Monday, May 4th, 2020
Russia reports a record 10,633 new cases of COVID-19 and 58 more deaths from the virus in the last 24 hours, bringing the country’s total cases to 134,686 and 1,280 deaths. Moscow’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin says the peak has still not been reached, warning residents to remain indoors. (BBC)
Trump is ‘very confident’ there will be a coronavirus vaccine ‘by the end of the year’ President Trump on Sunday participated in a virtual town hall with Fox News at the Lincoln Memorial, telling moderators Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum that he is “very confident” that “we’ll have a vaccine by the end of the year. We’ll have a vaccine much sooner rather than later.” Trump said he is not concerned by how fast the human trials have to move for this to happen, because “they’re volunteers. They know what they’re getting into. … They want to help the process.” Last week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said a coronavirus vaccine by January is “doable if things fall in the right place.” Health experts have said it could take 18 months at the earliest to have a vaccine ready to go. Source: Fox News
Birx calls Michigan protests ‘devastatingly worrisome’ Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, said on Fox News Sunday she is concerned that people who attended protests at the Michigan Capitol last week could have picked up the coronavirus and brought it back to their families. Many were not wearing masks, and Birx said that was “devastatingly worrisome to me personally because if they go home and infect their grandmother or their grandfather who has a co-morbid condition and they have a serious or unfortunate outcome, they will feel guilty for the rest of our lives. So we need to protect each other at the same time we’re voicing our discontent.” She also reminded viewers to continue to social distance and “practice scrupulous hand-washing.” Source: Fox News
FDA grants Roche coronavirus antibody test emergency use approval The Food and Drug Administration cleared a coronavirus antibody test produced by Swiss diagnostics giant Roche for emergency use, the company said Sunday. The test identifies via blood samples antibodies made by the body to fight off the coronavirus. It could therefore determine whether a person had been infected with the virus in the past, even if the infection subsided. There are questions about the accuracy of many available commercial antibody tests so far, but they’re considered crucial for better understanding both the true extent of the pandemic, as well as possible length of immunity to the virus. Roche says its test has proven 100 percent accurate at detecting antibodies in the blood and 99.8 percent accurate at ruling out the presence of those antibodies. Source: The Guardian
artificial stupid 