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As the number of deaths from coronavirus in the US USA Approaching 65,000 on Friday, the US Food and Drug Administration. USA The FDA approved the emergency use of the first drug that appears to boost recovery among Covid-19 patients.
Remdesivir, the intravenous antiviral medication from Gilead Sciences, should be used for hospitalized patients with “serious illness”, such as those who need supplemental oxygen or ventilators to breathe. Associated Press reported.
“This was lightning fast in terms of getting something approved,” FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said during a press conference on Friday, calling the drug “a major clinical advance.”
The agency based its decision on the results of a government study that showed that remdesivir shortened recovery time by 31% for patients with Covid-19 in hospital. AP reported.
Available for January
Those who received the medication were able to leave the hospital in 11 days, on average, versus 15 days for the comparison group. The drug may also help prevent deaths, but there is still insufficient evidence to show that the AP reported.
That was not the only good news from the coronavirus pandemic medical front this week.
On Thursday, the White House announced an initiative to produce a Covid-19 vaccine that could be available nationwide in January.
President Donald Trump said he is not overly optimistic trying to produce approximately 300 million doses of vaccine in eight months, enough for all Americans, Washington Post reported.
A vaccine for all Americans in January?
“No, I’m not promising too much. I don’t know who said it, but whatever the maximum, whatever you can do humanly, we are going to have it. And we hope to have a good vaccine idea,” Trump said during a briefing by the coronavirus task force on Thursday.
Even the shortest timeline still means that there will be no full protection against the new coronavirus until after most Americans have likely returned to work or school.
Nicknamed “Operation Warp Speed,” the goal is to produce hundreds of millions of doses by January, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert, said Thursday.
“We want to go fast, but we want to make sure it’s safe and effective,” he said on the “Today” program. “I think it is feasible if things fall in the right place.”
It is likely to be good news for the millions of businesses that have had to close or restrict operations for six weeks of orders to stay home, with 3.8 million Americans added to the nation’s unemployment charts on Thursday. That brings the total of six weeks to more than 30 million new unemployed, The New York Times reported.
As the US coronavirus case count. USA Exceeding one million and the death toll approached 65,000, Trump signed an executive order this week forcing besieged meat processing plants to remain open so that the country’s food supply is not threatened.
The order used the Defense Production Act to classify meat processing as critical infrastructure, to try to keep chicken, pork, and other meats flowing to supermarket coolers. AP reported.
More than 20 meat packing plants have been closed under pressure from local authorities and their own workers due to the virus. Others have cut production as workers have become ill or have stayed home to avoid getting sick, the cable service said.
Emphasis on testing.
Earlier this week, Trump announced a “plan” to increase test capacity across the country.
The national guide says states must develop their own test plans and rapid response programs, while the White House provides “strategic direction and technical assistance,” and helps “align supplies and capacity of laboratory tests with existing and anticipated laboratory needs. ” Send reported.
Admiral Brett Giroir, assistant secretary of health, said CBS News that the Trump administration is prepared to send enough tests to the 50 states to detect the virus to 2% of its population per month, approximately 6.6 million people per month.
Physical distancing orders remain a mosaic across the United States. The highly affected governors of New York and Michigan hold orders to stay home until at least mid-May, while their counterparts in Georgia, Oklahoma and Alaska have already allowed the reopening of certain businesses, AP reported.
Still, even as states begin to reopen their businesses, a new study suggests that many of the tests needed to show that workers may be immune to the new coronavirus are flawed.
Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and UC San Francisco evaluated 14 of the main tests for antibodies in the blood. These tests look for antibodies that show that a person has already encountered the new coronavirus and may have some immunity to Covid-19, the Times reported. Such immunity would be crucial in allowing a person to safely return to the workplace.
But the research team found that only three of the 14 tests yielded consistently reliable results, and even those three were not perfect. Only one test was accurate enough that it would never give a false positive result (identifying a person who has antibodies to the new coronavirus when they actually did not).
