September 4 coronavirus news

Moncef Slaoui — chief adviser to Operation Warp Speed, the federal government's Covid-19 vaccine program — said in an interview with Science that he would have joined the global vaccine effort known as COVAX if it was his choice.  

CNN reported on Tuesday that because of its ties to the World Health Organization, the United States would not join COVAX, an initiative involving more than 170 countries working to provide worldwide access to an effective Covid-19 vaccine. The initiative is co-led by Gavi, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and WHO.

Slaoui also spoke about vaccines from China in his interview. 

While Operation Warp Speed has said from the outset that it will not consider vaccines from China, Slaoui said that if the first vaccine to have reasonable safety and efficacy data comes from there “it’s great if this would be the first demonstration that vaccines can work. That’s great news for the world.”  

In an interview with Science, Moncef Slaoui, chief adviser to Operation Warp Speed, said the process of developing a Covid-19 vaccine has benefited from improving technology and past experiences with coronaviruses.

Slaoui also said that “we haven’t yet hit the wall” when it comes to designing trials, manufacturing vaccines, finding study endpoints and clinical trial sites, for example.

“One of the reasons we said we needed six or eight vaccines is because some of them may or will hit the wall,” he said.

The Dow was pointing to decent gains Friday after the US government reported that 1.4 million jobs were added in August and the unemployment rate fell more than expected. The S&P 500 was flat and the tech-heavy Nasdaq was lower again.

The moves follow Thursday’s massive drop in stocks, which was led by big sell-offs in red hot tech leaders such as Apple, Amazon and Microsoft. It was the worst day for stocks since June, and came just one day after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both hit new all-time highs.

 Here is where things stood at the opening:

The Transportation Security Administration said it screened nearly 878,000 people yesterday, the highest daily level reached to date since the coronavirus pandemic battered air travel.  

The agency is currently seeing about one third of the traffic it saw last year.  

Those numbers are in line with airline projections. The trade group Airlines for America said it expects traffic this weekend to be between a quarter to a third of the traffic seen last year.  

Several groups that normally issue predictions for holiday road trip volumes, including AAA, are not doing so this year.  

Moncef Slaoui, the chief adviser to Operation Warp Speed, said in an interview with Science that he would resign from his role if there was undue interference in the Covid-19 vaccine effort.

“I have to say there has been absolutely no interference,” Slaoui said. “Despite my past, which is still my present, I am still the same person with the same values. The pandemic is much bigger than that. Before being a political person with convictions, humanity has always been my objective.” 

When asked if he and the Trump administration had discussed waiting to ask for an emergency use authorization until after Election Day, Slaoui said an EUA should be requested when it has evidence of safety and efficacy.

“I have to say, maybe even despite my personal political views, that I don't think that's right, because 1,000 people die every day [from COVID-19],” Slaoui said. “If a vaccine [had evidence of safety and efficacy] on 25 October, it should be [requested] on 25 October. If it's 17 November, it should be 17 November. If it's 31 December, it should be 31 December," he said.

“It needs to be absolutely shielded from the politics,” he said. “I cannot control what people say. The President says things, other people will say things. Trust me, there will be no EUA filed if it’s not right.” 

CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta said the US response to coronavirus is “shocking,” as a new model often cited by health experts predicts more than 400,000 Americans could die from Covid-19 by January 1. 

The model from the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation would mean an additional 224,000 Americans lost in the next four months — more than double the 186,000 deaths reported to date by Johns Hopkins University.

Gupta said on CNN’s “New Day” that he spoke with Dr. Anthony Fauci about this new model and said he expressed “a convergence of frustration.”

Gupta said he’s also “discouraged and frustrated” by Americans’ lax reaction as the coronavirus continues and said he’s been up all night thinking about the models.  

“What I'm starting to feel is the existential threat is the human behavior. … I think we really are having a reckoning with regard to just basic human decency at this point,” he added. 

Gupta said the virus is not hard to combat, as long as people wear a mask, wash their hands, keep their distance and spend time together outside — and it’s even more important going into the fall and winter. 

“This is not that hard. We take brain tumors out of people. We treat what are considered untreatable cancers. We put people back together after massive trauma. This is not that hard,” Gupta said. 

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The World Health Organization is “not expecting to see widespread vaccination [for coronavirus] until the middle of next year," spokesperson Margaret Harris told reporters in Geneva Friday.

There are currently 34 vaccines globally carrying out human trials, according to WHO, with 142 vaccine candidates currently in the pre-clinical trial phase.

Harris was speaking the same day that the first peer-reviewed results of phase one and phase two clinical trials of Russia’s coronavirus vaccine – the world's first approved coronavirus vaccine for public use — were published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet.

Although Harris did not reference the Russian vaccine, Harris emphasized the importance of safety and efficiency checks saying that phase three trials “will take much longer” in order to “see how truly protective” and safe any vaccine is.

Remember: Scientists not involved in the study of the Russia vaccine said while the results are a positive sign, only larger, phase three trials can confirm whether the vaccine actually prevents illness with Covid-19. 

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is urging all residents not to let their guards down and to follow all public health guidelines over the Labor Day weekend. 

Kemp said that although the state is starting to see a decline in Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations, it is important for everyone to follow and enforce the guidelines outlined in the governor's executive order. This includes a ban on large gatherings and safety measures on businesses and restaurants as well as a shelter in place for the medically fragile.

Iraq reported at least 5,036 new cases of Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, which is the highest daily number of infections recorded since the beginning of the pandemic, the country's Ministry of Public Health said.

The latest recorded cases brings the country's total case count to 252,075. There were also 84 new deaths recorded in the last 24 hours, raising the national death toll to 7,359, the Ministry says.