The latest:There have been more than 1.7 million coronavirus cases in the United States, according to the Johns Hopkins University tally.The U.S. death toll has surpassed 103,000 people, according to Hopkins.President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would pull out of the World Health Organization after criticizing the group’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and relationship with China. A new study has shown coronavirus spent some time jumping between bats and pangolins before it first spread to humans. Researchers said it still isn’t clear which species was responsible for the first human infections. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will resume its regular briefings as the administration continues its coronavirus response, CNN has learned.The CDC held a briefing Friday in which director Robert Redfield said the agency was “never blind” to the early spread of the coronavirus in the United States.That session was the first of the resumption of the regular press briefings, a senior Health and Human Services official told CNN.Different drugs could help people at different stages, FDA saysCombinations of antivirals, anti-inflammatories and other drugs will likely be needed to treat people with coronavirus, a team of Food and Drug Administration scientists said Friday.It might even be necessary to customize treatment patient by patient, the FDA team said in a review of the treatments being tested against COVID-19.“As the results of clinical trials become available, it may become increasingly clear that there is likely no single magic bullet to resolve the disease but a combination of several interventions that target different key factors of COVID-19 may well be required,” FDA drug researcher Montserrat Puig and colleagues wrote in a report published in Frontiers of Immunology. “Until vaccines and targeted drugs for COVID-19 are available, there may be a need to intervene with personalized therapeutic approaches. We are learning day after day, that patients may be affected by SARS-CoV-2 differently and that many factors influence the outcome of the disease.” They reviewed 30 different drugs, including those designed to stop the virus from getting into cells, drugs aimed at stopping the virus from replicating, drugs that control the immune system response and drugs meant to block the overwrought inflammatory response to the virus.Different drugs could help people at different stages of the disease. Early on, it could be enough to stop the virus from getting into cells and replicating itself, Puig said. In patients with more severe disease, it will be more important to intervene in the body’s immune response to infection, which can include an overreaction known as the cytokine storm.No drug is approved to specifically treat coronavirus infections, although the FDA has given emergency use authorization to the antiviral drug remdesivir. World’s new epicenter could be the worst yetFor months, Latin America watched the rest of the world suffer as the coronavirus spread. It is a spectator no longer.”This is the new epicenter,” said Dr. Marcos Espinal, director of communicable diseases at the Pan American Health Organization.Months after emerging from a relatively obscure Chinese province, the eye of this viral storm has firmly landed in Latin America.There are roughly 920,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and nearly 50,000 deaths across the region’s 33 countries, but those numbers are fast on the rise.As new deaths and cases fall in the United States, Europe and Asia, Latin America now stands as the world’s sole region where the outbreak is unequivocally reaching new heights.”In many ways this is no surprise,” said Dr. Ana Diez Roux, dean of Drexel University’s School of Public Health. “It was predictable that this was going to happen.”In conversations with eight different experts, including a former head of state, epidemiologists and top researchers on the region, there is wide agreement that faulty government response coupled with Latin America’s unique economic and public health situation led to the severity of the current outbreak.The experts were also nearly unanimous in the view that things are likely to get worse.By the middle of May, Latin America was reporting higher daily case total increases than both the United States and Europe.Brazil would surge past Italy, the United Kingdom and Russia to record the second highest number of cases in the world.A global shortage of tests and some countries’ reluctance to mass test have also raised doubts about whether cases and deaths are being accurately counted in the region.” provide a false sense of security. The number of cases is not showing close to the magnitude of the problem,” said Espinal.The Pan American Health Organization believes the outbreak will continue at current levels for at least the next few weeks.An influential model from the University of Washington predicts Brazil could surpass 125,000 deaths by August.”I think we’re going to see significantly more deaths than we’ve seen ,” said Diez Roux.Genetic study shows first host species to virusA deep dive into the genetics of the coronavirus shows it seems to have spent some time infecting both bats and pangolins before it jumped into humans, researchers said Friday.But they said it’s too soon to blame pangolins for the pandemic and say a third species of animal may have played host to the virus before it spilled over to people.What is clear is that the coronavirus has swapped genes repeatedly with similar strains infecting bats, pangolins and a possible third species, a team of researchers from Duke University, Los Alamos National Laboratory and elsewhere reported in the journal Science Advances.What’s also clear is that people need to reduce contact with wild animals that can transmit new infections, the researchers concluded.The team analyzed 43 complete genomes from three strains of coronaviruses that infect bats and pangolins and that resemble