October 23 coronavirus news

As coronavirus cases surge across the US, the country needs to “double down” on public health measures, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Friday.

Covid-19 cases in the US are nearing a daily record and the death toll is closing in on 224,000.

Fauci said that doesn’t mean shutting down the country.

“Whenever I talk about amplifying and just stressing the public health measures, people think that that means we're going to shut down,” he said. “It doesn't mean that. It means there are some fundamental things that you can do.”

Fauci stressed the public health basics: wearing a mask, social distancing, avoiding crowds and frequent hand washing.

“They sound very simple, but we're not uniformly doing that and that's one of the reasons why we're seeing these surges,” he added. “We can control them without shutting down the country.”

People need to avoid gathering in crowds, especially indoors, he said.

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Dr. Anthony Fauci said the country should probably mandate mask use, even if people complain about the trouble with enforcing it.

Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

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Making the decision to switch all Boston public schools to remote learning starting Thursday following a rise in Covid-19 cases was “probably one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make since the coronavirus pandemic began,” Mayor Marty Walsh told CNN.

Boston’s seven-day Covid-19 positivity rate had increased from last week’s rate of 4.5% to 5.7% 

Families will be provided with in-home services and locations throughout the district are giving out meals for these kids, the mayor added. The increase in positivity rate took the mayor by surprise, he admits, adding that people are relaxing their coronavirus safety measures.

“We are seeing a lot of house parties, both in and outdoors. We’re seeing 25-30 people there, and that’s a problem. We are seeing people a little lackadaisical with their masks, maybe putting them down around their chin and not having their nose covered. That’s a problem,” he said.

Johnson & Johnson said Friday the independent monitoring board overseeing its phase 3 Covid-19 vaccine trial in the United States has recommended resuming the trial, which was paused earlier this month after a participant became ill.

Preparations to resume the trial in the US are now underway, the company said, including submissions for approval by Institutional Review Boards. Johnson & Johnson’s statement did not specify when the trial would begin again. 

Some context: The trial was put on hold Oct. 12 due to a study participant's "unexplained illness," the company said. Johnson & Johnson said Friday “no clear cause” was identified for a trial participant’s “serious medical event.”

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine trial started Sept. 23 with a plan to recruit 60,000 patients in eight countries, including the United States. In its statement Friday, Johnson & Johnson’s said discussions with regulators around the world are “progressing.”

The trial’s full safety and efficacy results will be shared when the trial concludes, the company said.

During an Operation Warp Speed briefing on Friday, US Health and Human Services Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Paul Mango said they were “very optimistic” the Johnson & Johnson trial would resume “as quickly as possible.”

The resumption of AstraZeneca’s paused coronavirus vaccine trial is good news, Operation Warp Speed officials said Friday.

Some context: AstraZeneca said Friday the US Food and Drug Administration had cleared it to resume its phase 3 clinical trial in the US after it was paused last month when a volunteer in the United Kingdom developed a serious health condition.

The company restarted its trials in other countries but the US arms have been on hold while the Food and Drug Administration examined safety data. 

“This process of rigorous evaluation of the safety for each volunteer, particularly in this trial, was closely followed,” Hepburn said during a briefing.

“This is going to be the most scrutinized vaccine ever produced,” US Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams added.

While he remains "cautiously optimistic" that the United States could have a Covid-19 vaccine authorized by the end of the year, the National Institutes of Health's Dr. Francis Collins warned on Friday that "it might take longer."

Collins added that it remains "a good thing" the US has more than one vaccine candidate in development.

"It’s a good thing we have this menu of diverse scientific approaches," Collins said. "If you were betting the whole thing on one vaccine I'd be a lot more worried."

Additionally, a potential Covid-19 vaccine will need to have at least 50% effectiveness to be considered for approval by the US Food and Drug Administration, Collins said.

"FDA is not going to approve a vaccine that has less than 50% effectiveness," he added.

Drugmaker AstraZeneca will resume the trial of its experimental coronavirus vaccine in the United States, which has been on hold since September.

The company said the US Food and Drug Administration authorized the restart Thursday after reviewing all of the global safety data and concluding it was safe to resume. The trial had already resumed in other countries.

The trial was paused after a volunteer in Britain developed a neurological condition suffered by one of the participants in its coronavirus vaccine clinical trials around the world.

Government health officials, as well as outside experts, have said the hold is an example of how the safety process is working and protecting Americans from any potentially dangerous vaccines. Regulators wanted to check to make sure any problems could not have been caused by the vaccine. 

The company has been working with Britain’s University of Oxford to develop the vaccine, one of four that started late-stage, Phase 3 trials in the US.

An internal AstraZeneca safety report obtained by CNN last month showed the study volunteer, a previously healthy 37-year-old woman, “experienced confirmed transverse myelitis” after receiving her second dose of the vaccine, and was hospitalized on Sept. 5. The woman was enrolled in the UK arm of the trial, which is run by the University of Oxford.  

The document, labeled an “initial report,” described how the study participant had trouble walking, weakness and pain in her arms, and other symptoms. 

The company said in the release Thursday that results from late-stage trials are expected later this year, depending on infection rates where the trials are being conducted.

The percentage of Americans willing to take a Covid-19 vaccine appears to be falling – and if only half of the country is willing to get vaccinated, Covid-19 could stick around for years, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, warned on Friday.

"When I look at the attitudes that are out there now about this vaccine and about who would be interested in taking it – it's really, really troubling," Collins said, speaking at a National Press Club in a virtual event.

Only 51% of Americans said they would try to get a Covid-19 vaccine once one is widely available at a low cost, according to a CNN poll conducted by SSRS earlier this month, and that percentage has dropped since May.

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Colombian Vice President Marta Lucía Ramírez confirmed she tested positive for Covid-19 on her Twitter account Friday.

"Yesterday I took the #COVID19 test," she tweeted. "I inform all Colombians that the test result was positive. Thank God, I am in a good state [of health] and I am complying with a thorough quarantine."

The vice president called on all Colombians to remain steadfast in following the biosecurity measures put in place to stop the spread of Covid-19, adding that the "pandemic is a reality, which can affect us all."

Colombia has 990,373 confirmed cases and 29,637 deaths as of Friday afternoon, according to Johns Hopkins University. This is the third highest case tally in Latin America after Brazil and Argentina.