Tag Archives: Coronavirus

New York City holds off school closure as U.S. braces for virus-stricken winter

By Gabriella Borter and Anurag Maan

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York City schools were set to remain open for at least another day despite a rising COVID-19 case count, the mayor said on Tuesday, as surging infections and hospitalizations in the United States from coast to coast prompted new restrictions and predictions of a difficult winter ahead.

New York, home to the nation’s largest school district, reported a 7-day positive COVID-19 test rate of 2.74% on Tuesday – more than double what it was over the summer, but below the 3% threshold that Mayor Bill de Blasio set for keeping schools open.

“Everyone’s been participating in the things that have kept schools safe. Everyone has been wearing their masks … and we need to keep doing that to do our very, very best to keep schools open,” de Blasio told reporters on Tuesday.

“We have some new challenges because of what’s going on around us,” he added.

Beyond New York City, which was the epicenter of the U.S. COVID-19 crisis in the spring, infections have reached unprecedented levels nationwide.

Forty-one U.S. states have reported record increases in COVID-19 cases in November, while 20 have seen a record rise in deaths and 26 reported record hospitalizations, according to a Reuters tally of public health data. Twenty-five states reported test positivity rates above 10% for the week ending on Sunday, Nov. 15. The World Health Organization considers a positivity rate above 5% to be concerning.

The Midwest remains the hardest-hit U.S. region. It reported 444,677 cases in the week ending on Monday, Nov. 16, 36% more than the combined cases of the Northeast and West regions.

The number of coronavirus patients hospitalized in the United States hit a record of 73,140 on Monday. Hospitalizations have increased over 46% in past 14 days, according to a Reuters tally.

New York is among several northeast states that had managed to contain the virus fairly well over the summer after a frightening spring wave, but now has one of the highest week-over-week case increases as of Sunday.

Infections have also jumped in neighboring Connecticut by more than 50% in the last week from the week prior.

“Right now we see the storm clouds coming again,” Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont, a Democrat, told MSNBC in an interview on Tuesday.

Governors of several states and city officials have imposed new restrictions on indoor gatherings in recent days in an attempt to stem the spread of the disease over the winter, with the prospect of a widely available, effective vaccine still months away.

Several have urged citizens to exercise caution around the Thanksgiving holiday and not travel or socialize with extended family for the traditional indoor feast.

“I know this is difficult & frustrating, especially with the holidays right around the corner,” Vermont Governor Phil Scott wrote on Twitter on Tuesday, referring to his ban on multihousehold gatherings. “But it’s necessary & we need your help to get this back under control.”

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter and Anurag Maan; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Maria Caspani; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Breakthrough COVID vaccine tech could help defeat other diseases

By John Miller and Ludwig Burger

ZURICH/FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Breakthrough technology that transforms the body into a virus-zapping vaccine factory is poised to revolutionize the fight against COVID-19 but future pandemics and even cancer could be next, scientists say. The initial success of so-called messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccines in late-stage trials by Moderna as well as Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech is the first proof the concept works.

Both experimental vaccines had efficacy rates above 90% based on interim findings, which was far higher than expected and well above the 50% threshold U.S. regulators insist upon for vaccines.

Now scientists say the technology, a slow-motion revolution in the making since the discovery of mRNA nearly 60 years ago, could speed up the development of new vaccines.

The traditional method of creating vaccines – introducing a weakened or dead virus, or a piece of one, to stimulate the body’s immune system – takes over a decade on average, according to a 2013 study. One pandemic flu vaccine took over eight years while a hepatitis B vaccine was nearly 18 years in the making.

Moderna’s vaccine went from gene sequencing to the first human injection in 63 days.

With BioNTech and Pfizer’s COVID-19 candidate on a similar trajectory, both could win regulatory approval this year, barely 12 months since the coronavirus first emerged.

Other companies are pursuing the technology such as Germany’s CureVac also has an mRNA vaccine candidate, though has yet to start a late-stage trial and is hoping it will get the green light after July 2021. “We’ll look back on the advances made in 2020 and say: ‘That was a moment when science really did make a leap forward’,” said Jeremy Farrar, director of the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit, which is backed by the Wellcome Trust.

