Published: June 19, 2020 By Ciara Linnan
Supporters of President Donald Trump sleep while lined up to attend a campaign rally planned for Saturday. GETTY IMAGES
The number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus illness COVID-19 in the U.S. rose above 2.2 million on Friday, as Tulsa, Okla., geared up for President Donald Trump’s planned campaign rally on Saturday night.
A group of local business owners and residents, worried at the prospect of a fresh outbreak of infections at the 19,000-seat indoor arena if attendees do not observe the safety guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, had sued the owner of the venue to block it, but a Tulsa County judge denied their request for an injunction. The group has appealed the decision with the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which is expected to make a ruling on Friday, as the Washington Post reported.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released guidelines for reopening safely last Friday, and identified the highest risk of spreading the virus as stemming from: “large in-person gatherings where it is difficult for individuals to remain spaced at least 6 feet apart and attendees travel from outside the local area.”
From the CDC:Considerations for Daily Life and Considerations for Events and Gatherings
Trump’s rallies tend to involve attendees queuing outside for hours before going through security and into arenas, where they cheer, shout and chant, all risk factors for spreading the droplets that contain the virus. The Trump campaign has acknowledged that risk by insisting that those who attend sign legal waivers absolving Trump and his staff of any blame, if people get sick or are injured.
Read: What we do know — and don’t know — about the coronavirus at Day 100 of the pandemic
Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, reiterated in an interview with the Washington Post his message that Americans should continue to observe social distancing, frequently was their hands and cover their faces in public.
“When you have a congregation of people, you increase the risk. It doesn’t matter why they’re congregating or where they’re congregating. When you have a congregation of people in a setting in which there’s active virus circulating in the community, you are at risk. You need to wear a mask.”
For more on Tulsa, read:Trump rally attendees dismiss heat and coronavirus concerns as they line up outside Tulsa arena
Face masks have been caught up in a culture skirmish that has seen many resist wearing them, including President Donald Trump, who has theorized this week that some Americans are wearing them not for stemming the spread of a deadly virus but to express displeasure with him. The White House has been criticized for failing to push the message that masks are an important means of containing the spread of COVID-19, although local officials have stepped into the vacuum.
Read:Despite concerning data, White House continues to play down coronavirus worries
California Gov. Gavin Newsom made them mandatory for Californians when they’re in public on Thursday.
Fauci said the virus is “one of the most highly transmissible viruses that we know of,” and urged Americans to pull together and work to get the outbreak under control. “It’s tough for everyone. But remember, we are in this all together. We’re not just separate individual components. We’re in it together.”
Don’t miss:100 days of the COVID-19 pandemic: 5 critical mistakes that created the biggest public health crisis in a generation
Latest tallies
There are now 8.5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide, and at least 454,582 people have died, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University. At least 4.2 million people have recovered.
The pandemic is actually accelerating, according to the World Health Organization, which said it received reports of a record of more than 150,000 new cases on Thursday. WHO director-general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu told reporters that about half of those new cases came from the Americas.
“The world is in a new and dangerous phase,” Tedros said. “We call on all countries and all people to exercise extreme vigilance.”
The U.S. has the highest case toll in the world at 2.19 million and the highest death toll at 118,467, with 20 states still seeing daily increases in infections, including Florida, Texas and Georgia.
Brazil has 978,142 cases and 47,748 fatalities, the data show, the second highest death toll in the world.
Russia has 568,292 cases and 7,831 fatalities. India has 380,532 cases and 12,573 deaths.
The U.K. has 301,935 cases and 42,546 deaths, the highest death toll in Europe and now third highest in the world.
Spain has 245,268 cases and 27,136 deaths, while Italy, another early hot spot in Europe, has 238,159 cases and 34,514 deaths.
Peru moved past Italy by case number, with 244,388 cases and 7,461 deaths.
Chile, Iran, France, Germany, Turkey, Pakistan, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh and Canada are next and all ahead of China, where the illness was first reported late last year.
