The global first wave of the coronavirus pandemic is far from contained, with new case numbers in the epicenter of North, South and Central America increasing at a rapid rate compared to the state of the infection a few months ago.
In Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro told reporters on Tuesday that he had tested positive for the coronavirus. Sticking to his stance on his country's high infection rate, Bolsonaro continued to downplay the risks of the virus, stating: ""You can see from my face that I'm well and I'm calm," quoted by Reuters.
The World Health Organization on Tuesday sang to a different tune, warning that death rates are expected to rise again in the coming weeks in line with the acceleration in new cases over the past five weeks. The agency's head of emergencies Dr. Mike Ryan stated during the agency's press briefing in Geneva that while the number of deaths global seems to be stable currently, the death rate usually lags behind the infection rate due to the time the virus needs to run its course.
"In April and May, we were dealing with 100,000 [global] cases per day," Ryan stated. "Today we're dealing with 200,000 a day."
Total Global Cases: Over 11.94 Million
Total Deaths: Over 545,000
Total Recovered: Over 6.84 Million
Vaccine Check-Up
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday added Novavax (NASDAQ: NVAX) to its family of drugmakers that are apart of the White House's Operation Warp Speed, awarding the biotech with $1.6 billion in an agreement that it will deliver 100 million doses of its vaccine candidate by January 2021.
H.H.S. Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement that the addition of Novavax to Operation Warp Speed "increases that odds that we will have at least one safe, effective vaccine as soon as the end of this year."
Novavax plans to use the funding towards the cost of its large Phase II trial as well as large scale manufacturing costs. The company expects to report results of its Phase I trial within the next few weeks, with Phase II trials planned for last Summer/early Fall, according to Reuters.
This is the largest Operation Warp Speed investment so far. The H.H.S. has also awarded funding under the accelerated vaccine plan to Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA) and AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN). In addition, the U.S. government has awarded funding to Emergent Biosolutions (NYSE: EBS) to expand domestic manufacturing capacity in order to provide large scale production of a future vaccine.
On Tuesday, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: REGN) also signed a $450 million contract with the United States to make and supply its experimental double-antibody cocktail, REGN-COV2, which is currently in human clinical trials.