October 19 coronavirus news

The race to get a Covid-19 vaccine has involved some of the largest vaccine clinical trials ever orchestrated, US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Monday.

“Obviously, we’re all hoping that we’ll see data as soon as possible,” Azar said at a conference sponsored by the Milken Institute, a nonpartisan think tank founded by ex-banker Michael Milken.

“It is an amazing achievement for the President, for Operation Warp Speed, for our biopharmaceutical industry in the United States that we even have this in range,” Azar said.

Under Operation Warp Speed, the US is producing millions of vaccines currently. All six vaccine candidates that the US has invested in or contracted to buy are being manufactured at commercial scale right now, Azar said. He said he believes that there will be enough vaccines by the end of December to vaccinate the most vulnerable populations in the US. By the end of January, he believes there will be enough to vaccinate all seniors and health care workers and first responders.

The AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccine trials are paused in the US, as is Eli Lilly’s monoclonal antibody trial.

“The American people should feel very reassured, actually, by these developments. That shows we’re putting patients at the center,” Azar said. “It shows that we’re playing by the book. It shows that the FDA is in the driver’s seat.”

Vaccine approvals will be determined by the career leadership at the FDA, Azar said.

Nearly 200 band students in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, are in quarantine after fellow band members tested positive for Covid-19, according to the district's superintendent.

Ocean Springs School District Superintendent Dr. Bonita Coleman said 193 band students at Ocean Springs High School were quarantining as a precautionary measure after "three or more" band members tested positive. 

“We are meticulously following the MS Dept. of Health guidelines which do not define an outbreak by a percentage of a population but rather uses a flat number of three for a class, team or group,” Coleman told CNN.

According to the superintendent, the district’s positivity rate for students is currently at 0.54%. Ocean Springs High School has an enrollment of over 1,800 students. 

The quarantined students were moved to the school’s virtual learning platform Monday, Coleman said.

The Tennessee Department of Health reported 3,317 new cases of Covid-19 today, the state's highest single-day increase of cases.

The previous record — 3,314 cases — was set on July 13.

Tennessee has reported a total of 232,061 coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic. The state also recorded 13 new deaths, bringing the total number of Covid-19-related fatalities to 2,922.

The state’s current positivity rate stands at 8.31%, according to the Tennessee Department of Health.

Note: These numbers were released by the state’s public health agency, and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

Mexico will extend land border restrictions with the United States for another month, the country's foreign ministry announced on Twitter Monday. 

“The restrictions will be maintained in the same terms in which they have been developed since their implementation on March 21st,” the tweet said. The extension will remain in effect through Nov. 21.

The US Embassy in Mexico confirmed the extension in a statement Monday.

“The ups and downs in the outbreaks and flare-ups of Covid-19 have forced us to extend once again the restrictions on the border crossings,” Edgar Ramírez, attaché of the Department of Homeland Security at the United States Embassy in Mexico, said in the statement.

Thousands of indigenous people from southwest Colombia marched in the country’s capital Bogota on Monday to protest the government’s economic policies and to demand an end to violence in their areas. 

According to the mayor's office in Bogota, at least 6,000 people reached the capital, despite Covid-19 restrictions, to demand a meeting with Colombian President Ivan Duque.

The indigenous Colombians are protesting economic conditions in rural Colombia and the alleged killing of hundreds of social leaders by criminal groups.

Duque has so far refused to meet with the protesters, but his High Commissioner for Peace, Miguel Ceballos, said in a statement on Sunday the government kept 80% of the promises made when similar grievances were presented last year.

Bogota Mayor Claudia Lopez met with protesters on Monday as they reached the central Bolivar Square and said their right to protest should be respected, despite social distancing restrictions ordered by her own office. 

Colombia has reported at least 959,572 Covid-19 cases so far, and the government has declared a state of emergency until the end of October.

The coronavirus situation in the Belgian region of Wallonia and the capital Brussels is “close to a tsunami,” the health minister said in a televised interview on Sunday. 

Frank Vandenbroucke warned “the health situation in Wallonia and in Brussels is the worst and the most dangerous in the whole of Europe.” 

Belgium is now on Johns Hopkins University’s list of 10 countries currently most affected by coronavirus. 