THE LAST LAUGH

Discovered in 1961, mRNA carries messages from the body’s DNA to its cells, telling them to make the proteins needed for critical functions, such as coordinating biological processes like digestion or fighting disease.

The experimental vaccines from Moderna as well as Pfizer and BioNTech use lab-made mRNA to instruct cells to make the coronavirus’s spike proteins, which spur the immune system into action without replicating like the actual virus. Back in 1990, scientists managed to get mice to generate proteins by injecting mRNA, an early sign of the technology’s potential.

But early proponents such as Katalin Kariko, a Hungarian-born scientist and senior vice president at BioNTech, were hampered by obstacles such as mRNA’s instability in the body and its propensity to cause inflammatory responses.

A breakthrough came around 2005 when Kariko, along with colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania, figured out how to deliver mRNA without kicking the immune system into overdrive.

Still, it took another 15 years – and a pandemic that brought the world’s economy to its knees – to reach the cusp of success. Kariko said her years of dogged pursuit once made her the butt of jokes for some university colleagues.

“The last time they laughed at me and ridiculed me was when they learned that I was going to join BioNTech seven years ago and they realized this company (didn’t) even have a website,” she told Reuters. “But now, they learn of BioNTech and that we can do good things.”

Kariko said her life’s work could pay dividends, not just against COVID-19, but other diseases.

“It could be easier sailing for the next anti-viral product, a vaccine for influenza and other infectious disease,” said Kariko, whose daughter is a U.S. Olympic gold medalist rower.

CANCER NEXT?

Moderna and BioNTech, for example, are also applying mRNA technology to experimental cancer medicines.

BioNTech is testing an anti-melanoma mRNA with Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche in a Phase II trial.

Among Moderna’s most advanced projects, besides its COVID-19 vaccine, are mRNA compounds to treat ovarian cancer or Myocardial ischemia, which are also in the second test phase.

None of the potential mRNA cancer therapies have reached the critical large-scale Phase III trials, however, and Kariko acknowledges that cancer presents a bigger challenge.

While a virus is a foreign intruder, cancer cells, however malignant, come from within the body, making them tougher to seek out and expose so they can be attacked.

“Sometimes cancer is just caused by gene and chromosome duplication and then everything about it looks normal and the cell is just dividing more than it should,” she said.

For vaccines against infectious diseases, the pharmaceutical industry’s traditional approach has been to whip them up in large bioreactors, a time-consuming, expensive process in facilities that can cost up to $700 million to build.

By contrast, Zoltan Kis, an Imperial College London researcher who models vaccine manufacturing, estimates that one five-liter bioreactor inside a $20 million facility could make a billion doses of some kinds of mRNA vaccines a year.

Drug manufacturer Lonza, enlisted to make ingredients for 400 million doses of Moderna’s vaccine annually at U.S. and Swiss sites, is due to start production this year with manufacturing lines costing $60 million to $70 million each.

“We are producing mRNA at smaller scales and in smaller facilities when compared to traditional larger-scale equipment and facilities,” Andre Goerke, Lonza’s global lead for the Moderna project, told Reuters. “The manufacturing ramp-up is quicker and more economical.”

‘ULTRA-FAST RESPONSE’

Raymond Schiffelers, of University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands, who heads a European Union program for mRNA therapeutics, said the major advantage of the technology was that vaccine developers could mount an “ultra-fast response”.

“Within weeks, testing can start, a major advantage over conventional vaccines,” he said.

The moment a pathogen’s genomic sequence is known, synthetic mRNAs can be designed that encode key parts of the virus, such as the coronavirus’s potentially lethal spike protein.

Risks and challenges for mRNA remain.

Some candidates must be stored at extremely cold temperatures, making delivery potentially difficult in countries with limited infrastructure. They also may be fragile to transport, Schiffelers said.

BioNTech’s vaccine, for example, must be transported at minus 70 degrees Celsius, though Moderna said on Monday it can ship its candidate in normal refrigerators.

Francis Collins, director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), which funded Moderna’s vaccine development, also said mRNA vaccines may not be a silver bullet for flu, since it mutates so swiftly that reaching 90% efficacy is unlikely.

But for COVID-19, Collins said mRNA is likely to be a revolution.

“It’s clearly several months faster than any of the other methods,” Collins said. “In a crisis moment, several months really matter.”

