This Pennsylvania county has paused indoor dining after coronavirus cases rise
From CNN's Sheena Jones
A customer walks out of the Porch restaurant with his takeout order on July 9 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Gene J. Puskar/AP
Officials in Allegheny County — which includes Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania — have issued a temporary two-week order banning residents from eating inside restaurants and bars, a release from Health Department Director Dr. Debra Bogen said.
The ban starts today. This order rescinds previous orders from June 28 and July 2, according to the release.
This comes after the area saw an increase in Covid-19 cases.
Restaurants are permitted to serve takeout food and alcohol and provide deliveries, the release says.
9:41 a.m. ET, July 10, 2020
Australia approves remdesivir as country's first Covid-19 treatment
From journalist Isaac Yee
A vial of the drug remdesivir is seen during the press conference at the University Hospital Eppendorf on April 8 in Hamburg, Germany. Ulrich Perrey/Pool/AFP/Getty Images
Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) announced on Friday in a statement that it had granted provisional approval to remdesivir as the first treatment option for the novel coronavirus in Australia.
“Remdesivir is the most promising treatment option so far to reduce hospitalization time for those suffering from severe coronavirus infections,” TGA said in a statement published on their website.
The statement added that the drug "offers the potential to reduce the strain on Australia's health care system. By reducing recovery times patients will be able to leave hospital earlier, freeing beds for those in need.”
“While this is a major milestone in Australia's struggle against the pandemic, it is important to emphasize that the product has not been shown to prevent coronavirus infection or relieve milder cases of infection,” TGA said.
The statement continued: “Australia is one of the first regulators to authorize the use of Remdesivir for the treatment of COVID-19, following on from recent approvals in European Union, Japan, and Singapore,” said the Administration adding that “international regulatory cooperation played a significant role, as the European Medicines Agency and the Singapore Health Sciences Authority generously shared their review reports with TGA at an early stage.”
9:28 a.m. ET, July 10, 2020
Inside a California hospital battling the worst of Covid-19 on the US-Mexico border
From CNN's Kyung Lah, Julia Jones and Kim Berryman
A nurse attends to a coronavirus patient at El Centro Regional Medical Center in El Centro, California. CNN
Coronavirus is winning the battle in El Centro, California. It's in almost every patient in the hospital. Tents are being put up to handle even more cases. It's on the streets, forcing rescuers to put on protective suits and cumbersome masks before they approach people needing help.
And it's not stopping. Even as nearby and faraway facilities take patients to try to ease the load, more and more sick people keep coming. And so do the deaths. The workers are exhausted. The virus is not.
Fewer than 1,000 ICU beds are available statewide in Texas
From CNN's Kay Jones
Healthcare workers move a patient in the Covid-19 Unit at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas, on July 2. Mark Felix/AFP/Getty Images
There are less than 1,000 ICU beds available throughout the state of Texas, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS).
Additionally, there are 9,869 Covid-19 positive patients hospitalized in Texas. The latest chart by DSHS shows that this is a record number of hospitalizations and that they have steadily increased since mid-June.
On Thursday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a proclamation that amends his Executive Order issued in late June adding all counties in the 11 Trauma Service Areas in the state requiring suspension of all elective surgeries in hospitals. A total of 113 of the state's 254 counties fall under the Executive Order and subsequent proclamation.
Texas currently has at least 230,346 cases reported, with an estimated 109,102 active cases, according to the latest numbers released by DSHS.
Note: These numbers were released by Texas Department of State Health Services, and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.
9:23 a.m. ET, July 10, 2020
Fauci "trying to figure out" where Trump got false claim that 99% of Covid-19 cases are "harmless"
From CNN's Gisela Crespo
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testifies before a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on June 30 in Washington, DC. Kevin Dietsch/Pool via AP
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he's "trying to figure out" where President Trump got the number behind his claim that 99% of coronavirus cases were "harmless."
"I’m trying to figure out where the President got that number," Fauci said in an interview with the Financial Times, published Friday. "What I think happened is that someone told him that the general mortality is about 1%. And he interpreted, therefore, that 99% is not a problem, when that’s obviously not the case.”
About this: Last week, Trump sought to downplay the surge in Covid-19 cases by falsely claiming that testing in the US shows 99% of cases "are totally harmless."
Fauci told FT he last saw Trump on June 2 at the White House, and hasn't personally briefed him in at least two months.
9:55 a.m. ET, July 10, 2020
Texas mom found out she had coronavirus one month before giving birth to triplets
From CNN's Adrienne Vogt
Maggie Sillero holds her triplets, who were born on June 4 after she beat Covid-19. Courtesy The Woman's Hospital of Texas
Maggie Sillero was 28 weeks pregnant when she found out she had coronavirus.
