Covid-19 is spreading in 'one big wave'

Germany currently has the capacity to carry out coronavirus tests on all travelers returning to the country from abroad, Teresa Nauber, a spokesperson for the health ministry, said Wednesday.  

Germany’s health minister, Jens Spahn, has said all travelers returning to Germany from what the government deems to be “high-risk areas” will have to take mandatory PCR tests for the novel coronavirus starting next week.   

According to the health ministry, the tests are to be offered free of charge to travelers and paid for by the federal government, with further plans in place to also offer free testing to travelers returning from non-high-risk countries, including member states of the European Union.   

The health ministry's spokesperson added that the government plans to have the regulation for free tests ready before the end of this week. Mandatory testing is set to begin in Germany next week.   

The move comes after Germany’s center for disease prevention, the Robert-Koch-Institute, voiced grave concern about a rise in coronavirus infections in the country, which its scientists say are due in part to infected travelers returning to Germany. 

The United States must get control of the coronavirus pandemic or risk seeing deaths skyrocket “well into the multiple hundreds of thousands,” the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) warned as it released a new “roadmap” on how to contain and end the pandemic.

The blueprint by leaders of the nation’s medical colleges, physicians, scientists, health care teams and frontline workers comes as the death toll from the virus in the US approaches 150,000.

“It is critical that that the United States take a united approach to the pandemic,” the organization, which represents the nation’s medical colleges, teaching hospitals and health systems, wrote Wednesday in releasing its plan for getting the pandemic under control.

Their pandemic plan: The plan includes addressing critical supply shortages, expanding and improving testing, reopening schools safely, expanding health insurance and developing a vaccination distribution protocol.

Here are some key recommendations:

Other groups have released plans on how to end the pandemic over the past several months as national response efforts have faltered and states have employed a patchwork of approaches to try and mitigate the resurging virus.

More on the group: All 155 accredited medical school in the United States and 17 in Canada, 400 teaching hospitals and health systems and 70 academic societies are part of the AAMC.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin chairs a government meeting via videoconference from his office in the Novo-Ogaryovo residence in Moscow, on July 29. Alexei Nikolsky/Russian Presidential Press and Information Office/TASS/Getty Images

Russia claims that its own coronavirus vaccine is already undergoing the registration process, state-run news agency RIA Novosti reported Wednesday.

In a government meeting chaired by President Vladimir Putin, deputy prime minister of Russia Tatyana Golikova, who is overseeing the Russian coronavirus response, said the country plans to start producing two vaccines in September and October. 

Remember: Russia has released no scientific data on its vaccine testing and there are wide concerns that the human testing stage of the vaccine is incomplete. CNN is unable to verify the vaccine's claimed safety or efficacy. 

Critics say Moscow's push for a vaccine comes as political pressure rises from the Kremlin, which is keen to portray Russia as a global scientific force.

Today, Golikova said the country has "two most promising vaccines."

“One of them developed jointly by the Health Ministry’s Gamaleya Institute and the 48th Research Institute of the Defense Ministry,” Golikova said. “This August we plan to register it on a condition meaning that after its registration there will be clinical trials on 1,600 people. The mass production of the vaccine is planned for September 2020."

“Another vaccine developed by the Vektor center of Rospotrebandzor began joint clinical trials which are to wrap up in September and also in September it will undergo state registration to be produced starting October,” Golikova added.

Read more here.

The U.S. Kadena Air Base is pictured in the southern Japan prefecture of Okinawa on June 22. Kyodo News/Getty Images

The US military has increased restrictions on its personnel in Okinawa to stop the spread of Covid-19, the top American military official in Japan said in a virtual press conference Wednesday. 

Lt. Gen. Kevin Schneider, the commander of US Forces Japan (USFJ), said local commanders at US installations in Japan have been instructed to tighten movements of US personnel to ensure the virus does not spread. There are 139 “active cases” of the virus among US military personnel, civilians and their families at US bases in the country, said Schneider.  

The commander has extended a public health emergency, which has been in place since April, through the middle of August, according to a joint statement by the Japanese government and USFJ. In addition, all installations in Okinawa have elevated their local health protection condition level to C+, which means significant additional restrictions are in place. 

