October 13 coronavirus news

By Jessie Yeung, Adam Renton, Emma Reynolds, Mike Hayes and Meg Wagner, CNN

Updated 12:00 a.m. ET, October 14, 2020
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1:06 a.m. ET, October 13, 2020

Pandemic worsens across the US as we count down to Election Day

From CNN's Virginia Langmaid

Just three weeks out from Election Day, the Covid-19 pandemic is making its feared fall comeback across the US -- and influenza season has not even kicked in yet.

Health officials have worried the virus would take hold again as Americans returned to school and as pandemic fatigue encouraged cities, counties and states to loosen restrictions.

Now it’s happening -- and the West, Midwest, and South in particular have seen numbers going in the wrong direction. 

Denver is reporting an “alarming” increase in coronavirus cases; Montana has counted as many cases in 11 days as it reported in the first five months of the pandemic; North Dakota has broken hospitalization records for three days in a row and Arkansas has broken them for five days straight; Wisconsin consistently reports one of the country’s highest weekly average positivity rates; and Georgia has averaged more than 1,000 new cases per day -- every single day -- for 114 days.

"This is a big deal," said Denver Mayor Michael Hancock on Monday. "I get we're all tired of not being able to go out and do the things we want to do. We all want to go out to restaurants and spend time with our friends and families."  

But the city is paying for it, he said. "During the week of October 3, our seven-day average of hospitalizations was at 126. Today, just a week later, the average is 174 -- a 37% increase. We are at a fork in the road."

1:26 a.m. ET, October 13, 2020

South Korea reports more than 100 new Covid-19 cases after easing social distancing measures 

From CNN's Yoonjung Seo in Seoul

A woman wearing a face mask as a precaution against the coronavirus walks near the social distancing signs at a park in Seoul, South Korea, on October 6.
A woman wearing a face mask as a precaution against the coronavirus walks near the social distancing signs at a park in Seoul, South Korea, on October 6. Lee Jin-man/AP

South Korea reported 102 new Covid-19 cases and one new death in the past 24 hours, authorities said on Tuesday, after the country announced the easing of social distancing measures.

Of the new cases, 69 are locally transmitted and 33 are imported, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

The new figures raise the country's total to 24,805 confirmed cases and 434 virus-related deaths.

This is the first time South Korea reported more than 100 new cases in six days and since easing its social distancing measures on Monday.

On Monday, Health Minister Park Neung-hoo announced social distancing restrictions would be eased to Level 1, the lowest level.

1:05 a.m. ET, October 13, 2020

Analysis: The West is being left behind as it squanders Covid-19 lessons from Asia-Pacific

Analysis from CNN's Tara John

A pedestrian walks near a street sign reminding members of the public to adhere to social distancing guidelines in Liverpool, England, on October 12.
A pedestrian walks near a street sign reminding members of the public to adhere to social distancing guidelines in Liverpool, England, on October 12. Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images

While the Asia-Pacific region treads water until a coronavirus vaccine is found, the West's biggest economies are drowning as a second wave firmly establishes itself in Europe.

Europe is now reporting more daily infections than the United States, Brazil, or India -- the countries that have been driving the global case count for months -- as public apathy grows towards coronavirus guidelines. Several countries are seeing infection rates spiral again after a summer lull that saw measures to contain the virus and travel restrictions relaxed.

In the United Kingdom, for example, questions are being asked about whether Prime Minister Boris Johnson's decision to lift the country's lockdown in June was premature. Northern England's current high rates of Covid-19 are down to the fact that infections "never dropped as far in the summer as they did in the south," Jonathan Van-Tam, Britain's deputy chief medical officer, told a press conference on Monday.

It is just the latest problem to beset Britain's slapdash pandemic response. There are now more patients in hospital with Covid-19 in England than there were in March, when a nationwide lockdown was imposed, according to Johnson and health officials.

France and the Netherlands broke their own records over the weekend, reporting the highest numbers of confirmed Covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic.

In the US, there were more new positive cases in the White House on October 2 than in the whole of Taiwan, after President Donald Trump became the second G7 leader (after Johnson) to test positive for Covid-19. Despite his illness, Trump has continued to downplay the severity of the virus and potentially endanger the health of those around him, holding a campaign rally on Monday.

Read the full analysis:

11:10 p.m. ET, October 12, 2020

Chinese city hit by fresh outbreak is testing all residents for Covid-19. No new cases have been found so far

From CNN's Eric Cheung in Hong Kong

The city of Qingdao in eastern China has tested more than 3.07 million people for Covid-19 since the weekend, when 12 locally transmitted cases were reported, according to the city's information office.

No new cases have been identified by the citywide testing program from the more than 1.1 million samples already returned, the information office said in its statement on Tuesday.

Containing an outbreak: The 12 cases -- split evenly between symptomatic and asymptomatic cases -- were all linked to the Qingdao Chest Hospital, which had been treating imported infections. The cluster prompted a mass testing program of the city's 9 million residents, which began on Monday.

Some 130 testing stations have been set up in Shinan district, the city's center of political and business activity.

Authorities said the specific source of infection is still under investigation.