the new COVID-19 virus.”In our study, we demonstrated that indeed SARS-CoV-2 has a rich evolutionary history that included a reshuffling of genetic material between bat and pangolin coronavirus before it acquired its ability to jump to humans,” said Elena Giorgi, a staff scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory who worked on the study.But their findings may let pangolins off the hook. The animals, also known as scaly anteaters, are sold as food in many countries, including China, and have been a prime suspect as a possible source of the pandemic.”The currently sampled pangolin coronaviruses are too divergent from SARS-CoV-2 to be its recent progenitors,” the researchers wrote.Whether the mixing and matching between bat viruses and pangolin viruses was enough to change the virus into a form that now easily infects humans remains unclear, the researchers said.”It is also possible that other not yet identified hosts (can be) infected with coronaviruses that can jump to human populations through cross-species transmission,” the researchers wrote. “If the new SARS-CoV-2 strain did not cause widespread infections in its natural or intermediate hosts, such a strain may never be identified.”But people are setting themselves up to be infected with new viruses via “wet markets” where many different species of live animals are caged and sold, and by moving deeper into forests where animals live, the researchers said.”While the direct reservoir of SARS-CoV-2 is still being sought, one thing is clear: reducing or eliminating direct human contact with wild animals is critical to preventing new coronavirus zoonosis in the future,” they concluded.US ‘terminating’ relationship with WHO, President Trump saysPresident Donald Trump said Friday that the U.S. will be terminating its relationship with the World Health Organization, saying it had failed to adequately respond to the coronavirus because China has “total control” over the global organization.He said Chinese officials “ignored” their reporting obligations to the WHO and pressured the WHO to mislead the world when the virus was first discovered.He noted that the U.S. contributes about $450 million to the world body while China provides about $40 million.The U.S. is the largest source of financial support to the WHO and its exit is expected to significantly weaken the organization. Trump said the U.S. would be “redirecting” the money to “other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs,” without providing specifics.”We have detailed the reforms that it must make and engaged with them directly but they have refused to act,” Trump said. “Because they have failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms, we will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization and redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs. The world needs answers from China on the virus. We must have transparency.”W2lmcmFtZSBzcmM9Imh0dHBzOi8vZDJjbXZicTdzeHgzM2ouY2xvdWRmcm9udC5uZXQvZW1haWwvcHJvZF9jb3JvbmF2aXJ1c19pZnJhbWVfYXJ0aWNsZS5odG1sIiBoZWlnaHQ9IjQxNCIgc3R5bGU9IndpZHRoOjEwMCU7Ym9yZGVyOm5vbmU7b3ZlcmZsb3c6aGlkZGVuIiBzY3JvbGxpbmc9Im5vIiBmcmFtZWJvcmRlcj0iMCIgYWxsb3dUcmFuc3BhcmVuY3k9InRydWUiXVsvaWZyYW1lXQ==
The latest:
- There have been more than 1.7 million coronavirus cases in the United States, according to the Johns Hopkins University tally.
- The U.S. death toll has surpassed 103,000 people, according to Hopkins.
- President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would pull out of the World Health Organization after criticizing the group’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and relationship with China.
- A new study has shown coronavirus spent some time jumping between bats and pangolins before it first spread to humans. Researchers said it still isn’t clear which species was responsible for the first human infections.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will resume its regular briefings as the administration continues its coronavirus response, CNN has learned.
The CDC held a briefing Friday in which director Robert Redfield said the agency was “never blind” to the early spread of the coronavirus in the United States.
That session was the first of the resumption of the regular press briefings, a senior Health and Human Services official told CNN.
Different drugs could help people at different stages, FDA says
Combinations of antivirals, anti-inflammatories and other drugs will likely be needed to treat people with coronavirus, a team of Food and Drug Administration scientists said Friday.
It might even be necessary to customize treatment patient by patient, the FDA team said in a review of the treatments being tested against COVID-19.
“As the results of clinical trials become available, it may become increasingly clear that there is likely no single magic bullet to resolve the disease but a combination of several interventions that target different key factors of COVID-19 may well be required,” FDA drug researcher Montserrat Puig and colleagues wrote in a report published in Frontiers of Immunology.
“Until vaccines and targeted drugs for COVID-19 are available, there may be a need to intervene with personalized therapeutic approaches. We are learning day after day, that patients may be affected by SARS-CoV-2 differently and that many factors influence the outcome of the disease.”
They reviewed 30 different drugs, including those designed to stop the virus from getting into cells, drugs aimed at stopping the virus from replicating, drugs that control the immune system response and drugs meant to block the overwrought inflammatory response to the virus.
Different drugs could help people at different stages of the disease. Early on, it could be enough to stop the virus from getting into cells and replicating itself, Puig said. In patients with more severe disease, it will be more important to intervene in the body’s immune response to infection, which can include an overreaction known as the cytokine storm.
