The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) warned member nations on Monday that too many countries are "heading in the wrong direction," when it comes to their spread of the virus. On Sunday, around 230,000 cases were confirmed around the world according to the W.H.O., with almost have of them coming from Brazil and the United States alone.
"If the basics aren't followed, there is only one way this pandemic is going to go," W.H.O. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated at the agency's press conference in Geneva. "It's going to get worse and worse and worse."
The United States continues to surpass record daily new infections almost every day recently, with new cases in states like Florida continuing to rise at a staggering rate. In Miami, Florida, Dr. Lilian Abbo, chief for infection prevention at Jackson Health System, described a grim scene of the current state of hospitals in the city, stating that health care workers have been working all hours of the day with some becoming infected themselves.
"Miami is now the epicenter of the pandemic. What we were seeing in Wuhan six months ago, now we are there," Abbo added, quoted by the Associated Press.
In California, the most populous state, Governor Gavin Newsom on Monday order the statewide closure of indoor operations at non-essential businesses like restaurants and theaters. In addition, the state will also close gyms, places of worship, and beauty salons in 30 of the state's counties with the largest cluster of outbreaks. The state only trails Florida and Texas with total daily new infections, and this move can pressure other states to rollback their progress on economic reopening.
On a different note, the W.H.O. also acknowledged on Monday that patients who recover from infection may be at risk of reinfection in the future, citing multiple studies showing that immunity may decrease after a few months. At this time, there is still much unknown about immunity and efforts towards containment or herd immunity may be futile if populations can become reinfected.
Total Global Cases: Over 13.2 Million
Total Deaths: Over 574,000
Total Recovered: Over 7.69 Million
Vaccine Check-Up
The collaboration of German biotech BioNTech (NASDAQ: BNTX) and pharmaceutical giant Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) announced on Monday that two of their coronavirus vaccine candidates were granted "fast track" status by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.). The special status helps speed up the regulatory process so that the vaccine could become available for use quickly if it meets all of the agency's standards.
The companies stated that they were approved by the F.D.A. due to their positive preliminary data for the vaccine candidates BNT162b1 and BNT162b2, the two most advanced out of the four currently being developed by the partnership. The two vaccines are still in phase one and two trials.
"We look forward to continue working closely with the F.D.A. throughout the clinical development of this program, Project Lightspeed, to evaluate the safety and efficacy of these vaccine candidates," Pfizer Senior Vice President of Global Regulatory Affairs Peter Honig said in a statement.
The two added that they expect to begin a large clinical trial of up to 30,000 participants as soon as the end of July, first need standard regulatory approval. The two can also expect to make up to 100 million doses by the end of 2020, with potential more than 1.2 billion by the end of 2021.