The results were worse when it came to false negative test results, the Times reported. False negative results mean that a person is falsely discovered to have not been exposed to the coronavirus, when in fact he or she has been exposed. Among the top three tests of the 14 reviewed, the tests detected correctly detected antibodies in infected people only 90% of the time, according to the report.
Meanwhile, the economic difficulties of the coronavirus-linked blockade continue. The United States Chamber approved a $ 484 billion deal last week that would replenish a small business loan program that has run out of funds. The bill also directs more money to hospitals and Covid-19 tests.
States develop reopening plans
New York remains the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, although deaths and hospitalizations continued to decline, CBS News reported. The Navy Comfort hospital ship left New York City port this week after treating 182 patients during its 30-day mission.
In preparation for a reopening in the coming weeks, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that the state will implement the “most aggressive” antibody testing program in the country, CBS News reported.
It has also issued an executive order that all New Yorkers must wear a mask or cover their mouth and nose when they do not maintain physical distance in public, CBS News reported.
According to a Times Tally, the top five states in coronavirus cases as of Saturday morning are: New York with more than 313,000 cases; New Jersey with over 121,000; Massachusetts with more than 64,000; Illinois with over 56,000; and California with more than 52,000.
Governor Gavin Newsom announced the closure of the beaches in Orange County on Friday. Crowds had formed on those beaches last weekend, fueling renewed fears of viral transmission.
“My job as governor is to keep him safe,” Newsom said. “And when our health folks tell me they can’t promise that if we promote another weekend like we did, then I have to make this adjustment.”
However, Newsom gave a positive note about the state’s reopening plans on Friday, the Send reported.
“We said ‘weeks, not months’ about four or five days ago,” Newsom said during his daily briefing. “I mean ‘many days, not weeks.’ As long as we remain cautious and thoughtful about certain modifications, I think we will make some announcements.”
Countries around the world face coronavirus
In Asia, where the coronavirus first attacked, several countries are finally returning to a new normal.
Chinese health officials said this week that Wuhan, the original epicenter of the pandemic in China, does not have coronavirus patients in its hospitals.
South Korea and Hong Kong also appear to have curbed the coronavirus for the time being: This week, South Korea reported that for the first time since the virus spike on February 29, there were no new domestic cases and only four related to travel. The story was similar in Hong Kong, which reported no new cases for five days in a row, the Times said. The city had a resurgence of infections in late March that led to strict travel blockages, physical distancing measures and widespread adoption of work-from-home policies, the newspaper said.
In other parts of the world, the situation remains challenging. After releasing new figures that now include deaths outside of hospitals, the UK registered the third highest number of deaths from coronavirus in the world, with more than 27,500, the AP reported. That country has now overtaken Spain and France over Covid-19 deaths in Europe, with only Italy still ahead, the cable service said. The United States still has the highest death toll in the world, at nearly 65,000.
Spain reported more than 24,540 deaths on Saturday, despite signs that the infection rate is slowing there, a count by Johns Hopkins University showed. Deaths in Italy are also still high at 28,236, although the numbers have also stabilized there. Both countries are cautiously reopening their economies.
Meanwhile, signs emerged that the virus had been beaten in New Zealand and Australia.
However, Brazil looks like it could become the next hot spot in the coronavirus pandemic. By Saturday, the South American country had reported more than 6,400 deaths and more than 92,000 confirmed infections, according to the Johns Hopkins count. But the true numbers are believed to be much higher.
Russia was also struggling to contain the spread of the coronavirus, as the case count in that country topped 124,000 on Saturday, Hopkins’ count showed. Moscow remains the most virus-affected part of the country, but there is growing concern that infections could increase in more remote regions with weaker health systems, Send reported.
Worldwide, the number of reported infections exceeded 3.3 million on Saturday, with more than 239,000 deaths, according to Hopkins’ count.
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