Netherlands records highest daily Covid-19 infections in months

The Netherlands in the past day has recorded the highest number of newly reported Covid-19 infections for months, the county’s health minister said on Wednesday.

There were at least 1,140 newly reported Covid-19 cases in the past day, de Jonge said. That is approaching the Netherlands’ single-day record, which was set on April 10, at 1,335 new infections.

“This is of course much higher than yesterday, and than the day before yesterday,” De Jonge said. “It is therefore not going in the right direction.”

Infections in the past week in the Netherlands (Sept. 2 to 8) were already up 34% over the week previous. This daily total of 1,140 new cases is another 32% increase over last week’s average.

De Jonge said that he hoped that the government would be able to respond locally, and avoid a harsh national measures, “because of course we know much more about where the virus is, and we can enforce much more precise measures. And that is what we are now trying to do.” 

Marriott International is laying off 673 employees at its corporate headquarters in Maryland, a sign that the pandemic-stricken travel industry isn't close to recovering.

The Maryland-based hotel chain announced the layoffs in a Work Adjustment and Retraining Notice. Marriott employs about 4,000 people at its Bethesda headquarters.

Marriott has furloughed thousands of hotel employees as demand dried up. It's made no secret how badly Covid-19 is destroying business, saying in May that the pandemic is "having a more severe and sustained financial impact on Marriott’s business than 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis, combined."

The stock is down 30% for the year.

People in Cascais, Portugal, are briefed by a health technician before being tested for Covid-19 on June 23. Horacio Villalobos/Corbis/Getty Images

Portugal has reported 646 new Covid-19 infections in the past 24 hours, the highest daily increase since April 20. 

The new infections increase the incidence rate in the country to 51.2 per 100,000 in the past 14 days. The incidence rate has been rising over the past few weeks. 

In addition to the new infections, Portuguese health authorities also reported three additional deaths from Covid-19. 

Last week both Scotland and Wales added Portugal to their list of countries whose travelers are required to quarantine on arrival. Despite a recent increase in cases, England maintained the Iberian country on its quarantine-free list.  

There have been nearly 27.6 million coronavirus cases reported across the world since the pandemic began, according to the latest figures from Johns Hopkins University.

Nations around the world have taken different approaches to fighting the virus. Here's where the pandemic stands in some countries across the globe now:

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on CNN's "New Day" on September 9. CNN

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told CNN’s John Berman that the upcoming vote on the GOP's scaled-down relief bill is the result of a “cynical exercise” by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell designed to “check a box” because “he knows it won’t pass.”

Schumer also predicted public pressure would build on Republicans, especially vulnerable senators up for reelection, who eventually will work to cut a deal with Democrats on a bill bigger than the approximately $500 billion measure that’s expected to fail a key test vote Thursday.

Additional reporting from CNN's Ali Main

GOP senators have unveiled their so-called "skinny" stimulus bill as Congress resumes debating the next coronavirus measures.

The bill includes a $300 federal boost for unemployment benefits and fresh relief for small businesses but cuts out money for a second round of stimulus checks that was included in an earlier proposal.

What happens now: It could go to a vote this week, but it doesn't have unanimous GOP support, and Democrats want a bill in the trillions. There's still very little hope that both sides will come to a stimulus agreement before November's election.

Even the threat of a government shutdown — which could happen when funding runs out at the end of the month — isn't a big motivator. Congress seems intent on a "clean bill" to keep the government running, without stimulus attachments.

A medic takes a swab from someone for a Covid-19 test in Pullman, Washington, on September 8. Geoff Crimmins/Moscow-Pullman Daily News/AP

The US should be performing as many as 200 million Covid-19 tests every month well into next year to have any chance of controlling the pandemic, experts say in a new report.

That number is far beyond the country's current testing capacity, according to the report released Wednesday by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy.

Public health experts across the country have for months said testing will play a critical role in helping to reel in the pandemic. Getting enough people tested -- and getting their results back quickly -- will aid contact tracers in tracking down Americans exposed to the virus and help control outbreaks. 

But Adm. Brett Giroir, the testing lead for the White House Coronavirus Task Force, has said repeatedly the US cannot test its way out of the pandemic.

Read the full story here:

World Health Organization (WHO) Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan is pictured at a press conference on July 3, at the WHO headquarters in Geneva. Fabrice Coffrini/Pool/AFP/Getty Images

The safety of any potential coronavirus vaccine comes "first and foremost," the World Health Organization's (WHO's) chief scientist said Wednesday.

The comments came after drug giant AstraZeneca announced it has paused global trials of its vaccine because of an unexplained illness in one of the volunteers -- a standard precaution in trials, to ensure experimental vaccines don't cause serious reactions.

"The process still has to follow the rule of the game, which is go through the process of clinical trials," she added.

She said development timelines were being shortened -- but not at the expense of safety or efficacy. 

"We are putting a lot of investment into manufacturing well ahead of the results of the trials. Normally a company would wait, see the results of the trial, then start scaling up, but here you are investing in advance what's called 'at-risk investment,' so there places around the world that can start manufacturing before the results are available," Swaminathan said.

Charlie Weller, head of the vaccines program at the Wellcome health research charity, said it was right for the trial to be paused while an investigation takes place.

"Vaccines are among the most rigorously-tested and monitored products we have in society, and the Covid-19 vaccines should be no different," Weller added.

He said he welcomed reports that nine vaccine makers had pledged to uphold high ethical standards and not seek premature government approval.

"Today's news reminds us of the importance of funding and developing a wide range of vaccine candidates, alongside treatments and testing," said Weller. "We don’t yet know which will be successful, but ensuring all advances are fairly available globally is our only exit from this pandemic."

Dr. Ohid Yaqub, Senior Lecturer at the University of Sussex's Science Policy Research Unit, told the Science Media Centre (SMC) that such a pause in testing was "not unusual" in Phase 3.

He said that publicizing such a routine event helped to build trust, but warned that too much running commentary could bias the results.

Stephen Evans, Professor of Pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told the SMC that even if tests revealed that the vaccine had caused the recipient's illness, "there may be other factors involved and it would not necessarily mean the vaccine could not be used at all." 

Dr. James Gill, honorary clinical lecturer at Warwick Medical School and a locum GP, said: "Personally, I would be suspicious of a vaccine for a novel virus which was developed without any hiccups or pauses ... From the start, scientists have said that this Covid vaccine development will take considerable time to get right and safe."

Dr. Anthony Fauci testifies at a hearing in Washington, DC, on June 23. Kevin Dietsch/AFP/Getty Images

“It's no secret to anyone that we're dealing in a very intense political atmosphere," the United States' top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday.

Speaking to CBS This Morning, Fauci called the recent ethics pact made by major pharmaceutical companies "a good thing."

The director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said that going forward, independent data and safety monitoring boards would "look at the data intermittently, on a regular basis, to determine just what the status of the trial is."

There are also advisory boards that vaccine makers will need to get past in order to get an emergency use authorization or even approval, he said.

Fauci said the pause on the AstraZeneca vaccine trial acted as a "safety valve."

He told CBS: "That's the reason why you have the various phases of trials -- to determine if in fact these candidates are safe."

He said scientists had to "always make the presumption that it's due directly to the actual vaccine, or therapeutic, or whatever it is that's in the clinical trial."

"This is an example of the kind of thing that you do to make sure we're dealing with a product that's safe," he added.