No drug is approved to specifically treat coronavirus infections, although the FDA has given emergency use authorization to the antiviral drug remdesivir.
World’s new epicenter could be the worst yet
For months, Latin America watched the rest of the world suffer as the coronavirus spread. It is a spectator no longer.
“This is the new epicenter,” said Dr. Marcos Espinal, director of communicable diseases at the Pan American Health Organization.
Months after emerging from a relatively obscure Chinese province, the eye of this viral storm has firmly landed in Latin America.
There are roughly 920,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and nearly 50,000 deaths across the region’s 33 countries, but those numbers are fast on the rise.
As new deaths and cases fall in the United States, Europe and Asia, Latin America now stands as the world’s sole region where the outbreak is unequivocally reaching new heights.
“In many ways this is no surprise,” said Dr. Ana Diez Roux, dean of Drexel University’s School of Public Health. “It was predictable that this was going to happen.”
In conversations with eight different experts, including a former head of state, epidemiologists and top researchers on the region, there is wide agreement that faulty government response coupled with Latin America’s unique economic and public health situation led to the severity of the current outbreak.
The experts were also nearly unanimous in the view that things are likely to get worse.
By the middle of May, Latin America was reporting higher daily case total increases than both the United States and Europe.
Brazil would surge past Italy, the United Kingdom and Russia to record the second highest number of cases in the world.
A global shortage of tests and some countries’ reluctance to mass test have also raised doubts about whether cases and deaths are being accurately counted in the region.
“[The official numbers] provide a false sense of security. The number of cases is not showing close to the magnitude of the problem,” said Espinal.
The Pan American Health Organization believes the outbreak will continue at current levels for at least the next few weeks.
An influential model from the University of Washington predicts Brazil could surpass 125,000 deaths by August.
“I think we’re going to see significantly more deaths than we’ve seen [so far],” said Diez Roux.
Genetic study shows first host species to virus
A deep dive into the genetics of the coronavirus shows it seems to have spent some time infecting both bats and pangolins before it jumped into humans, researchers said Friday.
But they said it’s too soon to blame pangolins for the pandemic and say a third species of animal may have played host to the virus before it spilled over to people.
What is clear is that the coronavirus has swapped genes repeatedly with similar strains infecting bats, pangolins and a possible third species, a team of researchers from Duke University, Los Alamos National Laboratory and elsewhere reported in the journal Science Advances.
What’s also clear is that people need to reduce contact with wild animals that can transmit new infections, the researchers concluded.
The team analyzed 43 complete genomes from three strains of coronaviruses that infect bats and pangolins and that resemble the new COVID-19 virus.
“In our study, we demonstrated that indeed SARS-CoV-2 has a rich evolutionary history that included a reshuffling of genetic material between bat and pangolin coronavirus before it acquired its ability to jump to humans,” said Elena Giorgi, a staff scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory who worked on the study.
But their findings may let pangolins off the hook. The animals, also known as scaly anteaters, are sold as food in many countries, including China, and have been a prime suspect as a possible source of the pandemic.
“The currently sampled pangolin coronaviruses are too divergent from SARS-CoV-2 to be its recent progenitors,” the researchers wrote.
Whether the mixing and matching between bat viruses and pangolin viruses was enough to change the virus into a form that now easily infects humans remains unclear, the researchers said.
“It is also possible that other not yet identified hosts (can be) infected with coronaviruses that can jump to human populations through cross-species transmission,” the researchers wrote. “If the new SARS-CoV-2 strain did not cause widespread infections in its natural or intermediate hosts, such a strain may never be identified.”
But people are setting themselves up to be infected with new viruses via “wet markets” where many different species of live animals are caged and sold, and by moving deeper into forests where animals live, the researchers said.
“While the direct reservoir of SARS-CoV-2 is still being sought, one thing is clear: reducing or eliminating direct human contact with wild animals is critical to preventing new coronavirus zoonosis in the future,” they concluded.
US ‘terminating’ relationship with WHO, President Trump says
President Donald Trump said Friday that the U.S. will be terminating its relationship with the World Health Organization, saying it had failed to adequately respond to the coronavirus because China has “total control” over the global organization.
He said Chinese officials “ignored” their reporting obligations to the WHO and pressured the WHO to mislead the world when the virus was first discovered.
He noted that the U.S. contributes about $450 million to the world body while China provides about $40 million.
The U.S. is the largest source of financial support to the WHO and its exit is expected to significantly weaken the organization. Trump said the U.S. would be “redirecting” the money to “other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs,” without providing specifics.
“We have detailed the reforms that it must make and engaged with them directly but they have refused to act,” Trump said. “Because they have failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms, we will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization and redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs. The world needs answers from China on the virus. We must have transparency.”