(Reporting by John Miller in Zurich, Allison Martell in Toronto, Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt, Kate Kelland in London, Michael Erman in New York, Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago and Marton Dunai in Budapest; Editing by Josephine Mason and David Clarke)

Travel restrictions challenge vaccine rollout, airlines warn

PARIS (Reuters) – Air cargo operators may struggle to distribute new COVID-19 vaccines effectively unless pandemic travel restrictions are eased, global airlines cautioned on Monday.

The warning came in vaccine transport guidelines issued by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which is pushing governments to replace travel curbs and quarantines with testing.

“If borders remain closed, travel curtailed, fleets grounded and employees furloughed, the capacity to deliver life-saving vaccines will be very much compromised,” the IATA document said.

Moderna Inc. said on Monday its experimental COVID-19 vaccine had proved 94.5% effective in a clinical trial, a week after rival drugmaker Pfizer reported 90% efficacy findings for its vaccine. Once approved, both vaccines are likely to require transport and storage well below freezing, posing logistical hurdles.

Widespread grounding of passenger flights that normally carry 45% of global cargo in their holds has taken out capacity, thinning the air freight network and driving up prices.

Existing immunization campaigns have struggled with the partial shutdown. The World Health Organization and UNICEF “have already reported severe difficulties in maintaining their planned vaccine programs during the COVID-19 crisis due, in part, to limited air connectivity,” IATA said.

Vaccines will need to be shipped to developing countries reliant on passenger services for cargo, IATA’s head of cargo Glyn Hughes told Reuters. Even in industrialized states, vaccine dispersal may be a tighter bottleneck than production, requiring shipments to secondary airports on passenger jets.

In preparation for the challenge of mass vaccine distribution, governments should move to reopen key passenger routes backed by robust testing, the airline body argues.

“There are several more months for governments to go through the planning cycle,” Hughes said, leaving enough time to “get passenger networks safely resumed, looking at safe travel corridors (and) mutual acceptance of testing procedures.”

(Reporting by Laurence Frost; editing by David Evans)

Moderna vaccine is second to exceed expectations; mutated virus may be more vulnerable to new vaccines

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

Vaccine from Moderna is second to exceed expectations in pivotal trial

Moderna Inc’s experimental vaccine was 94.5% effective in preventing COVID-19 based on interim data from a late-stage trial, the company said on Monday. That followed last week’s news that Pfizer Inc’s vaccine was also more than 90% effective based on initial data. Pending more safety data and regulatory review, the United States could have two vaccines authorized for emergency use in December. Both vaccines employ synthetic messenger RNA (mRNA), which coaxes cells to make certain virus proteins that the immune system sees as a threat and mounts a response against. Moderna’s trial involved 30,000 racially diverse U.S. adults, including people at high risk for severe COVID-19. Only five of the 95 COVID-19 cases in the initial analysis occurred in participants who received the vaccine, while the rest had received a placebo. The vaccine, administered in two shots 28 days apart, also appeared to prevent cases of severe COVID-19. Side effects, largely occurring after the second shot, included muscle aches, fever, headache and redness at the injection site. Moderna’s vaccine does not need ultra-cold storage like Pfizer’s, making it easier to distribute. Moderna expects it to be stable at normal refrigerator temperatures of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius (36 to 48°F) for 30 days and can be stored for up to 6 months at -20C.

Mutated virus may be more vulnerable to new vaccines

The mutated form of the new coronavirus that is now the most common strain worldwide is more infectious but may also be more vulnerable to vaccines under development, new research suggests. In experiments reported on Thursday in Science, researchers saw that the newer strain, which originated in Europe, is more efficient at infecting airway cells and at making copies of itself, although it does not appear to produce more severe illness. The D614G mutation causes a “flap” to open on the tip of a spike on the surface of the virus, improving its ability to break into cells, but also creating a pathway for antibodies in vaccines to enter the virus and disable it, the researchers explained in a statement. New SARS-CoV-2 mutations are continually emerging, “like the recently discovered mink SARS-CoV-2 cluster 5 variant in Denmark that also encodes D614G,” coauthor Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine said in the statement. “We must continue to track and understand the consequences of these new mutations on disease severity, transmission, host range and vulnerability to vaccine-induced immunity,” he added.

