July 30 coronavirus news

Operation Warp Speed, the federal government’s multi-billion effort to develop a vaccine against Covid-19, will fund eight vaccines, according to the head of the program.  

Five of those are already in Phase 3 clinical trials or will be starting by the end of September, said Moncef Slaoui, chief adviser to Operation Warp Speed.  

So far, vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer are in Phase 3, or phase 2/3, of human testing in the US. That’s the final round of trials before a vaccine is put on the market. Each trial will include about 30,000 volunteers.  

A vaccine from AstraZeneca and University of Oxford in the UK is in Phase 3 trials in the United Kingdom, Brazil and South Africa. Phase 3 trials for the vaccine in the US are scheduled to begin in August, Slaoui said.  

Phase three trials for vaccines made by two other companies – Johnson & Johnson and Novavax – are scheduled to begin in September, he added.  

Slaoui did not name the other three vaccines that will receive funding from Operation Warp Speed.  

Health officials have said that having several vaccines in the pipeline will help ensure that at least one will be successful. 

President Trump and Dr. Anthony Fauci held what’s become a relatively rare public event on Thursday afternoon: both men were in the same room with the cameras rolling. 

Trump and Fauci made an appearance at the American Red Cross National Headquarters, encouraging plasma donations from people who have recovered from coronavirus. 

During his remarks, Trump encouraged people to sign up to donate plasma "as soon as you can."

“We have a lot of people that would heal, would get better. As soon as you can, please," he said.

He also urged Americans to wash their hands, keep a 6-foot distance and wear a mask “when you cannot avoid crowded places.” 

“It just seems like so many things are taking place in crowded places,” the President, who has recently held events in crowded places, said. “We don't want that," he added.

In his comments, Fauci began by thanking the President for his “support of this very important program.” 

“An important part of the process of being together is helping each other,” he continued. “You know, when I can think of nothing more manifesting the helping of each other than someone donating from their experience of being ill and this is something that I think is part of the American spirit, and we should be proud of it and we should show it. So it's a very important thing. It's important part of the entire response to this outbreak.”

On masks: Trump did not wear a mask at the roundtable, but did wear one as he met with a patient donating plasm prior to the event, a practice which US Surgeon General Jerome Adams tried to encourage. 

“I was in Miami just a few weeks ago when I promised them I would tell you this,” Adams said to the President. “I was in Trump country. And they told me to deliver you a message, Mr. President. They told me to tell you you look badass in a face mask. I promised them I would tell you that. Miami, I told the President he looks badass in a face mask.”

The Fort Worth Independent School District in Texas is moving the beginning of its school year back by three weeks.

Classes will now begin on Sept. 8, and at least the first four weeks of the year will be all-digital.

Fort Worth also will be doing digital learning for at least the first four weeks of the delayed school year. Originally, the district said parents would have the choice of whether to have their children taught on campus or at home. The superintendent says they will allow some students will special needs to be taught in-person, but only in small, socially distanced groups.

Scribner said they were influenced by teachers who expressed serious concern about the idea of trying to start the school year on time.

“They were very appreciative that the start date was postponed,” he said.

Some context: Fort Worth is the 36th largest school district in the country by enrollment. The school board’s decision Wednesday came at the end of a meeting.

Countries have to work together to stop the coronavirus pandemic, Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said in a Time 100 Talk on Thursday.

The pandemic is hitting people’s health as well as economies everywhere, Gates said. So while countries must work to stop the spread inside their own borders, the work cannot stop there. 

“They also need to get together with other countries,” he said. “Because until we stop the pandemic in the entire world, it’s going to keep coming back.”

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds released guidance Thursday on plans to return to in-person learning at schools across the state. She encouraged in-person learning, and added that in order to request online-only learning, schools must have a positivity rate of at least 15% in their county. 

Reynolds said 93 of Iowa’s 99 counties meet the less than 10% positivity threshold that the Centers for Disease Control recommends for students to return to the classroom. Reynolds said that future decisions on school openings will be based on the positivity rate over the previous 14 days and student and staff absenteeism.

Iowa State Public Health Medical Director Dr. Caitlin Pedati explained the process schools should go through when exposure to the virus happens. 

“We'll come up with that list of people who would have been exposed and the recommendation will be for people who have been in close contact with a confirmed case that they need to stay home or quarantine for a period of 14 days. When we talk about quarantine that means people who are still healthy but who have been exposed to somebody who has Covid. If that person were to themselves become sick, they should seek health care and get tested as appropriate and if they were positive, they would then isolate,” Pedati said.

Pedati stressed that state agencies, school districts and county health departments will need to be flexible.

"We might need to adjust guidelines in the future as we learn new things and as the science develops" Pedati said.

In his first television interview, the head of Operation Warp Speed, the federal government’s multi-billion effort to develop a vaccine against Covid-19, said he “wouldn’t be surprised” if the vaccine was about 90% effective. 

Slaoui spoke Thursday with CNN while touring a Covid-19 vaccine clinical trial site in Savannah, Georgia. He’s a former GlaxoSmithKline executive who began his position with Operation Warp Speed in May.

Vaccines have various effectiveness rates: According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a full round of polio vaccines is 99% to 100% effective; full vaccination against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis is 80-90% effective, while the flu shot is 40-60% effective.

Slaoui added that “it’s possible that we will need a booster” after initial vaccination “every year or every two years or every three years.” 

The Advocare Classic, one of college football’s marquee opening weekend games, has been called off.

The matchup between powerhouses Alabama and the University of Southern California was set to be played in Arlington, Texas, on Sept. 5.

According to a news release issued by AT&T Stadium, the game was canceled due to conference scheduling policy changes. The Pac-12 conference had announced earlier this month that its teams, including the USC Trojans, would only play games within the conference due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Alabama Crimson Tide play in the SEC.

AT&T Stadium said fans who purchased tickets through the stadium’s box offices will automatically be refunded within 10 to 14 business days. Tickets purchased via schools’ ticket offices can be refunded once details surrounding the respective school’s season are finalized.

At least 2,084 new Covid-19 cases were reported in Missouri, the largest daily increase of cases in the state since the pandemic began, according to the Department of Health and Senior Services.

According to a series of tweets by the agency, increased testing across the state along with testing delays at national laboratories are creating a backlog of data processing and entry.

Missouri has reported more than 1,000 positive cases each day for the past 10 days. 

This brings the total to at least 48,834 cases in the state, according to numbers released by the agency. 

Missouri also reports at least 13 new deaths, bringing the total to approximately 1,233. 

Note: These numbers were released by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project. 

Maine Gov. Janet Mills signed an executive order extending protection for renters, while the state's positivity rate drops below 1%.   

As the Maine Supreme Judicial Court plans to reopen courts next week, "the risk right now is, in the coming months, there will be eviction proceedings" Mills said today.  

Rental assistance will be extended and provided to qualifying families for up to three months, Mills said. 

"I'm very concerned that Maine people may be facing a housing cliff" with federal unemployment benefits possibly being reduced, Mills said.

"The best thing we can do for our economic health, is protect our public health," the governor added. 

Some context: Maine's seven day positivity average is currently 0.95%, nationwide positivity stands at 8%, said Dr. Nirav Shah, director for Maine Center for Disease Control & Prevention.