Upgraded earlier on Wednesday, the now Category 4 Hurricane Laura is expected to reach landfall later tonight or early Thursday, bringing with it devastating 145 miles per hour winds and fears of a 20-foot storm surge. At a time when the southern region of the United States is attempting to lessen its severe coronavirus outbreak, Laura has led to the evacuation of more than half a million residents of the coastal regions in Louisiana and Texas, suspending testing and containment efforts. Many areas that have been evacuated were experiencing high levels of community spread prior to the storm.
The National Hurricane Center has defined the storm as "extremely dangerous," with the hurricane having the potential to cause widespread power outages and can make large regions uninhabitable for weeks to months due to flooding. The economic and social toll of the storm cannot be calculated at this time, but the U.S. is already under pressure to provide more stimulus to relieve some of the pandemic's already devastating impact.
Testing Update
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (C.D.C.) has revised its guidance on coronavirus testing, no longer recommending that individuals without symptoms get tested. In the past, the agency recommended that anyone with a "recent known or suspect exposure" to the novel coronavirus to get tested, that why that could be greater data on the extent of the outbreak and individuals could quarantine themselves when appropriate.
Now, the C.D.C. does not recommend asymptomatic testing, stating in a testing overview: "if you have been in close contact (within 6 feet) of a person with a COVID-19 infection for a t least 15 minutes but do not have symptoms...You do not necessarily need a test unless you are a vulnerable individual or your health care provider or State or local public health officials recommend you take one."
The change in policies raised criticism from some health officials, with the president of the American Medical Association Susan Bailey saying that the advice could accelerate the outbreak.
"Suggesting that people without symptoms, who have known exposure to COVID-positive individuals, do not need testing is a recipe for community spread and more spikes in coronavirus," Bailey said in a statement, quoted by Reuters.
Assistant Secretary for Health at the Department of Health and Human Services Admiral Brett Giroir stated that the goal of the updated policy is more "appropriate testing," not just testing for the sake of testing, according to Reuters.
Vaccine Update
Coronavirus vaccine frontrunner Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA) released an analysis of early-stage data from its COVID-19 vaccine candidate on Wednesday, assessing the immune response triggered in older individuals compared to younger testing participants. Moderna found that a 100-microgram dose--the dosage size the biotech to using in its large-scale clinical trials--of its candidate, mRNA-1273, had produced similar immune responses in participants aged 56 and above as it did in the age group 18 to 55.
The biotech's vaccine candidate is already in late-stage/Phase III clinical trials, already recruiting over 13,000 of the desired 30,000 volunteer participants. Moderna noted that about 18% of total participants are apart of minority groups, whose populations have been particularly impacted by coronavirus infection.