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The number of coronavirus cases in Europe has exceeded the 10 million mark since the beginning of the pandemic, with more than 1.5 million cases confirmed last week alone, the World Health Organization’s Europe director Dr. Hans Kluge said Thursday.
“At the risk of sounding alarmist, I must express our very real concern and convey our steadfast commitment to stand beside you and support you as best we can.”
The situation in Europe: Kluge warned that hospitalizations have risen to “levels unseen since the spring,” with cases moving from 7 million to 9 million in the past two weeks and deaths rising by 32% across the region last week.
Testing systems have not kept up with “very high-speed transmission,” and test positivity rates have reached new highs in most European countries.
Return to lockdown: As Europe is well into its second wave, many countries are implementing new restrictions in an attempt to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
With France introducing a national lockdown from Friday, Kluge said lockdowns were a “last resort option” because they bypass the “still-existing possibility of engaging everyone in basic and effective measures.”
Read more about what’s happening in Europe:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the two top negotiators for a new round of coronavirus relief, are engaged in open warfare after weeks of private negotiations – casting new doubt on whether they will be able to reach agreement on stimulus legislation even after the November election.
On Thursday afternoon, Mnuchin slammed Pelosi in their highest-profile clash so far, saying the speaker is refusing to compromise to get much-needed aid to Americans.
His remarks came after Pelosi sent her own letter to Mnuchin earlier Thursday that emphasized just how divided the two sides remain on the details of a potential stimulus bill, and hit the Trump administration for not accepting Democratic demands on key issues.
Mnuchin said he first learned of Pelosi’s letter from media reports Thursday morning, and he “can unfortunately only conclude that it is a political stunt.”
What this means for the bill: The confrontation between the two is inauspicious for the odds of a new stimulus bill. When everyone else had essentially given up on the idea of another round of coronavirus relief over the summer, Pelosi and Mnuchin continued to have phone calls to negotiate and work towards a deal.
With Democratic leaders standing firmly behind their call for a massive aid package and Republican lawmakers instead advocating for a much smaller, targeted bill, an agreement never really appeared imminent.
But Pelosi and Mnuchin continued to insist progress was being made – and sometimes, it was. Both had previously expressed hope that a deal could be finalized before Election Day, but talks have faltered in recent days.
At a news conference earlier in the day, Pelosi said the talks were not over. She indicated she is eyeing the congressional lame duck session after the election as an opportunity for lawmakers to approve new aid.
Dr. Deborah Birx emerged from a meeting at the White House one day in late summer with a new resolution: Never again would she sit in a meeting with Dr. Scott Atlas and listen to him pontificate on the pandemic.
That’s when she went all-in on a plan to essentially abandon the White House and avoid the growing influence of Atlas, a radiologist with no expertise in epidemiology who was nevertheless rising in influence with President Donald Trump.
Birx, a physician with decades of experience in global health, told a friend that she would take her message directly to the people and simply sidestep the kind of misleading messages she’d just heard from Atlas in that meeting. The friend requested anonymity to discuss the exchange with CNN.
Now Atlas is Trump’s single go-to adviser on the coronavirus. And Birx, one of the most prominent figures of the early pandemic, is in North Dakota.
She has now been to 40 states and logged more than 20,000 miles, many of them since that fateful August meeting. She tours the country by commercial air, advising small groups of state and local officials on combating transmission. She pulls a small suitcase packed with essentials and an array of the signature scarves she wears each day. Her friends call it her “self-exile.”
It’s a handy personal credo given that Trump hasn’t consulted in person with Birx in months. She still belongs to the White House coronavirus task force, but it rarely meets these days and its reports aren’t widely disseminated. The President isn’t deploying her to anything, so she’s deploying herself.
Read the full story:
An influential model of the coronavirus pandemic has predicted 399,000 total coronavirus deaths in the US by Feb. 1, a 15,000-death increase over last week’s prediction.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington School of Medicine said it’s most likely that by the middle of January, 2,250 Americans will be dying every day from coronavirus – three times more than the current rate.
The IHME said if states would require mask use or find other ways to encourage more people to use them, fewer people would die.
