China’s Sinovac Biotech and Pfizer in partnership with BioNTech.

China’s Sinopharm also aims to carry out trials for a possible vaccine in Brazil in a deal with the southern state of Parana pending regulatory approval.

(Reporting by Ricardo Brito; writing by Jake Spring; editing by Alex Richardson and Jason Neely)

Lockdown, leftovers and how food frugality is a climate boon

By Christopher Walljasper and Nigel Hunt

CHICAGO/LONDON (Reuters) – Clint Parry ransacked every kitchen cupboard and scoured all corners of his fridge during lockdown in Detroit, hunting for lost ingredients and leftovers to whip up meals.

The 33-year-old is one of many people across the world to have embraced thriftiness and cut down on food waste during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to experts. They say the new habits, if maintained, will provide a major boost in tackling another global crisis: climate change.

“We are using virtually all of our leftovers, where we used to waste food because we would forget to pack it and just pick up fast food on a lunch break,” said Parry, who is married and works as a master model builder at Legoland in Michigan.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that a third of the world’s food is wasted every year. Forests are cleared, fuel is burnt and packaging in produced just to provide food which is thrown away. Meanwhile, rotting food in landfills releases more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

As a result, food waste is responsible for around 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, a similar amount to road transportation.

“The next crisis will be the climate crisis and the best thing you can do as a consumer is reduce food waste,” said Toine Timmermans, program manager for sustainable food chains at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

Household food waste in Britain, to take one country, fell significantly in the early phase of the lockdown in April with just 14% of four key items – bread, chicken, milk and potatoes – thrown away, according to research by environmental group WRAP, which conducted thousands of interviews.

Pre-lockdown, an average of 24% had been wasted.

Waste had begun to rebound by June, with a second WRAP survey putting waste of those products at 18%, but remained significantly below pre-lockdown levels.

“Although people are reporting wasting more food as restrictions lift … the positive news is that 70% of people want to maintain their new-found food management behaviors in the long term,” said Richard Swannell, director at WRAP Global which works with governments to reduce food waste.

“This is an encouraging sign that people are taking this opportunity to adopt less wasteful habits in life after lockdown.”

PLAN MORE, COOK MORE

Food security has been a major concern during the pandemic as consumers panic-bought basic goods, migrant workers struggled to get to the fields, meat-packing plants shut, and farm goods produced for shuttered restaurants rotted.

But the lower household food waste has been one bright spot.

Out of necessity, consumers have become more organized in planning menus, developed new cooking skills, checked their cupboards and fridges more before they shop and found better ways to use up leftovers, according to food waste experts.

“What people have been forced to do during the pandemic is plan ahead because they’re now shopping less frequently,” said Dana Gunders, executive director at ReFED, a nonprofit dedicated to reducing wasted food across the United States.

“They’re being forced to cook more and build those cooking skills.”

Laura Brooks, a stay-at-home mother of five in Weymouth, Massachusetts, said she had developed useful habits during the lockdown that she would keep.

“I think as things go back to normal, I may continue with less frequent shopping trips. When I go more often, I find that the new produce pushes the old produce out of sight and things get wasted more easily,” she added.

Increased frugality could prove a valuable habit in the economic and unemployment crisis caused by the pandemic; Gunders said a family of four in the United States was estimated to throw out food worth about $1,800 a year.

TOO GOOD FOR THE BIN

A survey from Germany’s Food and Agriculture Ministry also showed consumers had started to show more concern about wasting food during the coronavirus crisis.

The government had launched an anti-food waste campaign called “Too good for the bin” before the crisis, urging the public not to automatically throw food away after the sell-by date but to smell and taste it to see if it was still in good condition.

The ministry’s survey, undertaken during the pandemic, found that 91% of German consumers questioned were now checking food after its sell-by date and not automatically throwing it away.

This compared to only 76% in a similar survey in 2016.

Food waste is not restricted to the home but it is the biggest source in many countries.

The European Union has published a study estimating that 53% of food waste was in households and 11% in production, with the balance in areas such as processing and retailing.

China’s President Xi Jingping said this month that the amount of food wasted in China was “shocking”, prompting many local governments to launch related campaigns.

For Parry in Detroit, and many others, thrift is here to stay.

“Our food costs have definitely gone way down, since we are not buying out when we have perfectly consumable leftovers in the fridge at home,” he said.

(Reporting by Christopher Walljasper and Nigel Hunt; Editing by Veronica Brown and Pravin Char)

Coronavirus pandemic now driven by younger adults: WHO

By Karen Lema and Neil Jerome Morales

MANILA (Reuters) – The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday it was concerned that the novel coronavirus spread was being driven by people in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s, many of whom were unaware they were infected, posing a danger to vulnerable groups.

WHO officials said this month the proportion of younger people among those infected had risen globally, putting at risk vulnerable sectors of the population worldwide, including the elderly and sick people in densely populated areas with weak health services.

“The epidemic is changing,” WHO Western Pacific regional director, Takeshi Kasai, told a virtual briefing. “People in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s are increasingly driving the spread. Many are unaware they are infected.”

“This increases the risk of spillovers to the more vulnerable,” he added.

A surge in new cases has prompted some countries to re-impose curbs as companies race to find a vaccine for a virus that has battered economies, killed more than 770,000 people and infected nearly 22 million, according to a Reuters tally.

Countries putting their own interests ahead of others in trying to ensure supplies of a possible vaccine are making the pandemic worse, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva on Tuesday.

“(Acting) strategically and globally is actually in each country’s national interest – no one is safe until everyone is safe,” he told a virtual briefing calling for an end to “vaccine nationalism”.

Surges in infections have been reported in countries that had appeared to have the virus under control, including Vietnam, which until recently went three months without domestic transmission due to its aggressive mitigation efforts.

“What we are observing is not simply a resurgence. We believe it’s a signal that we have entered a new phase of pandemic in the Asia-Pacific,” Kasai said.

He said countries were better able to reduce disruption to lives and economies by combining early detection and response to manage infections.

While mutations had been observed, the WHO still saw the virus as “relatively stable,” Kasai said.

WHO also reminded drugmakers to follow all necessary research and development steps when creating a vaccine.

Socorro Escalante, its technical officer and medicines policy adviser, said the WHO was coordinating with Russia, which this month became the first country to grant regulatory approval for a COVID-19 vaccine.

“We hope to get the response in terms of the evidence of this new vaccine,” Escalante said.

(Reporting by Ed Davies, Karen Lema, Stephanie Nebehay, Michael Shields and John Miller; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Martin Petty and Ed Osmond)