About the cases: Okinawa prefectural government confirmed one new coronavirus case in Kadena air base in Okinawa today, bringing the total number of the infections among US military personnel in Okinawa to 237 cases since July 1. 

Okinawa recorded its highest number of daily infections at 44 new cases among Japanese today, including two people who work at the US bases. The government said Wednesday was the first time that workers at the U.S. bases tested positive.  

The novel coronavirus has infected more than 16.7 million people worldwide and caused more than 660,000 deaths. Here's what you need to know.

Tour guides protest working conditions due to the novel coronavirus disease outbreak, as they stand on columns of an art installation by French artist Daniel Buren, at the Palais Royal gardens in Paris, on July 16. Anne-Christine Poujuolat/AFP/Getty Images

The French government has announced that it will extend its “partial unemployment” scheme for people working in the tourism sector.

The scheme supports those unable to work during the pandemic, with those enrolled receiving up to 84% of their after-tax salary from the state.

The program was due to end in September but will be extended to December for tourism workers, France’s deputy minister for tourism, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, said Wednesday in an interview with France Info.

"Tourism professionals need long-term support; for some it will be a lost year,” Lemoyne said.

The scheme was first introduced during the lockdown in March to help companies cope with a decline in activity. The French tourism sector has suffered greatly due to the pandemic's impact on travel.

France has also announced bailout packages for its embattled car industry and aviation industry.

Germany’s minister for research Anja Karliczek, left, attends a cabinet meeting at the German chancellery in Berlin on July 29. Felipe Trueba/Pool/Getty Images

A coronavirus vaccine may not be available until the middle of next year, Germany’s minister for research Anja Karliczek warned Wednesday, as she announced further government funding to help accelerate the research and development process. 

Karliczek, speaking at a press briefing on Wednesday, said the German government would offer financial support to three labs currently developing coronavirus vaccines.

The three labs – led by pharmaceutical companies Biontech, Curevac and IDT Biologica – will share a grant of €750 million from the German health ministry, she said.

Officials hope the funding will help to accelerate both the research and development of the potential vaccines, while also increasing production capacity, Karliczek added.

“The three vaccine candidates are all very promising, but there can always be setbacks in the trials,” Karliczek said.

There are currently 25 vaccine candidates in the clinical evaluation stage of development and a further 139 at the preclinical stage, according to the World Health Organization.

A doctoral student at the Heinrich Heine University works with samples for coronavirus research into the clinical application of the drug remdesivir, in Duesseldorf, Germany, on May 20. Marcel Kusch/picture alliance/Getty Images

The European Commission has signed a €63 million ($74 million) contract with pharmaceutical company Gilead, to secure doses of antiviral drug remdesivir, the first medicine authorised by the EU for treating coronavirus.  

“The Commission has been working tirelessly with Gilead to reach an agreement to ensure that stocks of the first treatment authorised against Covid-19 are delivered to the EU,” Stella Kyriakides, the European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, said Wednesday in a statement.  

“A contract has been signed yesterday, less than a month after the authorisation of remdesivir, which will allow the delivery of treatments from early August for thousands of patients,” she added.  

The purchase was financed by the EU Emergency Support Instrument, a new €2.7 billion fund ($3.1 billion) which was created to help the bloc's member states recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.

The purchase will help treat an estimated 30,000 patients presenting severe symptoms of coronavirus.

“The Commission is now also preparing a joint procurement for further supplies of the medicine, expected to cover additional needs and supplies as from October onwards,” the statement added. 

Remdesivir was originally studied as a potential treatment for Ebola, before research revealed it could work against coronavirus. 

Medical professionals work at a coronavirus testing laboratory in Tehran, Iran, on July 14. Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Iran has recorded 2,636 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 298,909. 

Health Ministry spokesman Sima Sadat Lari said Wednesday that among the cases,1,604 people have been hospitalized. 

Lari said there were 196 additional coronavirus-related deaths, bringing Iran's total death toll to 16,343. 

The country was badly hit by the virus earlier this year, with 23 members of its parliament testing positive.

Iran's government temporarily released 54,000 prisoners in an effort to curb Covid-19's spread and earlier this month President Hassan Rouhani ordered the mandatory wearing of face masks in public, after cases continued to rise.