China has 84,494 cases and 4,638 deaths. China has shut down parts of Beijing after a fresh cluster of cases.
What are companies saying?
The IPO market continued to heat up with supermarket operator Albertsons Cos. ACI, +3.69% setting terms for its planned deal on Thursday. The company is planning to sell 65.8 million shares priced at $18 to $20 to share, to raise $1.3 billion at the top of the range.
Albertsons is profitable, earning $466 million in 2019 on sales of $62.5 billion. It has reported strong demand for delivery and pickup at its stores during the pandemic. The company has filed to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “ACI.”
Chinese oncology biotech Genetron Holdings Ltd. priced its IPO at $16 per American depositary share, above its $11.50-to-$13.50 price range. The company upsized the deal early Thursday, indicating strong demand for its paper. The shares, trading on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “GTH,” jumped 10% in their post-IPO debut.
‘We did not want to be drawn into a political controversy. We thought it might be counterproductive if we forced mask wearing on those people who believe strongly that it is not necessary.’— Adam Arom, CEO of cinema chain AMC
Elsewhere, companies continued to update investors on their reopening plans and post their latest earnings.
Here are the latest things companies have said about COVID-19:
• AMC Theatres, the biggest cinema chain in the U.S. that’s owned by AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. AMC, -1.95%, will require all guests to wear face masks when it reopens its cinemas across the U.S. on July 15. The Leawood, Kansas-based company made the decision after listening to its customers and to scientific advisers, who recommend face masks to stop the spread of the coronavirus illness COVID-19. The announcement comes after AMC Chief Executive Adam Aron told Variety on Thursday that the company would not force customers to wear face masks, as he did not want to become part of what is now a political hot potato. His comments “prompted an intense and immediate outcry from our customers, and it is clear from this response that we did not go far enough on the usage of masks,” the executive said on Friday. “At AMC Theatres, we think it is absolutely crucial that we listen to our guests. Accordingly, and with the full support of our scientific advisors, we are reversing course and are changing our guest mask policy.” AMC will continue to monitor the scientific community’s thinking on the efficacy of masks and will look at the varying case numbers around the country as it moves forward. It will make face masks available for a nominal price of $1.00 each.
What we do know — and don’t know — about the coronavirus at day 100 of the pandemicPublished: June 18, 2020 at 1:56 p.m. ET
By
Jaimy Lee
Does having antibodies provide immunity? When will herd immunity kick in? Will there be a viable vaccine?
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Scientists and infectious-disease experts are pushing hard to understand more about the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 and how to treat patients suffering from the sometimes deadly illness and prevent transmission.
In the roughly three months since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared regional COVID-19 outbreaks a worldwide pandemic and hundreds of millions of Americans began to observe stay-at-home orders, much has changed. As of June 18, more than two million people in the U.S. have tested positive for COVID-19, and at least 117,000 have died, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.
We have a standard of care for hospitalized patients, though that is sure to evolve. We know that masks and physical distancing prevent transmission of the virus, though both practices have become politicized and aren’t always observed in Western countries where mask-wearing hasn’t been part of the culture. We know that investors overreact to mildly positive clinical news about COVID-19 treatments and vaccines and tend to ignore the bad news.
“The most important thing we’ve learned is that in the absence of a vaccine or therapeutic, aggressive public health action and individual public health practices can reduce transmission,” Dr. Brian Castrucci, an epidemiologist and president and CEO of the de Beaumont Foundation, said in an email. “Mask-wearing, social distancing, and hand-washing are critical to mitigating the spread of the virus, reopening portions of the economy, and allowing us to return to some semblance of normalcy.”
Here’s what we know so far about COVID-19 treatments:
• Once-promising drugs have failed. Hydroxychloroquine, once lauded by President Donald Trump as a “very successful drug,” doesn’t reduce mortality in hospitalized COVID-19 patients, according to studies conducted by Veterans Health Administration and the University of Minnesota, among others. Many clinical trials including the WHO’s Solidarity trial have stopped enrolling participants in their hydroxychloroquine trials, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last week revoked the emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine.
