September 7 coronavirus news

Another federal official is making it clear that despite US President Donald Trump’s predictions, there’s hardly any chance a vaccine will be available to Americans by Election Day.

Trump, however, has projected optimism for a quicker timeline.

“(It’s) going to be done in a very short period of time – could even have it during the month of October,” the President said at a press briefing Monday. “We’ll have the vaccine soon, maybe before a special date. You know what date I’m talking about.”

On August 6, Trump said he was “optimistic” a vaccine would be ready by around November 3.

“I believe we’ll have the vaccine before the end of the year, certainly, but around that date, yes. I think so,” Trump said.

And at a rally last week, he said, “It will be delivered before the end of the year, in my opinion, before the end of the year, but it really might even be delivered before the end of October.”

The federal official is not the first to cast skepticism on Trump’s forecast.

It’s “extremely unlikely, but not impossible” that a Covid-19 vaccine could be authorized for emergency use by the US Food and Drug Administration before the end of October, Moncef Slaoui, the chief adviser to Operation Warp Speed, told NPR last week.

Dr. Larry Corey, who’s leading a group set up by the National Institutes of Health to work on coronavirus vaccines, also said he doesn’t think there will be a vaccine available by Election Day.

“I would agree with Dr. Slaoui. The chances are very low, very remote,” said Corey, who leads the COVID-19 Prevention Network.

Read why the US likely won’t have a vaccine by Election Day:

(Photo by -/Henry Ford Health System/AFP via Getty Images)

Related article Another federal official raises questions about Trump's vaccine timeline

Oklahoma State University’s home opener against the University of Tulsa has been postponed by one week, the university announced on Monday.

The game is now scheduled for September 19. It previously had been scheduled for Saturday, September 12.

Last week, it was announced that the college football game between Texas Christian University and Southern Methodist University would not be played on September 11 as previously scheduled.

A Tulsa news release said that in attempting to deal with Covid-19 protocols effectively, the football team has been limited in practice sessions since the beginning of preseason camp on August 7.

The release said that Tulsa had a nine-day pause because of multiple positive tests and was limited to seven practices in the 17 days of preseason camp.

Oklahoma State and TCU are members of the Big 12 Conference. Tulsa and SMU are part of the American Athletic Conference.

French football star Kylian Mbappe has tested positive for Covid-19 while on international duty, the French Football Federation (FFF) announced on Monday.

Mbappe took a test on Monday morning that returned positive, the FFF said, and was then isolated from the French national team. France is scheduled to play at home in Paris on Tuesday against Croatia in a UEFA Nations League match.

The 21-year-old is the seventh Paris Saint-Germain player to have tested positive for coronavirus in recent weeks. Neymar was reportedly among six others to test positive last week.

Mbappe played for France against Sweden on Saturday, scoring the only goal in a 1-0 win.

PSG are set to begin their domestic season on Thursday, but the availability of several of their players is in question following the spate of positive tests.

Read more:

France's forward Kylian Mbappe reacts during the UEFA Nations League football match between Sweden and France on September 5, 2020 at the Friends Arena in Solna, near Stockholm. (Photo by Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP) (Photo by JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP via Getty Images)

Related article Kylian Mbappe tests positive for Covid-19 while playing with France

Ashleigh Barty will not be in Paris to defend her French Open tennis title.

The Australian said in a statement that she would not be traveling to Europe in part because of the Covid-19 pandemic as well as factoring in her lack of preparedness to play at Roland Garros.

Read the full story:

Australia's Ashleigh Barty hits a return against Czech Republic's Petra Kvitova during their women's singles quarter-final match on day nine of the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne on January 28, 2020. (Photo by Manan VATSYAYANA / AFP) / IMAGE RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - STRICTLY NO COMMERCIAL USE (Photo by MANAN VATSYAYANA/AFP via Getty Images)

Related article Ashleigh Barty will not defend her French Open title, will not travel to Europe

Dr. Jonathan Reiner, CNN medical analyst and professor of medicine at George Washington University, says the lack of universal mask use could be the biggest mistake in the United States’ coronavirus response.

