October 22 coronavirus news

Moderna, the first company to start US clinical trials of a Covid-19 vaccine, finished enrolling all 30,000 of its participants on Thursday.

All 30,000 have received their first shot, and most of them have also received the required second shot.

Dr. Stephen Hoge, Moderna's president, said the company is now on track to apply to the US Food and Drug Administration for authorization to put the vaccine on the market in early December “if all the stars align.”

Hoge said enrolling 30,000 participants is “just a milestone – it’s not the mission.” Half of the participants received the vaccine and half received a placebo, or a shot of saline that does nothing. The participants receive a second shot four weeks later.

Some background: Moderna is one of four US Phase 3 trials of coronavirus vaccines, each involving tens of thousands of participants.  

Moderna started its Phase 3 trial on July 27, and Pfizer started its trial that evening. AstraZeneca started its US trial Aug. 31 and paused it about a week later when a participant fell ill. Johnson & Johnson started its trial Sept. 23 and paused it less than three weeks later for the same reason. Both of those pauses are still in effect.

Pfizer has said it could apply for emergency use authorization after the third week in November

What happens next: Hoge said three things needs to happen before Moderna applies to the FDA for emergency use authorization.

Moderna also released the racial breakdown of its study participants on Thursday. Of the 30,000 participants, 20% are Latino and 10% are Black. Those are higher than the percentages the company was achieving early in its trial, but still lower than the percentages sought by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes for Allergies and Infectious Diseases.

As winter approaches, small restaurants face an uncertain future.

“We are back where we started in March. We really are,” said John Doherty, who owns the Playwright Irish Pub in midtown Manhattan. “There’s nobody here.”

He laid off nearly all of his 25 employees and used up his Paycheck Protection Program loan.

According to the National Restaurant Association, nearly half of the 660,000 US restaurants say they won’t make it another six months without federal aid, CNN’s Vanessa Yurkevich reports. 

It has a ripple effect on other businesses, as well. Ivan Mendez, a printer who used to print signs for the Playwright and 30 other businesses, now had to lay off half his staff and dip into his 401(k), he said. He said he thinks he will have to close.

Doherty said he is investing in preparing his bar for winter patrons, “because I think tomorrow has to be a better day than today.”

Watch:

An ensemble forecast published Thursday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now projects there will be 235,000 to 247,000 coronavirus deaths in the United States by Nov. 14.

Unlike some individual models, the CDC’s ensemble forecast only offers projections a few weeks into the future. The previous ensemble forecast, published Oct. 15, projected up to 240,000 coronavirus deaths by Nov. 7. 

At least 222,176 people have already died from Covid-19 in the United States, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

US stocks inched higher at the opening bell in New York Thursday, despite investors growing more skeptical that a new stimulus deal will be worked out before the election.

Jobless claims data showed a mixed picture, with lower than expected first-time and continued claims for unemployment benefits. On the flip side, the number of people on the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, which provides money for those who have maxed out state benefits, rose by half a million to 3.3 million people.

Here's where things stand:

The coronavirus pandemic is causing “unacceptable” shortages of US drug supplies in the United States, according to a report from the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota.

The report says shortages have limited 29 of 40 drugs critical for treating Covid-19 patients, including propofol, albuterol, midazolam, hydroxychloroquine, fentanyl, azithromycin and morphine, according to the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, while the FDA, which has more stringent criteria for shortages, show 18 of 40 are on the drug shortage list.

Another 67 out of 156 critical acute drugs are in short supply, the report said, including diazepam, phenobarbital, lidocaine and acetaminophen.

“Drug shortages can be a matter of life and death, and some shortages mean that a life-saving drug is not available to U.S. patients at any price,” the authors wrote.    

“This, in turn, will dramatically increase the need for specific COVID-19 treatment drugs, while at the same, COVID-19 is having a major impact on two of the three key drug manufacturing areas of the world, India and Italy,” Osterholm added.   

The pandemic has “jolted the global pharmaceutical market at all levels and production points” and exacerbated a problem that dates back several decades, researchers said.

Closed factories, shipping delays or shutdowns and trade limitations or export bans have severely impacted the supply side of the chain, the analysis concluded, while the pandemic has caused a dramatic increase in the global demand for Covid-19 therapies. 

The report also suggests recommendations for combatting drug shortages, including creating a new federal entity to track, analyze, predict, prevent and mitigate drug

The airline industry is telling the federal government that travelers need a way around pandemic quarantines that “are decimating our industry.”

Airline trade groups and worker unions sent a letter Thursday to the heads of the Department of Transportation, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security. The industry plea calls on the Trump administration and governors to create a uniform system of pre-departure testing and contact tracing “so that the travel network can be safely re-opened.”

Airlines see rapid coronavirus testing of passengers as the way to safely speed up air travel’s lethargic rebound, still hovering at roughly 40% of last year’s passenger levels.

United and American Airlines have started coronavirus testing passengers on limited routes in order to bypass mandatory 14-day quarantines in places such as Hawaii and Jamaica.

On Wednesday, United Airlines passengers flying from Newark to London were the first to participate in a trial of a mobile health pass app that securely stores a passenger’s Covid-19 status, including the results of recent coronavirus tests.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday morning that negotiators are still working toward an agreement for a coronavirus stimulus package, but “we’re on a good path.”

She said she still hopes a stimulus package can be passed before Election Day. 

She added, during an interview with MSNBC, that she and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will soon be ready to “put pen to paper” for the legislation.

“We’re coming closer to what we must do,” Pelosi said.

She said she’ll be speaking with Mnuchin again later on Thursday.

Asked what she would tell Americans who need aid today, Pelosi said, “Help is on the way. It will be better, it will be bolder, it will be safer, and it will be retroactive.”

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie wrote about how his Covid-19 experience changed his perspective in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published Wednesday.

Christie, who was hospitalized and spent seven days in intensive care after contracting coronavirus, admitted to letting his guard down and not wearing a mask to the Rose Garden event when President Trump announced Judge Amy Coney Barrett as his Supreme Court nominee, or during debate preparations with Trump. 

Christie said he hopes Americans learn from his experience, as it was a "serious failure" to not wear a mask.

Tocilizumab, a repurposed rheumatoid arthritis drug once considered a promising treatment for hospitalized patients with Covid-19, generally did not increase patients' chances of survival or help them get better faster, according to three trials published this week.

However, a fourth trial did find the drug increased the chances of survival, but because it was an observational study, the results are considered less definitive.

Three of the trials were published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association and the other was published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

While this leaves the picture for tocilizumab use a bit muddy, the studies taken together show the drug isn't a magic bullet that should be used in all hospitalized patients with Covid-19, but they leave the door open for possible use in specific patient groups.

Read more here.