• Gilead Sciences Inc.’s GILD, +4.63% remdesivir works; however, it’s no silver bullet. While the experimental drug hasn’t been proven to reduce deaths among severely ill patients, research found it can reduce the amount of time patients spend in the hospital, which in turn can help reduce capacity at overcrowded intensive care units in regions with severe outbreaks and allow patients to go home sooner.
• At least one drug can reduce death in severely ill patients, a finding announced this week on the heels of the FDA’s hydroxychloroquine decision. University of Oxford researchers said a clinical trial found that dexamethasone, a commonly prescribed steroid, can reduce mortality among hospitalized patients on ventilators and oxygen support.
• The growing clinical evidence behind remdesivir and dexamethasone matters for two reasons: having a widening range of viable treatments can reduce the number of deaths from COVID-19, reducing capacity in emergency rooms and intensive care units and can also create a safer environment for economies to reopen, according to Dr. Roger Shapiro, associate professor of immunology and infectious diseases at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “It’s a lot better to be a patient today than in March,” he said.
Here’s what we know so far about how the virus behaves:
• The virus is more likely to spread by the droplets or aerosols we release when we speak, yell, or sing than on the shared surfaces we touch. Transmitting the disease becomes even more of a concern in enclosed indoor spaces than outdoors, especially in the presence of a super spreader. (“Everything we do outside is a lot safer,” Shapiro said.)
• COVID-19 has disproportionately sickened and killed certain groups of people, including people of color, men, the elderly, and those living in contained, crowded environments, like nursing homes and prisons. It is less likely to make children ill. More than one-third of the people who have died in the U.S. from COVID-19 lived in long-term care facilities. “COVID-19 has exposed the weakness of infection control programs in many of our nation’s long-term care and assisted living facilities,” said Ann Marie Pettis, a registered nurse and president-elect of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology.
• The U.S. has primarily focused on providing diagnostic testing to people who present with common COVID-19 symptoms but there are concerns about asymptomatic and presymptomaticindividuals, who may be inadvertently continuing to spread the disease. Experts want to see more random testing of the population. “People without symptoms can transmit the virus, making containment very challenging,” Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and public health professor at George Washington University, wrote in an email.
• Wearing a mask or engaging in social distancing behaviors can prevent transmission of the virus. One reason why there may be fewer cases in China, Japan, and South Korea is that mask-wearing is more common in Asia. China, where the virus first emerged late last year, has about 84,000 cases, Japan has roughly 17,000 cases, and South Korea about 12,000 cases. “What we do know is that social distancing, hand washing and wearing a face mask in public are the ways people can help protect themselves and others,” Pettis said.
Here’s what we don’t know:
• Does having antibodies provide immunity for the people who have been exposed to or recovered from COVID-19? With other viruses, antibodies usually indicate a level of protection against re-infection with the same virus for a set period of time. People who had SARS, for example, had antibodies for about two years and weren’t thought to be susceptible to reinfection until three years after the first exposure to the severe acute respiratory syndrome. “How long does immunity last, and do you need a certain level of antibodies to be immune?” Wen asked.
• Will herd immunity kick in?And if it does, when? Some experts predict that about two-thirds of Americans would need to have antibodies to declare herd immunity in the U.S. But without practicing physical distancing, using masks, and developing a contract tracing system, “it’s impossible to flatten the curve,” said Dr. Bob Kocher, a partner at venture-capital firm Venrock and a member of California’s coronavirus testing task force. “The question is whether we have the desire and discipline to do that.”
• Will there be a viable vaccine? Vaccine development is moving at a record pace, with 13 vaccine candidates now in clinical trials worldwide. Moderna Inc. MRNA, +2.15% was the first company to release some clinical data from a Phase 1 study, finding that eight out of 45 participants in the first phase of its COVID-19 vaccine study developed neutralizing antibodies. However, vaccine development is notoriously difficult and time intensive — vaccines traditionally take up to seven years to be developed — and have to be both safe and efficacious.
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