“When you look at countries where the mortality is a fraction of what it is in the United States, the common theme from the very beginning of the pandemic was universal masking,” he added.

Reiner said the US response to the pandemic has been an “abysmal failure.”

“The virus went all over the world,” he said. “It didn’t just come to the United States, but because of that panoply of errors and our failure to learn from our mistakes, our failure to get the country to social distance and to mask up has kept us in the realm of about 1,000 deaths per day.”

Mexico’s Health Ministry identified 3,486 new Covid-19 infections on Monday, bringing the country’s total number of cases to 637,509.

The Health Ministry also recorded 223 new virus-related fatalities, raising Mexico’s death toll to 67,781.

Mexico has the world’s fourth-highest count of coronavirus deaths, trailing the United States, Brazil and India respectively, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Excess deaths: Over the weekend, Mexico’s Health Ministry said it had recorded 122,765 excess deaths in the country during the pandemic.

Mexico’s government has said for months that its death toll from Covid-19 is higher than official figures due to low testing in the country. But that lack of testing makes it impossible to know exactly how many of the total amount of excess deaths were due to the virus.

A wealth worker holds a positive COVID-19 rapid test at Favela da Mangueira on September 3, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Brazil’s health ministry reported 10,273 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours and 310 new virus-related deaths on Monday.

The country’s total number of cases now stands at 4,147,794. Brazil’s death toll increased to 126,960.

With more than 4.1 million confirmed cases, Brazil is currently the third worst-hit nation in the world, after it was recently surpassed by India in second position, behind the US.

Egypt has reported a total of 100,041 Covid-19 cases after the country’s health ministry added 178 new cases Monday. 

The health ministry also reported 11 new fatalities, bringing its total deaths to 5,541 since the start of the pandemic.

Egypt has been reporting fewer than 200 new daily cases in September, a significant drop from its peak in June when it was reporting more than a 1,000 cases per day, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Vivek Murthy, former US surgeon general

The US Food and Drug Administration must avoid repeating the mistakes it made with some coronavirus treatments in the race to approve a safe and effective Covid-19 vaccine, Dr. Vivek Murthy, former US surgeon general, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Monday. 

Some background: The FDA gave emergency use authorization to both convalescent plasma and hydroxychloroquine in decisions that are widely viewed as having been influenced by political pressure – and that the White House trumpeted both EUA decisions as breakthroughs.

Hydroxychloroquine has been shown to not be helpful, and the FDA withdrew the EUA for that treatment against coronavirus. Doctors say calling convalescent plasma a breakthrough is a gross exaggeration, although few question the EUA decision itself.

Murthy commented on a Wall Street Journal report, as yet unconfirmed, that vaccine makers including Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson plan to sign a pledge promising to only seek approval for their coronavirus vaccine candidates once they’re proven safe and effective. Murthy said he hoped it would help increase public confidence in an eventual vaccine.

“They also probably realize what’s at stake here, which is that if the public does not have faith in a vaccine, then everyone suffers,” said Murthy.

Dan Gelber, the mayor of Miami Beach, Florida

Dan Gelber, the mayor of Miami Beach, Florida, said officials are working to make sure people are being careful this Labor Day weekend to avoid another spike in Covid-19 cases.

He said authorities have given out fines for not wearing masks and capacities are in place at restaurants.

This comes after Florida just reported it lowest number of new Covid-19 cases in nearly three months. But, in the past, numbers have spiked after other big holiday weekends like Memorial Day and the Fourth of July.

Gelber said things like wearing masks and social distancing allow for the economy to reopen safely, but people need to stay vigilant.

“I’m hoping that people really get accustomed to it — it becomes a little bit part of our culture, and it’s very important that we have a unified message, up and down government, up and down the private sector that… please wear the mask. You’ve got to do it,” he said.

Margaret Norris

When the pandemic started and schools went virtual, Margaret Norris, an elementary school teacher in Maryland, was worried about some kids not having enough to eat.

So with the help of her community, she got to work.

Norris said when the teachers got the news they wouldn’t be coming back into the classroom, they went shopping.