It has the third-highest number of Covid-related deaths per 100,000 people in the world, sitting behind San Marino and Peru, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Vandenbroucke called on all Belgians to protect themselves and their relatives, adding that the epidemic "is no one’s fault, but improving the situation is everyone’s duty." 

However, the health minister defended the government’s policy of installing a curfew from midnight, and not earlier in the evening, saying that the government “did not want to make life impossible." 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday announced the state will independently review the safety of any FDA-approved Covid-19 vaccine before it is distributed in the state.

An 11-member task force of health experts, dubbed the “Scientific Safety Review Workgroup,” will review the safety and efficacy of vaccines approved by the US Food and Drug Administration before distribution in the nation’s most populous state, Newsom said.

The vaccines currently in development will initially be available in limited supply and will be prioritized to health care workers, first responders, and higher risk groups, according to Newsom. 

“We don’t anticipate mass availability until 2021,” Newsom said.

While the state is expected to receive about 1.5 to 2 million vaccines, Newsom said the state has approximately that many people working in the health care system. 

The governor also discussed the challenging storage requirements for these vaccines, which need to be stored with dry ice and in extremely cold temperatures. Each distribution of vaccination has to occur on a 21-day period, he said.

Newsom warned that the vaccines won’t end the coronavirus overnight, but will be a key tool to help manage the pandemic. He urged people to continue wearing masks and physically distance.

Ireland will move to "Level 5" alert — the country's highest level of coronavirus restrictions — for six weeks to tackle a surge in cases, Taoiseach Micheál Martin announced on Monday.  

The new restrictions will be imposed starting midnight local time Wednesday, but schools and childcare services will remain open unlike the lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic.  

Last week, Ireland's National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) recommended to the government for the second time this month that the country should impose stricter measures to stop the spread of the virus. 

In early October, the Irish government went against NPHET's recommendation, and instead chose to impose "Level 3" restrictions throughout the country for three weeks. 

Under the new restrictions, there should be no social gatherings at homes or in gardens, and restaurants, cafes and bars can only open to provide takeaway services.  

Despite the original outline for "Level 5" stating only six people could attend weddings, Martin said they will continue to allow an attendance of 25. The government is also asking people to work from home, unless considered an essential worker. 

Last week, Ireland recorded 7,495 new cases and 26 deaths. Two of those deaths recorded occurred in September, and one happened back in June. 

This marked a considerable jump in cases from the week before, where 4,510 cases and 17 news deaths were recorded. 

On Monday, the total number of cases recorded in the country since the start of the pandemic also surpassed 50,000. 

Friday was the deadline for states to file their plans for distributing any coronavirus vaccine, but they still don’t have the needed federal money to help them do it, state health officials said Monday.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asked states to file their plans by last week. 

“As it stands now, we do not have any capability to fund the imminent implementation of the plan,” James Blumenstock, senior vice president for pandemic response and recovery at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), told reporters on Monday.

He said the CDC has distributed $200 million to states for preparedness and planning. “That certainly would not be sufficient at all for a campaign of this magnitude and duration that we are thinking of,” Blumenstock said.

ASTHO has asked Congress for $8.4 billion to help states distribute and administer vaccines to people, once they became available.

“Even if the money was appropriated today, it would take time for those funds to reach the jurisdictions that in turn would need it,” Blumenstock said.

He compared the current response to the rollout of vaccines for the H1N1 swine flu pandemic in 2009. What’s been provided now compared to what was provided then seems “woefully inadequate,” he said.

Dr. Nirav Shah, director of Maine’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said his state and likely others could probably get started vaccinating frontline health care workers once a vaccine became available, because they will be in easy-to-reach places such as hospitals and clinics. 

What will be more difficult, he said, will be reaching the people designated as high risk of severe complications for coronavirus who are not frontline medical and emergency workers, such as people with underlying health conditions.

States will face considerable difficulties distributing coronavirus vaccines, especially as some require special ultra-cold handling conditions. Record-keeping will also be complicated because some vaccines will require two doses. The vaccines made by different companies have very different formulations, so if more than one is authorized, clinics will have to keep careful note of which vaccines patients get so they get a second dose of the same brand of vaccine.