The Texas mom was asymptomatic, and even she said she was scared, she said she was not worried because she knew she was in great hands with her doctors and nurses.
Her babies, a daughter and two sons, are doing well. She has been able to bring her daughter home and she was told yesterday that her sons might be able to leave the hospital tomorrow.
“We're so excited to have them home, finally all be reunited and finally call it a home sweet home,” Sillero said on CNN’s “New Day.”
Between the time she tested positive and when she gave birth, she was isolated from the rest of her family for a month for everyone’s safety. She said she was relived to get two negative Covid-19 tests before giving birth.
Her husband did not receive his negative test in time for the birth, so he could not be in the room with her, but Sillero’s mother was able to be there with her.
Watch:
8:43 a.m. ET, July 10, 2020
San Antonio mayor on coronavirus surge: "This wildfire is now outside of the fence"
From CNN's Adrienne Vogt
San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg speaks with CNN's John Berman on July 10. CNN
San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said he’d consider “potential alterations” such as stay-at-home orders as Texas’ coronavirus numbers rise, but he emphasized that it is now up to individuals to follow guidelines from medical experts.
“This wildfire is now outside of the fence. It’s a lot easier to prevent one than it is to start to contain one that’s already outside,” Nirenberg told CNN’s John Berman.
Texas reported 105 Covid-19 related deaths on Thursday, the highest single-day increase in coronavirus fatalities, bringing the total number of deaths in the state to 2,918.
Nirenberg said 35% of hospital admissions in his area are now attributed to Covid-19.
“This is going from household to household, outside of the regulatory arm of any government. If people continue to have dinner parties…this is going to continue to grow and grow and grow,” he said. “So the most focused effort that we can do together is to take politics out of it, everybody get on the same page, and realize our best tool to fight the pandemic is the same one we had in the beginning, which is public trust, particularly in our medical experts who are giving us the right messages.”
Nirenberg said there have been too many “mixed messages” from state and national leaders about the importance of wearing masks and physical distancing.
Watch more from the interview:
10:00 a.m. ET, July 10, 2020
Trump will travel to Florida's Miami-Dade County today, the state's coronavirus epicenter
The President's first stops will be in Doral, where he will receive a briefing and deliver remarks at the US Southern Command and then motorcade to a church nearby to participate in a roundtable discussion with Venezuelans. Following these events, the President will attend a private fundraiser in Hillsboro Beach. He is not scheduled to participate in any events related to the coronavirus pandemic.
Doral, where US Southern Command is located, is just under two miles from the President's golf club. But it is also in Miami-Dade County, which is currently experiencing a coronavirus outbreak.
Officials in the county reported a staggering 33.5% Covid-19 positivity rate on Thursday, according to data released by Mayor Carlos Gimenez's office.
Over the past 13 days, hospitalizations in Miami-Dade County have gone up by 76%, the number of ICU beds being used has increased by 86% and the use of ventilators has soared by 124%, according to the latest data from the county government.
A presidential visit — no matter who is in office — requires a significant amount of resources, with White House officials, White House Medical Unit representatives and US Secret Service agents traveling in advance of the president to coordinate with local officials on the ground.
There is an extensive amount of medical preparation involved each time a president travels, with plans in place for the worst case scenario.
8:29 a.m. ET, July 10, 2020
BioNTech says its Covid-19 vaccine will be ready by end of 2020, but global immunity may take a decade
From CNN Health's Gisela Crespo
The headquarters of German company BioNTech is pictured on April 22, in Mainz, Germany. Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images
German firm BioNTech is confident it will seek regulatory approval by the end of the year for a coronavirus vaccine, the company's CEO told The Wall Street Journal in an interview conducted Wednesday and published on Friday.
Dr. Ugur Sahin said that due to the spread of the virus, it could take about a decade for the world's population to achieve immunity, even if several vaccines become available at the same time. BioNTech has partnered with Pfizer in the US to develop the vaccine.
“I assume that we will only be done with this virus when more than 90% of the global population will get immunity, either through infection or through a vaccine,” Sahin told the Journal.
Sahin added the company could produce several hundred million doses before approval and more than 1 billion doses by the end of 2021.
Last week, BioNTech and Pfizer announced that the Covid-19 vaccine in development had yielded positive data in early tests.
The companies shared their preliminary findings on July 1 in a pre-print paper that shows participants in a Phase 1/2 study of the vaccine, called BNT162b1, responded to the immunization and it was found to be well tolerated. The Phase 1/2 study is ongoing and the data has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.
The preliminary data will help researchers determine a dose level for the vaccine, then select which of their multiple vaccine candidates to progress to a larger-scale global Phase 2/3 study, which could begin as early as this month, the companies said.