“We bought what we could buy and we sent home a hundred bags of food,” she told CNN on Monday. “The next week a community center that we work with had a request for more and my principal asked me how long can you do this. I put that question to my social media, and so far the answer has been six months.”

Now, with the help of donations and volunteers, she has been packing up and delivering up to 150 bags of food per week for families.

Norris said she has seen first hand how hard this has been for some parents. She said she delivered food to one mom who wasn’t able to keep her job because she had three young kids who were now staying home.

Her biggest piece of advice: If you want to help, it doesn’t have to be a grand gesture.

“We can do little things,” she said.

Watch here:

Nearly 20% of new Covid-19 cases in Kentucky are from children ages 18 and younger, according to a news release issued by Gov. Andy Beshear’s office.

According to the governor’s office, 291 new coronavirus cases were reported Monday, 52 of which were under the age of 18. The youngest is just one month old, according to the governor. 

No new deaths were reported.

Beshear attributed the dip in numbers to the holiday weekend.

“I’ll take any day we’re not announcing new deaths, but we know this is only due to less reporting because of the long holiday weekend,” the governor said. “We’ve lost nearly 1,000 of our fellow Kentuckians to this deadly virus.”  

He urged Kentuckians to keep gatherings to 10 people or fewer, wear a mask and to continue to practice social distancing.

In the midst of comments about the timeline of a Covid-19 vaccine from both sides of the aisle, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders says the process should not be politicized.

“Let’s not politicize this thing. We have developed vaccines for decade after decade after decade. We have to give the resources to the doctors and the scientists to do their work,” Sanders told CNN on Monday.

Some background: This comes after President Trump said there could be a coronavirus vaccine “before a very special date.”

While Trump did not specially mention which date, he has previously suggested that a vaccine for coronavirus could be ready before Election Day.

But, several officials have raised questions about Trump’s timeline.

Moncef Slaoui, the chief adviser to Operation Warp Speed, told NPR last week that it’s “extremely unlikely, but not impossible” that a Covid-19 vaccine could be authorized for emergency use by the US Food and Drug Administration before the end of October.

Dr. Larry Corey, who’s leading a group set up by the National Institutes of Health to work on coronavirus vaccines, told CNN he also said he doesn’t think there will be a vaccine available by Election Day.

Watch here:

Covid-19 cases per 1 million population reported in the last seven days by countries, territories and areas, from Aug. 3 to Sept. 6, 2020

New graphics from the World Health Organization illustrate how much worse the coronavirus pandemic is in the Americas compared to other regions of the world.

The US has more cases and more deaths than any other country, with Brazil coming in for a close second.

“The United States of America and Brazil account for nearly three quarters of all COVID-19 cases in the Americas,” WHO said.

Yet President Trump continues to claim that the US case count and death counts are improving, and compare favorably to Europe’s.

How these regions compare: While the WHO Americas region and European regions have similar populations – around 1 billion for the Americans compared to 900 million for Europe – WHO’s statistics show the Americas account for 46% of all new coronavirus cases over the past seven days, and 59% or newly reported deaths.

Cumulatively, the Americas accounts for 55% of all coronavirus deaths globally, with roughly one-seventh of the total global population.

Europe, in contrast, accounts for 13% of all reported new cases over the past seven days, 8% of deaths and 25% of the global total cumulative deaths.

WHO says the Americas reported nearly 3.5 times as many new cases as reported by Europe in the last seven days. New cases in the Americas now account for 52% of cumulative cases worldwide.

Another federal official is making it clear that despite President Trump’s predictions, there’s hardly any chance a vaccine will be available to Americans by Election Day.

Trump, however, has projected optimism for a quicker timeline.

“[It’s] going to be done in a very short period of time – could even have it during the month of October,” the President said at a news conference Monday. “We’ll have the vaccine soon, maybe before a special date. You know what date I’m talking about.”

On August 6, Trump said he was “optimistic” a vaccine would be ready by Nov. 3.

“I believe we’ll have the vaccine before the end of the year, certainly, but around that date, yes. I think so,” Trump said.

And at a rally last week, he said, “It will be delivered before the end of the year, in my opinion, before the end of the year, but it really might even be delivered before the end of October.”