“Scaling up mask wearing can delay the need for further social distancing mandates and save 62,000 lives by February 1,” it said.
Some context: Just last week, the IHME projected 385,000 deaths by Feb. 1.
Cases and deaths have skyrocketed across the US in recent days and Thursday saw the highest single Covid-19 case count on record in the US, with cases passing 83,757 before 8 p.m. ET.
Los Angeles County public health officials on Thursday reported more new Covid-19 cases than on any single day since late August, when the region last saw a dramatic surge in infections.
Public health officials reported 1,745 new cases of Covid-19 on Thursday and 19 additional deaths, for a total of 305,070 positive cases and 7,044 deaths in the county since the start of the pandemic. The increase was not associated with a backlog of data.
Some context: The rise in new confirmed cases came as public health officials expressed growing alarm over a recent increase in infections, some of which can be attributed to fans gathering for parties and events to watch the city’s MLB and NBA teams win championship titles.
“The high numbers of daily cases are very concerning because, as we have seen in the past, increases in cases lead to increases in hospitalizations and deaths,” Dr. Barbara Ferrer, the Los Angeles County director of public health, said in a statement Thursday. “As individuals, we get to choose whether to party or help our economy recover; we get to choose whether to protect others from our respiratory droplets or infect others who may go on to need hospital care or even die.”
Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous with 10 million residents, remains in the first of California’s four-tier coronavirus reopening system, where the disease is considered “widespread,” forcing the closure of most nonessential indoor business operations.
There have been 85,357 daily new coronavirus cases in the United States, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
This is now the highest single-day reporting since the pandemic began.
The Oregon Health Authority reported 575 new cases of Covid-19 in the state Thursday, breaking the state’s single-day record.
The previous high was 550 cases set six days earlier.
Health officials are strongly encouraging Oregonians to forgo tradition Halloween trick-or-treating and get-togethers this year.
The state’s coronavirus death toll is now 673.
To note: These numbers were released by the state’s public health agency and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.
Ohio recorded at least 3,590 new Covid-19 cases Thursday, the highest daily count in the state since the pandemic began.
Gov. Mike DeWine also announced 192 new hospitalizations and 19 new deaths due to the virus.
Eighty three of 88 counties in Ohio are now considered “high incident counties,” DeWine said.
Righty now, 78% of state residents are living in a county labeled “red” for “very high exposure and spread.”
DeWine announced that he’s asked leaders of every community to create a “Covid Defense team” that should include county commissioners, mayors, local hospital leaders, business leaders and religious leaders. The teams should assess and understand the situation and focus on what steps to take to turn the situation in their community around.
“We’re simply letting our guard down,” chief executive officer of University of Cincinnati Health and Covid-19 adviser to DeWine, Dr. Richard Lofgren, said at the news conference.
While businesses and establishments are following restrictions, the virus is spreading in private social events, Lofgren said.
To note: These numbers were released by the state’s public health agency, and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.
Greece announced today it will impose further regional lockdowns to curb the coronavirus resurgence.
The country’s second largest city of Thessaloniki along with the city of Larissa and the Rhodope region will enter lockdown starting Friday at 6 a.m. local time. These brings the total regional lockdowns to seven.
More context: Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is expected to announce stricter measures Friday that would last one month.
He said his aim remains to avoid a national lockdown and instead will focus on the intensification of the containment measures. Greek media outlets have reported that a stricter curfew could be announced.
According to Greece’s National Public Health Organization, Greece has recorded 35,510 coronavirus cases and 615 deaths from the disease in total.
An ensemble forecast published Thursday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now projects there will be 243,000 to 256,000 coronavirus deaths in the United States by Nov. 21.
Unlike some individual models, the CDC’s ensemble forecast only offers projections a few weeks into the future. The previous ensemble forecast, published Oct. 21, projected up to 247,000 coronavirus deaths by Nov. 14.
At least 228,143 people have already died from Covid-19 in the United States, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Moderna and Pfizer appear to be “neck and neck” in the race for a Covid-19 vaccine — so much so that the United States could see critical safety and efficacy data for both companies’ vaccine candidates around the same time, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during a Facebook Live session on Thursday.