Paper forms pose coronavirus risk for lab staff

When laboratory personnel are processing COVID-19 tests, there is a small risk that the paper forms accompanying the specimens can be contaminated with the new coronavirus, a new report cautions. Researchers at the Birmingham Public Health Laboratory in the UK analyzed randomly selected paper forms and specimen packaging during a period when the team was processing about 700 COVID-19 tests daily. Of the 37 items they tested, one piece of paperwork carried genetic material from the coronavirus. The form had come from a low-risk hospital ward, and the specimen from the patient was negative for the virus, “indicating contamination may be occurring as a result of environmental or healthcare worker contamination,” the researchers wrote on Thursday in the Journal of Hospital Infection. They call for “stringent laboratory practices” – hand hygiene, appropriate personal protective equipment – and “use of electronic test requesting where possible.”

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid, Julie Steenhuysen and Michael Erman; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Philadelphia bans all indoor gatherings as COVID-19 surges across the United States

By Maria Caspani and Sharon Bernstein

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The city of Philadelphia will ban indoor gatherings altogether and the nearby state of New Jersey will strictly limit their size as U.S. officials struggle to slow a COVID-19 surge that could overwhelm hospitals and kill thousands.

Philadelphia, the nation’s sixth-largest city, is strongly urging residents to shelter at home and “prohibiting indoor gatherings of any size in any location, public or private,” health commissioner Thomas Farley said at a news conference on Monday.

“We need to keep this virus from jumping from one household to another,” Farley said. If “exponential” growth of cases continues, hospitals will soon become overwhelmed and more than 1,000 people could die in Philadelphia over the next six weeks before the end of the year, he said.

In neighboring New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy on Monday said a maximum of 10 people will be allowed to gather indoors, down from 25. On Nov. 23, the limit for outdoor gatherings will drop from 500 to 150.

“It’s gotten worse and it’s gonna get worse,” the Northeastern state’s Democratic governor said in an interview with MSNBC.

Total U.S. infections crossed the 11 million mark, just over a week after hitting 10 million, the fastest time it took the country to report an additional 1 million cases since the pandemic began. States across the nation have re-imposed restrictions to stem the resurgent virus straining many healthcare systems.

Dr. Alexander Garza, head of the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force, said hospitals in Missouri could run out of capacity in two weeks as cases there continue to rise.

“If this continues, we’re absolutely going to need more staff, more help, more of everything to deal with the crush of patients that we see coming at us,” Garza told CNN on Monday.

HOSPITALISATIONS ALL-TIME HIGH

Forty U.S. states have reported record increases in COVID-19 cases in November, while 20 have seen a record rise in deaths and 26 reported record hospitalizations, according to a Reuters tally of public health data.

The latest seven-day average shows the United States is reporting more than 148,000 daily cases and 1,120 daily deaths. U.S. COVID-19 hospitalizations hit an all-time high on Sunday.

In Ohio, where total cases have increased by about 17% and total hospitalizations have risen by at least 25% in the past seven days, the state’s health department issued a revised order to limit mass gatherings, which takes effect on Tuesday, Governor Mike DeWine said on Monday.

In what she called the re-enactment of the “most heightened level of statewide” coronavirus restrictions, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham instructed residents to stay home for two weeks beginning on Monday, among other curbs.

“We face a life-or-death situation and we cannot fail to act,” Grisham wrote on Twitter.

Michigan and Washington state on Sunday imposed sweeping new restrictions on gatherings, including halting indoor restaurant service.

MODERNA VACCINE 95% EFFECTIVE

The slew of grim records and news was partly offset by Monday’s announcement by drugmaker Moderna that its experimental vaccine was 94.5% effective in preventing COVID-19, based on interim data from a late-stage trial.

Together with Pfizer Inc’s vaccine, which is also more than 90% effective, and pending more safety data and regulatory review, the United States could have two vaccines authorized for emergency use in December with as many as 60 million doses available this year.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top U.S. health official, said the Moderna vaccine results were impressive but cautioned the United States could still go through a “dark winter” as COVID-19 fatigue sets in and people grow tired of restrictions.

“It’s a very serious situation,” Fauci said on NBC’s “Today” program. “But the fact that help is on the way should spur us even more to double down on some of the public health measures. … We can do it.”

(Reporting by Maria Caspani in New York and Doina Chiacu in Washington; additional reporting by Anurag Maan in Bengaluru, David Shepardson and David Lawder in Washington; Writing by Maria Caspani; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Bill Tarrant and Aurora Ellis)

U.S. COVID-19 cases cross 11 million as pandemic intensifies

By Roshan Abraham and Seerat Gupta

(Reuters) – The number of coronavirus cases in the United States crossed the 11-million mark on Sunday reaching yet another grim milestone, according to a Reuters tally, as the third wave of COVID-19 infections surged across the country.

Reuters data shows the pace of the pandemic in the United States has quickened, with one million more new cases from just 8 days ago when it hit 10 million, making it the fastest since the pandemic began. This compares with 10 days it took to get from 9 to 10 million and 16 days it took to reach 9 million from 8 million cases.

The United States, hardest-hit by the coronavirus, crossed 10 million COVID-19 cases on November 8 and is reporting over 100,000 daily cases for the past 11 days straight.

The latest 7-day average, shows the United States is reporting more than 144,000 daily cases and 1,120 daily deaths, the highest for any country in the world.

Texas and California have reported the highest number of COVID-19 infections across the United States, together accounting for about 2.1 million cases or about 19% of the total cases since the pandemic began, according to Reuters analysis.

As COVID-19 related hospitalizations continue to rise, crossing 69,000 on Saturday, U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s top advisers have stressed the need to control the pandemic, warning that local healthcare systems are at a tipping point.

The Midwest remains the hardest-hit region based on the most cases per capita with North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Nebraska the top five worst-affected U.S. states.

Illinois, which has emerged as the pandemic’s new epicenter in the region as well as across the country, reported a record 15,433 new cases on Friday, the most of any state in a 24-hour period, surpassing the previous all-time high of 15,300 set by Florida in July.

Several states this week re-imposed restrictions to curb the spread of the virus across the nation. North Dakota became the latest state to require that face coverings be worn in public, as it joins 39 other states this month in reporting record daily jumps in new cases.

State governors urged residents to stay home as much as possible, including Nevada Democrat Steve Sisolak, who said late on Friday that he became the fourth governor to become infected with the virus.

The United States accounts for about 20% of more than 54 million global cases and close to 19% of the 1.31 million deaths reported worldwide, according to a Reuters tally.

(Reporting by Roshan Abraham and Seerat Gupta in Bengaluru; editing by Diane Craft)

Biden to spotlight economy as Trump vows more court challenges to election

By Trevor Hunnicutt and John Whitesides

WILMINGTON, Del./WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President-elect Joe Biden on Monday will focus on reviving a pandemic-battered U.S. economy as he prepares to take office, while outgoing President Donald Trump has promised more lawsuits of the type that so far have failed to alter his election defeat.

With coronavirus cases surging, Biden will receive a briefing and give a speech in his home state of Delaware on rebuilding an economy that has suffered millions of job losses as the pandemic has killed more than 245,000 Americans.

Biden’s scientific advisers will meet this week with pharmaceutical companies developing vaccines to prevent COVID-19, a top aide to the president-elect said, in preparation for the logistical challenges of widespread vaccination after the Democrat takes office on Jan. 20.

Trump, a Republican, briefly appeared to acknowledge defeat on Sunday only to backtrack, saying on Twitter that he concedes “nothing” and repeating his unfounded accusations of voter fraud.

He later promised on Twitter to file “big cases showing the unconstitutionality of the 2020 Election,” even though he has made no headway with his legal challenges in multiple states so far.

Election officials from both parties have said there is no evidence of major irregularities. Federal election security officials have decried “unfounded claims” and expressed “utmost confidence” in the integrity of the elections, according to a statement last week by the lead U.S. cybersecurity agency.

LEGAL SETBACK

In another blow to Trump’s legal strategy, his campaign on Sunday dropped a major part of a lawsuit it had brought seeking to prevent Pennsylvania from certifying its results, narrowing the case to an issue affecting a small number of ballots. Biden won the state by more than 68,000 votes.

Biden beat Trump in the Nov. 3 election by the same 306-232 margin in the state-by-state Electoral College that Trump proclaimed a “landslide” when he won in 2016. The former vice president also won the national popular vote by at least 5.5 million votes, or 3.6 percentage points, with ballots still being counted.

Former President Barack Obama, a Democrat who campaigned against Trump, said it was past time for Trump to concede, and criticized Republicans who also refuse to accept the victory of his former vice president.

“When your time is up, then it is your job to put the country first and think beyond your own ego,” Obama told the CBS News show “60 Minutes” in an interview that aired on Sunday.

“I’m more troubled by the fact that other Republican officials who clearly know better are going along with this.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s most loyal supporters, will hold a hearing on Tuesday titled: “Breaking the News: Censorship, Suppression and the 2020 Election.”

STILL NO CONCESSION

The Trump administration has still not recognized Biden as president-elect, preventing his team from gaining access to the government office space and funding normally provided to an incoming administration.

Biden’s top advisers said Trump’s refusal to begin a transition could jeopardize the battle against the virus and inhibit vaccine distribution planning.

The number of U.S. coronavirus cases passed 11 million on Sunday, up a million in a week and the fastest increase since the pandemic began.

Biden has promised to make the health crisis a top priority as president. Ron Klain, who will be White House chief of staff when Biden takes office, said Biden’s scientific advisers would meet with Pfizer Inc and other unnamed drugmakers this week.

Pfizer said last week its vaccine candidate had proved more than 90% effective in initial trials, giving hope that widespread vaccination in the coming months could help get the pandemic under control.

Moderna Inc said on Monday its experimental vaccine was 94.5% effective in preventing COVID-19, based on interim data from a late-stage clinical trial.

Other companies also are in advanced stages of developing promising vaccines.

Biden will also resume work on building his governing team. Although Klain, his first appointment, is a white man, the president-elect has vowed that his administration will “look like America” and be represented by women and minorities.

Some 46% of his transition staff are people of color and 52% are women, CNN reported, citing data provided by the transition team.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in Wilmington and John Whitesides in Washington; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Jan Wolfe, David Shepardson, David Morgan and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Peter Cooney and Kevin Liffey)

Michigan, Washington state impose severe COVID-19 restrictions as U.S. infections soar

By David Shepardson and David Lawder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Michigan and Washington state on Sunday imposed sweeping new restrictions on gatherings, including halting indoor restaurant service, to slow the spread of the coronavirus as total U.S. infections crossed the 11 million mark, just over a week after hitting 10 million.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer ordered a ban on in-person high school and college classes as well as indoor dining service for three weeks starting on Wednesday as increasingly cold weather drives people indoors where the virus can spread more easily.

She banned public events at concert halls, casinos, movie theaters, skating rinks and other venues, while in-home gatherings will be limited to 10 people from no more than two households.

Whitmer, a Democrat, warned that without aggressive action, Michigan could soon suffer 1,000 COVID-19 deaths per week.

“We are in the worst moment of this pandemic to date,” she told a news conference. “The situation has never been more dire. We are at the precipice and we need to take some action.”

White House coronavirus adviser Scott Atlas reacted to the Michigan orders by urging state residents on Twitter to “rise up” against them. After this drew criticism from Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, Atlas said he “NEVER was talking at all about violence.”

Washington state Governor Jay Inslee, a Democrat, announced a one-month ban on indoor services at restaurants and gyms, and a reduction of in-store retail capacity to 25%.

Indoor gatherings would be prohibited outside of one’s household and outdoor gatherings would be limited to five people in Washington state under Inslee’s order.

The new restrictions come as daily new infections in recent days have more than doubled from single-day highs reported during the previous U.S. peak in mid-July. The number of COVID-19 patients in U.S. hospitals also has reached an all-time high.

‘DANGEROUS PERIOD’

Earlier on Sunday, U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s top advisers called for urgent action to address COVID-19, warning that Republican President Donald Trump’s refusal to begin a transition of power could further jeopardize the battle against the rampaging virus. Biden’s advisers also said it would inhibit vaccine distribution planning and could jeopardize additional government financial aid before Biden, a Democrat, takes office in January.

“We are in a very dangerous period,” Dr. Michael Osterholm, a member of Biden’s COVID-19 Advisory Board and director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, told NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”

Unless action is taken now, “we’re going to see these numbers grow substantially,” Osterholm warned. “Our future’s in our hands.”

Basic public health measures such as face covering to curb the spread have become politicized under Trump, who has eschewed mask mandates even after contracting COVID-19 last month, while Biden has backed their widespread use.

Still, some Republican governors in recent days have been forced to act, with North Dakota joining 35 other states over the weekend in mandating masks and Iowa this week requiring them in certain circumstances.

Forty U.S. states have reported record increases in COVID-19 cases in November, while 20 saw a record rise in deaths and 26 reported record hospitalizations, according to a Reuters tally.

The latest 7-day average, shows the United States is reporting more than 144,000 daily cases and 1,120 daily deaths, the highest for any country in the world.

Ron Klain, Biden’s incoming White House chief of staff, on Sunday urged Congress to immediately pass COVID-19 relief legislation with new restrictions certain to take a toll.

“This could be a first example of bipartisan action post-election,” Klain told NBC. He said Biden has spoken to congressional Democratic leaders, but not to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who has refused to publicly acknowledge Biden as president-elect.

‘PASSING A BATON’

Klain said there had been no formal contact between Biden’s advisory panel and the White House Coronavirus Task Force, which requires transition authorization from the General Services Administration.

“It’s really important in the smooth handing over of the information,” top U.S. infectious disease expert and White House task force member Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN’s “State of the Union” program. “It’s almost like passing a baton in a race, you don’t want to stop and give it to somebody, you just want to essentially keep going.”

Biden’s team this week planned to meet with Pfizer Inc., which last week released positive initial data on its experimental novel coronavirus vaccine, and other drugmakers, Klain said.

Former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, head of Biden’s COVID team, told Fox News the coronavirus surge was “deeply alarming” but that a national lockdown was “a measure of last resort.”

“The better way to think about these safety restrictions is more a dial that we turn up and down depending on severity” in a given area, he said.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and David Shepardson; additional reporting by Michelle Price, Nathan Layne, Sarah N. Lynch, Linda So and Anurag Maan; Writing by David Lawder; Editing by Bill Berkrot, Diane Craft, Robert Birsel)

U.S. Secret Service officers sidelined by COVID-19

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Dozens of U.S. Secret Service officers assigned to protect President Donald Trump have been sidelined by COVID-19, the Washington Post and New York Times reported on Friday as the coronavirus outbreak spread at the White House.

Two U.S. government sources familiar with the situation confirmed to Reuters that Secret Service officers had tested positive for the virus but did not provide a specific number. One of the sources said a larger number of officers who had not tested positive had gone into quarantine as a protective measure.

The Post did not say how many officers tested positive for the virus versus those who had to isolate because of close contact with an infected co-worker. It said about 10% of the core security team had been sidelined.

The New York Times reported that at least 30 uniformed Secret Service officers recently tested positive for the virus, and that around 60 were asked by the agency to quarantine themselves.

Secret Service representatives declined to give a tally of officers affected. White House spokesman Judd Deere referred questions to the Secret Service, but told the Post separately that the administration took every case seriously.

The outbreak, which the Post said was at least partly linked to a series of Trump rallies before the Nov. 3 election, comes roughly a month after the president himself contracted COVID-19 and was flown to a U.S. military hospital for days of treatment.

COVID-19 has also infected a number of other top officials in the White House, top administration officials and Cabinet members and Trump campaign aides. None has died.

First lady Melania Trump, Trump’s youngest son Barron, top aide Hope Hicks, national security adviser Robert O’Brien and White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany all previously tested positive.

Others to have contracted the virus include U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and, according to a source familiar with the matter, Trump campaign adviser Corey Lewandowski.

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has repeatedly criticized the White House and the president over their handling of the pandemic, told reporters the latest outbreak was further proof of “Trump’s reckless campaign schedule.”

(Reporting by Mark Hosenball and Doina Chiacu; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Howard Goller and Jonathan Oatis)

U.S. CDC reports 242,216 deaths from coronavirus

(Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday reported 10,508,864 cases of the novel coronavirus, an increase of 194,610 cases from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 1,147 to 242,216.

The CDC reported its tally of cases of the respiratory illness known as COVID-19 as of 4 p.m. ET on Nov. 12, compared with its previous report released a day earlier.

The CDC figures do not necessarily reflect cases reported by individual states.

(Reporting by Mrinalika Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya Soni)