The coronavirus pandemic's impact on the United States came into sharper focus on Thursday as economic data pointed to the largest gross domestic product contraction on record and a new round of over one million Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the nineteenth week in a row. On top of the poor economic outlook, several states have seen record levels of daily coronavirus infections, as well as deaths linked to the virus, with over 1,000 Americans succumbing to their infection every day.

Impacting outlook further, lawmakers in Washington have been deliberating over a new stimulus package for days with no avail, failing to reach an agreement ahead of Friday's federal unemployment stimulus expiration date. The speed of which the United States' economy recovers from the pandemic is currently relying on new Congressional stimulus and containment of the large outbreak that is still spreading in the Southern and Western portions of the country.

The Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Admiral Brett Giroir told reporters in a conference call on Thursday, reported by CNBC, that the agency is beginning to see positive signs that the outbreak in the lower parts of the country is plateauing, however the virus is not near containment levels by any means as deaths remain high.

Vaccine Testing Update

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ  ) published a new study in the science journal Nature on Thursday, showing that the company's lead vaccine candidate induces strong immune response against the coronavirus in an animal study. The pharmaceutical company announced on Thursday that it will begin early-stage human clinical trials of the lead candidate in the United States and Belgium, involving over 1,000 healthy participants ages 18-55 as well as 65 years and older given either a single dose of the candidate or a placebo. The company also stated that it will be able to produce over 1 billion doses of the potential vaccine through 2021, if the vaccine is proven to be safe and effective within the drugmaker's timeline. Johnson & Johnson plans to begin two parallel late-stage trials of the vaccine in September, one testing a single dose and the other two doses, according to Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Paul Stoffels in an interview with Reuters.

In the study, the company tested seven different vaccine candidates in 32 monkeys and compared the drug's effectiveness against 20 control animals who were just given placebo shots. The study was conducted by administrating a single dose of a potential vaccine and then exposing the animal to the coronavirus six weeks later and studying whether or not the animal began infected with the virus.

The lead vaccine that Johnson & Johnson is moving into human clinical trials resulted in all animals who received a dose producing no COVID-19 lung disease and only one out of six showing the virus's presence in a nasal swab. In the control group, all 20 animals developed high levels of the virus in both their lungs and noses.

Johnson & Johnson's vaccine uses a common cold virus to carry SARS-CoV-2 proteins into cells in the body, which is expected to train the body to build an immune system response to when it comes in contact to a real infection.

Meanwhile, U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn stated in an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association's Dr. Howard Bauchner on Thursday that the agency will approve any coronavirus vaccine that is at least 50% effective at preventing infection.

"We all want a vaccine tomorrow. That's unrealistic. And we all want a vaccine that's 100% effective. Again, unrealistic," Hahn stated. "But we said 50%, and the reason was because we felt that that was a reasonable floor given the pandemic."

Hahn added that ideally, the vaccine[s] that are approved by the agency will be more than 50% effective, but a vaccine that is at least 50% effective will help contain the outbreak better than none at all.