Currently, there are six Covid-19 vaccine candidates in the United States — four of which are in Phase 3 trials, Fauci said, adding that Moderna and Pfizer are “neck and neck.”
“Pfizer and Moderna, both went into Phase 3 on July 27,” Fauci told Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, during the Facebook Live session.
“Close behind them is the AstraZeneca, and the Johnson or J & J or the Janssen trial — and then we have the trial of Novavax and then ultimately we have Sanofi,” Fauci said. “So we would likely, Francis, start seeing results from Moderna and Pfizer at approximately the same time.”
The Czech Republic has a field hospital set up in Prague and a second one is under construction in Brno at a convention center.
There are temporary bathrooms and a row of cubicles set up to accommodate beds, complete with dividers, curtains, cabinets and electrical and plumbing set up.
With 1,448.7 cases per 100,000 people over the past 14 days, the Czech Republic now has the highest rate of new coronavirus infections and deaths per capita in the European Union, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
The Czech Republic is also leading the EU on deaths per capita over the past 14 days, with 13.5 Covid-19 fatalities per 100,000 people.
This comes as the health care system in the Czech Republic is reeling under the strain of a surge in coronavirus cases. Hospitals have started to burst at the seams, stretching intensive care units to their limits, while also lacking staff.
“About 1,000 health care workers are testing positive for the virus every single day. So while PPE, bed space is relatively easy to come by, it’s not so easy to order doctors and nurses in bulk,” McLean added.
Read more on how the Czech Republic is trying to tackle the shortage of health workers here.
CNN’s Scott McLean reports:
The Czech Republic now has the highest rate of new coronavirus infections and deaths per capita in the European Union. Part of this case count are health care workers who are also testing positive for the virus, creating a shortage of staff at hospitals that are already bursting at the seams.
The Czech Medical Chamber and the health minister have called on Czech doctors living abroad to return home to help fight the virus. Medical students and people with medical training have also been encouraged to come forward. More than 1,000 qualified nurses who’ve left the profession have offered to come back to help.
“The health care system in the Czech Republic has already collapsed because hospitals, with a few exceptions, are not able to provide long-term care for non-Covid patients,” says Jiri Vyhnal, head ER doctor at the Kyjov hospital says.
Kubek is also hoping for help from abroad. But there’s a problem: When Italy appealed for help from abroad at the peak of its coronavirus outbreak, military doctors and nurse around the world answered the call. The Czech Republic did not.
The military doctors were needed in the country at the time, Czech deputy defense minister Jan Havranek claimed. But he admitted that the first wave in the Czech Republic was “rather milld.”
The next time, he said, the Czech Republic will think harder when another country asks for help.
Meanwhile, foreign help is on the way with dozens of medical workers from the US National Guard and hundreds from Europe. But that is not nearly enough. The hospital that’s supposed to be staffing the second Czech field hospital in Brno said it is stretched so thin that it’s currently negotiating with Germany, Poland and the Red Cross to try to get staff in place.
WATCH:
The biotechnology company Moderna expects to have its first interim analysis of its Covid-19 vaccine trial data in November and critical safety data in the second half of November, CEO Stéphane Bancel said during an investor call on Thursday morning.
Bancel said that two-month safety data on 15,000 trial participants who had received two doses of the vaccine will be ready later next month.
In October, the US Food and Drug Administration made clear that it wants to see two months of follow-up data after volunteers get their second vaccine doses in clinical trials before considering any Covid-19 vaccine candidate for possible emergency use authorization.
Moderna said it plans to file for an EUA after it has positive efficacy data and two-months of safety data for the median number of participants, about 15,000.
On Thursday’s call, Bancel also said that Moderna has “received $1.1 billion cash payments from governments around the world.” And the company noted in a news release on Thursday that it is “actively preparing for the launch of mRNA-1273,” its Covid-19 vaccine candidate.
“We have signed a number of supply agreements with governments around the world. Moderna is committed to the highest data quality standards and rigorous scientific research as we continue to work with regulators to advance mRNA-1273,” Bancel said in part in the news release. “I believe that if we launch our COVID-19 vaccine, 2021 could be the most important inflection year in Moderna’s history.”
