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CoronaVirus in US - Updates & Discussion

There is no vaccine for coronavirus and you know it. They tried since 1960 and never made one. What makes you think they can make it?

There is vaccine for MERS. I have already got the shoot.

Sorry, look like you are right. But with widely Covid 19 vaccine development across the globe and the money invested on the research, there is hope we can have the vaccine for this virus.
 
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There is vaccine for MERS. I have already got the shoot.

Sorry, look like you are right. But with widely Covid 19 vaccine development across the globe and the money invested on the research, there is hope we can have the vaccine for this virus.

You are wrong. There is no such thing as vaccine for MERS. It doesn't exist.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200422132600.htm

There is no vaccine for any coronavirus type. Not even for common cold.

https://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2019/09/16/scientists-close-in-on-a-cure-for-the-common-cold/
 
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: June 07, 2020, 15:00 GMT


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United States

Coronavirus Cases:

1,991,799

Deaths:
112,137

Recovered:
752,049

Projections

CLOSED CASES
864,186

Cases which had an outcome:

752,049 (87%)
Recovered / Discharged

112,137 (13%)
Deaths
 
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The US economy gained 2.5 million American jobs in May and the unemployment rate fell to 13.3%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

A forecast published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now projects more than 127,000 coronavirus deaths in the country by June 27.
 
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due to mass riots in the US this could possibly worsen the pandemic. 40 million people unemployed, cropped up anger leading to more looting and early opening up trying to boost the economy or else Trump can kiss goodbye to his re-election. Oh and picking a fight with China right now, what can go more wrong? I see a 2nd wave incoming.
 
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Trump declares COVID-19 vaccine war, but can he hold the world hostage?
May 28, 2020 12:04 PM CDT BY PRABIR PURKAYASTHA
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A lab technician holds a bottle containing results for COVID-19 vaccine testing at the National Primate Research Center, north of Bangkok, May 23, 2020. | Sakchai Lalit / AP


Donald Trump launched a new vaccine war last week, but not against the virus. It was against the world. The U.S. and Britain were the only two holdouts in the World Health Assembly on the declaration that vaccines and medicines for COVID-19 should be available as a public good, and not under exclusive patent rights.

Having badly botched his COVID-19 response, he is trying to redeem his electoral fortunes in the November elections by promising an early vaccine. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” is vaccines for “us,” but the rest will have to queue up and pay what big pharma asks, as they will hold the patents.

In contrast, all other countries agreed with the Costa Rican proposal in the World Health Assembly that there should be a patent pool for all COVID-19 vaccines and medicines.

President Xi Jinping said that Chinese vaccines would be available as a public good, a view also shared by European Union leaders. Among the eight vaccines in phase 1 and 2 of clinical trials, the Chinese have four, the U.S. two, Britain and Germany one each.

Trump has given an ultimatum to the WHO of a permanent withdrawal of funds if it does not mend its ways in 30 days. In sharp contrast, almost all countries including close allies of the U.S. rallied behind the WHO. The failure of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) against COVID-19—with four times the annual budget of the WHO—is visible to the world.

The CDC failed to provide a successful test for the SARS-CoV-2 even after two months of the WHO distributing successful test kits to a large number of countries. Trump has yet to hold his administration and the CDC responsible for this criminal bungling.

This, more than any other failure, is the reason that the U.S. numbers for COVID-19 are now more than 1.75 million and almost one-third of all global infections. Contrast this with China, the first to face an unknown epidemic, stopping it around 83,000 cases, and what countries such as Vietnam and South Korea have done.

If we do not address the intellectual property rights issue in this pandemic, we are likely to see a repeat of the AIDS tragedy. People died for 10 years as patented AIDS medicine was priced at $10,000-15,000 for a year’s supply, far beyond their reach.

Finally, it was Indian patent laws—that until 2004 did not allow for such patents—that helped people to get AIDS medicine at less than a dollar a day, or $350 for a year’s supply. Today, 80% of the AIDS medicines in the world come from India. For big pharma, profits trumped lives, and they will continue to do so unless we change the world.

Most countries have compulsory licensing provisions that will allow them to break patents in case of epidemics or health emergencies. Even the WTO, after a bitter fight, accepted in its Doha Declaration (2001) that countries, in a health emergency have the right to allow any company to manufacture a patented drug and even import it from other countries.

