US COVID-19 deaths projected to hit 500,000 by February

Poland’s President Andrzej Duda has tested positive for COVID-19. Duda was reported to be feeling well and will be in quarantine. Duda’s diagnosis follows a sharp increase in the confirmed cases of COVID-19 and related deaths in the country. On Friday, the country recorded 13,600 new infections and 153 deaths. The total death toll in the country stands at 4,162.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told MSNBC’s ’Meet the Press Daily’ on Friday that President Donald Trump hasn’t been present at coronavirus task force meetings for ’several months’. He added that, ’We certainly interact with the vice president’ and that he informs the president about what is discussed at the meetings.

The FDA opened to the public a routine meeting with an advisory group which is currently weighing in on approving a vaccine for the novel coronavirus, as the agency battles public concerns about its safety as well as political pressure from President Donald Trump to approve it before the presidential election. Officials have said that the public forum is ’critical’ to build public trust.

Supporters of legalizing marijuana are presenting their case to American voters showing the economic benefits of legalizing the drug. They argue legal sales and excise taxes would help states bear the economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic. Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego is a backer of the popular Smart and Safe Arizona Act, which would allow 21+ adults to keep an ounce of marijuana.

Researchers from the U of Washington’s School of Medicine predicted that over 500,000 Americans will have died by Feb. 28, 2021 from Covid-19 under the current patchwork of state strategies on social distancing, phased reopenings and mask mandates in a peer-reviewed study published Friday in the journal Nature Medicine. They said that 85% mask-wearing would reduce that total by nearly 100,000.

Europe’s daily Covid-19 cases crossed 200,000 in a day for the first time after doubling in just 10 days. Experts believe the number to be much higher as many have not reported their condition for a range of reasons, including mild symptoms. Cases have continued to climb sharply with France, Germany, Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic, etc, setting new daily records in recent days.

North Korea has warned its citizens to stay indoors over fears that the seasonal dust clouds, they referred to as ’yellow dust’, which blows in from China could bring coronavirus with it. The dust is the sand from Mongolian and Chinese deserts that blows into North and South Korea at certain times of the year. Following the warning, the streets of Pyongyang were reported to be virtually empty.

A federal judge ordered the United States Postal Service to restore high-speed mail-sorting machines at all facilities that are unable to process first-class election mails fast enough. This is a win for those states who sued USPS and President Donald Trump to halt a series of operational changes that would have choked services in the expected surge in mail-in ballots during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The two candidates clashed over a number of issues, from alleged foreign financial entanglements, race relations to minimum wage to climate change and the coronavirus pandemic, all while moderator Kristen Welker proceeded over a largely orderly affair between the bitter rivals.

A total of 445,419 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the world in a day according to WHO. Countries around the world have been witnessing a second wave of the virus which has resulted in a rise in cases worldwide. The new wave has also resulted in 6,521 deaths in a day. The number of new cases have been a new daily record. A total of 41,570,883 cases have been recorded across the world.

President Donald Trump seemed to take responsibility for Covid at Thursday’s presidential debate—then he didn’t. ’I take full responsibility,’ Trump said. He immediately continued: ’It’s not my fault it came here. It’s China’s fault.’ Earlier in the debate Trump said that there would have been 2 million deaths if he hadn’t acted. Asked about testing in March, Trump said ’I take no responsibility.

French Prime Minister Jean Castex said a second wave of coronavirus infections is now under way and extended the night curfew imposed on some areas to dozens of new areas. The country registered a record 41,622 new Covid-19 cases on Thursday. The 9pm to 6am curfew in new cities and towns will come into force at midnight on Friday and will affect 46 million people.

The US Food and Drug Administration approved Gilead Sciences’ remdesivir to treat Covid-19 infection. In the process, it has become the first medicine for the novel coronavirus to obtain formal clearance from the regulator. It must be noted that the FDA had granted an emergency-use authorization for remdesivir earlier this year. Since then, it has been widely used in serious Covid-19 patients.

An advisory committee to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will hear the agency’s plans for approving a coronavirus vaccine and provide advice for modifying them, if necessary. The COVID-19 vaccine has been developed and tested and may be possibly approved at record speed. The FDA wants it to be clear it was vetted with outside experts as always.

A new report by Columbia Univ. states that upwards of 130K coronavirus deaths were ’avoidable’ if President Trump and his administration had acted sooner and implemented widespread public health precautions. If ’the U.S. had followed Canadian policies and protocols, there might have only been 85,192 U.S. deaths,’ the authors state, pointing to what they called a ’hostility’ to critical guidance.

The Baltimore Teachers Union has urged parents not to send their children to schools when they reopen in November after the Covid-19-induced closure. Referring to the city’s plan to reopen schools partially, the union’s president said, ’You don’t trust our judgment to not go back into the buildings, but you want us to teach your children,’ adding, ’You can’t learn from someone you don’t trust.’

The number of Americans who lost their jobs and applied for unemployment benefits in mid-October sunk to a new low in the Covid-19 pandemic. Unemployment claims filed through state programs fell by 55,000 to 787,000 in the seven days ending October 17. However, the decline is partly a result of fewer new claims in California owing to a temporary freeze on new applications in the state.

Spain recently became the first country in Western Europe to register one million cases of the novel coronavirus, with the nation currently struggling to contain a second wave of the pandemic. The Spanish health ministry said that after reporting 16,973 more cases in the past 24 hours, its accumulative caseload since the start of the pandemic had reached 1,005,295.

Gradual improvements have been measured in the third-quarter by Coca-Cola as the company looked to focus on emerging leaner from the COVID-19 pandemic. Wall Street expectations were topped as revenue fell 9% to $8.7 billion as compared to the expected $8.4 billion. This has been reported to be better than the 28% revenue drop witnessed during the second quarter.

Sophie Wilmes, Belgium’s former prime minister and current foreign minister, has been in a hospital’s intensive care for nearly a week. A spokeswoman for her office said her condition is stable and she was conscious. Wilmes transferred her post as the country’s PM to Alexander de Croo on October 1 while she became the foreign minister. Belgium is witnessing a huge resurge in new cases.

President Trump and Joe Biden are set to meet tonight is the final debate ahead of the elections. The moderator will be NBC correspondent Kristen Welker and the two candidates will take each other on topics including COVID-19, US families, race, climate change, national security, and leadership. The debate is being held at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee and begins at 8:00pm CT.

A federal judge in Pittsburgh said PA Gov. Tom Wolf and State Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine had good intentions to protect people from the coronavirus but their orders went too far. The judge ruled in a court order that Wolf’s closing of ’non-life-sustaining’ businesses and restrictions on gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic violated the 14th and 1st amendments of the U.S. constitution.

All the 911 call centers of Puerto Rico were shuttered down on Wed. after several employees tested positive for Covid-19. The island with a population of 3.2mn has reported over 29,700 confirmed cases with 770 deaths owing to Covid-19. Meanwhile Public Safety Sec. Pedro Janer advised people to call island’s emergency management agency at 787-724-0124 or police at 787-343-2020 in case of emergency.

Supreme Court granted a request Wednesday from the state of Alabama to prohibit voters from casting their ballots curbside, an accommodation sought by Covid-vulnerable voters in the state. The 5-3 order was unsigned, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer, dissented. A federal district court had concluded that curbside voting was a reasonable measure to protect voters.