Morning virus update: Trump’s plasma treatment announcement; NFL’s 77 false positive tests; and more
President Donald Trump announced emergency authorization to treat COVID-19 patients with convalescent plasma — a move he called “a breakthrough,” one of his top health officials called “promising” and other health experts said needs more study before it’s celebrated.
The announcement Sunday came after White House officials complained there were politically motivated delays by the Food and Drug Administration in approving a vaccine and therapeutics for the disease that has upended Trump’s reelection chances.
On the eve of the Republican National Convention, Trump put himself at the center of the FDA’s announcement of the authorization at a news conference Sunday evening. The authorization makes it easier for some patients to obtain the treatment but is not the same as full FDA approval.
Here’s an update on all developments. Scroll or swipe further for in-depth coverage.
- The World Health Organization says using plasma from the recovered to treat COVID-19 is still considered an “experimental” therapy and that the preliminary results showing it may work are still “inconclusive.”
- The NFL had 77 positive COVID-19 tests from 11 teams re-examined by a New Jersey lab after false positives, and all those tests came back negative.
- Thousands of oil and gas operations, government facilities and other sites have won permission to stop monitoring for hazardous emissions or otherwise bypass rules intended to protect health and the environment because of the coronavirus outbreak, The Associated Press has found.
- Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said he would follow public health advisers’ advice if they called for a national shutdown should he take office and the coronavirus had not abated.
- Britain’s prime minister is asking parents to set aside their fears and send their children back to school next month when schools in Britain fully reopen for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic shut then down more than five months ago.
- Sicily’s governor has ordered all migrant residences on the Italian island to be shut down by Monday, part of a push-back by Italian regions alarmed by a surge in COVID-19 cases a few weeks before schools are to reopen.
For more summaries and full reports, please select from the articles below. Scroll further for a look at the latest virus numbers in the U.S. and around the world.
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