Why is it then, that countries are unable to break patents, even if there are provisions in their laws and in the WTO’s Trade-Related Intellectual Property agreements (TRIPS)? It is U.S. bullying. Under U.S. domestic trade acts, it issues special reports threatening any country with trade sanctions that tries to compulsorily license any product.

India figures prominently each year, for daring to issue a compulsory license in 2012 to Natco for Nexavar, a cancer drug which Bayer was selling for $65,000 a year.

Bayer CEO Marijn Dekkers was quoted in 2014, saying, “…we did not develop this product for the Indian market… We developed this product for Western patients who can afford this product, quite honestly.”

This leaves unanswered how many people even in the West can afford a $65,000 bill for an illness. But there is no question that this would be a death sentence for anybody but the super rich in countries like India.

Though a number of other drugs were also under consideration for compulsory licensing at that time, India has not exercised this provision again after U.S. threats.

It is the fear that countries can break patents using their compulsory licensing provisions that led to proposals for patent pooling.

The argument was that since many of these diseases do not affect rich countries, big pharma should either let go of their patents in such patent pools, or philanthropic capital should provide the additional funds for developing new drugs for this pool.

It is this idea of patent pooling that has been backed by all countries in WHO, barring the U.S. and its loyal ally, Britain.

While patent pooling is welcome if no other measure is available, it also makes it appear as if countries have no other recourse apart from the charity of big capital. What this hides, as charity always does, is that people and countries have legitimate rights even under TRIPS to break patents.

The U.S., which screams murder if a compulsory license is issued by any country, has no such compunction when its own interests are threatened. During the anthrax scare in 2001, the U.S. secretary of health issued a threat to Bayer under “eminent domain for patents,” for licensing ciprofloxacin to other manufacturers.

Bayer folded and agreed to supply the quantity and at a price that the U.S. government was demanding without a whimper—the same Bayer which considers India as a thief for issuing a compulsory license.

The vaccines for COVID-19 might need to be repeated each year, as we still do not know the duration of its protection. It is unlikely that it will provide a lifetime immunity like the smallpox vaccine.

Unlike AIDS, where the patient numbers were smaller and could be stigmatized in different ways, COVID-19 is a visible threat for everyone.

Any attempt to hold people and governments to ransom on COVID-19 vaccines or medicines will see the collapse of the entire patent edifice of TRIPS that Big Pharma, backed by the U.S. and major EU countries, have built. That is why the cleverer parts of the capitalist world moved towards a patent pool for COVID-19 medicines and vaccines.

Unlike clever capital, Trump’s response on the COVID-19 vaccine is to simply bully his way through. He believes that with the unlimited money he is now willing to put into the vaccine efforts, the U.S. would either beat everybody else to the winning post or buy the company that is successful.

If he succeeds, he can then use “his” COVID-19 vaccine as a new instrument of global power. It is the U.S. that will then decide whether a country gets the vaccine.

Trump does not believe in a rule-based global order, even if the rules are in the favor of the rich. He is walking out of various arms control agreements and has crippled the WTO.

He believes that the U.S., as the biggest economy and the most powerful military power, should have the right to dictate to all countries. Threats of bombing and invasions can be combined with unilateral sanctions and, now, the latest weapon in his arsenal—withholding vaccines.

His problem is the days of a sole global hegemon are long over. The U.S. has shown itself as a crumbling giant and its epidemic response has been shambolic. It has been unable to provide virus tests to its people in time and stop the epidemic, which a number of other countries have essentially done.

China and the EU have already agreed that any vaccine developed by them will be regarded as a public good. Even without that, once a medicine or a vaccine is known to be successful, any country with a reasonable scientific infrastructure can replicate the medicine or the vaccine and manufacture it locally.

In India, as in many other countries, we have the scientific capability. We also have one of the largest generic drug and vaccine manufacturing capacities in the world.

What prevents us, or any country, from manufacturing vaccines or the drugs once they are developed? Only the empty threat of a failed hegemon on patents? Or the belief that in the U.S.-China vaccine war, we need to be on the U.S. side?

This article is adapted from a version that originally appeared in People’s Democracy, published in India.
 
