The global coronavirus pandemic has killed over 866,000 people and infected more than 26 million. Here are the updates for September 3:
(AP)
Thursday, September 3
US states told be ready to distribute vaccine by November 1
The Trump administration has urged US states to get ready to distribute a potential Covid-19 vaccine by November 1, two days before the presidential election.
Dallas-based wholesaler McKesson Corp. has a deal with the federal government and will be requesting permits to set up distribution centers when a vaccine becomes available.
“The normal time required to obtain these permits presents a significant barrier to the success of this urgent public health programme,” Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told states in an August 27 letter.
“CDC urgently requests your assistance in expediting applications for these distribution facilities.”
Redfield asked states to consider waiving requirements that would “prevent these facilities from becoming fully operational by November 1, 2020.”
The CDC provided states with documents giving details of a vaccine rollout plan, adding that they would either be approved as licensed vaccines or under emergency use authorisation.
Recipients would probably require a second “booster” dose, a few weeks after the first, according to the documents.
Mexico leads in health worker deaths from virus
Mexico leads the world in coronavirus deaths among its health care workers, Amnesty International has said in a new report.
It said Mexico has reported 1,320 confirmed deaths from Covid-19 so far, surpassing the United States at 1,077, the United Kingdom at 649, and Brazil at 634.
The report is likely to revive debate about Mexico’s extremely low coronavirus testing rate, with fewer than one in 100 Mexicans tested. While Mexican officials have bragged that all health care workers have gotten one test, that appears insufficient for people who face daily exposure over months.
Health professionals in Mexico have also held many protests over a lack of adequate personal protective equipment.
Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International’s head of economic and social justice at Amnesty International, called the worldwide death toll of over 7,000 health workers “a crisis on a staggering scale.”
Australia’s hotspot reports triple-digit new cases
Australia’s Victoria state reported a triple-digit rise in new Covid-19 infections
for the first time in four days, denting optimism that a second
wave of cases has been contained.
Victoria state said 113 new cases were detected in the past
24 hours, up from the 90 infections reported on Wednesday.
Australia has now recorded more than 26,000 cases,
while the death toll rose to 678 after 15 people in Victoria
state died from the virus.
Victoria’s capital Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city is in its fifth week of a six-week lockdown. Authorities
are scheduled to detail a timetable for easing curbs on Sunday.
Brazil reports over 46,900 new cases
Brazil reported 46,934 new cases of the coronavirus and 1,184 deaths from the disease caused by the virus in the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry said.
Brazil has registered 3,997,865 cases of the virus since the pandemic began, while the official death toll from Covid-19 has risen to 123,780, according to ministry data, in the world’s worst coronavirus outbreak outside the United States.
Britain to fund expansion of rapid test trials
Britain is putting 500 million pounds ($666 million) into trials of rapid Covid-19 tests and into population-testing for the disease, the Health Ministry has said.
Health Minister Matt Hancock has said he hopes mass testing using faster Covid-19 tests can be rolled out towards the end of the year, adding that they are key to restoring freedoms after months of restrictions.
The funding will be used to expand existing trials of saliva tests and a rapid 20-minute test in southern England, while a new, community trial in Salford, northwest England, will assess the benefit of population-testing, under which people are regularly tested regardless of whether they have symptoms, so that any cases can be picked up before they have spread widely.
Experts probe obesity link to severe virus response
Inflammatory and immune responses linked to obesity could help explain the likelihood of a more severe outcome among patients with Covid-19, European experts have said.
As the new coronavirus has spread, killing more than 800,000 people globally, it has become increasingly clear that co-morbidities put patients at greater risk.
In a presentation at the European and International Congress on Obesity, researchers said that inflammation caused by a buildup of fat tissue in people with obesity, which is linked to other illnesses such as type two diabetes and cardiovascular disease, could play a role in patients’ response to Covid-19.
They also suggested that the body’s blood pressure regulating renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS), which includes the enzyme that the new coronavirus latches onto, was also potentially linked to worse outcomes.
Source: TRTWorld and agencies