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, said he believes the United States will cross the 100,000 cases per day threshold sometime in the next couple of weeks – or maybe even this week.
Gottlieb added that this is due to the public’s behavior and lack of caution.
“The reality is that I think we’re not going to start to see a slowdown in the pandemic until you see consumer behavior change, and until you see mobility data start to decline. That’s been the lesson of the past surges in the virus,” Gottlieb said.
Professional sport in France will continue despite the country entering a new national coronavirus lockdown, sports minister Roxana Maracineanu told the country’s National Assembly on Thursday.
The news comes after President Emmanuel Macron announced in a televised address to the nation on Wednesday that a second national lockdown will begin on Friday and last until at least Dec 1.
The French Men’s National Rugby team is set to host Ireland in Paris on Saturday in a crunch Six Nations finale. The game was already slated to be played without fans at the Stade de France.
Meanwhile, the Paris Masters tennis tournament is due to begin on Monday with 20-time Grand Slam winner Rafael Nadal slated to take part.
In a statement from the ATP Player Relations, which Slovakian player Lukas Lacko posted on his Twitter feed on Thursday, it was confirmed that the French Tennis Federation (FFT) will stage the event behind closed doors at the Bercy Arena.
As coronavirus cases skyrocket in Wisconsin, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett says the pandemic is “without a doubt…worse than it’s ever been.”
“We’ve got this situation that is clearly out of control right now in the state of Wisconsin,” he said on CNN’s “New Day.”
Barrett said the city has lowered capacity for bars and restaurants to 25% and require their plans to be approved by the city.
An alternative care facility for coronavirus patients was set up near Milwaukee. Barrett said they hoped “we would never have to use it,” but this week, six patients were admitted.
Barrett accused the state legislature and Republican leaders of trying to strike down mask mandates.
“Politics has just permeated this in a way that I think has made it very, very difficult for us to deal with this,” he said.
Watch:
Millions of Americans hoping for financial help in the wake of the coronavirus economic collapse might need to wait a little longer. A new letter from Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin shows just how far away the two sides are from coming to an agreement.
The two sides remain at odds over major issues such as testing, jobless benefits and state and local funding, which has been a big point of contention throughout the negotiations.
Talks have been underway for months. But with the same areas of disagreement still in effect, a deal before next week’s election seems all but impossible.
On CNN’s State of the Union Sunday, Pelosi told Jake Tapper she was awaiting White House approval on a remaining list of concerns and had hoped to have an answer by Monday.
In what could be a glimpse into the future of air travel, United Airlines will begin offering free coronavirus tests to passengers on select routes. United hopes the move will not only increase traffic on mostly empty transatlantic flights, but also spark international cooperation to break down travel restrictions.
The four-week trial run begins November 16 on United Flight 14, which departs for London Heathrow from Newark Liberty International Airport three times each week. United says passengers must arrive at least three hours before the 7:15 p.m. flight to receive a required rapid molecular Abbott ID Now test which United says produces results within 20 minutes. United says those who test negative for coronavirus will be allowed to board the flight. Those who test positive will be isolated by clinicians and either refunded or rebooked at a later time.
While the move does not allow travelers arriving in the United Kingdom to bypass its mandatory 14-day quarantine, United hopes the trial will serve as a proof of concept.
Last week, airline industry groups sent a letter to the Trump Administration pleading for the federal government to standardize pre-departure virus screening and contact tracing to ease restrictions that are “decimating our industry.”
Singapore is lifting its border restrictions for Mainland China and Australia’s Victoria State beginning November 6.
Singapore’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAAS) said on Thursday that visitors from these countries can apply for an “Air Travel Pass (ATP)” granting entry into Singapore as long as they’ve stayed in either Mainland China or Victoria State for 14 days prior to entry.
Visitors will be required to take a Covid-19 test after arriving at the airport, but will not need to serve a Stay-Home Notice.
“This latest initiative follows the earlier lifting of border restrictions for visitors from Australia (excluding Victoria State), Brunei Darussalam, New Zealand and Vietnam,” the CAAS said.
“As of 29 October 2020, 1200 hours, we have approved 1,375 applications from these places, and received 602 visitors. None of the visitors tested positive for COVID-19 upon arrival.”