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June 08, 2020, 15:47 GMT


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United States

Coronavirus Cases:

2,010,442

Deaths:
112,549

Recovered:
761,736

Projections

CLOSED CASES
874,285

Cases which had an outcome:


761,736 (87%)
Recovered / Discharged

112,549 (13%)
Deaths
 
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June 08, 2020, 22:10 GMT


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United States

Coronavirus Cases:

2,024,825

Deaths:
113,042

Recovered:
771,424

Projections

CLOSED CASES
884,466

Cases which had an outcome:

771,424 (87%)
Recovered / Discharged

113,042 (13%)
Deaths
 
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As more Americans head out, 22 states are seeing jumps in new coronavirus cases

By Christina Maxouris and Holly Yan, CNN

June 8, 2020


Now PlayingCovid-19 cases may rise...

lift more restrictions and more Americans go out to socialize or protest, almost half of US states are seeing higher rates of new coronavirus cases.

But the situation would have been much worse had states not shut down, a new study says.



New infections are still the biggest risk to the economy


More than 1.9 million Americans have been infected, and more than 110,000 have died in just over four months, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Nationwide, 22 states are seeing upward trends in coronavirus cases. About 20 states have seen decreases in recent days, and eight states are holding steady.





Just in time for summer, Florida's seeing a surge in coronavirus cases. But there's good news, too


One of the states with the biggest spikes in new cases is Florida. The number of new cases reported each day has increased an average of roughly 46% over the past week, just as most of the state entered a second phase of reopening.

And there's global proof that the coronavirus pandemic is nowhere near over.
Sunday marked the most Covid-19 cases reported to the World Health Organization in a single day during this pandemic, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

"Yesterday, more than 136,000 cases were reported -- the most in a single day so far," Tedros said Monday. "Almost 75% of yesterday's cases come from 10 countries, mostly in the Americas and South Asia."
Shutdowns and school closures have helped

About 60 million US coronavirus infections were likely averted through early April thanks to emergency orders, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley said

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New York City exits coronavirus lockdown but enters a new crisis


"The findings come as leaders worldwide struggle to balance the enormous and highly visible economic costs of emergency health measures against their public health benefits, which are difficult to see," UC Berkeley said.
Those emergency orders included business and school closures, travel restrictions and shelter-in-place orders.
"The study did not estimate how many lives might have been saved by the policies because, with so many infections, fatality rates would be much higher than anything observed to date," UC Berkeley said.
Concerns grow over Covid-19 spread at protests While protesters flood streets to demand an end to systemic racism and police brutality, health officials emphasize the need to take precautions.






Confirmed coronavirus cases are rising faster than ever



This coronavirus is transmissible by talking or even just breathing. Carriers of the virus can be contagious even if they don't have symptoms. So doctors say it's extremely important to wear a face mask and try to keep your distance from others as much as possible.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Sunday it was closely monitoring the protests.
CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said earlier this month that protesters should be evaluated and tested for the virus.
"I do think there is a potential, unfortunately, for this to be a seeding event," especially in metropolitan areas where there has been significant transmission, Redfield said.
Your top coronavirus questions, answered
More inland states are getting hit hard
While big cities on the coasts were hit hard early in the pandemic, the past few weeks have seen wider spread in inland states, including Arkansas, Texas and Arizona.



Here's where we stand on getting a coronavirus vaccine



In Utah, state Rep. Suzanne Harrison called a recent spike of cases "very concerning (and) approaching exponential."
"Today's 18.5% positive test rate is double yesterday's (9.4%)," she tweeted over the weekend.
Friday, health officials in Utah said they were "very concerned" about the rise in new cases over the past week.
The state has recorded more than 12,000 infections, according to Johns Hopkins.
"When you're away from home, please avoid close contact with others, and wear a mask when other social distancing measures aren't feasible," the Utah Department of Health tweeted.
Several universities have also reported new cases within their athletic programs -- including Arkansas State University, Auburn University and Oklahoma State University.
An important drug could run out
The US government's current supply of remdesivir, the only drug known to work against coronavirus, will run out at the end of the month, said Dr. Robert Kadlec, a US Department of Health and Human Services official.



