Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said on Sunday he does not foresee “full approval” of a coronavirus vaccine for the general population until early 2021.
During the interview on CBS’ Face the Nation, Gottlieb described a release of the vaccine in phases, beginning with those at higher risk of contracting the virus or having a bad outcome.
Current Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn told the Financial Times he would be willing to fast-track the coronavirus vaccine process before clinical trials are over but insisted it would not be done for political reasons.
Last week, the Trump administration announced it would deliver 300 million doses of a vaccine by January.
The U.S. is approaching six million coronavirus cases. Almost 183,000 Americans have died from the pandemic.
MORE ON THE PANDEMIC
At least four people who were at last Monday’s Republican National Convention meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, tested positive for COVID-19.
“Out of roughly 1,000 tests administered, two RNC attendees, despite having negative tests prior to travel, and two Charlotte locals who planned to serve as event support staff tested positive upon arrival. All were sent home,” RNC Communications Director Michael Ahrens told reporters with ABC.
During the convention, most attendees at the Charlotte Convention Center did not wear masks, despite North Carolina’s statewide mask mandate.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden says he would relaunch the “PREDICT” virus detection program if he were elected. The program, launched during the 2005 H1N1 virus, was designed to detect and fight potential pandemics like the coronavirus.
Biden has criticized the Trump administration’s handling of the virus and the closing of the Global Health Security and Biodefense unit, the pandemic response office put into place by President Barack Obama.
“It did not have to be this bad. That’s the greatest tragedy of all. Donald Trump’s failures didn’t just start in July, when he simply gave up in the face of surging infections. They didn’t just begin in June, May, April, and March, when he refused to take basic public health measures to lay the groundwork for an effective recovery. Or even in January and February, when he ignored repeated warnings about Covid-19,” Biden said in the statement.
31-year-old French tennis player Benoit Paire has been removed from the U.S. Open after testing positive for the coronavirus, according to an anonymous source familiar with the situation.
Paire is the first player to test positive ahead of Monday’s Grand Slam tournament.
At least 358 workers at the Foster Farms poultry processing plant in Livingston, California have tested positive for coronavirus. Eight of those workers have died, triggering the county health department to temporarily close the facility.
An outbreak was initially declared at the plant on June 29, at which time county health employees conducted a “courtesy walk-through” and gave recommendations. A site visit in early August by health officials found that the recommendations made in June had not been fully adopted.
State Attorney General Xavier Becerra called the spread of the virus at the facility “alarming.”
“If we’re going to keep food on our tables during this pandemic, we must do a better job of protecting the essential workers who are putting it there,” Becerra said in a statement. “Nobody can ignore the facts: It’s time to hit the reset button on Foster Farms’ Livingston plant.”
More than 800 employees at various Universal Orlando hotels will lose their jobs as theme parks continue to suffer financially from the pandemic.
The employees at Hard Rock Hotel, Loews Portofino Bay Hotel and Cabana Bay Beach Resort were indefinitely furloughed or permanently terminated.
The affected employees, who worked as cooks, chefs, servers, receptionists and housekeepers, were not represented by a union.
