Vaccine trial investigator says results unlikely before end of 2020

A syringe containing either a vaccine or a placebo is prepared for a participant in a Phase 3 COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial sponsored by Moderna at Accel Research Sites on August 4 in DeLand, Florida. Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto/Getty Images

Dr. Evan Anderson, principal investigator for the Moderna coronavirus vaccine clinical trial at Emory University, says the trial won’t yield results until after Election Day.

Moderna is the first company to begin its phase three clinical trials of a coronavirus vaccine in the US.

Enrollment is increasing rapidly, according to Anderson, and he predicts that full enrollment won’t happen until September.

Anderson said there would need to be studies to look at dosing and responses of children to the vaccine to determine if it is safe for them, and cautions that could “take a while.” 

“I think it would be good to be able to start those studies soon so that we might be able to help protect children from Covid-19, as it is quite clear that they are infected with some frequency and do suffer life-threatening and even fatal events related to Covid-19 and the inflammatory syndrome that occurs afterwards,” he said.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer speaks during a press conference in Lansing, Michigan, on August 14. Pool/WLNS

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced four million free masks will be provided to the state's most vulnerable residents, through a partnership with Ford Motor Company and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).  

The measure is part of Michigan's "Mask up Michigan" campaign, and masks will be distributed to schools, homeless shelters and seniors, Whitmer said. 

Whitmer juxtaposed the swift mitigation action taken in her state against the response in Florida and Georgia throughout the pandemic.   

"Georgia was the first state in the country to reopen its economy, and is now averaging five times the number of new cases of coronavirus in a day, five times more than the state of Michigan. And while states like Georgia and Florida and Texas reported hundreds of new deaths last week, Michigan had 43," Whitmer said.  

Museums and cultural institutions across New York City can open – with restrictions – beginning Aug. 24, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced on Twitter Friday.

Cuomo tweeted that timed ticketing will be required as well as face coverings.

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A man walks in front of a shuttered shop on June 29 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Alexandre Schneider/Getty Images

The Brazilian economy has fallen 10.98% in the second quarter of 2020 compared to the first quarter of the year, according to a report released by the country’s Central Bank on Friday.

The data is from the Economic Activity Index, a preview report to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which will be released by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) on Sept. 1.

In the first quarter, Brazil had already registered a fall of 1.5% in its GDP, according to IBGE.

President Jair Bolsonaro said on Thursday that Brazil is in a better situation than other countries when it comes to the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and that the Brazilian economy should recover “until the end of the year.”

The unemployment rate in Brazil rose to 13.3% in the quarter ended in June, reaching 12.8 million people, according to the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE). 

A total of 8.9 million people lost their jobs as the coronavirus pandemic swept through Brazil — representing the sharpest contraction on record.

The Democratic National Convention has been scaled back from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as positivity rates for Covid-19 in the area remain high, according to Jeanette Kowalik, Commissioner of health at the Milwaukee Health Department.

Through the pandemic, Milwaukee has collected data on the impact of coronavirus by race, after it became the first city county to declare racism a public health crisis last year, making race a priority in conversation. With this data, they learned that the impact of racism was playing out through the pandemic, Kowalik told CNN's Poppy Harlow

“Honestly, having data about the impact of race and Covid by race and ethnicity was very, very important for us because that informed our ability to adjust our strategy,” she added.

“I don't think those conversations would have happened if we didn't start sharing the data that more people of color were being impacted by Covid-19. So the orders are meant to protect our community. It doesn't matter where people live, in the city if they're in more affluent areas or more underresourced areas, but the orders are meant for our base protections.”

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When the governing board of the Queen Creek Unified School District in Arizona voted for all schools to have full-time in-person classes, teacher Matt Chicci resigned. He said the school didn’t meet the standards set by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which was the reason behind his decision.

"The infection rate is still high [in] Maricopa county, that we live in,” he told CNN’s Jim Sciutto. “Our superintendent of public instruction has even said that schools in Arizona shouldn't be opening. And so if the county health department and our superintendent are saying it's not safe to reopen, it's not safe to do so.”

One of Chicci’s family members is also at high risk, which was a factor in the decision-making process, he said.

“So if I'm put into a classroom of 30 or more kids, it's a small room, there's one exit, the ventilation isn't all that great for schools. They did increase the air flow, but that doesn't mean they put in the proper filter to filter out virus particles. So it's not a good situation,” Chicci said.

He emphasized the need for positivity rates to decrease and better social distancing plans before reopening schools that would help him feel safe to return.

“The other thing is being able to social distance. In a class of 30 I can only keep them two feet apart. We did the math and we need classes of 10,” he explained.

While the school district said in a statement that parents were given the option to choose between online or in-person learning, the same choice wasn’t given to teachers, Chicci said.

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Spanish health authorities have reported an additional 2,987 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours, the largest daily increase since April.

The increase follows a rising trend in new cases seen in the past few weeks, after local outbreaks in the Madrid, Catalonia and Aragon regions. 

Health authorities also reported 62 new deaths from Covid-19 and an increase of 7 people admitted into Spanish intensive care units.

The Spanish Ministry of Health report follows an earlier announcement by Health Minister Salvador Illa of a reintroduction of certain anti-coronavirus social distancing measures to curb the outbreaks across the country.

A health ministry worker checks the body temperature of a traveler at El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá, Colombia, on May 26. Juan Barreto/AFP/Getty Images

Colombia's El Dorado International Airport in Bogota is set to reopen in September, according to Bogota's City Hall Thursday.  

The airport will not be open for international flights in the beginning, Bogota Mayor Claudia Lopez said, but will have three domestic routes to Cartagena, Leticia and San Andrés.

Bogota will also reopen bars and restaurants on Sept. 1 but only for outdoor dining in "open air." At least 300 restaurants have received special licensing to reopen, Lopez said.

The new measures come after Lopez said Thursday that Bogota has "slowed down the spread of contagion."

"We have already reached the highest point and we are on a kind of plateau, and towards the end of the month we will start to go down," Lopez said.

As of Wednesday, Colombia has 433,805 confirmed cases of Covid-19, with Bogota holding nearly 150,000 of those cases.

A health worker in Najaf, Iraq, administers a Covid-19 test on July 15. AFP/Getty Images

Iraq’s Ministry of Health reported 4,013 new coronavirus cases on Friday, which is the highest daily case number recorded since the start of the pandemic. The total number of cases in Iraq is now 168,290.

The health ministry also reported 68 new Covid-19 related deaths. This brings the total number of deaths in Iraq to 5,709 .