The US government's supply of the only proven Covid-19 drug runs out at the end of the month



The government's last shipment of the drug will go out the week of June 29. Gilead Sciences, the company that makes the drug, is ramping up to make more, but it's unclear how much will be available this summer.
The US Food and Drug Administration gave emergency authorization for remdesivir last month. The drug, an intravenous antiviral medication studied to treat Ebola, is now used on hospitalized Covid-19 patients. A study has shown it helps cut down the length of hospital stays.
The government has been working to help Gilead "with some of their supply chain challenges in terms of raw materials and being able to accelerate the process," Kadlec said.
But "whatever the supply may be, there may not be enough for everyone who may need it."
CNN's Jacqueline Howard, Arman Azad and Elizabeth Cohen contributed to this report.
 
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More than half of states may be under counting coronavirus cases by not following CDC guidelines
By Madeline Holcombe, CNN

Updated 1214 GMT (2014 HKT) June 9, 2020

US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines on reporting new Covid-19 cases -- half of which saw the trend of new cases increasing in the last week.

Those states are not reporting probable cases, according to the daily case count listed on the CDC's website. Probable cases include those that show evidence of an infection without the confirmation of a lab test and cases where coronavirus was listed as a cause or contributing cause of death but are not confirmed with a lab test.

Though coronavirus reporting guidelines are voluntary, states not reporting probable cases likely undercount the number of people infected and make it difficult for officials to get the true picture of where the nation stands in the midst of a pandemic that has rocked almost every aspect of life.

200528141945-02-coronavirus-kids-playing-exlarge-169.jpg



Four-year-old Messiah Guyton puts on hand sanitizer before eating his snack.

How will students go back to school?

Schools have been especially upended, with students across the country not having been on campus in months.
While many local governments have expressed that the path forward for the fall is unclear, North Carolina and California have released guidelines for reopening schools.
Though California's 1,000 school districts will make their own decision about how and when to resume in-classroom learning, the state's Department of Education released a 62-page guidebook Monday to help them plan ahead of time.


Just in time for summer, Florida's seeing a surge in coronavirus cases. But there's good news, too

The guide gives options for staggered schedules, ongoing distance learning, and models that combine both. It also directs educators to teach proper handwashing and limits the number of students allowed on buses to prevent the virus from breaking out in schools.
"This guidance is only as good as what's implemented," State Superintendent Tony Thurmond said in a press conference. "We expect it will be adjusted as we go."
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper also released health guidance for reopening schools Monday, telling reporters that this school year will be unlike any other.
"Students and staff will be screened for illness before they enter the school. Children will be asked to stay distant from classmates. They won't be sharing pencils or textbooks and there will be a lot of cleaning," he said.
Openings will be dependent on health metrics, he said. But North Carolina Secretary of Health and Human Services Dr. Mandy Cohen said during a press conference Monday that she's concerned the state's positive tests are among the highest in the nation.
"These trends moving in the wrong direction is a signal we need to take very seriously," Cohen said.
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A woman walks past the closed courtyard in front of the TCL Chinese Theater, famed for the hand and foot prints of movie stars.

California takes steps back toward normal
While North Carolina is seeing cases rise, California -- with trends holding steady -- is beginning to reopen some recreational sites.
The state, which has been among those most affected, has
Yosemite National Park, which has been off limits to visitors since March 20, will reopen to the public Thursday.




Gene study suggests coronavirus came to California multiple times

It will aim to admit only half of its average visitor rate, beginning by allowing 1,700 vehicle passes each day, according a statement from park spokesman Jamie Richards.
"There is no place like Yosemite, and we can't wait to welcome visitors back," said Acting Superintendent Cicely Muldoon. "It's going to be a different kind of summer, and we will continue to work hand in hand with our gateway communities to protect community health and restore access to Yosemite National Park."
As early as Friday, indoor California movie theaters may reopen, according to guidance from the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) released on Monday.
 
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: June 09, 2020, 22:57 GMT


tn_us-flag.gif

United States

Coronavirus Cases:

2,043,908

Deaths:
114,118

Recovered:
783,574

Projections

CLOSED CASES
897,692

Cases which had an outcome:

783,574 (87%)
Recovered / Discharged

114,118 (13%)
Deaths
 
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