Moncef Slaoui, the chief adviser to Operation Warp Speed, told NPR last week that it’s “extremely unlikely, but not impossible” that a Covid-19 vaccine could be authorized for emergency use by the US Food and Drug Administration before the end of October.

Dr. Larry Corey, who’s leading a group set up by the National Institutes of Health to work on coronavirus vaccines, told CNN he also said he doesn’t think there will be a vaccine available by Election Day.

“I would agree with Dr. Slaoui. The chances are very low, very remote,” said Corey, who leads the COVID-19 Prevention Network.

There are at least 6,292,206 cases of coronavirus in the US, and at least 189,095 people have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

So far on Monday, Johns Hopkins has recorded 15,841 new cases and 154 reported deaths.

The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases. 

Reuters reporter Jeff Mason asks the President a question during Monday's news conference.

In his Monday afternoon news conference, President Trump got into an exchange with Reuters correspondent Jeff Mason after Mason would not remove his face mask at the request of the President.

The President stopped Mason as he began to ask the first question, saying “you’re going to have to take that off, please.” He gestured to the space between the reporter and the podium, inquiring, “you’re…how many feet are you away?”

Mason replied that he would just speak louder to counter the effects of the mask. 

Trump was not satisfied with this response, telling the reporter his voice was “very muffled” with the face covering, “so if you would take it off, it would be a lot easier.”

Mason raised his voice and repeated his offer to speak louder, asking “is that better?”

The President sighed saying, “it’s better. Yeah, it’s better.”

Later in the news conference, Trump remarked that one reporter who did remove his mask sounded “so clear. As opposed to everybody else, where they refuse.”

This is not the first time that the President has requested a reporter take off his or her mask so that he could hear a question more clearly, but his disappointment with Mason’s response was notable.

President Trump said there could be a coronavirus vaccine “before a very special date.”

While Trump did not specially mention which date, he has previously suggested that a vaccine for coronavirus could be ready before Election Day.

“President Trump is getting this vaccine in record time. By the way, if this were the Obama administration, you wouldn’t have that vaccine for three years, and you probably wouldn’t have it at all,” Trump said today at a news conference.

Facts First: It’s possible that a vaccine could be approved by the Food and Drug Administration at some point in November, but there is obviously no firm timeline or guarantee that one will be. And even when one is approved, it will likely still be many months before it’s widely available across the US.

You can read CNN’s full fact check on Trump’s previous suggestion that there could be a vaccine ready before Election Day here.

Watch here:

President Donald Trump speaks from the North Portico of the White House on Monday.

President Trump said congressional Democrats don’t want to make a stimulus deal because such a deal would be beneficial to him in the November election.

“They think it’s good for politics if they don’t make a deal,” Trump said at an ongoing Labor Day news conference

“They don’t want to make a deal because they know that’s good for the economy. And if they make deal that’s good for the economy — and therefore, it’s good for me for the election in November, Nov. 3 — and therefore, they’re not going to make a deal,” he added.

About the stimulus stall: Lawmakers don’t appear any closer to striking a deal on additional coronavirus stimulus. Democrats are pushing for a wide-ranging, multi-trillion dollar proposal with funding for schools, rental assistance, health providers and small businesses.

Senate GOP leadership, meanwhile, has been working for weeks behind the scenes toward building internal consensus on a scaled-back, or “skinny” proposal that would include funds for education, small business, a scaled-back enhanced federal unemployment benefit and liability protections.

Watch CNN analysis here:

Florida health officials reported 1,838 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, the lowest daily tally of cases in nearly three months.

The last time the state reported a low caseload was on June 15 when it recorded 1,758 coronavirus cases, according to numbers released by the Florida Department of Health.

In spite of the holiday weekend, today’s new count reflects a downward trend of new coronavirus cases and does not deviate that much from the number of new cases reported on previous Mondays. Last Monday, on Aug. 31, Florida reported 1,885 new cases.

The total number of positive coronavirus cases across the state is at least 648,269, and today’s death toll of 22 fatalities brings the state total to 11,871 among Florida residents.