Read more about the situation in Qingdao:

1:05 a.m. ET, October 13, 2020

Johnson & Johnson pauses Covid-19 vaccine trial after "unexplained illness"

From CNN's Maggie Fox

In this undated photo provided by Johnson & Johnson in September, a woman receives an injection during phase 3 testing for the Janssen Pharmaceutical-Johnson & Johnson vaccine in the United States.
In this undated photo provided by Johnson & Johnson in September, a woman receives an injection during phase 3 testing for the Janssen Pharmaceutical-Johnson & Johnson vaccine in the United States. Johnson & Johnson/AP/FILE

Drugmaker Johnson & Johnson said Monday it was pausing the advanced clinical trial of its experimental coronavirus vaccine because of an unexplained illness in one of the volunteers.

“Following our guidelines, the participant’s illness is being reviewed and evaluated by the ENSEMBLE independent Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) as well as our internal clinical and safety physicians,” the company said in a statement.

ENSEMBLE is the name of the study.

“Adverse events – illnesses, accidents, etc. – even those that are serious, are an expected part of any clinical study, especially large studies," said the statement.

It’s the second Phase 3 coronavirus vaccine trial to be paused. AstraZeneca’s vaccine trial was paused last month because of an a neurological complication in a volunteer in the UK. While the trial resumed there and in other countries, it remains paused in the United States while the US Food and Drug Administration investigates.

Read the full story here

1:04 a.m. ET, October 13, 2020

Trump's doctor says the President has tested negative on consecutive days

From CNN's Betsy Klein

White House physician Sean Conley gives an update on the condition of President Donald Trump, at Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, on October 3.
White House physician Sean Conley gives an update on the condition of President Donald Trump, at Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, on October 3. Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

White House physician Sean Conley said Monday President Donald Trump has tested negative for Covid-19 on consecutive days, as the President heads to a crowded campaign rally in Florida.

"In response to your inquiry regarding the President's most recent COVID-19 tests, I can share with you that he has tested NEGATIVE, on consecutive days, using the Abbott BinaxNOW antigen card," Conley wrote, noting that those tests were taken "in context with additional clinical and laboratory data."

That additional data, Conley said, included "viral load, subgenomic RNA and PCR cycle threshold measurements, as well as ongoing assessment of viral culture data."

PCR suggests a polymerase chain reaction test, which looks for any evidence of the virus, although Conley did not say clearly what type of test was run.

It is also unclear on which consecutive days Trump tested negative -- and the Abbott BinaxNOW test might not be completely accurate. It's only been validated in people within the first seven days of symptom onset. Trump, who first announced he tested positive on Thursday, October 1, is more than 10 days out, and the US Food and Drug Administration has said it does not know how accurate the test is at that point.

The White House still has not revealed the last time Trump tested negative prior to his positive diagnosis, offering varying justifications for withholding that information.

Trump is "not infectious to others," Conley added.

Read the full story:

1:04 a.m. ET, October 13, 2020

Fauci says Trump campaign should take down ad featuring him

From CNN's Paul LeBlanc

Dr. Anthony Fauci,Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases testifies during a US Senate  hearing to examine Covid-19, in Washington, DC, on September 23.
Dr. Anthony Fauci,Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases testifies during a US Senate hearing to examine Covid-19, in Washington, DC, on September 23. Graeme Jennings/Pool/AFP/Getty Images

Dr. Anthony Fauci said Monday that the Trump campaign should take down the political advertisement that he's featured in, calling his presence in the spot "really unfortunate and really disappointing."

Fauci's latest comments come one day after he told CNN he did not consent to being featured in the Trump team's new advertisement and that his words were taken out of context.

"It's so clear that I'm not a political person," the nation's leading infectious disease expert told CNN's Jake Tapper on "The Lead."
"And I have never -- either directly or indirectly -- endorsed a political candidate. And to take a completely out of context statement and put it in which is obviously a political campaign ad, I thought was really very disappointing."

The Trump campaign released the new ad last week after the President was discharged from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center following treatment for Covid-19. The 30-second ad, which is airing in Michigan, touts Trump's personal experience with the virus and uses a quote from Fauci in an attempt to make it appear as if he is praising Trump's response.

Read the full story:

9:06 p.m. ET, October 12, 2020

US sees 20% more deaths than expected this year, most due to Covid-19, research finds

From CNN's Naomi Thomas and Lauren Mascarenhas

During the coronavirus pandemic so far, there were 20% more deaths than would normally be expected from March 1 through August 1 in the United States -- with Covid-19 officially accounting for about two-thirds of them, according to new research published Monday in the medical journal JAMA.

"Although total US death counts are remarkably consistent from year to year, US deaths increased by 20% during March-July 2020," according to the research, authored by Dr. Steven Woolf and colleagues at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine and the Yale School of Public Health.
"Covid-19 was a documented cause of only 67% of these excess deaths," the researchers wrote.

The researchers analyzed death data from the National Center for Health Statistics and the US Census Bureau. Overall, there were 1,336,561 deaths in the United States between March 1 and August 1, 2020, the study found -- marking a 20% increase compared with what would normally be expected.

Read the full story: