Tag Archives: COVID-19

Caribbean resorts get starring role in U.S airlines’ COVID-19 holiday playbook

By Tracy Rucinski

CHICAGO (Reuters) – U.S. airlines are adding flights, and in some cases COVID-19 testing programs, for travel to Mexico and the Caribbean, a region central to carriers’ strategies to tap into pockets of holiday demand before a vaccine makes its way around the world.

Beachside resort destinations in areas like Cancun are the only spots that now have more flights from U.S. cities scheduled for November and December than last year, numbers from aviation data firm Cirium show.

Overall, U.S. airlines are flying about 50% less than 2019, with flights to traditional European vacation hotspots like Paris down by as much as 82% due to travel bans and quarantines.

While new revenue streams from destinations like the Caribbean will help, they won’t be enough to put airlines in the black for the year, analysts have said.

The holiday period is traditionally when airlines thrive ahead of slow months in January and February. But this year they have said they will continue to burn millions of dollars daily through the fourth quarter as they wrestle with slashed demand.

Ahead of Thanksgiving, U.S. airports saw their busiest weekend since mid-March, even after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) urged Americans not to travel amid a spike in COVID-19 cases. Still, demand is down by around 60% and airlines say it’s too soon to know how Christmas travel will play out.

Still, airlines are hoping to build up a base of customers who feel comfortable about flying before a COVID-19 vaccine becomes widely available, eyeing the typically lucrative summer travel season.

More studies, including from the Harvard School of Public Health and the U.S. Department of Defense, have said the risk of COVID-19 transmission in flight is low if people wear masks.

Recent positive vaccine developments have helped reassure investors that U.S. airlines can make it through the crisis. Sector shares rose 4% on Monday and are up 23% for the month.

But the speed and depth of their recovery, particularly from higher-margin business and international travel, will determine how they cut piles of debt they took on to weather the crisis.

Airlines are trying to reboot overseas travel through bilateral bubbles – deals between countries on COVID-19 testing protocols that would replace or reduce quarantines – though programs have been slow to take off.

United Airlines last week launched a free rapid COVID-19 testing program between Newark Liberty International and London Heathrow airports, and on Monday said it was rolling out a test program for flights from U.S. energy capital Houston, Texas to 10 places in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Starting Dec. 7, passengers can take the self-collected, mail-in test 72 hours before departure for $119 to meet entry requirements at their destination.

(Reporting by Tracy Rucinski; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)

Catch-all travel insurance booms as U.S. flyers take Thanksgiving risks

By Noor Zainab Hussain

(Reuters) – U.S. websites have seen a surge in travelers seeking expensive ironclad insurance this Thanksgiving, as Americans desperate to break the monotony of a year spent at home look to cover themselves against coronavirus-related risks.

Data from insurance comparison website Squaremouth on Tuesday showed the number of insurance policies purchased for U.S. domestic trips over the upcoming holiday was up 170%, compared to the same period of 2019.

Some 40% of all Thanksgiving travelers specifically searched for coronavirus cover, replacing top concerns from previous years, such as weather and financial defaults, and spurring a rise in the overall cost of cover.

“Cancel-for-any-reason” policies, which typically allow cancellations up until two days before departure and a 75% reimbursement, cost up to 40% more than a regular policy.

“It’s just gotten to a point I think people are tired of being stuck at home and they’re looking to get away and go somewhere,” said Jeremy Murchland, president of U.S. travel insurer Seven Corners.

More than 3 million passengers passed through U.S. airports over the weekend, discarding advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to stay at home as coronavirus infections reached daily records.

Overall traveler numbers are still down 60% from a year ago, but Squaremouth, one of the country’s main insurance price aggregators, said its data suggested that the total number of travelers seeking cover was up 26% year-on-year.

The data from Squaremouth is based on all travel insurance policies purchased on its website between March 12 and Nov. 9 for travel over the week of Thanksgiving.

With trips to popular European destinations effectively banned, and the risks of quarantine and other curbs weighing on travelers’ decision making, overall requests for cover to foreign locales were lower than those for domestic trips.

Those for the Bahamas and Costa Rica were down by just over half. Requests for insurance for trips to Mexico, however, were down just 23% year-on-year, and for the Turks and Caicos islands, just off Haiti, where luxury hotels are guaranteeing COVID-19-secure bubbles, they are up more than 500%.

For those traveling outside the United States, a travel insurance policy that also has medical cover for COVID-19 will cover medical treatment that a normal healthcare policy would not, as well as potentially medical evacuation.

Courtney Glass, a California-based stage actress, is insuring a trip with her parents to Guatemala to rendezvous with her sister and newborn niece Madi.

“Madi arrived right as the virus did. She’s crawling and trying to talk now and we just don’t want to miss any more of this time,” she said.

“If we don’t go now, we probably won’t go until after the holidays. And potentially, not until after the vaccine that everybody’s talking about is distributed.”

(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Suzanne Barlyn in Washington Crossing, Penn; Editing by Patrick Graham and Sriraj Kalluvila)

EU secures 160 million doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The European Union has struck a deal for up to 160 million doses of U.S. firm Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate, the head of the European Commission said on Tuesday, taking the EU’s potential stock of COVID-19 shots to nearly 2 billion.

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

“I am happy to announce that tomorrow we will approve a new contract to secure another COVID-19 vaccine,” Ursula von der Leyen said, adding the deal “allows us to buy up to 160 million doses of a vaccine produced by Moderna.”

Actual purchases will be carried out by EU governments if the vaccine is approved by the EU’s drug regulator.

The delivery timeline is unknown. The doses would be enough to vaccinate 80 million people as the vaccine is expected to be administered in two doses.

In August the EU’s executive Commission, which co-leads talks with vaccine makers on behalf of member states, said it had held preliminary talks with Moderna over a deal for 80 million doses and an option for 80 million more.

The terms of the contract have not been disclosed.

An EU official involved in the talks told Reuters last week the EU was seeking a price below $25 per dose for Moderna’s vaccine..

But Moderna Chief Executive Stephane Bancel said on Sunday the company would charge governments between $25 and $37 per dose, depending on the amount ordered.

A spokesman for the Commission declined to comment on pricing.

It is the sixth supply deal the EU has negotiated with COVID-19 vaccine makers and takes the total number of doses secured by the bloc to 1.96 billion for its population of around 450 million.

Brussels has already struck deals with AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech, Sanofi-GSK, Johnson & Johnson and CureVac.

It is also in talks to buy U.S. firm Novavax’s potential COVID-19 vaccine.

(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascioEditing by Alexandra Hudson and Mark Potter)

With U.S. hospitals overrun, surgeon general urges Americans to ‘hold on’

(Reuters) – U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams on Tuesday pleaded with Americans to grasp “the severity of the moment” and remain vigilant against the coronavirus pandemic, as record hospitalizations pushed healthcare professionals to the brink.

“We are almost to a vaccine. … We’ve got new remedies out there. We just need you, the American people, to hold on a little bit longer,” Adams, a White House Coronavirus Task Force member, told Fox News in an interview.

He urged people to adjust their plans ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, which has led to the busiest U.S. air travel since the early days of the pandemic in March, with millions of people flying despite the hazards of a crowded airport. U.S. health officials last week strongly recommended that Americans avoid travel for the holiday.

Global pharmaceutical companies have reported promising trial results in the development of vaccines, which could be administered to high-priority patients in December. Meanwhile, the U.S. government will begin distributing Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc’s newly authorized COVID-19 antibody combination therapy starting Tuesday.

But hospitals need immediate relief.

The United States was on pace to surpass 85,000 hospitalizations for COVID-19 on Wednesday, a record, as 30 of the 50 states reported record numbers of patients this month.

That has taxed already exhausted healthcare providers as more than 1,500 coronavirus deaths and 171,000 new cases pile up daily.

After pounding big U.S. cities in the spring, COVID-19 now has engulfed rural and small-town America. Case rates in the 12 Midwestern states are more than double that of any other region, according to the COVID Tracking Project, up more than 20 times from mid-June to mid-November.

Many Midwestern hospitals severely lack beds, equipment and clinical staff, providers say. Some are repurposing areas to accommodate COVID-19 patients or cramming multiple patients in a single room, and are asking staffers to work longer hours and more frequent shifts.

“There’s a disconnect in the community, where we’re seeing people at bars and restaurants, or planning Thanksgiving dinners,” said Dr. Kelly Cawcutt, an infectious disease physician at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. As health workers, she said, “we feel kind of dejected.”

Thirty states had a record number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in November, including all 12 Midwestern states, according to a Reuters tally of official data. Michigan reported over 4,000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients on Monday, surpassing its previous record on April 13.

“A quarter of all of our coronavirus cases this year have occurred in the last month. … Those cases are turning into hospitalizations and deaths,” Adams warned, saying heart patients, pregnant women and others could be turned away.

“That’s the reality.”

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Nick Brown and Lisa Shumaker; Writing by Daniel Trotta; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

U.S. posts sharpest weekly rise in COVID-19 deaths since August

(Reuters) – The United States recorded its biggest weekly rise in COVID-19 deaths since August, increasing 32% from the previous week to average about 1,500 people per day, according to a Reuters analysis of state and county reports.

New cases rose 13% in the week ended Nov. 22, or an average of more than 168,000 per day

Ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday this Thursday, at least 23 states have announced new restrictions to try to slow the spread of the virus but so far only New Mexico has issued a stay-at-home order.

Cases rose by 90% in New Mexico last week, the biggest percentage increase in the country, followed by Virginia at 62% and Arizona with a 50% increase.

In North Dakota, the hardest hit state on a per capita basis, nearly 73,400 tests have come back positive for the new coronavirus since the beginning of the outbreak. That is equivalent to 9.6% of the state’s population. North Dakota mandated masks starting Nov. 14 but another 14 states still do not require them.

Across the United States, 9.8% of tests came back positive for the virus for a second week in a row, according to data from The COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer-run effort to track the outbreak.

The World Health Organization considers positive test rates above 5% concerning because it suggests there are more cases in the community that have not yet been uncovered.

Out of 50 states, 26 had positive test rates above 10% last week, led by Iowa at 56%, South Dakota at 45% and Idaho at 40%.

(Graphic by Chris Canipe, writing by Lisa Shumaker, editing by Tiffany Wu)

AstraZeneca vaccine can be up to 90% effective; COVID-19 reinfection unlikely for at least six months

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.

AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine shows up to 90% efficacy

An interim analysis of late-stage trials of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine finds it prevented 70% of COVID-19 cases with no confirmed serious adverse effects, the company announced on Monday. In 8,895 participants who got two full doses, the efficacy was 62%. But due to a dosing error that proved to be a happy accident, among 2,741 volunteers who got a half dose followed by a full dose, efficacy rose to 90%. Pfizer and Moderna reported that their vaccines were about 95% effective at preventing illness. But AstraZeneca’s vaccine is cheaper, easier to make, and can be stored at normal refrigerator temperatures. Investment analysts at SVB Leerink said Astra’s vaccine was unlikely to gain U.S. approval because safety data so far are inadequate and the trial design did not meet U.S. requirements for representation of high-risk groups such as the elderly and minorities. AstraZeneca said it plans to seek approval to modify its U.S. study to get more data on the smaller initial dose. Eventually, all three vaccines could prove comparable. “My suspicion is that by the time we are a year down the line, we’ll be using all three vaccines with about 90% protection,” said immunologist Danny Altmann of Imperial College London.

COVID-19 reinfection appears unlikely for at least 6 months

People who have had COVID-19 are unlikely to contract it again for at least six months, British researchers said on Thursday in a report posted on medRxiv ahead of peer review. Between April and November, they tracked more than 12,000 frontline healthcare workers at high risk for infection with the new coronavirus. COVID-19 with symptoms occurred in 89 of 11,052 workers who did not already have antibodies showing exposure to the virus, whereas none of the 1,246 staff with antibodies developed a recurrent infection. Staff with antibodies were also less likely to test positive for COVID-19 without symptoms, the researchers said. “This is really good news because we can be confident that, at least in the short term, most people who get COVID-19 won’t get it again,” said coauthor David Eyre of Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Population Health. Maria van Kerkhove of the World Health Organization added, “We still need to follow these individuals for a longer period of time to see how long immunity lasts.”

Delirium may signal COVID-19 in elderly

Delirium is common among older patients with COVID-19 and may be their only symptom, U.S. researchers warned on Thursday in JAMA Network Open. Among more than 800 COVID-19 patients over age 65 who showed up at emergency departments around the country, nearly 30% had delirium, they found. Overall, delirium was the sixth most common of all the symptoms and signs in these older patients. Those most at risk for delirium included elders with vision or hearing impairment, stroke, Parkinson’s disease and residents of assisted living or skilled nursing facilities. Delirium is not on any official list of COVID-19 signs and symptoms, but the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) should add it, said coauthor Dr. Maura Kennedy of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. “Sometimes delirium is the chief complaint when these patients arrive at the emergency department,” Kennedy said. “But there can be a number of reasons they come, including falls that occurred because of the delirium. They may present without what we consider typical COVID-19 symptoms, such as fever, shortness of breath and cough.”

New data help distinguish COVID-19 from flu

Certain findings can help distinguish COVID-19 from influenza or other respiratory illnesses, a new study suggests. Israeli doctors studied 693 hospitalized patients with COVID-19, plus more than 8,000 adults who had been hospitalized in previous years for the flu or severe respiratory infections. Compared to the other patients, those with COVID-19 were on average younger, more overweight, and had fewer preexisting conditions other than dementia, which was more prevalent in COVID-19 patients. Upon hospital admission, COVID-19 patients had overall lower levels of infection-fighting white blood cells and neutrophils, but their hearts were beating faster, they had less oxygen in their blood, and they had higher percentages of immune-system B cells, which produce antibodies to attack invading germs, and T cells, which destroy cells that have become infected. During the first two days of hospitalization, white blood cell and neutrophil levels rose in COVID-19 patients but fell in the other groups, the researchers said in a paper posted on Sunday on medRxiv ahead of peer review. “At the dawn of winter, recognizing the characteristics discriminating COVID-19 from influenza, will be critical to support the management of the current pandemic,” they conclude.

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid, Linda Carroll, Kate Holton, Josephine Mason and Kate Kelland; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

‘Very stressful’: COVID-19 surge slices U.S. demand for big Thanksgiving turkeys

By Tom Polansek and Christopher Walljasper

CHICAGO (Reuters) – All summer, Greg Gunthorp slaughtered and froze 15- to 24-pound turkeys on his northeastern Indiana farm for Thanksgiving sales to retailers, restaurants and families across the Midwest.

But as surging COVID-19 cases prompted U.S. cities and states to urge Americans to stay home just weeks before the holiday, customers swapped out orders for whole birds for smaller turkey breasts.

As a last-minute shift toward small-scale celebrations upends demand for the star of Thanksgiving tables, turkey producers and retailers are scrambling to fill orders for lightweight birds and partial cuts.

“It was very stressful,” Gunthorp said. “It cut our numbers on being able to fill customer sizes that they wanted for turkeys – way too short.”

Gunthorp raised and sold nearly 7,000 pasture-raised turkeys this year, up 75% from a year ago. Restaurants and meat shops in major Midwestern cities, his primary clients, cut orders by 10% to 20%, but Gunthorp has made up the difference by partnering with online retailers, shipping turkeys as far away as Los Angeles.

Suppliers need to be nimble as about half of Americans plan to alter or skip traditional festivities due to local health advisories against big gatherings, according to market research firm Nielson. About 70% are planning a Thanksgiving with fewer than six people, compared with 48% last year.

Demand for smaller birds will trim turkey production to 1.445 billion pounds in the last quarter, down five million pounds from previous expectations, according to a Nov. 17 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“We have seen our supply chain adjust to market disruptions and shifting consumer needs,” said Beth Breeding, spokeswoman for the industry group National Turkey Federation. “Like the rest of the country, it has been a challenging year for turkey production.”

While best known for beef, Nebraska-based Omaha Steaks this year offered 3-pound turkey breasts for the first time to cater to smaller Thanksgiving gatherings, said Nate Rempe, president and chief operating officer. The pre-cooked product sold out online, as some consumers are avoiding grocery stores.

Omaha Steaks also sold out of 10-pound turkeys earlier than usual, Rempe said.

“The number of individual Thanksgiving meals being prepared … is going to be much higher because of the separation of gatherings,” he said.

Butterball, the largest U.S. producer of turkey products, shipped 1,900 truckloads of whole turkeys to grocers in the past two weeks, said Al Jansen, executive vice president of marketing and sales. Many major chains booked orders in the first quarter before the coronavirus outbreak, he added.

Retailers have slashed whole-turkey prices by about 7% to an average of $1.21 per pound, the lowest since 2010, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. That cuts the average cost of a Thanksgiving meal for 10 people by 4% to $46.90, Farm Bureau said.

The decline is welcome news for the nearly 24 million households facing empty cupboards due to COVID-19-related job losses. Food insecurity has nearly tripled since the pandemic began, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

“Thanksgiving will not be a holiday that all Americans can enjoy this year,” said Joseph Llobrera, research director at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “Alarming levels of food hardship will last through the holidays and beyond unless policymakers immediately provide robust COVID relief.”

Some Americans who had relied on others to cook on Thanksgiving are ordering part or all of their meals from restaurants for the first time. Others simply do not want the hassle of preparing a feast for just a few guests.

“Thanksgiving is going to look very different this year, and we know there’s a lot of cooking fatigue out there right now,” said Tracy Hostetler, a vice president for Perdue Farms. The company launched turkey “ThanksNuggets” as an alternative to traditional turkey dinners.

In Houston, independent marketing consultant Anh Nguyen, 50, will dine with about 10 relatives on a smoked turkey from a local restaurant. Normally, three times as many of her family members gather to gobble up two 20-pound turkeys cooked at home.

“It’s a little weird,” said Nguyen. “Thanksgiving has been historically just one of the holidays where everybody is together.”

(Reporting by Christopher Walljasper and Tom Polansek; Editing by Richard Chang)

U.S. CDC reports 255,958 deaths from coronavirus

(Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday reported 12,175,921 cases of the new coronavirus, an increase of 147,840 from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 882 to 255,958.

The CDC reported its tally of cases of the respiratory illness known as COVID-19, caused by a new coronavirus, as of 4 pm ET on Nov. 22 versus its previous report a day earlier.

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

(Reporting by Dania Nadeem in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)

Despite COVID-19 travel warnings, many Americans ‘not living in fear’ ahead of Thanksgiving

By Daniel Trotta and Nathan Layne

(Reuters) – Millions of Americans appear to be defying health warnings and traveling ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, likely exacerbating a surge in coronavirus infections before a series of promising new vaccines become widely available.

With U.S. COVID-19 infections hitting a record 168,000 per day on average, Americans are flocking to airports against the advice of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. surgeon general and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert.

For Americans, the long holiday weekend, which begins on Thursday, is traditionally the busiest travel period of the year, and 2020 may prove to be no exception.

Some 1 million passengers passed through airport screenings on Sunday, the highest number since March. It was the second time in three days that passengers screened topped 1 million but screenings are down nearly 60% from the same time last year, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration said.

Meanwhile, the seven-day average number of U.S. COVID-19 deaths rose for a 12th straight day, reaching 1,500 as of Monday, according to a Reuters tally of official data.

That has further taxed already exhausted medical professionals, as coronavirus hospitalizations have surged nearly 50% over the past two weeks and the United States has surpassed 255,000 deaths and 12 million infections since the pandemic began.

Pleading with residents to stay home and avoid gatherings during the holiday season, Governor Andrew Cuomo reminded New Yorkers of the grim early days of the pandemic when as many as 800 people died in a single day in the state.

Hospitalizations have spiked 122% in New York state over the last three weeks, Cuomo said, prompting the re-opening of an emergency medical facility on Staten Island.

Help could arrive soon. The head of the U.S. campaign to rapidly deploy a vaccine said the first Americans could start receiving vaccinations as early as mid-December, and another global drug company on Monday unveiled promising trial results on a vaccine candidate.

“NOT LIVING IN FEAR”

Still, many Americans are refusing to follow the health advice that could save their lives.

In Pennsylvania, the number of COVID-19 tests coming back positive was 25% last week, according to data from The COVID Tracking Project. On Monday, Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine warned that the latest models indicated the state could start to run out of intensive care unit beds within a week.

Linda Lafferty, a nurse and the owner of a bed and breakfast in McConnellsburg, said family and friends gathered on the first Sunday in November to celebrate, as they do every year because she and others often have to work on Thanksgiving Day.

But Lafferty said her family would have assembled if they could.

“We are not living in fear and if we were able to get together on Thanksgiving Day we absolutely would,” said Lafferty, 47. “We would still get together and we wouldn’t limit the number of folks because if you are family you are family.”

To be sure, many Americans said they would do their best to conform with health recommendations.

Donnalie Hope, a 78-year-old resident of Petersburg, West Virginia, is planning to make fresh cranberries, mash potatoes and her famous corn pudding for Thanksgiving, which she will spend with her daughter, who will be visiting, and a neighbor.

Hope said they would social distance as much as possible in her home, and that she planned to ready rubber gloves and hand sanitizer. She acknowledged that her guests might eventually take off their masks in the home.

“I’m trying very hard to comply with the regs because I want this country to get back to where it belongs,” she said.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta and Nathan Layne; Additional reporting by Lisa Lambert, David Shepardson and Susan Heavey in Washington, Barbara Goldberg in Maplewood, New Jersey; Writing by Daniel Trotta and Maria Caspani; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Lisa Shumaker)

U.S. infectious disease group backs Gilead’s remdesivir for COVID-19 treatment

By Rebecca Spalding

(Reuters) – The top U.S. infectious disease medical association said on Monday that Gilead Sciences Inc’s antiviral drug remdesivir should be used for hospitalized COVID-19 patients despite a World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation last week against its use.

The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) in updated guidelines said its experts back the drug for use in severe COVID-19 patients based on a clinical trial showing it reduced hospital stays. The WHO study that led to its recommendation against the drug suggested it had no benefit in saving lives or reducing the need for mechanical breathing assistance.

“As hospitals around the United States fill up, the IDSA panel views the effect of remdesivir speeding up time to recovery to be an important benefit,” Dr. Rajesh Gandhi, co-chair of the society’s COVID-19 treatment and management guidelines expert panel, said on a call with reporters. “Better medicines that improve survival are clearly needed.”

Unlike the trial that led to its U.S. regulatory approval, the WHO’s study was not placebo-controlled. Studies with a placebo comparison are generally considered more scientifically rigorous than those without a control group.

The IDSA also has advised against the routine use of Eli Lilly and Co’s COVID-19 antibody treatment bamlanivimab, which received U.S. emergency use authorization. The IDSA panel said it recommended against its routine use for ambulatory patients, but that it may still be appropriate for patients with increased risks after a discussion with their doctor.

“Antibodies may end up having a role. I think we just need more definitive data,” Dr. Gandhi said. “I want to keep our eye on what benefit they may end up having as well as which patients are most likely to benefit.”

It said Roche Holdings Ag’s rheumatoid arthritis drug Actemra, known chemically as tocilizumab, is not recommended for routine use in hospitalized COVID-19 patients, saying there was still not enough evidence supporting its benefits.

(Reporting by Rebecca Spalding; Editing by Bill Berkrot)