Coronavirus pandemic in the US

The US Food and Drug Administration plans to announce an emergency-use authorization for remdesivir, according to the New York Times.

The authorization for the investigational coronavirus treatment could come as soon as Wednesday, the Times reported, citing a senior administration official.

In a statement to CNN, the FDA on Wednesday said it is in discussions with Gilead Sciences, the maker of remdesivir, about making the drug available to patients. 

The FDA’s expected move comes after Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, announced encouraging results from a remdesivir trial in a White House meeting with President Trump. When compared to patients who received a placebo, remdesivir was shown to shorten the duration of Covid-19, but there was no statistically-significant difference in whether patients died. The full study has not yet been released, and the research has not been peer-reviewed.

An emergency-use authorization would be notable because remdesivir is not currently approved to treat any disease – unlike some other drugs that have been used for coronavirus patients, such as hydroxychloroquine.

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Detroit now has more than 1,000 deaths due to Covid-19, Mayor Mike Duggan announced at a news conference Wednesday

He said 1,008 residents have died due to complications related to the virus.

New York's Metropolitan Transit Association (MTA), which is responsible for public transportation in the state, said it will launch a new plan to clean more frequently. The plan will be delivered to the governor when it is complete.

Ken Lovett, the senior adviser to the MTA chairman and CEO, issued the following statement Wednesday:

What is this about: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said earlier today he told the MTA to come up with a plan by tomorrow on how to disinfect trains and buses. 

“Any essential worker who shows up and gets on a train should know that that train was disinfected the night before. We want them to show up. We don't want them to stay home. We owe it to them to be able to say the train you ride, the bus you ride, has been disinfected and is clean,” he said.

During Tuesday’s coronavirus briefing, Cuomo called the state of subway cars "disrespectful.”

“To let homeless people stay on the trains in the middle of a global health pandemic with no masks, no protective equipment, you're not helping the homeless. Letting them endanger their own life and endanger lives of others is not helping anyone,” Cuomo added in today’s briefing. 

When pressed further on a specific schedule for cleaning, Cuomo said the agency is responsible for that.

"I told the MTA, give me a plan whereby you will clean and disinfect every train every night so that I can say to the essential workers who are killing themselves for our state, we're keeping the subways open for you, and when you get on the subway in the morning or in the afternoon, know that that car was disinfected the night before," he said. "... I'm not going to do a cleaning schedule. I don't do that."

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday left interest rates unchanged near zero and said it would deploy its "full range of tools" to support the US economy as the coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the US economy.

Policymakers agreed following their two-day meeting in Washington to maintain rates as they continued to see signs of a badly damaged economy.

The decision to refrain from dropping rates into negative territory, as some other central banks have done, had been widely expected by investors after Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and several other Fed board members spoke out against negative rates.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy took a brief moment of silence during today's news conference for the more than 6,000 people who have died from coronavirus across the state.

The governor said the 6,770 people who died from the virus in New Jersey is more than the number of residents who died in World War I, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, both gulf wars — Afghanistan and Iraq — Superstorm Sandy and 9/11 combined.

Murphy also announced the state will create its own face masks and gowns, and that the state has distributed more than 21 million pieces of personal protective equipment statewide.

New Jersey will send 200,000 surgical masks to New York and 50 ventilators to Massachusetts, the governor added. 

Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak said that he is planning on easing some of the state's restrictions as part of his state's reopening plan today on an ABC special about the Covid-19 pandemic.

The governor said that his plan, Nevada United Roadmap to Recovery, will "ease some of the restrictions that we had previously as it relates to retail, curbside pickup, some of our outdoor activities." 

However, Sisolak noted that "we're going to have to extend the stay-at-home order a little bit." He did not give details as to how long the order will be extended. 

Sisolak also explained that the reopening of the state's casinos is still a long way off.

"We're just not quite ready yet to handle that type of a volume," he added.

Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman has drawn attention and scrutiny with her calls to allow casinos and most other local businesses to reopen immediately.

"It's not something as simple as flipping a switch and suddenly everybody's going to come back to Las Vegas," Sisolak said after being asked about her remarks. "We've got to work on the travel part of this."

Sisolak said that he will formally unveil his state's reopening plan tomorrow.

There have been 4,106 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Washington, DC, and 205 deaths, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced at a news conference today.

The DC government is also looking to hire contact tracers. Contact tracers use a variety of methods, including phone calls, emails and social media messaging.

Bowser announced last week that the city will likely eventually need up to 900 contact tracers. The three types of positions they are currently hiring for are: investigators, lead investigators, and program managers.

Dr. Anthony Fauci expressed optimism regarding a study of the antiviral drug remdesivir for treatment of coronavirus.

CNN’s Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen cautioned: “This is not a cure.”

According to the study, the mortality rate for patients on remdesivir was 8% compared to 11% to for those on a placebo.

The duration of illness was 11 days for those on remdesivir compared to 15 days for those on the placebo.

“Remdesivir has a clear-cut, significant, positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery,” Dr. Fauci said about the drug. “It is a very important proof of concept because what it is proving is that a drug can block this virus.”

About the trial: Pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences said today it is "aware of positive data emerging from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases' (NIAID) study of the investigational antiviral remdesivir for the treatment of COVID-19."

Remember: The World Health Organization said it’s too early to comment on the remdesivir trial results released today.

President Trump commented on the United States reaching 1 million coronavirus cases, the most in the world, and said that the number is so high because of the testing capabilities in this country.

Trump said that other countries “don’t have the ability to do what we’re doing” and that while the 1 million cases sounds bad, it is “an indication that our testing is so superior.”

The President again cast doubt that the US has more cases than China and said that the difference between the countries lies not only in testing, but also in transparency.

“The transparency is much different. Transparency is like from day and night. We are totally transparent, whatever it is, it is,” Trump said.

Trump concluded by saying that if other countries did the type of testing that the US does, “you’d see numbers that would be much different.”