September 11 coronavirus updates

Vaccine maker Moderna said Friday it has increased the number of minority volunteers involved in its Phase 3 clinical trial of a Covid-19 vaccine over the past week.

The company reported Friday that enrollment in the trial has risen to 23,497 participants, up from 21,411 a week ago.

The current breakdown in numbers include 59% White participants, 22% Hispanic, 11% Black, 5% Asian and 3% other populations.

Last week the trial included 68% White volunteers, 20% Hispanic, 7% Black, 3% Asian and 1% other populations.

Moderna said last week it was increasing its efforts to reach more diverse populations, even if it impacted the speed of enrollment.

The trial has been struggling to enroll enough minorities since at least mid-August. 

Some coronavirus victims are testing positive for the virus long after their initial symptoms and sickness, but Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says it’s highly unlikely that these people are still contagious.

“That is unlikely,” Fauci told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in an interview Friday.

Fauci said it’s doubtful that a person who had Covid-19 is contagious past the 10-day isolation period.

“What we're seeing a lot of evidence for is that if you are weeks out and you have no more symptoms, that the positivity that you're detecting are fragments of the virus,” he said.

These are non-replication competent. “Which means they're particles of the virus, but they can’t infect you and they can't make you sick,” he said.

 Watch:

Danuel House Jr. of the Houston Rockets has been instructed to leave the NBA’s campus bubble in Orlando after it was concluded he had violated the league’s health and safety protocols. 

The NBA determined that House had an unauthorized guest in his hotel room for “multiple hours” on Sept. 8. As a result, House will leave the bubble and will not play again for the Rockets this season.

Before deciding to eat in a crowded restaurant, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said people should check out coronavirus infection rates in the community.

As for gyms, Fauci, who is a runner, said he wouldn’t hesitate to visit a gym in an area with a low Covid-19 infection rate.

“If you are in a green zone with very little infection, I would not hesitate to go to a gym as long as proper precautions are taken,” Fauci said. 

Watch:

The country’s response to the pandemic would have been very different if it was less politically divided, Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN's Wolf Blitzer Friday. 

“You can't but notice the divisiveness, “ Fauci said.

“We're in a very politically charged atmosphere now and whenever you're trying to get people all together singing from the same tune and doing the same things as a society, unified against this common enemy, this virus — It's very difficult to do that when you have such a charged atmosphere that we have right now. And that really is truly unfortunate,” added Fauci, who is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a White House coronavirus task force member.

Fauci recalled being in New York City, 19 years ago during 9/11, when the twin towers went down. 

“It just reminds us of the fragility of life but also of the extraordinary spirit of the American public. I mean, particularly for people in New York but the entire country, that we pulled together after their tragedy, and really came together as a nation — which hopefully we can do now within the context of this historic pandemic that we're going through.” 

Watch: 

If Americans expect things to return to normal in 2021, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said respecting and following public health measures is paramount, he said today on CNN.

One such public health measure that must be followed is the use of face masks, Fauci said. The nation's leading infectious disease expert also said the country does not need to shut down again in order to get control of the pandemic.

"When I said we need to hunker down, I don't mean by any means shutting down the country again. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about accepting the responsibility of following prudent and careful public health guidelines. I'm not talking about shutting down again. We don't need to shut down. We can do this if we pull together and abide by relatively simple and understandable public health measures," he said.

Watch:

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, said the US should expect "a gradual return to some of the aspects of normality" next year but it won't be until late 2021 until things fully get back to normal, he told CNN today.

Fauci hinged a lot of his predictions on a coronavirus vaccine.

"Now, I believe, as I've predicted, that when we get a vaccine and I feel cautiously optimistic that we will have a vaccine by the end of this calendar year as we get into early 2021, once that happens, and if it's an effective vaccine to, let's say, the tune of 70-75%, then we're going to start seeing as we get into 2021 and we deploy the vaccine that we're going to get a much better control over the outbreak. But it's not going to be turning a switch off and turning a switch on. It's going to be gradual," he said.

Watch:

Cases of Covid-19 are climbing among New Jersey residents between the ages of 19 and 24, state health commissioner Judy Persichilli said Friday. 

With a positivity rate of 6%, "this population now has the highest percent positivity in the state," she added.

The 14-18 year old age group comes in at the second highest, with a positivity rate of 4%, Persichilli said. 

"Percent positivity among all other age groups is declining, or remaining flat," Persichilli said. 

The state's most recent overall positivity rate is 2.6%, according to the most recent available data, Murphy said.

More data: The state reported 518 new positive cases Friday, as well as nine additional deaths, four of which were from the last five days

According to the state's latest information, a total of 14,234 people have been confirmed to have died from the virus, with an additional 1,789 deaths presumed to have been caused by the virus.   

To note: The numbers listed were released by the state of New Jersey and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project. 

According to Johns Hopkins University's latest tally, there have been at least 6,430,860 cases of coronavirus in the US since the pandemic began. At least 192,616 people have died in the US from coronavirus. 

The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases.

On Friday at 3:45 pm ET, Johns Hopkins has reported 34,760 new cases and 850 deaths.